I was dozing when the phone rang. I got out dripping, wrapped a towel around myself, turned down the radio, and picked up the phone.
“Mr. Peters? It’s Mrs. Allen on the desk. One of the guests has asked that you turn down your radio. And you left a package on the desk. Would you like me to have it brought up to you?”
“Radio’s off,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“I just found out my husband is missing in the Pacific,” she said. “Shall I send the package up?”
“No,” I said. “Open it.”
“Open …? I don’t think …”
“Please. It’s safe.”
I could hear the sound of crinkling paper as she fished the small box out of the bag. Then I could hear the box open.
“It’s a hat,” she said.
“Basque beret,” I said. “I sell them. Please accept it as a gift from the company. If anyone asks where you got it, tell them. The tag is inside the hat.”
“I can’t …”
“Gift from a satisfied customer,” I said. “I won’t turn the radio on again. I hope your husband is okay.”
“Thank you. Good night.”
The beret had been for Vera. I could get her something else.
I went to bed. Sometime later I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it my old friend Koko the Clown was standing there in a Basque beret. He had a package in his hand. He handed it to me, but it was a ghost package. I couldn’t hold it. It slipped through my hands, had no substance. As I bent to pick it up, Koko waved and into my room poured laughing people. It was a surprise party for me. Bertha Minor carried a tray with a gigantic pitcher of lemonade. Koko drank it and turned yellow. Ortiz held out two closed fists and asked me to choose. I picked the right He turned his palm up and opened it. There were three bloody teeth. Souvaine danced in with Lorna Bartholomew, whose neck was painted blood red. Raymond Griffith arrived in neatly pressed overalls and a bright neon blue tie. He was pulling a wagon full of tools. Koko and Raymond handed out the tools, and the people in the room began to bang them together to make music. Stokowski, wearing only his underwear, arrived with a violin and began to play after giving me a wink. John Lundeen came out of the bathroom, a towel around his ample waist. He looked as if he were singing, but no sounds were coming from his mouth. I tried to tell them all to be quiet, that Mrs. Allen’s husband was dead.
And then the door flew open and everyone went quiet. He was standing there, a figure draped in a black cape, wearing a black wide-brimmed hat and a white mask that covered the top half of his face. He swept into the room, cape billowing, showing a red lining:
The Phantom beckoned to me with a white-gloved right hand. I moved toward him. I was frightened, but when I was close enough I reached up quickly and pulled the mask off. The Phantom was my father. But he shook his head no and another mask appeared. I took that one off and the Phantom was my brother Phil. Another mask. This time the Phantom was me, and this scared the hell out of me. I woke up.
I started to reach for my father’s watch and remembered that it wouldn’t tell me the time. I picked it up anyway. The sun was up so I called the desk to ask for the time. Mrs. Allen didn’t answer. The guy said she had left for the day.
“Was she wearing a little beret?” I asked.
“I … yes,” he said. “I think so.”
“What time is it?”
“Five minutes after eight.”
I was shaved, dressed, and out of the hotel ten minutes later, wearing a slightly wrinkled white shirt and the same pants I had worn the day before. Time was wasting. I had an opera to save.
7
I recognized the car as soon as I turned the corner and saw the Opera building. It was Gunther Wherthman’s black Daimler. Gunther had never fully explained to me how the car had come into his possession. It was simply there one morning, a specially modified model with raised pedals and seat to accommodate his size. The car, he said, was a gift he had been unable to refuse. And that was all he had ever been willing to say.
I parked behind the Daimler, got out and locked the door. Shelly Minck was engaged in conversation with the pickets from the Church of the Enlightened Patriots. There were five of them this morning. All of them were old. Sloane and Cynthia were among them. Bertha was missing. I’d half-expected Ortiz.
Some of the workers had paused on their way into the building to watch the show. Part of the show was the heavy-set bald man with the muscular neck who stood silently, almost in a trance, on the second step, watching Shelly argue with the pickets. But Jeremy Butler would have been of only minor interest if the man standing next to him had been more than three feet tall. Jeremy was wearing a white shirt and a tan windbreaker. Gunther, as always, wore a three-piece suit and a perfectly pressed tie.
Gunther was the first to see me. He touched Jeremy’s sleeve and Jeremy awoke from his reverie. I joined them on the steps, shook their hands. Their grips were about the same in intensity. Jeremy, the former wrestler, was careful to control his shake, to keep it firm but gentle. Gunther wanted to demonstrate that there was a man inside the little body.
“I don’t want to appear ungrateful,” I said, “but what is Shelly doing here?”
“Ellis couldn’t get away,” said Jeremy. “Albers and Gray were not in their office. Stowell and Warren don’t like San Francisco. Dr. Minck heard me calling them and volunteered. I found it impossible to dissuade him.”
“We’ll live with it. Politics or religion?” I asked, nodding at Shelly, who was arguing with all the pickets at once.
“Teeth,” said Jeremy.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “How was the drive?”
“Without notable incident,” said Gunther. “If possible, however, on the return I would prefer if Dr. Minck would travel with you.”
“What’d you do with Dash?”
“Your cat,” said Gunther, “is under the protection of Mrs. Plaut, who pledged to respect his needs and dignity.”
I was tempted to say that Dash might well be in mortal danger if he had a sudden taste for canary. Instead, I thanked Gunther and turned to Jeremy.
“Alice?” I asked.
“Alice is doing well. She may have twins.”
“Twins?”
I tried to imagine two little Jeremys or two Alices … or one of each.
“I’ll get Shelly,” I said, moving toward the little crowd.
“… look ridiculous,” Shelly was saying. He was wearing a wrinkled and food-stained plaid sport jacket over a purple short-sleeved pullover shirt. His pants were pulled up to his stomach.
“Toby,” he said, seeing me. “I’m glad you came. I’m trying to explain something to these people here. You, open your mouth.”
He was talking to Sloane, who seemed completely confused by this cigar-chomping man who kept pushing his thick glasses back on his nose. Sloane started to protest.
“Will you just do it?” Shelly said irritably. “I’m trying to make a point here. God, Toby, these people … Okay. Okay. That’s fine. Look at those dentures. They look real to you?”
A few of the picketers looked at Sloane’s teeth. One woman shook her head somberly.
“See. See there,” said Shelly triumphantly. “What’d I tell you? You old people need false teeth that look like
