A bass drum was strapped to his back, and a couple of wires ran to his ankles from a pair of beaters mounted on the frame. The drum beat in time to stomps of his feet. A small but genuine tuba hung from his slender shoulders, and there were more strings attached to his elbows, which moved back and forth in time to "oom" and "pah" respectively. He held an accordion in his hands, strapped to the harness on his chest. A clarinet had been clamped to the accordion so that the end was near his mouth, and there was, I swear to God, a cymbal on a frame held to his head.

Butters marched in place, red-faced, sweating, and beaming as he thumped and oompahed and blared accordion music. I just stood there staring, because while I have seen a lot of weird things, I hadn't ever seen that. Butters wrapped up the polka and energetically banged his head against the tuba, producing a deafening clash from the cymbal. The motion brought me into his peripheral vision and he jumped in surprise.

The motion overbalanced him and he fell amidst a clatter of cymbal, a honk of tuba, a fitful stutter of drum, and then lay on the floor while his accordion wheezed out.

"Butters," I said.

"Harry," he panted from the pile of polka. "Cool pants."

"I can see you're busy."

He missed the sarcasm. "Heck, yeah. Gotta get set. Oktoberfest Battle of the Bands tomorrow night."

"I thought you weren't going to enter after last year."

"Hah," Butters said, sneering defiantly. "I'm not going to let the Jolly Rogers laugh at me like that. I mean, come on. Five guys named Roger. How much polka can be in their souls?"

"I have no freaking clue," I answered truthfully.

Butters flashed me a grin. "I'll get them this year."

I couldn't help it: I started smiling. "Need any help getting out of there?"

"Nah, I got it," he said brightly, and started unstrapping himself. "Surprised to see you. Your checkup isn't until next week. Hand bothering you?"

"Not really," I said. "Wanted to talk to you about—"

"Oh!" he said. He hopped up from the stuff and left it on the floor so that he could scamper toward a desk in the corner. "Before you get started, I found something interesting."

"Butters," I said, "I'd like to chat, man, but I'm in a pretty big hurry."

He paused, crestfallen. "Really?"

"Yeah. It's a case, and I need to find out if you know anything that could help me."

"Oh," he said. "Well, you have cases all the time. This is important. I've been doing a lot of research since you started seeing me about your hand, and the conclusions I've been able to extrapolate from—"

"Butters." I sighed. "Look, I'm in a huge hurry. Five words or less, okay?"