Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 4, April 1972

The Missing Tattoo by Clayton Matthews

Only by guarding what lies behind can there be safety from what may lie ahead.

The carnie night was a kaleidoscope of psychedelic colors and a riot of sound, the whoosh of the rides, the braying voices of concession-joint men and sideshow barkers, and over and under it all the merry tinkle of the merry-go-round calliope.

Bernie Mather, the front talker for the Ten-in-One freak show, was just beginning his bally, beating on a gong to attract attention, his voice pouring into the hand mike. “Hi, lookee, hi, lookee! Gather down close, folks, for a free show. Hi, lookee, this is where the freaks are!”

I stood on the edge of the gathering crowd before the freak show bally platform. It was going to be a big tip. Montana’s Wonder Shows was playing at a fair, and the crowds were satisfactorily large along the midway.

A passing carnie tapped me on the shoulder. “Hi, Patch. I see you’re still with it.”

“Yeah, I’m still with it.”

That’s me — Patch. Real name, Dave Cole, but to everybody on the Montana carnival I was Patch. To a carnie, a patch is exactly what the name implies. A fixer, the guy who greases the local fuzz, if grease is needed, to allow the games to operate openly and to permit the broads in the girlie shows to strip down to the buff. Oddly enough, considering the insular carnie world’s dislike of any and all fuzz, I also operated as a sort of law on the lot, keeping the peace, seeing that the game agents didn’t get too greedy, arbitrating disputes, whatever. In short, a carnie patch is a troubleshooter. In some ways I had more power around the carnie than Tex Montana, the owner, who paid my salary.

In fact, Kay Foster, the cook-tent cashier, had once accused me of just that. “You know why you stay a carnie, Dave, when you could probably set up a private law practice somewhere? You like the power you have here. Big frog in a little puddle.”

Kay and I had a mild thing going, and she hated carnie life. I had practiced law briefly some years back, had run into a spot of trouble, not enough to get me disbarred but close to it.

Anyway, Kay thought I should marry her, quit the carnie and return to being a townie. I was willing to marry her, but wasn’t yet prepared for the other. I resented the frog-in-the-puddle crack. I enjoyed the life of a carnie, and the job I had. It had its compensations.

I noticed that Bernie had spotted me in the crowd. He winked and turned with a flourish of his cane. “All right, folks, I’m going to bring out the freaks now, give you a free sample of what you will see inside for the small price of an admission ticket!”

The freak show had ten acts. For each pitch Bernie brought out three freaks, usually different ones. Those that were mobile, that is. Sally, the Fat Lady, for instance, weighed in the neighborhood of seven hundred pounds, and it would have taken a hoist to get her onto the bally platform.

This time Bernie brought out Sam, the Anatomical Marvel, Dirk, the Sword Swallower, and May, the Tattooed Lady. Some freaks are natural, born that way, others are gimmicked. The Anatomical Marvel was natural, the Sword Swallower gimmicked, and May would have to be placed somewhere in between. I had been with Montana’s Wonder Shows for three seasons and had made myself familiar with all the carnies, the Ten-in-One freaks included, but I was still fascinated by May’s tattoos. Bernie, who’d been a freak show operator for twenty years, once told me she had the most thoroughly tattooed body he’d ever seen. Bernie was also the inside talker during each performance, so May was right under his nose, in a manner of speaking.

May was thirty, give or take, and had a lovely face. That was all you could see of her on the bally platform. She wore a long robe covering her from neck to toe. I’d seen her on exhibition inside any number of times, wearing briefs and a halter. The rest of her, every visible inch, was covered with marvelously designed tattoos, like a painting you have to study a long time to get its full meaning. Religious sketches, hunting scenes, profiles of famous men, the American flag, and across her abdomen sailed a two-masted schooner, which she could cause to pitch and toss with contortions of her stomach.

Wise old Bernie only tantalized with May now, flicking at the folds of her robe with the tip of his cane and giving the crowd a teasing peek at a leg tattooed up out of sight.

As I walked away, Bernie had already turned away from May and was pointing at double-jointed Sam, the Anatomical Marvel, who also knew just how much exposure a bally called for. He waggled each ear in a different direction and held one hand straight out while he rotated each finger separately.

It was close to midnight now, and the crowd was beginning to thin out as I strolled to the cook tent. The people remaining were mostly clotted around the show tents as the talkers did their last bally of the night.

The cook tent was beginning to fill up as some carnies had already packed it in for the night. At the cash register Kay was busy, so I flipped a hand at her and went on back for coffee and a midnight sandwich.

I took my time, having a second cup of coffee, waiting for all the shows and rides to close down, so I could prowl the midway and see that it was buttoned up for the night. It wasn’t my job to do guard duty — we had two night men for that — but I liked to check things out for myself.

