"Afterward, he figured for a while he needed a bodyguard. Hal, you know, the dog man, sent him to me. I was looking to get out of the strongman trade. You can only have so many cars run over your head before it gets tiresome. I couldn't bring myself to bend another iron bar with my teeth, but I didn't mind busting heads if I had to. That's easy, almost a pleasure sometimes. So me and Schell hooked up, became partners sort of and worked together ever since. How's that?"
I looked down at my notebook and realized I hadn't written a word. Antony's recounting of Schell's life had been as complete as I could ask for, but nothing in it, although it was turbulent, led me to see why he'd envision a little girl on the pane of a glass door.
"Thanks," I said.
"What's your diagnosis?" he said.
I shook my head, "I'm more confused than before," I told him.
He smiled and lit another cigarette.
"What about the butterflies?" I asked.
"Who the fuck knows?" he said. "The guy likes butterflies."
"There's got to be a reason," I said.
"Yeah," said Antony, getting up. "'Cause he does. Come on, kid, I gotta get back and start dinner. I'm making stew tonight. No comments, please."
"I'm glad to find out about him. I never knew that stuff, but I thought it would tell me something about why he's down now."
"Look, Diego," he said, putting a hand on my shoulder as we walked along. "This ain't fucking geometry. It makes sense that when he goes loopy he sees a kid. He had no childhood. That's why he took you in. Why's a guy without a wife, a con man no less, take in a Mexican kid off the street? He's making up for what his old man didn't do. Makes sense, right?"
"It does, actually," I said.
"When you see things, when your eyes play tricks on you, what you see is what you want. Maybe Parks is a screwball, but in a way Schell wants his mother too. Or at least he wants his childhood, get it? He grew up hard and doesn't believe in anything but the con, or so he says. He's taken people six ways to Sunday for years. So he sees a little girl. What's a little girl?"
"What?" I asked.
"Innocent," he said.
"Antony," I said, "you should move to Vienna and hang a shingle."
"Hang my ass," he said.
EXCEEDINGLY STRANGE
There's a certain species of parasitic wasp that attaches itself to the hind wings of female butterflies. When those females lay eggs, the minuscule moochers disengage and drop onto the nascent clutch to feed. The North Shore of Long Island, with its mansions and fabulously wealthy citizens, the Vanderbilts, the Coes, the Guggenheims, was like some beautiful butterfly, floating just above the hard scrabble life of most Americans after the crash in '29. We, of course, were the parasitic wasps, thriving upon the golden grief of our betters.
As Schell had explained, "To our benefit, death isn't affected by an economic failure, and it never takes a holiday. In addition, a bereaved rich man is easier to con than a poor one in the same condition. A poor man, straightaway, understands death to be inevitable, but it takes a rich man some time to see that the end can't be circumvented with the application of enough collateral."
I considered this equation as I watched, from the train window, the passing signs that held the names of those towns comprising that stronghold where the rich hid out against a spreading plague of poverty. There had even been news recently of foreclosures among some of the elite families, but there was still plenty of affluence to sustain three enterprising parasites the likes of Schell, Antony, and myself.
It might have been true that Death never took a holiday, but we were. To his credit, Antony had been persistent with his suggestions of a week off in the city. Schell vacillated, unable to make a commitment. He was obviously weary from whatever emotional or intellectual issue he'd been obsessing over for the past few months. The death of Morty had hit him hard. Still, he'd continued to take calls from new marks for sйances and used the list of prospective patrons as his main defense against getting away.
"What's the rush?" Antony had asked. "It's not like the dead are going anywhere in the next week."
Schell almost lost his temper one morning in the face of the constant barrage and then threw his hands up and agreed to two days in New York. Antony knew to take what he could get, and even said okay when Schell insisted that I be allowed to come along. The butterflies would survive on their own for forty-eight hours. Once it had been decided we were going, we had to move quickly before he changed his mind. I'd dressed in my Indian traveling garb-high-collared shirt, mystical medallion of the many-armed Shiva, baggy pantaloons, and sandals. I gave the turban a rest.
Schell sat next to me on the aisle, dozing, and Antony took up his own seat directly facing us, reading an old newspaper someone had left behind on an earlier journey.
With a sudden start, Schell roused and sat forward, as if waking from a nightmare. He shook his head and then slowly eased back into the seat, rubbing his eyes. "What else is in there?" he asked Antony. "I haven't bothered with a newspaper in days."
Antony kept scanning whatever it was that had his attention and at the same time said, "Looks like we're headed for a Yankees/Cubs series. Otherwise, the usual bullshit." Then he looked up and said, "Let's go see the Marx Brothers' new one while we're in town."
"What's the name of it?" I asked.
"Horse Feathers," said Antony.
"Sounds enlightening," said Schell.
"I know, Boss, you're holding out for Marlene Dietrich."
Schell gave a weak smile.
"I want to go see Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," I said.
"Fredric March downs the giggle juice and turns into me," said Antony. "Forget that."
Schell turned to me. "Did you cancel your tutoring appointments?" he asked.
I nodded. "All but Mrs. Hendrickson, she doesn't have a phone."
"That should be good for a half hour of admonition next week," he said.
"Mrs. Hyde," said Antony and grimaced. He turned the paper over, folded it, and went back to his reading.
I was about to fill Schell in on the work she'd been having me do, Chaucer in Middle English, when he lunged forward and snatched the paper out of Antony's hands and brought it up close to his face.
"What gives, Boss?" said Antony.
Schell shook his head and held one hand up to silence us. It was obvious he was heatedly reading some article. Antony looked at me with a quizzical expression. All I could do was shrug.
Eventually Schell turned the paper around and held it out to show us. He pointed at a photograph on the side of the page he'd been reading. He was as pale as when he'd go under in his medium trance, and his hand trembled slightly.
"There she is," he said.
It was a bright day, and the light coming in the train window obscured my view with its glare. Both Antony and I leaned forward, almost touching heads.
"The girl," said Schell, tapping his finger against the paper. "The girl in the glass."
I only caught a brief glimpse of the child he'd described seeing at Parks's place-the dark, curly hair, the floral design of the dress-before he turned the paper around again and began reading aloud to us in an urgent whisper.
"The serene North Shore borough of Wellman's Cove has been devastated by the recent disappearance of seven-year-old Charlotte Barnes, daughter of that town's most distinguished couple, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Barnes.