Butterfly Man. Lew Levenson

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      He could not meet his dancing-schoolmates on their own plane. He could read in their eyes the fear and contempt they felt for him. He was rich; many of them were very poor. He was "different"; they were "ordinary."

      One of the boys—a snub-nosed, pleasant Jimmy Smith, who was very adept at picking up new and sensational tap "breaks"—watched Ken's performance with envy and admiration.

      "Been working long?" he asked.

      "Two weeks," said Ken curtly and turned away. In Ken's mind at the moment was exhilaration at the discovery that he could kick straight and true to the back of his head. He was surprised to hear Jimmy Smith say: "Because you're old Lowell's latest chicken doesn't mean you can lord it over me, Gracey."

      "What do you mean by that?" Ken asked.

      "As if you didn't know—" said the other and turned away with a gesture of disgust.

      Buddy Nolan met Ken at the gate.

      "Going home?"

      "Not for an hour or two," Ken replied. "Mr. Pawne said Mr. Lowell might fly in from Tanopah today. He owns mines up there in Nevada."

      "How about a drink with me at the Rendezvous?"

      "What's that?"

      "A spot on Hollywood Boulevard."

      "I'm on."

      ​As Ken drove the dance master to the Rendezvous, he heard lavish praise of Mr. Lowell.

      "La's a powerful friend, Ken," said Nolan. "Would it surprise you to know that he put me in business?"

      "Not at all. But tell me, Bud, how come Jimmy Smith doesn't like him?"

      Nolan rubbed the moonstone on his cheek and gazed quizzically at Ken. Then he began to chuckle.

      "Called you a name, I bet."

      "No—"

      "He's not the type, Ken. Forget him."

      "Don't say anything to him about it, will you?"

      "I never talk to that kind about personal matters. Don't let La Lowell hear you gossip about him to outsiders."

      "I didn't say a word, Bud."

      Ken was vaguely nervous as he entered the Rendezvous. It was a large, rambling house of shingles streaked with patches of faded color. A low wall almost hid it from the view of passersby. Within, a long room, tables set before benches which lined the walls.

      Bud was greeted by Jackie Jackol, a square-chinned woman of forty-five, husky-voiced, loose-limbed, hair plastered closely against her rounded head.

      The Rendezvous was half-filled. Nearly all the guests were men although, in a dim corner, sat a quartette of young women.

      "This is the place to come if you want to be free," said Bud. "By that, I don't mean that you can't enjoy yourself elsewhere. But I'm sure you feel the peace of this room. I'd rather drink bad gin here than champagne at the Cocoa-nut Grove."

      ​"Why?" Ken asked naively.

      "Look around," said Bud. "Everyone knows everyone else. Jackie's a true friend. The boys and girls come to her with their problems and their troubles. She solves everything by serving gin. If you can pay—great. If you can't—great.

      "That's Hal Romans, over there. He's a psychic, on the side. Odd chap, a little demented perhaps, but true. That's Jean Duval, the little fellow—stealing an hour from his studio—he is an artistic publicity man, catering to the more decadent movie stars.

      "The girl in the center, Kay Regan—she's a young lawyer. She doesn't practise because she spends too much time worrying about the fate which made her a woman instead of a man. I call her a bi-sex, flat-feet, the result of a lover who beat her, but she's convinced she was born wrong—so what can poor Buddy do?

      "That stringy blonde next to her would be quite pretty if she'd bathe regularly. She hails from up North where she got religion. She preached the Four-Square Gospel for Aimee until she was thrown out of the Temple for using the dressing rooms for odd purposes."

      "You mean she's queer?"

      "Divinely so, dearie," said Buddy, and rubbed the moonstone against his cheek. "Jackie, for heaven's sake, bring us some gin and ginger ale."

      At six thirty, Ken drove the Rolls into the garage. Kari greeted him at the patio entrance.

      "Missee Lowell waits for you in the music room," he said.

      The gin had been fuming in Ken's head. He had driven ​at breakneck speed through Glendale to Flintridge, pursued by a demon thought. While he sat drinking with Buddy Nolan, the ugly idea had slowly filtered into his mind. As Buddy talked, it spread. He was seeing the faintly discerned outlines of reality for the first time.

      In Selma, such things had been a joke, a nasty joke. To have believed in their actuality would have stamped one as a dope, a hop-head. The boys back home had been plenty lusty, plenty filthy, too—but in a noisy, reassuring way. They cursed, they were mean, cruel, even disgusting at times. But they were men.

      Ken, who had read few novels, who had visited no big cities except for flying trips during training periods, had never conceived the possible existence of such coteries as he had seen grouped about the Rendezvous. While Buddy was talking, as he established with finality the reasons for these attachments of man to man, Ken had not been able to speak. The gin had slowly warmed him. He had viewed the Rendezvous with more acute eyes. As he drank, the certainty grew. These boys and men were … the conventional Selma word was "fairies." Buddy, too.

      But why did Buddy admit Ken to his confidence? Why this talk of Mr. Lowell?

      Not until the moist, foggy evening air struck Ken's cheeks and he had bidden Buddy a calm good-night at the entrance to the school, did Ken have the necessary time for quiet reasoning. He reviewed the events since he had left Selma. He tried to remember what had happened to him.

      He had been mildly drunk all the time … sometimes with liquor, sometimes with Mr. Lowell's words, ​sometimes with the beauty with which Mr. Lowell and California surrounded him.

      Now, quick with the energy of dancing practise and the shock of gin, he wondered why—why—really why had Mr. Lowell brought him from Texas to California? Of course it was absurd to identify Mr. Lowell with these pallid, languid young men who dressed so smartly and chatted so volubly. They were vapid nobodies. Mr. Lowell, a big business man, did things.

      Yet … Buddy Nolan did things. Buddy worked hard. He made money. He was famous in Hollywood. Buddy considered these denizens of the Rendezvous as his brethren. And Buddy regarded Mr. Lowell as a god, a paternal god, whose open hand brought riches, comfort and peace.

      Wonderingly, Ken thought of Star-ridge, its staff of men. The great house on the hillside was a man's paradise, an Eveless Eden.

      What fraternity of men was Ken entering? What were its ramifications? Its code? And in what manner had he been seduced into joining this monastic life?

      The Rolls, as Ken considered СКАЧАТЬ