Within a circling garland a girl dances; the beasts of the Apocalypse look on.
SINCE morning, Stan’s brain had been full of whirring wheels, grinding away at every possible answer. Where were you when he was over by the geek? On my platform, setting up my cot. What did you do then? Practiced a new move with cards. What move? Front-and-back-hand palm. Where did he go? Under the stage, I guess. You were watching him? Only that he didn’t go outside. Where were you when Zeena came back? At the entrance waiting for her…
Now the crowd was thinning out. Outside the stars had misted over and there was a flash of lightning behind the trees. At eleven Hoately stopped the bally. The last marks left and the inhabitants of the Ten-in-One smoked while they dressed. At last they gathered with sober faces around Hoately. Only Major Mosquito seemed unaffected. He started to whistle gaily, someone told him to pipe down.
When the last one was ready they filed out and got into cars. Stan rode with Hoately, the Major, Bruno, and Sailor Martin toward the center of town where the undertaker’s parlor was located.
“Lucky break the funeral happened on a slow night,” the Sailor said. No one answered him.
Then Major Mosquito chirruped, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” He spat. “Why do they have to crap it up with all that stuff? Why can’t they just shovel ’em under and let ’em start falling apart?”
“You shut up!” Bruno said thickly. “You talk too much for little fellow.”
“Go frig a rubber duck.”
“Tough on Zeena,” Bruno said to the others. “She is fine woman.”
Clem Hoately, driving with one hand carelessly on the wheel, said, “That rum-pot ain’t going to be missed by nobody. Not even Zeena after a while. But it makes you take a good think for yourself. I remember that guy when he was big stuff. I ain’t touched a drop in over a year now and I ain’t going to, either. Seen too much of it.”
“Who’s going to work the act with Zeena?” Stan asked after a time. “She going to change her act? She could handle the questions herself and work one ahead.”
Hoately scratched his head with his free hand. “That ain’t too good nowadays. She don’t have to change the act. You could work the undercover part. I’ll take the house collection. We’ll throw the Electric Girl between your spot and Zeena’s, give you time to slip in and get set.”
“Suits me.”
He said it, Stan kept repeating. It wasn’t my idea. The Major and Bruno heard him. He said it.
The street was empty and the light from the funeral parlor made a golden wedge on the sidewalk. Behind them the other car drew up. Old Maguire, the Ten-in-One’s ticket seller and grinder, got out, then Molly; then Joe Plasky swung himself out on his hands and crossed the sidewalk. He reminded Stan of a frog, moving deliberately.
Zeena met them at the door. She was wearing a new black outfit, a dress with enormous flowers worked on it in jet. “Come on in, folks. I-I got Pete all laid out handsome. I just phoned a reverend and he’s coming over. I thought it was nicer to get a reverend if we could, even if Pete wasn’t no church man.”
They went inside. Joe Plasky fumbled in his pocket and held an envelope up to Zeena. “The boys chipped in for a stone, Zeena. They knew you didn’t need the dough but they wanted to do something. I wrote the Billboard this afternoon. They’ll carry a box. I just said, ‘Mourned by his many friends in show business.”’
She bent down and kissed him. “That’s-that’s damn sweet of you all. I guess we better get into the chapel. This looks like the reverend coming.”
They took their places on folding chairs. The clergyman was a meek, dull little old man, looking sleepy. Embarrassed, too, Stan figured. As if carny folks were not quite human-like they had all left their pants off only he was too polite to let on he noticed.
He put on his glasses. “… we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken…”
Stan, sitting beside Zeena, tried to concentrate on the words and guess what the reverend was going to say next. Anything to keep from thinking. It’s not my fault he’s dead. I didn’t mean to kill him. I killed him. There it starts again and all day I wasn’t feeling anything and I thought I’d lost it.
“Lord, let me know my end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live…”
Pete never knew his end. Pete died happy. I did him a favor. He had been dying for years. He was afraid of living and he was trying to ease himself out only I had to go and kill him. I didn’t kill him. He killed himself. Sooner or later he would have taken a chance on that wood alky. I only helped him a little. Christ, will I have to think about this damn thing the rest of my life?
Stan slowly turned his head and looked at the others. Molly was sitting with the Major between her and Bruno. In the back row Clem Hoately had his eyes shut. Joe Plasky’s face held the shadow of a smile that was too deeply cut into it ever to vanish completely. It was the sort of smile Lazarus must have had afterwards, Stan thought. Sailor Martin had one eye closed.
The sight of the Sailor rushed Stan back to normal. He had done that a hundred times himself, sitting beside his father on the hard pew, watching his mother in a white surplice there in the choir stall with the other ladies. There’s a blind spot in your eye and if you shut one eye and then let the gaze of the other travel in a straight line to one side of the preacher’s head there will be a point where his head seems to disappear and he seems to be standing there preaching without any head.
Stan looked at Zeena beside him. Her mind was far away somewhere. The reverend speeded up.
“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death…”
Behind them Major Mosquito heaved a sharp sigh and wriggled, the chair creaking. Bruno said, “Shoosh!”
When they got to the Lord’s Prayer Stan found his voice with relief. Zeena must hear it. If she heard it she couldn’t suspect him of having anything to do with- Stan lowered his voice and the words came automatically. She mustn’t ever think-and yet she had looked at him sharp when he had said Pete was hanging around the geek. She mustn’t think. Only he mustn’t overplay it. God damn it, this was the time for misdirection if ever there was one. “… for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever.”
“Amen.”
The undertaker was silently brisk. He removed the coffin lid and set it noiselessly behind the casket. Zeena brought her handkerchief up to her face and turned away. They formed a line and passed by.
Clem Hoately came first, his furrowed face showing nothing. Then Bruno, holding Major Mosquito on his forearm so he could look down and see. Molly came next and Sailor Martin fell in behind her, moving close. Then old Maguire, his cap crushed in his hand. Joe Plasky hopped across the floor, pushing one of the folding chairs. When it came his turn to view the remains he moved the chair into place by the head of the coffin and swung himself up on the seat. He looked down and the smile was still around the corners of his eyes although his mouth was sober. Without thinking he made the sign of the cross.
Stan swallowed hard. It was his turn and there was no way of getting out of it. Joe had hopped to the floor and pushed the chair against the wall; Stan shoved both hands deep into his pockets and approached the casket. He had never seen a corpse; the skin of his scalp prickled at the thought.
He drew his breath and forced himself to look.
It seemed at first like a wax figure in a dress suit. One hand rested easily on the white waistcoat, the other was by the side. It held a round, clear glass ball. The face was rosy-the undertaker had filled out the drawn cheeks and painted the skin until it glowed with a waxen counterfeit of life. But there was something else that hit Stan like a blow between the ribs. Carefully fashioned of crêpe hair and stuck to the chin was a lifelike, neatly trimmed, little black beard.
“For the last demonstration Mamzelle Electra will perform a feat never attempted since Ben Franklin harnessed the lightning with his kite string. Holding the two filaments of a carbon arc light, she will allow the death-dealing current to pass through her body…”
Stan quietly slipped into the compartment below the stage of Zeena, the Woman Who Knows. It no longer smelled of whisky. Stan had installed a piece of canvas as a ground sheet and had cut ventilation scrolls in the sides of the boxlike little room. Over the bridge table and on three sides of it he had erected a cardboard shield so he could open the envelopes and copy the questions on the pad by the light of a flashlight.
The rustle of feet surging around the stage outside, then Zeena’s voice in her opening spiel. Stan took a bundle of dummy questions-blank cards in small envelopes-and stood by the window where Hoately would pass behind the curtains.