Soon, everything was closed but the cook tent. Many of the carnies lived in house trailers or tents on the lot and could cook there, but most of them came to the cook tent to lie about their night’s grosses. I was about to get up and start my tour of inspection when I saw a man I recognized as a canvasman from the Ten-in-One hurrying toward my table.

“Patch, Bernie needs you right away!”

I stood up. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s May. She’s dead!”

“Dead?”

“Murdered, looks like!”

I remembered where I was and glanced around, but it was too late. Those close to me had fallen silent, and I knew they’d overheard. The word would spread like a tent blaze. I waved the canvasman quiet and hustled him out.

We hurried toward the Ten-in-One, feet crunching in the fresh wood shavings already spread along the midway for tomorrow’s crowds. The midway was deserted now, all the lights off except a string of bulbs down the center. The concession tent flaps were down, like greedy mouths satiated and closed, and the rides were still, like monsters of various shapes and sizes slumbering under their night hoods.

Bernie was waiting for me in front of the show tent. A slender, dapper man of indeterminate age, he leaned against the ticket box, a glowing pipe stuck in a face as narrow as an ax blade.

“What’s happened, Bernie? Somebody kill May?” I asked.

“I can’t see what else,” he said in his raspy voice. “We turned a small tip for the last show and May said she had to... Well, she had something to do, so I told her to go ahead, the marks wouldn’t miss one tattooed lady. After we sloughed it for the night, I went back to her trailer. The lights were on, but she didn’t answer my knock. I found the door wasn’t locked, so I opened it and went in. May was lying there, a knife in her back.”

“Was the knife from Dirk’s trunk?”

Bernie looked startled, at least as startled as he ever looked. “You know, I never thought of that, but it could be, it just could be.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking. Before becoming a sword swallower, Dirk had had a knife-throwing act and May, before she’d been tattooed, had been his assistant. Knife-throwing acts are old hat, not much in demand anymore, so Dirk stopped throwing knives and started swallowing them, and May got tattooed. What was giving me pause for thought was a memory surfacing. Dirk and May had also once had a thing going, a romance that had dissolved when May met Vernon Raines, who talked her into becoming a tattooed lady. Vernon was a charmer and a crook. Not a crook in the carnie sense of a flat-joint operator, but a heist artist, a man with a gun. He had used the carnie as a cover-up, committing townie crimes, such as holding up banks. We hadn’t known that, of course — Tex Montana wouldn’t have stood for it. Last season, however, Vernon had held up a bank in a town called Midfork, killing a guard, and got away with a hundred grand. He was caught before he could spend any of it. That was when we learned Vernon had a record. Because of that record, and his killing the bank guard, he got life, with no possibility of parole.

The money was never found.

“Well...” I sighed heavily. “I guess we’d better go have a look.”

We started around the tent to where May’s trailer was parked. Bernie said nothing about my calling the police. I would have to do that eventually, of course, but the carnies wouldn’t call them on their own initiative if the midway was stacked knee-deep with corpses.

As we rounded the corner of the tent and came in sight of the Ten-in-One freaks clustered before the trailer, Bernie stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Before you go in there, Patch, there’s something you should know...” He hesitated.

“Well?”

“It’s kind of a queer thing... and I’ve seen some queer things in my years of carnying.”

“What’s the queer thing? Get on with it, man!”

“One of May’s tattoos is missing.”

“What?” I gaped at him. “What’s missing?”

“Somebody peeled a piece of skin off her back, about two inches square.”

I closed my mouth with a snort and began plowing my way through the gathered carnies. The trailer lights were on, and I opened the door and stepped inside. May lay facedown on the floor of the living area, still in the halter and shorts she’d worn for the shows. The brown handle of a long knife protruded from her back just below the left shoulder blade, and lower down on her back, just as Bernie had said, a piece of skin, roughly two inches square, was missing.

There was very little blood, only a little oozing, which meant she had been dead, the heart had stopped pumping, when the skin had been cut away.

Bernie stepped inside, and I asked him, “What tattoo is missing?”

“How the hell should I know? With all the tattoos May had, who can tell which one is missing?”

“I don’t suppose any pictures were ever taken of her tattoos?”

“None that I know of.”

“Somebody should know what one is missing. Vernon maybe — he had her tattooed, but he’s in jail.”

“Not anymore he ain’t.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“He escaped sometime last night. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t know!” I snarled. “How did you know?”

“May told me,” Bernie said calmly. “She said Vernon called here, wanted to see her. That’s what she was so upset about.”

“Did he show up?”

“He could have, but I didn’t see him.”

“He could have killed her, too! I don’t suppose it occurred to you to tell the police an escaped con was on his way here?”

Bernie just looked at me.

“All right! Sorry I asked. You could have told me, at least.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was any of my business.”

