Death Ray Butterfly - Tom Lichtenberg (great novels to read .TXT) 📗

said, and she'd be a better person afterwards. It all sounded like nonsense to Curly. Crazy nonsense at that. Curly was ordered to pull the trigger at the count of three. Jones counted.

One.

Two.

Three.

Curly fired the shot and at the same time he saw Jones do something, he didn't know what, exactly, but he touched something, he moved his hand, and the moment Racine's body collapsed onto the hill, another Racine appeared, directly behind them, screaming.

That was it for Rags. He took off running down the hill as fast as he could, stumbling and tumbling, gathering a whole collection of bumps and bruises but he didn't care. He was out of there. Curly just stood up and laughed his ass off. Jones wasn't messing around. He didn't lie. There she was, dead, and there she was, alive, and watching her own death. Jones smiled his best winning smile. He looked back at the new Racine and said,

“See? Just like I promised.”

Racine said nothing. Tears filled her eyes as her scream died in her throat.

“What happened then?”, Captain Cameroon asked Curly, but he just shook his head.

“She took off too, like my brother did, only into the woods instead of away from them. Haven't seen her since.”

“What did she look like?”, I asked him. “Was she the same as the one you killed? Was she different? Older? What?”

“Exactly the same”, Curly said. “No different. It was like she got cloned on the spot.”

“You're facing life in prison”, Cameroon told him, and Curly just laughed again.

“Jones said you'd say that”, he winked at her. “He also said he'd get us out, and there was no way on this Earth that you could ever stop him. That's exactly what he said.”

Seventeen

Why was I not surprised to get a phone call from Arab "Cricket" Jones? He was after something, I was sure, but I didn't know what it was, what he wanted from me. What he said he wanted was for me to watch him on the Kerd Palliver show that evening. He'd be on right after the famous supermodel, Elle Bee. I had never heard of Kerd Palliver, which Jones could hardly believe. Hey, I'm an old man and I don't really give a crap about who's who and what's what in the world of contemporary somebodies. They all just come and go as far as I'm concerned. If I even tried to keep track of them, I'm sure they would all just blend into one in any case.

So I followed Jones' instructions anyway. Found the segment, watched the bit with the girl. She blended, as I expected. Could have been any showgirl any time. Hair, smile, approvable bits and pieces, and nothing at all to say. Palliver himself was some kind of hairdo and voice apparatus. Had a distinctive style, which I figured was what he was famous for. Had a way of squirming in his seat as if he was about the collapse with sheer delight at any moment. Big teeth, happy eyes, loudness. In between the guests there were lots of commercials for IntelliWig, the mood-altering hairpiece, and the Latest in Subatomics. I had already clued in to the fact that the war on stuff already consisted of different stuff, which was not proof I was in a different universe, only proof that a day or two had passed since the last time I checked on the list.

Jones was introduced as a gentleman, a scholar, and a prophet. He had a lot to say. Palliver would get in half a question, and Jones would jump right in, take over, and talk for several minutes. I kind of already knew what he was going to say. It went something like this.

“I want to tell you a riddle about a butterfly”, he said. “They say that when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it might cause a hurricane in the Atlantic. I ask you, what happens when that selfsame butterfly fails to flap its wings? What happens if that butterfly is squashed?”

Here he leaned over and pulled out a small board from under his chair. The board had a large yellow and black monarch butterfly pinned to it.

“This here butterfly”, he continued, “will flap no more, and guess what? It makes no difference. It didn't matter when it was alive and flapping, and it doesn't matter now that it's not. You see, not every butterfly counts. You might say, it's the rare butterfly, the extremely rare one, that makes any difference whatsoever. It might even be so rare as not to exist at all.”

“And it's not just butterflies”, he went on. “We're all in the same boat. You, me, my friend Inspector Mole, whom I hope is watching right now. Are you watching, Inspector? Because you know what I'm talking about. All of those old cold cases of yours, people who died and were never missed. A cave man with a bullet in his skull. A killer who saw herself killed. A rich man who lost his temper once too often, and paid for it in blood. Nobody cared about them then, and nobody cares about them now. They are all mere butterflies no longer flapping their wings. Did they change the world? No, not when they lived, and not when they died.”