They parted at the side of the stage; Hoately’s hand appeared. Quickly Stan took the collected questions and placed the dummy batch in the hand which vanished upward. Stan heard the creak of feet on the boards above him. He sat down at the table, switched on the shaded flashlight bulb, squared up the pack of envelopes and cut the ends from them with one snip of the scissors. Moving quickly, he shook out the cards and arranged them before him on the table.
Question: “Where is my son?” Handwriting old-fashioned. Woman over sixty, he judged. A good one to open with-the signature was clear and spelled out in full-Mrs. Anna Briggs Sharpley. Stan looked for two more complete names. One was signed to a wiseacre question which he put aside. He reached for the black crayon and the pad, wrote, “Where son?” printed the name swiftly but plainly, and held the pad up to the hole in the stage at Zeena’s feet.
“I get the impression of the initial S. Is there a Mrs. Sharpley?”
Stan found himself listening to the answers as if they held a revelation.
“You think of your boy as still a little fellow, the way you knew him when he used to come asking you for a piece of bread with sugar on it…”
Where the hell did Zeena get all that stuff from? She was no more telepathic than that kid, Molly, was electricity proof. The Electric Chair act was gaffed like everything in the carny. But Zeena-
“My dear lady, you must remember that he’s a man grown now and probably has children of his own to worry about. You want him to write to you. Isn’t that so?”
It was uncanny how Zeena could fish out things just by watching the person’s face. Stan got a sudden thrust of cold fear. Of all the people in the world for him to hide anything from, it had to be a mind reader. He laughed a little in spite of his anxiety. But there was something which pulled him toward Zeena more strongly than his fear that she would find out and make him a murderer. How do you get to know so much that you can tell people what they are thinking about just by looking at them? Maybe you had to be born with the gift.
“Is Clarissa here? Clarissa, hold up your hand. That’s a good girl. Now Clarissa wants to know if the young fellow she’s been going around with is the right one for her to marry. Well, Clarissa, I may disappoint you but I have to speak the truth. You wouldn’t want me to tell you no fibs. I don’t think this boy is the one for you to marry. Mind, he may be and I don’t doubt that he’s a mighty fine young man. But something tells me that when the right young fellow comes along you won’t ask me, you won’t ask anybody-you’ll just up and marry him.”
That question had come up before and Zeena nearly always answered it the same way. The thought struck Stan that it was not genius after all. Zeena knew people. But people were a lot alike. What you told one you could tell nine out of ten. And there was one out of five that would believe everything you told them and would say yes to anything when you asked them if it was correct because they were the kind of marks that can’t say no. Good God, Zeena is working for peanuts! Somewhere in this racket there is a gold mine!
Stan picked up another card and wrote on the pad: “Advise important domestic step, Emma.” By God, if she can answer that one she must be a mind reader. He held it up to the trap and listened.
Zeena pattered on for a moment, thinking to herself and then her voice lifted and her heel knocked gently. Stan took down the pad and knew that this would be the blow-off question and he could relax. After this one she would go into the pitch.
“I have time for just one more question. And this is a question that I’m not going to ask anybody to acknowledge. There’s a lady here whose first name begins with E. I’m not going to tell her full name because it’s a very personal question. But I’m going to ask Emma to think about what she is trying to tell me mentally.”
Stan switched off the flashlight, crept out of the understage compartment and tiptoed up the stairs behind the side curtains. Parting them carefully with his fingers he placed his eye to the crack. The marks’ faces were a mass of pale circles below him. But at the mention of the name “Emma” he saw one face-a pale, haggard woman who looked forty but might be thirty. The lips parted and the eyes answered for an instant. Then the lips were pressed tight in resignation.
Zeena lowered her voice. “Emma, you have a serious problem. And it concerns somebody very near and dear to you. Or somebody who used to be very near and dear, isn’t that right?” Stan saw the woman’s head nod involuntarily.
“You are contemplating a serious step-whether to leave this person. And I think he’s your husband.” The woman bit her under lip. Her eyes grew moist quickly. That kind cries at the drop of a hat, Stan thought. If only she had a million bucks instead of a greasy quarter.
“Now there are two lines of vibration working about this problem. One of them concerns another woman.” The tension left the woman’s face and a sullen frown of disappointment drew over it. Zeena changed her tack. “But now the impressions get stronger and I can see that while there may have been some woman in the past, right now the problem is something else. I see cards… playing cards falling on a table… but no, it isn’t your husband who’s playing. It’s the place… I get it now, clear as daylight. It’s the back room of a saloon.”
A sob came from the woman, and people twisted their heads this way and that; but Emma was watching the seeress, unmindful of the others.
“My dear friend, you have a mighty heavy cross to bear. I know all about it and don’t you think I don’t. But the step that confronts you now is a problem with a good many sides. If your husband was running around with other women and didn’t love you that would be one thing. But I get a very strong impression that he does love you-in spite of everything. Oh, I know he acts nasty-mean sometimes but you just ask yourself if any of the blame is yours. Because here’s one thing you must never forget: a man drinks because he’s unhappy. Isn’t anything about liquor that makes a man bad. A man that’s happy can take a drink with the boys on Saturday night and come home with his pay safe in his pocket. But when a man’s miserable about something he takes a drink to forget it and one isn’t enough and he takes another snort and pretty soon the week’s pay is all gone and he gets home and sobers up and then his wife starts in on him and he’s more miserable than he was before and then his first thought is to go get drunk again and it runs around and around in a circle.” Zeena had forgotten the other customers, she had forgotten the pitch. She was talking out of herself. The marks knew it and were hanging on every word, fascinated.
“Before you take that step,” she went on, suddenly coming back to the show, “you want to be sure that you’ve done all you can to make that man happy. Maybe you can’t learn what’s bothering him. Maybe he don’t quite know himself. But try to find it. Because if you leave him you’ll have to find some way to take care of yourself and the kids anyhow. Well, why not start in tonight? If he comes home drunk put him to bed. Try talking to him friendly. When a man’s drunk he’s a lot like a kid. Well, treat him like a son and don’t go jumping on him. Tomorrow morning let him know that you understand and mother him up a little. Because if that man loves you-” Zeena paused for breath and then rushed on. “If that man loves you it don’t matter whether he makes a living or not. It don’t matter if he stays sober or not. If you’ve got a man that really loves you, you hang on to him like grim death for better or worse.” There was a catch in her voice and for a long moment silence hung in the air over the waiting crowd. “Hang on-because you’ll never regret it as much as you’ll regret sending him away and now folks if you really want to know how the stars affect your life you don’t have to pay five dollars or even one dollar I have here a set of astrological readings all worked out for each and every one of you let me know your date of birth and you get a forecast of future events complete with character reading, vocational guidance, lucky numbers…”
For the long haul the Ackerman-Zorbaugh Monster Shows took to the railroad. Trucks loaded on flatcars, the carnies themselves loaded into old coaches, the train boomed on through darkness-tearing past solitary jerk towns, past sidings of dark freight empties, over trestles, over bridges where the rivers lay coiling their luminous way through the star-shadowed countryside.
In the baggage car, among piles of canvas and gear, a light burned high up on the wall. A large packing case with auger holes bored in its sides to admit air, stood in the middle of a cleared space. From inside it came intermittent scrapings. At one end of the car the geek lay on a pile of canvas, his ragged, overalled knees drawn up to his chin.
Around the snake box men made the air gray with smoke.
“I’m staying.” Major Mosquito’s voice had the insistence of a cricket’s.
Sailor Martin screwed up the left side of his face against the smoke of his cigarette and dealt.
“I’m in,” Stan said. He had a Jack in the hole. The highest card showing was a ten in the Sailor’s hand.
“I’m with you,” Joe Plasky said, the Lazarus smile never changing.