“It figures,” I muttered, then sighed. “I hope you don’t mind too much if I call the police now, but I’d like to talk to Dirk first. I didn’t see him outside.”

“I imagine he’s in his tent getting bombed. You know he still had a thing for May and the stupid broad told him that Vernon was on the loose.”

“Seems everybody knew Vernon was out but me.”

“No reason for you to know, Patch. Who’d have thought he would kill her? What reason did he have?”

“If he did,” I muttered, walking out of the trailer.

Neither of us put it into words, but I knew the same thought had to be in Bernie’s mind. Obviously May had been killed for the two-by-two tattoo, and if Vernon had killed her, it could only be for one reason. The tattoo was a map of where the bank loot was hidden. That was ironic in a way. For over a year May had been walking around, on exhibition before thousands of people, with directions on her back where to find a hundred grand, except nobody could have recognized it as such. Yet, if Vernon had killed her, why would he do it for that reason? To save splitting the loot with her?

I told Bernie to stay behind and keep everyone out of the trailer. He was filling his pipe from a cavernous leather tobacco pouch as I left him.

Dirk’s tent was up the line about thirty yards. Dirk had been hitting the booze, all right. I could smell it when I pushed the tent flap back and went in. I fumbled overhead for the light cord.

When the light came on, Dirk, lying fully clothed on the cot, stirred and sat up, which meant he couldn’t be too drunk. He threw an arm up to shield his eyes from the light and said blearily, “Huh? What is it?”

Dirk was in my age bracket, around forty. Nobody knew his real name. Around a carnie, you don’t ask that question. He was over six feet, thin as a board, with an emaciated look. As a part of the act he swallowed a lighted neon tube — you could see it through the outer wall of his stomach. It was pretty weird, watching that tube of light travel down inside his skinny frame.

“Oh... it’s you, Patch.” He blinked at me. “What’s up?”

I decided to use shock treatment. “May’s dead, Dirk. Murdered.”

“May’s what...?” He started away from the cot, staggered and almost fell. “Murdered?”

I snapped the questions at him. “Were you in May’s trailer tonight, Dirk?”

“No... Of course not. Right after my last turn I came in here for a drink or two. May left earlier.”

“Were you still in love with her?”

“No... Well, yes, but May... The marriage was over, Patch, you knew that.”

I should explain that a carnie “marriage” is often without benefit of license or clergy and could last anywhere from a week up to a lifetime. A carnie doesn’t consider this as illegal or immoral. If it works, who’s hurt? If it doesn’t work, it’s much less trouble to dissolve, one or both parties deciding it’s over. Carnies did this long before the hippies did, proving there’s little that’s new. But understand, many carnie marriages, probably the majority, are legal in every sense of the word.

“Did you know Vernon was on his way here to see May?”

Dirk hesitated a moment before replying. “Yes, May told me.”

“Did you see him tonight?”

“No...” He took a step toward me. “Did Vernon kill her?”

“I don’t know. Did you?”

He literally staggered, reeling as from a blow. “I wouldn’t kill May, Patch!”

“Let’s see your knife case, Dirk.”

“Why?”

“She was killed with a knife, a throwing knife.”

“And you’re thinking—?”

“Dirk, let’s see it!”

“Okay, okay!”

Dirk pulled a trunk from under his cot, from which he took a special case, flat like an attache case and slightly larger. He put it on the cot and opened it.

I stepped closer. The case, lined in velvet, held two rows of knives in graduated sizes and shapes, all fitted into niches in the velvet and held in place by leather straps. There were twenty... No, eighteen. Two were missing.

Dirk gasped. “Two are gone!”

“And I know where one is. In May’s back.”

“Patch, I swear...”

“How long since you’ve looked in the case?”

“Oh, weeks, I guess. I open it now and then to clean and polish them, keep them from rusting.”

“Were any missing the last time you looked?”

“No, they were all there.”

“All right, Dirk. Don’t suddenly decide to take off. It’s time I got the law in on this thing.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Patch,” he said steadily.

I went up the midway to the office wagon. Tex Montana, a huge man of sixty-odd, flamboyant in his cowboy garb, boots, Stetson, and the rest, was waiting for me. The nearest Tex had ever been to either Texas or Montana was western Missouri, when his carnie played a fair date there once. I briefed him on the situation, and he agreed I should call the town fuzz.

We were in Iowa, high corn country, and I expected a hick. Consequently, I was surprised by my first look at Sheriff Ray Tomlin. He wore a conservative suit, dark tie and white shirt — all business, with no manure on his shoes. It wasn’t long before he showed the usual townie wariness toward, and distrust of, carnies. Then, when he learned that the murder victim was a tattooed female member of a freak show, with a piece of tattooed skin missing...