“What in this world is not disposable? Who is not? Nothing and no one, I tell you. Nothing and no one. Like my little cigarette lighter here, fashioned to produce a certain number of small flames and then no more. On to the rubbish heap with the thing. Fill up the oceans, fill up the mountains, with all the crap we throw away, and all of us as well. There's no limit to the waste of creation! God in his infinite wisdom has created an infinity of trash. What's one more butterfly more or less, eh?”

And with that, he pulled out his little shiny gun and shot poor Palliver dead. Then he clicked the lighter and he disappeared, right off the set. Palliver fell off his chair for real this time. The audience gasped. Quickly the show turned to commercial and when it returned, a pale, shaking producer announced that this was no trick, as far as he knew. Jones had murdered the host, and somehow self-destructed without leaving a trace.

But I had seen enough, and I thought I knew, finally, what he was up to. He was insane, that was clear, but insane like a cat gone crazy from the joy of toying with mice, and I was one of those. I knew I hadn't seen or heard the last of him. He had to be stopped, and I had two choices. I could either go after him, or I could wait for him where I was. Either way, I would have to be prepared for our next encounter. Everything would depend on it.

Eighteen

The more I thought about the matter, the more confused I became, because it occurred to me that stopping the one Arab Jones I knew of couldn never be enough. If what he kept saying was true, there were bound to be an endless number of nearly identical Joneses, each doing more or less the same thing in their various locations. But that was only "if" he was telling the truth. If he wasn't, if the whole thing was a big lie, some kind of sham, then where did he get to every time he disappeared, and how did he pull it off? I've never been much of a fan of magic - I'm the perfect mark, because I never understand it, never see the sleight of hand, which was one reason why I was already at the point of saying 'forget the whole thing' and just going to bed. Maybe it would make more sense in the morning.

I knew I wouldn't, and I knew it wouldn't, either. I already hadn't slept in a couple of days and I wasn't feeling the least bit weary. I warmed up some honey water with lemon and sat nursing it while I sat on the top step in the front of my house. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought Jones would show up again. Maybe I thought a parade of ghosts or zombies would go streaming past my doorway. What I didn't expect was of course what actually happened. A bright red sporty car pulled around the corner, raced up my street, and screeched to a halt right in front of me. The driver and the passenger jumped out at exactly the same moment, and came rushing over. It was dark enough out that night, but not so dark that I could see these two men were practically identical.

They were tall and thin, dressed very nicely in white suits and peach-colored ties. They wore quite polished black shoes and each one carried a thin black briefcase. They had the same brisk, professional stride and when they stopped, they stood stiffly erect, lips pursed slightly and eyes wide open. The one on my left spoke first.

“Good evening, Inspector. I trust we are not disturbing you.”

“In other words”, said the one on my right, “We believe you are not presently being disturbed.”

“Not at all”, I replied, and tried to appear friendly and calm, when in fact I was feeling suspicious and alert.

“The name is Melvin Eldon”, said the first one.

“Eldon Melvin”, volunteered the other.

“We're certain you know why we're here”, said the first.

“In other words”, added the second, “We are sure that you are aware of the reason for this visit.”

“I have no idea”, I told them both.

“You are in violation”, said the first. “You are not where you are supposed to be, and you know it.”

“In other words”, the other one continued, “You are what we call a 'claim jumper'. You have inserted yourself into the presence of your other.”

“This”, picked up the first, “Is in direct contradistinction of multi-galactical rule number eight point seven point nine point three point six.”

“Point seven”, correct the other.

“Quite”, agreed the first. “My mistake.”

“Not a problem”, said Eldon Melvin.

“I don't know of any other”, I said. “I'm simply me. Myself. And I.”

I thought i was being funny. My inquisitors were not amused.

“One cannot tell from the inside, obviously”, said the one on the right, impatiently.

“Just as one needs a mirror in order to see one's own face, so one needs the Llunet to view the other within”, said the second.

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out what looked like a notebook sized tablet, and stretching it up towards me, peeled back a cover, and told me to look directly at the glass. I did, and I saw nothing. Or rather, I saw only myself, more nearly a shadow of my features, scarcely reflected in the darkness.

“There, you see? Your other.”

“No, I don't see”, I told him. “I see only one image, and that one hardly at all.”

“It is the other”, snapped the second. “Believe us. We know these things.”

“I don't even know who you are”, I replied.

“We have given you our names”, said the first. “Here is our card.”

He pulled pulled back the tablet and with his other hand offered me a business card, on which was written their names, and a familiar address downtown. It was the same building where you go to renew your identification papers periodically.

“You are