Behind Joe sat the hulk of Bruno, his shoulders rounding under his coat. He watched intently, his mouth dropping open as he concentrated on Joe’s hand.
“I’m in, too,” Martin said. He dealt. Stan got another Jack and pushed in three blues.
“Going to cost you to string along,” he said casually.
Martin had dealt himself another ten. “I’ll string along.”
Major Mosquito, his baby head close to the boxtop, stole another glance at his hole card. “Nuts!”
“Guess it’s between you gents,” Joe said placidly. Bruno, from behind him, said, “Ja. Let them fight it out. We take it easy this time.”
Martin dealt. Two little ones fell between them. Stan threw more blues in. Martin met him and raised him two more.
“I’ll see you.”
The Sailor threw over his hole card. A ten. He reached for the pot.
Stan smiled and counted his chips. At a sound from the Major all of them jumped. “Hey!” It was like a long-drawn fiddle scrape.
“What’s eating you, Big Noise?” Martin asked, grinning.
“Lemme see them tens!” The Major reached toward the center of the snake box with his infant’s hand and drew the cards toward him. He examined the backs.
Bruno got up and moved over behind the midget. He picked up one of the cards and held it at an angle toward the light.
“What’s eating you guys?” Martin said.
“Daub!” Major Mosquito wailed, taking his cigarette from the edge of the box and puffing it rapidly. “The cards are marked with daub. They’re smeared to act like readers. You can see it if you know where to look.”
Martin took one and examined it. “Damn! You’re right.”
“They’re your cards,” the Major went on in his accusing falsetto.
Martin bristled. “What d’ya mean, my cards? Somebody left ’em around the cookhouse. If I hadn’t thought to bring ’em we wouldn’t have had no game.”
Stan took the deck and riffled them under his thumb. Then he riffled again, throwing cards face down on the table. When he reversed them they were all high ones, picture cards and tens. “That’s daub, all right,” he said. “Let’s get a new deck.”
“You’re the card worker,” Martin said aggressively. “What do you know about this? Daub is stuff you smear on the other fellow’s cards during the game.”
“I know enough not to use it,” Stan said easily. “I don’t deal. I never deal. And if I wanted to work any angles I’d stack them on the pick up until I got the pair I wanted on top the deck, undercut and injog the top card of the top half, shuffle off eight, outjog and shuffle off. Then I’d undercut to the outjog-”
“Let’s get a new deck,” Joe Plasky said. “We won’t any of us get rich arguing about how the cards got marked. Who’s got a deck?”
They sat silent, the expansion joints of the rails clicking by beneath them. Then Stan said, “Zeena has a deck of fortune-telling cards we can play with. I’ll get them.”
Martin took the marked deck, stepped to the partly open door and sent the cards flying into the wind. “Maybe a new deck will change my luck,” he said. “I been going bust every hand except the last one.”
The car shook and pounded on through the dark. Behind the open door they could see the dark hills and a sliver of moon setting behind them with a scattering of stars.
Stan returned and with him came Zeena. Her black dress was relieved by a corsage of imitation gardenias, her hair caught up on top of her head with a random collection of blond hairpins.
“Howdy, gents. Thought I’d take a hand myself if I wouldn’t be intruding. Sure gets deadly back in that coach. I reckon I’ve read every movie magazine in the outfit by this time.” She opened her purse and placed a deck of cards on the box. “Now you boys let me see your hands. All clean? ’Cause I don’t want you smooching up these cards and getting ’em dirty. They’re hard enough to get hold of.”
Stan took the deck carefully and fanned them. The faces were an odd conglomeration of pictures. One showed a dead man, his back skewered with ten swords. Another had a picture of three women in ancient robes, each holding a cup. A hand reaching out of a cloud, on another, held a club from which green leaves sprouted.
“What do you call these things, Zeena?” he asked.
“That’s the Tarot,” she said impressively. “Oldest kind of cards in the world. They go all the way back to Egypt, some say. And they’re sure a wonder for giving private readings. Every time I have something to decide or don’t know which way to turn I run them over for myself. I always get some kind of an answer that makes sense. But you can play poker with ’em. They got four suits: wands are diamonds, cups are hearts, swords are clubs, and coins are spades. This bunch of pictures here-that’s the Great Arcana. They’re just for fortunetelling. But there’s one of ’em-if I can find it-we can use for a joker. Here it is.” She threw it out and placed the others back in her purse.
Stan picked up the joker. At first he couldn’t figure out which end was the top. It showed a young man suspended head down by one foot from a T-shaped cross, but the cross was of living wood, putting out green shoots. The youth’s hands were tied behind his back. A halo of golden light shone about his head and on reversing the card Stan saw that his expression was one of peace-like that of a man raised from the dead. Like Joe Plasky’s smile. The name of the card was printed in old-fashioned script at the bottom. The Hanged Man.
“Holy Christ, if these damn things don’t change my luck, nothing will,” the Sailor said.
Zeena took a pile of chips from Joe Plasky, ante’d, then shuffled and dealt the hole cards face down. She lifted hers a trifle and frowned. The game picked up. Stan had an eight of cups in the hole and dropped out. Never stay in unless you have a Jack or better in the hole and drop out when better than a Jack shows on the board. Unless you’ve got the difference.
Zeena’s frown deepened. The battle was between her, Sailor Martin, and the Major. Then the Sailor dropped out. The Major’s hand showed three Knights. He called. Zeena held a flush in coins.
“Ain’t you the bluffer,” the Major piped savagely. “Frowning like you had nothing and you sitting on top a flush.”
Zeena shook her head. “I wasn’t meaning to bluff, even. It was the hole card I was frowning at-the ace of coins, what they call pentacles. I always read that ‘Injury by a trusted friend.”’
Stan uncrossed his legs and said, “Maybe the snakes have something to do with it. They’re scraping around under the lid here like they were uncomfortable.”
Major Mosquito spat on the floor, then poked his finger in one of the auger holes. He withdrew it, chirruping. From the hole flicked a forked thread of pink. The Major drew his lips back from his tiny teeth and quickly touched the lighted ember of his cigarette to the tongue. It flashed back into the box and there was the frenzied scraping of coils twisting and whipping inside.
“Jesus!” Martin said. “You shouldn’t of done that, you little stinker. Them damn things’ll get mad.”
The Major threw back his head. “Ho, ho, ho, ho! Next time I’ll do it to you-I’ll make a hit on the Battleship Maine.”
Stan stood up. “I’ve had enough, gents. Don’t let me break up the game, though.”
Balancing against the rock of the train, he pushed through the piled canvas to the platform of the next coach. His left hand slid under the edge of his vest and unpinned a tiny metal box the size and shape of a five-cent piece. He let his hand drop and the container fell between the cars. It had left a dark smudge on his finger. Why do I have to frig around with all this chickenshit stuff? I didn’t want their dimes. I wanted to see if I could take them. Jesus, the only thing you can depend on is your brains!
In the coach, under the dimmed lights, the crowd of carnival performers and concessioners sprawled, huddled, heads on each others’ shoulders; some had stretched themselves on newspapers in the aisles. In the corner of a seat Molly slept, her lips slightly parted, her head against the glass of the black window.
How helpless they all looked in the ugliness of sleep. A third of life spent unconscious and corpselike. And some, the great majority, stumbled through their waking hours scarcely more awake, helpless in the face of destiny. They stumbled down a dark alley toward their deaths. They sent exploring feelers into the light and met fire and writhed back again into the darkness of their blind groping.
At the touch of a hand on his shoulder Stan jerked around. It was Zeena. She stood with her feet apart, braced easily against the train’s rhythm. “Stan, honey, we don’t want to let what’s happened get us down. God knows, I felt bad about Pete. And I guess you did too. Everybody did. But this don’t stop us from living. And I been wondering… you still like me, don’t you, Stan?”
“Sure-sure I do, Zeena. Only I thought-”
“That’s right, honey. The funeral and all. But I can’t keep up mourning for Pete forever. My mother, now-she’d of been grieving around for a year but what I say is, it’s soon enough we’ll all be pushing ’em up. We got to get some fun. Tell you what. When we land at the next burg, let’s us ditch the others and have a party.”
Stan slid his arm around her and kissed her. In the swaying, plunging gait of the train their teeth clicked and they broke apart, laughing a little. Her hand smoothed his cheek. “I’ve missed you like all hell, honey.” She buried her face in the hollow of his throat.
Over her shoulder Stan looked into the car of sleepers. Their faces had changed, had lost their hideousness. The girl Molly had waked up and was eating a chocolate bar. There was a smudge of chocolate over her chin. Zeena suspected nothing.
Stan raised his left hand and examined it. On the ball of the ring finger was a dark streak. Daub. He touched his tongue to it and then gripped Zeena’s shoulder, wiping the stain on the black dress.
They broke apart and pushed down the aisle to a pile of suitcases where they managed to sit. In her ear Stan said, “Zeena, how does a two-person code work? I mean a good one-the kind you and Pete used to work.” Audiences in evening clothes. Top billing. The Big Time.
Zeena leaned close, her voice suddenly husky. “Wait till we get to the burg. I can’t think about nothing except you right now, honey. I’ll tell you some time. Anything you want to know. But now I want to think about what’s coming between the sheets.” She caught one of his fingers and gave it a squeeze.
In the baggage coach Major Mosquito turned over his hole card. “Three deuces of swords showing and one wild one in the hole makes four of a kind. Ha, ha, ha, ha. The Hanged Man!”
When Stan woke up it was still dark. The electric sign which had been flaring on and off with blinding regularity, spelling out the name of Ayres’ Department Store, was quiet at last and the smeared windowpane was dark. Something had wakened him. The mattress was hard and sagging; against his back he felt the warmth of Zeena’s body.
Silently the bed shook and Stan’s throat tightened with a reflex of fear at the unknown and the darkness until he felt the shake again and then a muffled gasp. Zeena was crying.
Stan turned over and slid his arm around her and cupped her breast with his hand. She had to be babied when she got this way.
“Stan, honey-”
“What’s the matter, baby?”
Zeena turned heavily and pressed a damp cheek against his bare chest. “Just got to thinking about Pete.”
There was nothing to say to this so Stan tightened his arms around her and kept quiet.
“You know, today I was going through some of the stuff in the little tin trunk-Pete’s stuff. His old press books and old letters and all kinds of stuff. And I found the notebook he used to keep. The one he had the start of our code in. Pete invented that code himself and we were the only people that ever knew it. Pete was offered a thousand dollars for it by Allah Kismet-that was Syl Rappolo. He was one of the biggest crystal-workers in the country. But Pete just laughed at him. That old book was just like a part of Pete. He had such nice handwriting in them days…”
Stan said nothing but turned her face up and began kissing her. He was fully awake now and could feel the pulse jumping in his throat. He mustn’t seem too eager. Better love her up first, all the way if he could do it again.
He found that he could.
It was Zeena’s turn to keep quiet. Finally Stan said, “What are we going to do about your act?”
Her voice was suddenly crisp. “What about the act?”
“I thought maybe you were thinking of changing it.”
“What for? Ain’t we taking in more on the pitch than ever? Look, honey, if you feel you ought to be cut in for a bigger percentage don’t be bashful-”
“I’m not talking about that,” he interrupted her. “In this damn state nobody can write. Every time I stick a card and a pencil under the nose of some mark he says, ‘You write it for me.’ If I could remember all that stuff I could let ’em keep the cards in their pockets.”
Zeena stretched leisurely, the bed creaking under her. “Don’t you worry about Zeena, honey. When they can’t write their names they’re even more receptive to the answers. Why, I could quit the question-answering part of the act and just get up there and spiel away and then go into the pitch and still turn ’em.”
A thrill of alarm raced along Stan’s nerves at the thought of Zeena’s being able to do without him before he could do without her. “But I mean, couldn’t we work a code act? You could still do it, couldn’t you?”
She chuckled. “Listen, schniggle-fritz, I can do it in my sleep. But it takes a hell of a lot of work to get all them lists and things learned. And the season’s more than half over.”
“I could learn it.”
She thought for a while and then she said, “It’s all right with me, honey. It’s all down in Pete’s book. Only don’t you lose that book or Zeena’ll cut your ears off.”
“You have it here?”
“Wait a minute. Where’s the fire? Sure I’ve got it here. You’ll see it. Don’t go getting sizzle-britches.”
More silence. At last Stan sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “I better get back to that pantry they rented me for a room. We don’t want the townies here to get any more ideas than they’ve got already.” He snapped on the light and began to put on his clothes. In the garish light overhead Zeena looked haggard and battered like a worn wax doll. She had the sheet pulled over her middle but her breasts sagged over it. Her hair was in two brassy braids and the ends were uneven and spiky. Stan put on his shirt and knotted his tie. He slipped on his jacket.
“You’re a funny fella.”
“Why?”
“Getting all dressed up to walk thirty feet down the hall of a fleabag like this at four in the morning.”
Somehow Stan felt this to be a reflection on his courage. His face grew warm. “Nothing like doing things right.”
Zeena yawned cavernously. “Guess you’re right, kiddo. See you in the morning. And thanks for the party.”
He made no move to turn out the light. “Zeena, that notebook- Could I see it?”
She threw off the sheet, got up and squatted to snap open the suitcase. Does a woman always look more naked after you’ve had her, Stan wondered. Zeena rummaged in the bag and drew out a canvas-covered book marked “Ledger.”
“Now run along, honey. Or come back to bed. Make up your mind.”
Stan tucked the book under his arm and switched off the light. He felt his way to the door and with caution turned back the bolt. Yellow light from the hall sliced over the patchy wallpaper as he opened the door.
There was a whisper from the bed. “Stan-”
“What is it?”
“Come kiss your old pal good night.”
He stepped over, kissed her cheek and left without another word, closing the door softly behind him.
The lock of his own door sounded like a rifle shot.
He looked each way along the hall but nothing stirred.
Inside, he tore off his clothes, went to the washbowl and washed and then threw himself down on the bed, propping the book on his bare stomach.
The first pages were taken up with figures and notations:
“Evansport. July 20th. Books-$33.00 taken in. Paid-Plants at $2-$6.00. Plants: Mrs. Jerome Hotchkiss. Leonard Keely, Josiah Boos. All okay. Old spook workers. Boos looks like deacon. Can act a little. Worked the found ring in the coat lining…”
“Spook workers” must refer to the local confederates employed by traveling mediums. Swiftly Stan flipped the pages. More expenses: “F. T. rap squared. Chief Pellett. $50.” That would be an arrest on a charge of fortune telling.
Stan felt like Ali Baba in the cavern of riches left by the Forty Thieves.
Impatiently he turned to the back of the book. On the last page was a heading: “Common Questions.” Beneath it was a list, with figures:
“Is my husband true to me? 56, 29, 18, 42.
“Will mother get well? 18, 3, 7, 12.
“Who poisoned our dog? 3, 2, 3, 0, 3.” Beside this was the notation, “Not a big item but a steady. Every audience. Can pull as cold reading during stall part of act.”
The figures, then, were a record of the number of similar questions collected from the same audience. The question “Is my wife faithful?” had only about a third the number of entries as the one about the husband.
“The chumps,” Stan whispered. “Either too bashful to ask or too dumb to suspect.” But they were anxious to find out, all of them. As if jazzing wasn’t what they all want, the goddamned hypocrites. They all want it. Only nobody else must have it. He turned the page.
“There is a recurring pattern followed by the questions asked. For every unusual question there will be fifty that you have had before. Human nature is the same everywhere. All have the same troubles. They are worried. Can control anybody by finding out what he’s afraid of. Works with question-answering act. Think out things most people are afraid of and hit them right where they live. Health, Wealth, Love. And Travel and Success. They’re all afraid of ill health, of poverty, of boredom, of failure. Fear is the key to human nature. They’re afraid…”
Stan looked past the pages to the garish wallpaper and through it into the world. The geek was made by fear. He was afraid of sobering up and getting the horrors. But what made him a drunk? Fear. Find out what they are afraid of and sell it back to them. That’s the key. The key! He had known it when Clem Hoately had told him how geeks are made. But here was Pete saying the same thing:
Health. Wealth. Love. Travel. Success. “A few have to do with domestic troubles, in-laws, kids, pets. And so on. A few wisenheimers but you can ditch them easily enough. Idea: combine question-answering act with code act. Make list of questions, hook up with code numbers. Answer vague at first, working toward definite. If can see face of spectator and tell when hitting.”
On the following pages was a neatly numbered list of questions. There were exactly a hundred. Number One was “Is my husband true to me?” Number Two was “Will I get a job soon?”
Outside the front of Ayres’ Department Store had turned rosy-red with the coming sun. Stan paid it no heed. The sun slid up, the sound of wagon tires on concrete told of the awakening city. At ten o’clock there was a tap on the door. Stan shook himself. “Yes?”
Zeena’s voice. “Wake up, sleepy head. Rise and shine.”
He unlocked the door and let her in.
“What you got the light on for?” She turned it out, then saw the book. “Lord’s sake, kid, ain’t you been to bed at all?”
Stan rubbed his eyes and stood up. “Ask me a number. Any number up to a hundred.”
“Fifty-five.”
“Will my mother-in-law always live with us?”
Zeena sat down beside him and ran her fingers through his hair. “You know what I think, kid? I think you’re a mind reader.”
The carny turned south and the pines began to line sandy roads. Cicadas drummed the late summer air and the crowds of white people were gaunter, their faces filled with desolation, their lips often stained with snuff.
Everywhere the shining, dark faces of the South’s other nation caught the highlights from the sun. They stood in quiet wonder, watching the carny put up in the smoky morning light. In the Ten-in-One they stood always on the fringe of the crowd, an invisible cordon holding them in place. When one of the whites turned away sharply and jostled them the words “Scuse me,” fell from them like pennies balanced on their shoulders.
Stan had never been this far south and something in the air made him uneasy. This was dark and bloody land where hidden war traveled like a million earthworms under the sod.
The speech fascinated him. His ear caught the rhythm of it and he noted their idioms and worked some of them into his patter. He had found the reason behind the peculiar, drawling language of the old carny hands-it was a composite of all the sprawling regions of the country. A language which sounded Southern to Southerners, Western to Westerners. It was the talk of the soil and its drawl covered the agility of the brains that poured it out. It was a soothing, illiterate, earthy language.
The carny changed its tempo. The outside talkers spoke more slowly.
Zeena cut the price of her horoscopes to a dime each but sold “John the Conqueror Root” along with them for fifteen cents. This was a dried mass of twisting roots which was supposed to attract good fortune when carried in a bag around the neck. Zeena got them by the gross from an occult mail-order house in Chicago.
Stan’s pitch of the magic books took a sudden drop and Zeena knew the answer. “These folks down here don’t know nothing about sleight-of-hand, honey. Half of ’em figure you’re doing real magic. Well, you got to have something superstitious to pitch.”
Stan ordered a gross of paper-backed books, “One Thousand and One Dreams Interpreted.” He threw in as a free gift a brass lucky coin stamped with the Seal of Love from the Seventh Book of Moses, said to attract the love of others and lead to the confusion of enemies. His pitch picked up in fine style. He learned to roll three of the lucky coins over his fingers at once. The tumbling, glittering cascade of metal seemed to fascinate the marks, and the dream books went fast.
He had learned the verbal code for questions not a day too soon, for the people couldn’t write or were too shy to try.
“Will you kindly answer this lady’s question at once?” Stan had cued the question, “Is my daughter all right?”
Zeena’s voice had taken on a deeper southern twang. “Well, now, I get the impression that the lady is worried about someone near and dear to her, someone she hasn’t heard from in a long time, am I right? Strikes me it’s a young lady- It’s your daughter you’re thinking of, isn’t it? Of course. And you want to know if she’s well and happy and if you’ll see her again soon. Well, I believe you will get some news of her through a third person before the month is out…”
There was one question that came up so often that Stan worked out a silent signal for it. He would simply jerk his head in Zeena’s direction. The first time he used it the question had come to him from a man-massive and loose-jointed with clear eyes smoldering in a handsome ebony face. “Am I ever going to make a trip?”
Zeena picked it up. “Man over there is wondering about something that’s going to happen to him and I want to say right here and now that I believe you’re going to get your wish. And I think it has something to do with travel. You want to make a trip somewheres. Isn’t that so? Well, I see some troubles on the road and I see a crowd of people-men, they are, asking a lot of questions. But I see the journey completed after a while, not as soon as you want to make it but after a while. And there’s a job waiting for you at the end of it. Job with good pay. It’s somewhere to the north of here; I’m positive of that.”
It was sure-fire. All of ’em want North, Stan thought. It was the dark alley, all over again. With a light at the end of it. Ever since he was a kid Stan had had the dream. He was running down a dark alley, the buildings vacant and black and menacing on either side. Far down at the end of it a light burned; but there was something behind him, close behind him, getting closer until he woke up trembling and never reached the light. They have it too-a nightmare alley. The North isn’t the end. The light will only move further on. And the fear close behind them. White and black, it made no difference. The geek and his bottle, staving off the clutch of the thing that came following after.
In the hot sun of noon the cold breath could strike your neck. In having a woman her arms were a barrier. But after she had fallen asleep the walls of the alley closed in on your own sleep and the footsteps followed.
Now the very country simmered with violence, and Stan looked enviously at the sculptured muscles of Bruno Hertz. It wasn’t worth the time and backbreaking effort it took to get that way. There must be an easier way. Some sort of jujitsu system where a man could use his brains and his agility. The Ackerman-Zorbaugh Monster Shows had never had a “Heyrube” since Stan had been with them, but the thought of one ate at his peace of mind like a maggot. What would he do in a mob fight? What would they do to him?
Then Sailor Martin nearly precipitated one.
It was a steaming day of late summer. The South had turned out: hollow-eyed women with children in their arms and clinging to their skirts, lantern-jawed men, deadly quiet.
Clem Hoately had mounted the platform where Bruno sat quietly fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan. “If you’ll step right this way, folks, I want to call your attention to one of the miracle men of all time-Herculo, the strongest man alive.”
Stan looked back to the rear of the tent. In the corner by the geek’s enclosure Sailor Martin had a couple of local youths engrossed in the strap on the barrelhead. He took a leather strap, folded it in the middle, then coiled it on the top of a nail keg. He placed his own finger in one of the two loops in the center and pulled the strap. His finger had picked the real loop in the strap. Then he bet one of the marks he couldn’t pick the real loop. The mark bet and won and the Sailor handed him a silver dollar.
Zeena drew the curtains of the little stage and came out at the side. She drew a handkerchief from her bosom and touched her temples with it. “Whew, ain’t it a scorcher today?” She followed Stan’s glance to the rear of the tent. “The Sailor better go easy. Hoately don’t like anybody to case the marks on the side this far south. Can’t blame him. Too likely to start a rumpus. I say, if you can’t make a living with your pitch you don’t belong in no decent Ten-in-One. I could pick up plenty of honest dollars if I wanted to give special private readings and remove evil influences and all that stuff. But that just leads to trouble.”
She stopped speaking and her hand tightened on Stan’s arm. “Stan, honey, you better take a walk over there and see what’s going on.”
Stan made no move to go. On the platform he was king; the marks in their anonymous mass were below him and his voice held them, but down on their level, jammed in among their milling, collective weight, he felt smothered.
Suddenly one of the youths drew back his foot and kicked over the nail keg on which Martin had wound the strap with the elusive loop. The Sailor’s voice was raised just a fraction above conversational level and he seemed to be speaking to the mark when he said, clearly and coolly, “Hey, rube!”
“Go on, Stan. Hurry. Don’t let ’em get started.”
As if he had a pistol pointed at his back, Stan marched across the tent to the spot where trouble was simmering. From the corner of his eye he saw Joe Plasky hop on his hands down the steps behind his own platform and swing his way toward the corner. He would not be alone, at least.
Plasky got there first. “Hello, gents. I’m one of the owners of the show. Everything all right?”
“Like hell it is,” blustered one of the marks. A young farmer, Stan judged. “This here tattooed son-of-a-bitch got five dollars of my money by faking. I seen this here strap swindle afore. I aims to get my money back.”
“If there’s any doubt in your mind about the fairness of any game of chance in the show I’m sure the Sailor here will return your original bet. We’re all here to have a good time, mister, and we don’t want any hard feelings.”
The other mark spoke up. He was a tall, raw-boned sodbuster with a mouth which chronically hung open, showing long yellow teeth. “I seen this here trick afore, too, mister. Cain’t fool me. Cain’t nobody pick out that loop, way this feller unwinds it. A feller showed me how it works one time. It’s a gahdamned swindle.”
Joe Plasky’s smile was broader than ever. He reached in the pocket of his shirt and drew out a roll of bills and took off a five. He held it up to the farmer. “Here’s the money out of my own pocket, son. If you can’t afford to lose you can’t afford to bet. I’m just returning your bet because we want everybody to have a good time and no hard feelings. Now you boys better mosey along.”
The youth shoved the five into the pocket of his pants and the two of them slouched out. Plasky turned to the Sailor. His smile was still there, but a hard, steady light shone in his eyes. “You dumb bastard! This is a tough town. The whole damn state is tough. And you haven’t any more sense than to start a Heyrube. For Christ’s sake watch your step! Now give me the five.”
Sailor Martin spat between his teeth into the dust. “I won that fin and I could of handled them two jakes. Who elected you Little Tin Jesus around here?”
Plasky put his fingers in his mouth and whistled a single blast. The tip around the last platform was on its way out and Hoately turned back. Joe waved his hand in an arc and Hoately signaled back and let the canvas drop to close the front entrance. Outside old Maguire began to grind, trying to gather a tip and hold them until the show was opened again.
Bruno dropped lightly from his platform and strode over. Stan felt Zeena beside him. Major Mosquito was running back on his infant’s legs, shrilling something incoherent.
Joe Plasky said evenly, “Sailor, you been leaving a trail of busted hearts and busted cherries all along the route. Now you’re going to hand me that fin and pack up your gear. You’re quitting the show. Hoately will back me up.”
Stan’s knees were weak. Zeena’s hand was on his arm, her fingers gripping it. Would he be expected to take on the Sailor? Joe was a cripple, Bruno a superman. Stan was broader and heavier than the Sailor but the thought of a fight sickened him. He never felt that fists were good enough. He would have carried a gun except that it was a lot of trouble and he was afraid of killing with it.
Martin eyed the group. Bruno stood quietly in the background. “I don’t fight no cripples, polack. And I don’t owe you no five.” The Sailor’s lips were pale, his eyes hot.
The half-man acrobat reached up and took him by the hand, gripping the fingers together and bending them so that the tattooed man quickly sank to his knees. “Hey, leggo, you bastard!”
Silently and with his face a blank, Plasky crossed his forearms. He let go of Martin’s hand and seized the collar of his robe in both fists. Then he levered his wrists together, forcing the backs of his hands into the Sailor’s throat. Martin was caught in a human vise. His mouth dropped. He clawed frantically at the crossed arms of the half-man but the more he tugged, the tighter they crushed him. His eyes began to bulge and his hair fell over them.
Major Mosquito was leaping up and down, making fighting motions and shadowboxing. “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Choke him till he’s dead! Kill the big ape!” He rushed in and began hammering the Sailor’s staring face with tiny fists. Bruno picked him up, wriggling, and held him at arm’s length by the collar of his jacket.
Joe began to shake the tattoo artist, gently at first and then harder. The calm deadliness of that ingenious and unbreakable hold filled Stan with terror and wild joy.
Clem Hoately came running up. “Okay, Joe. Guess he’s educated. Let’s break it up. We got a good tip waiting.”
Joe smiled his smile of one raised from the dead. He released Sailor, who sat up rubbing his throat and breathing hard. Plasky reached into the pocket of the robe and found a wad of bills, took out a five and put the rest back.
Hoately picked the Sailor up and stood him on his feet. “You knock off, Martin. I’ll pay you up to the end of the month. Pack up your stuff and leave whenever you want to.”
When Martin was able to speak his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Okay. I’m on my way. I can take my needles into any barber shop and make more dough than in this crummy layout. But watch out, all of you.”
Middle evening and a good crowd. Beyond the canvas and the gaudily painted banners Hoately’s voice was raspy.
“Hi, look! Hi, look! Hi, look! Right this way for the monster aggregation of nature’s mistakes, novelty entertainments, and the world-renowned museum of freaks, marvels, and curiosities. Featuring Mamzelle Electra, the little lady who defies the lightning.”
Stan looked across at Molly Cahill. When she held the sputtering arc points together she always flinched; the last day or two, whenever he saw it, a little thrill leaped up his spine. Now she bent over and placed her compact behind the electric chair. Bending stretched her sequinned trunks tight over her buttocks.
It’s funny how you can see a girl every day for months and yet not see her, Stan thought. Then something will happen-like the way Molly’s mouth presses together when she holds the arc points and the fire starts to fly. Then you see her all different.
He dragged his glance away from the girl. Across the tent the massive chest of Bruno Hertz shone pink with sweat as he flexed the muscles of his upper arms, rippling under the pink skin, and the crowd rubbered.
Molly was sitting demurely in a bentwood chair beside the heavy, square menace with its coiled wires, its straps and its chilling suggestion of death which was as phoney as everything else in the carny. She was studying a green racing form. Absorbed, she reached down and scratched one ankle and Stan felt the ripple go up his back again.
Molly’s eyes were on the racing sheet but she had stopped looking at it and was looking through it, her mind in the dream she always dreamed.
There was a man in it and his face was always in shadow. He was taller than she and his voice was low and intense and his hands were brown and powerful. They walked slowly, drinking in the summer reflected from every grass blade, shining from every pebble in fields singing with summer. An old rail fence and beyond it a field rising like a wave, a pasture where the eyes of daisies looked up at a sky so blue it made you ache.
His face was shadowy still, as his arms stole about her. She pressed her hands against the hardness of his chest, but his mouth found hers. She tried to turn her head away; but then his fingers were caressing her hair, his kisses falling upon the hollow of her throat while his other hand found her breast…
“Over here, folks, right over here. On this platform we have a little lady who is one of the marvels and mysteries of the age -Mamzelle Electra!”
Stan came up the steps behind Joe Plasky’s platform and sat on the edge of it. “How they going?”
Joe smiled and went on assembling the novelties in his joke books, slipping the free gifts between the pages. “Can’t complain. Good crowd tonight, ain’t it?”
Stan shifted his seat. “I wonder if the Sailor will try to do us any dirt?”
Joe swung himself closer on his calloused knuckles and said, “Can’t tell. But I don’t think so. After all, he is carny. He’s a louse, too. But we just want to keep our eyes open. I don’t think he’ll try to call me in spades-not after he’s felt the nami juji.”
Stan frowned. “Felt what?”
“Nami juji. That’s the Jap name for it-that crosshanded choke I slipped on him. That takes some of the starch out of ’em.”
The blond head was alert. “Joe, that was terrific, what you did. How in hell did you ever learn that?”
“Jap showed me. We had a Jap juggler when I was with the Keyhoe Shows. It’s easy enough to do. He taught me a lot of ju-jit stuff only that’s one of the best.”
Stan moved closer. “Show me how you do it.”
Plasky reached over and slid his right hand up Stan’s right coat lapel until he was grasping the collar at the side of Stan’s throat. He crossed his left arm over his right and gripped the left side of the collar. Suddenly Stan felt his throat caught in an iron wedge. It loosened immediately; Plasky dropped his hands and smiled. Stan’s knees were trembling.
“Let me see if I can do it.” He gripped Plasky’s black turtle-neck sweater with one hand.
“Higher up, Stan. You got to grab it right opposite the big artery in the neck-here.” He shifted the younger man’s hand slightly. “Now cross your forearms and grab the other side. Right. Now then, bend your wrists and force the backs of your hands into my neck. That cuts off the blood from the brain.”
Stan felt a surge of power along his arms. He did not know that his lips had drawn back over his teeth. Plasky slapped his arm quickly and he let go.
“Christ a-mighty, kid, you want to be careful with that! If you leave it on just a mite too long you’ll have a corpse on your hands. And you got to practice getting it quick. It’s a little hard to slip on but once you’ve got it the other fella can’t break it- unless he knows the real Jap stuff.”
Both men looked up as Maguire, the ticket seller, hurried toward them.
“She-ess-oo flee-ess-eyes!” He ducked past them to where Hoately stood on the Electric Girl’s platform.
Plasky’s smile widened as it always did in the face of trouble. “Shoo flies, kid. Cops. Just take it easy and you’ll be all right. Here’s where Hoately will have to do some real talking. And the fixer will have to earn his pay. I been expecting they’d slough the whole joint one of these days.”
“What happens to us?” Stan’s mouth had gone dry.
“Nothing, kid, if everybody keeps his head. Never argue with a cop. That’s what you pay a mouthpiece for. Treat ’em polite and yes ’em to death and send for a mouthpiece. Hell, Stan, you got a lot to learn yet about the carny.”
A whistle sounded from the entrance. Stan’s head spun toward it.
A big, white-haired man with a badge pinned to his denim shirt stood there. His hat was pushed back and he had his thumbs hooked in his belt. A holster containing a heavy revolver hung from a looser belt on a slant. Hoately raised his voice, grinning down at the marks below Molly’s platform.
“That will conclude our performance for the time being, folks. Now I guess you’re all kind of dry and could stand a nice cold drink so I call your attention to the stand directly across the midway where you can get all the nice cold soda pop you can drink. That’s all for now, folks. Come back tomorrow night and we’ll have a few surprises for you-things you didn’t see tonight.”
The marks obediently began to drift out of the tent and Hoately approached the law. “What can I do for you, Chief? My name’s Hoately and I’m owner of this attraction. You’re welcome to inspect every inch of it and I’ll give you all the cooperation you want. We’ve got no girl shows and no games of skill or chance.”
The old man’s hard little colorless eyes rested on Hoately as they would on a spider in the corner of a backhouse. “Stand here.”
“You’re the boss.”
The old man’s gaze flickered over the Ten-in-One tent. He pointed to the geek’s enclosure. “What you got in there?”
“Snake charmer,” Hoately said casually. “Want to see him?”
“That ain’t what I heard. I heard you got an obscene and illegal performance going on here with cruelty to dumb animals. I got a complaint registered this evening.”
The showman pulled out a bag of tobacco and papers and began to build a cigarette. His left hand made a quick twist, and the cigarette took form. He licked the paper with his tongue and struck a match. “Why don’t you stay as my guest and view the entire performance, Chief? We’d be glad-”
The wide mouth tightened. “I got orders from the marshal to close down the show. And arrest anybody I see fit. I’m arresting you and-” He slid his eyes over the performers: Bruno placid in his blue robe, Joe Plasky smilingly assembling his pitch items, Stan making a half dollar vanish and reappear, Molly still sitting in the Electric Chair, the sequins of her skimpy bodice winking as her breasts rose and fell. She was smiling tautly. “And I’m taking that woman there-indecent exposure. We got decent women in this town. And we got daughters; growin’ girls. We don’t allow no naked women paradin’ around and makin’ exposes of ’emselves. The rest of you stay right here in case we need you. All right, you two, come along. Put a coat on that girl first. She ain’t decent enough to come down to the lockup thataway.”
Stan noticed that the stubble on the deputy marshal’s chin was white-like a white fungus on a dead man, he thought savagely. Molly’s eyes were enormous.
Hoately cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Looky here, Chief, that girl’s never had no complaints. She’s got to wear a costume like that on account of she handles electric wires and ordinary cloth might catch fire and…”
The deputy reached out one hand and gripped Hoately by the shirt. “Shut up. And don’t try offering me any bribes, neither. I ain’t none o’ your thievin’ northern police, kissin’ the priest’s toe on Sundays and raking in the graft hell-bent for election six days a week. I’m a church deacon and I aim to keep this a clean town if I have to run every Jezebel out of it on a fence rail.”
His tiny eyes were fastened on Molly’s bare thighs. He raised his glance ever so slightly to take in her shoulders and the crease between her breasts. The eyes grew hot and the slack mouth raised at the corners. Beside the Electric Girl’s platform he noticed a neat young man with corn-yellow hair saying something to the girl who nodded and then darted her attention back to the deputy.
The law lumbered over, dragging Hoately with him. “Young lady, git off that contraption.” He reached up a red-knuckled hand toward Molly. Stan was on the other side of the platform feeling for the switch. There was an ominous buzzing and crackling: Molly’s black hair stood straight up like a halo around her head. She brought her finger tips together. Blue fire flowed between them. The deputy stopped, stony. The girl reached out, and sparks jumped in a flashing stream from her fingers to the deputy’s. With a shout he drew back, releasing Hoately. The buzz of the static generator stopped and a voice drew his attention; it was the blond youth.
“You can see the reason, Marshal, for the metal costume the young lady is forced to wear. The electricity would ignite any ordinary fabric and only by wearing the briefest of covering can she avoid bursting into flame. Thousands of volts of electricity cover her body like a sheath. Pardon me, Marshal, but there seem to be several dollar bills coming out of your pocket.”
In spite of himself, the deputy followed Stan’s pointing finger. He saw nothing. Stan reached out and one after another five folded dollar bills appeared from the pocket of the denim shirt. He made them into a little roll and pressed them into the old man’s hand. “Another minute and you’d have lost your money, Marshal.”
The deputy’s eyes were half shut with disbelief and hostile suspicion; but he shoved the cash into his shirt pocket.
Stan went on, “And I see that you have bought your wife a little present of a few silk handkerchiefs.” From the cartridge belt Stan slowly drew out a bright green silk, then another of purple. “These are very pretty. I’m sure your wife will like them. And here’s a pure white one-for your daughter. She’s about nineteen now, isn’t she, Marshal?”
“How’d you know I got a daughter?”
Stan rolled the silks into a ball and they vanished. His face was serious, the blue eyes grave. “I know many things, Marshal. I don’t know exactly how I know them but there’s nothing supernatural about it, I am sure. My family was Scotch and the Scotch are often gifted with powers that the old folks used to call ‘second sight.”’
The white head with its coarse, red face, nodded involuntarily.
“For instance,” Stan went on, “I can see that you have carried a pocket piece or curio of some kind for nearly twenty years. Probably a foreign coin.”
One great hand made a motion toward the pants pocket. Stan felt his own pulse racing with triumph. Two more hits and he’d have him.
“Several times you have lost that luck-piece but you’ve found it again every time; and it means a lot to you, you don’t exactly know why. I’d say that you should always carry it.”
The deputy’s eyes had lost some of their flint.
From the tail of his eye Stan saw that the Electric Chair above them was empty; Molly had disappeared. So had everyone else except Hoately who stood slightly to the rear of the deputy, nodding his head wisely at every word of the magician’s.
“Now this isn’t any of my business, Marshal, because I know you are a man who is fully capable of handling his own affairs and just about anything else that is liable to come along. But my Scotch blood is working right this minute and it tells me that there is one thing in your life that is worrying you and it’s something you find it difficult to handle. Because all your strength and your courage and your authority in the town seem to be of no avail. It seems to slip through your grasp like water-”
“Wait a minute, young fella. What are you talkin’ ’bout?”
“As I said, it’s absolutely none of my business. And you are a man in the prime of life and old enough to be my father and by rights you should be the one to give me good advice and not the other way round. But in this case I may be able to do you a good turn. I sense that there are antagonistic influences surrounding you. Someone near to you is jealous of you and your ability. And while part of this extends to your work as a peace officer and your duties in upholding the law, there is another part of it that has to do with your church…”
The face had changed. The savage lines had ironed out and now it was simply the face of an old man, weary and bewildered. Stan hurried on, panicky for fear the tenuous spell would break, but excited at his own power. If I can’t read a Bible-spouting, whoremongering, big-knuckled hypocrite of a church deacon, he told himself, I’m a feeblo. The old son-of-a-bitch.
Stan’s eyes misted over as if they had turned inward. His voice grew intimate. “There is someone you love very dearly. Yet there is an obstacle in the way of your love. You feel hemmed-in and trapped by it. And through it all I seem to hear a woman’s voice, a sweet voice, singing. It’s singing a beautiful old hymn. Wait a moment. It’s ‘Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me.”’
The deputy’s mouth was open, his big chest was lifting and falling with his breath.
“I see a Sunday morning in a peaceful, beautiful little church. A church into which you have put your energy and your labor. You have labored hard in the Lord’s vineyard and your labor has borne fruit in the love of a woman. But I see her eyes filled with tears and somehow your own heart is touched by them…”
Christ, how far do I dare go with this? Stan thought behind the running patter of his words.
“But I feel that all will come out well for you. Because you have strength. And you’ll get more. The Lord will give you strength. And there are malicious tongues about you, ready to do you an injury. And to do this fine woman an injury if they can. Because they are like whited sepulchers which appear beautiful outward but are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness and…”
The deacon’s eyes were hot again but this time not at Stan. There was a hunted look in them too as the youth bore down:
“And the spirit of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has shined upon them but in vain, because they see as through a glass, darkly, and the darkness is nothing but a reflection of their own blackness and sin and hypocrisy and envy. But deep inside yourself you will find the power to combat them. And defeat them. And you will do it with the help of the God you believe in and worship.
“And while I feel the spirit talking to me straight out, like a father to his son, I must tell you that there’s a matter of some money coming to you that will cause you some disappointment and delay but you will get it. I can see that the people in this town have been pretty blind in the past but something in the near future will occur which will wake them up and make them realize that you are a more valuable man than they ever would admit. There’s a surprise for you-about this time next year or a little later, say around November. Something you’ve had your heart set on for a long time but it will come true if you follow the hunches you get and don’t let anybody talk you out of obeying your own good judgment which has never let you down yet -whenever you’ve given it a free rein.”
Hoately had evaporated. Stan turned and began to move slowly toward the gate. The midway outside was buzzing with little groups of talk. The entire carny had been sloughed and the deputies had chased the townies off the lot. Stan walked slowly, talking still in a soft, inward voice. The old man followed beside him, his eyes staring straight ahead.
“I’m very glad to have met you, Marshal. Because I expect to be back here again some day and I’d like to see if my Scotch blood had been telling me true, as I’m sure it has. I’m sure you don’t mind a young fellow like myself presuming to tell you these things, because, after all, I’m not pretending to advise you. I know you’ve lived a lot longer than I and have more knowledge of the ways of the world than I could ever have. But when I first set eyes on you I thought to myself, ‘Here’s a man and a servant of the law who is troubled deep in his mind,’ and then I saw that you had no reason to be because things are going to turn out just the way you want them to, only there will be a little delay…”
How the hell shall I finish this off, Stan wondered. I can talk myself right back into the soup if I don’t quit.
They reached the entrance and Stan paused. The deputy’s red, hard face turned toward him; the silence seemed to pour over Stan and smother him. This was the pay-off, and his heart sank. There was nothing more to be said now. This was where action started. Stan felt out of his depth. Then he suddenly knew the business that would work, if anything would. He turned away from the old man. Making his face look as spiritual as possible, he raised one hand and rested it easily in a gesture of peace and confidence against the looped canvas. It was a period at the end of the sentence.
The deputy let out a long, whistling breath, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and stood looking out on the darkening midway. Then he turned back to Stan and his voice was just an ordinary old man’s voice. “Young fella, I wisht I’d met you a long time ago. Tell the others to go easy in this town because we aim to keep it clean. But, by God, when-if I’m ever elected marshal you ain’t got nothing to worry about, long as you have a good, clean show. Good night, son.”
He plodded away slowly, his shoulders squared against the dark, authority slapping his thigh on a belt heavy with cartridges.
Stan’s collar was tight with the blood pounding beneath it. His head was as light as if he had a fever.
The world is mine, God damn it! The world is mine! I’ve got ’em across the barrel and I can shake them loose from whatever I want. The geek has his whisky. The rest of them drink something else: they drink promises. They drink hope. And I’ve got it to hand them. I’m running over with it. I can get anything I want. If I could hand this old fart a cold reading and get away with it I could do it to a senator! I could do it to a governor!
Then he remembered where he had told her to hide.
In the black space where the trucks were parked, Zeena’s van was behind the others, dark and silent. He opened the cab door softly and crept in, his blood hammering.
“Molly!”
“Yes, Stan.” The whisper came from the black cavern behind the seat.
“It’s okay, kid. I stalled him. He’s gone.”
“Oh, Stan, gee, you’re great. You’re great.”
Stan crawled back over the seat and his hand touched a soft, hot shoulder. It was trembling. His arm went about it. “Molly!”
Lips found his. He crushed her back on a pile of blankets.
“Stan, you won’t let anything happen to me-will you?”
“Certainly not. Nothing’s ever going to happen to you while I’m around.”
“Oh, Stan, you’re so much like my dad.”
The hooks which held the sequinned bodice came open in his shaking fingers. The girl’s high, pointed breasts were smooth under his hands, and his tongue entered her lips.
“Don’t hurt me, Stan, honey. Don’t.” His collar choked him, the blood hammering in his throat. “Oh. Stan-hurt me, hurt me, hurt me-”