I was sure I could read his thoughts: Who cares if one carnie freak killed another? Why put myself out? Two more days and they’ll be gone from my bailiwick. Then his second thought, when I’d told him about Dirk and Vernon: An escaped convict and a sword swallower, either one could have done it and who cares which one lands in jail?

Naturally his first choice would be Vernon. The capture of an escaped con, a murderer as well, could gain him a headline or two — but Vernon wasn’t available, so Dirk would have to do.

After May’s body was taken away, and the technicians had left, Sheriff Tomlin settled down to questioning a sullen Dirk. I eased out of the Ten-in-One tent, lit a cigar and strolled the midway, deep in thought.

The midway was totally deserted now. The only light, aside from the single string overhead, came from the cook tent up front. I paused in front of the House of Mirrors. I was uneasy over the second knife missing from Dirk’s case. Yet, if Vernon had been on the lot, had killed May, he’d be long gone by this time.

I dropped the cigar butt into the damp shavings and ground it out under my toe. Abruptly the front of the Glass House behind me blazed with light, the clown heads on each side of the entrance opening and closing enormous, hinged mouths, idiotic, recorded laughter pouring from them. A Glass House, ours called the House of Mirrors, is a structure of complicated glass corridors through which a paying customer wanders trying to find a way out. What he thinks are doors turn out to be mirrors, and vice versa. Most carnivals have one, for even though Glass Houses are usually a losing proposition, they are as traditional as Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds.

I squinted against the glare of light, peering into the glittering mirrors. A wanderer in the glass maze is reflected again and again and can be seen as he blunders nose-first into mirror after mirror, providing a hilarious and free spectator sport.

Now I saw, somewhere in the center of the maze, what seemed to be the figure of a man in a kneeling position, as though in prayer. If you’re familiar with the maze, you can walk all the way through and out again without faltering. I’d never mastered it. I was as much without a sense of direction inside as any mark. I thought of calling out, but I knew I couldn’t be heard over the insane laughter, and I didn’t know where the switches were.

With a sigh I tentatively stepped inside the House of Mirrors and was immediately lost in the glass maze. I stumbled and blundered, bumping my nose against solid glass until it began to throb like a sore tooth, and all the while I could see the crouching figure, now behind me, now ahead, never any closer. All the while, the canned laughter issuing from the speakers hidden in the hinged clown mouths assailed my ears until I wanted to scream.

After an eternity I made the right choice and stood beside the kneeling figure. I squatted and touched a finger to the back of the neck. Cold as ice. At the pressure of my finger the figure slowly toppled, falling on its side. It was Vernon Raines, his darkly handsome face contorted in death.

I had found Dirk’s other missing knife.

Both of Vernon’s hands were wrapped tightly around the knife handle, which was driven to the hilt just below the rib cage. Blood was thick and dark on the floor. From the position in which he’d been kneeling, he could have fallen on the knife, or committed suicide. He was in the typical hara-kiri position. Except Vernon wasn’t Oriental, and I wouldn’t have thought...

I frisked him quickly. I didn’t find the strip of skin from May’s back. I went through his pockets a second time, looking for signs of dried blood and finding none.

Without warning the canned laughter shut off. I jumped to my feet, shocked by a sudden silence that was almost painful.

Then a voice came over the loudspeakers. “Patch, is that you in there? We can see you...”

I couldn’t see out, of course. I nodded several times.

“All right, stay there. We’ll be right in.” It was Bernie’s voice.

It took them only a few minutes to reach me — Bernie, Sheriff Tomlin, and two of his men. There wasn’t room enough for all of us in the small corridor formed by the mirrors, and the two deputies were stacked up around the turn. Their images were repeated endlessly in the mirrors, and I had the smothering sensation of being surrounded.

Bernie said, “We heard the laughter and wondered...” He stopped, staring at the body. “It’s Vernon. Is he dead?”

“He’s dead.”

Sheriff Tomlin said alertly, “Vernon Raines? The escaped convict?”

I nodded. “None other, Sheriff.”

“That seems to be it then,” the sheriff said with satisfaction. “He came back, killed the woman, then killed himself.”

I started to comment, then changed my mind and said instead, “It’s too close in here. Let’s go outside.”

The sheriff turned to one of his men and told him to get the medical examiner back. The man started out and crashed face-on into a mirror. He retreated, cursing and rubbing his nose. Bernie took the lead and guided us out. I drew a grateful gulp of fresh air and busied myself lighting a cigar.

I felt the sheriffs hard stare. “Like I said inside, that seems to wrap it up.”

I sighed heavily. “It leaves a lot of questions that way, Sheriff.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, why did he kill May?”

“Jealousy. She was playing around with this other guy, this knife swallower.”

“That was long over, as I understand it. And it was long over with Vernon and May, too. At least as far as she was concerned. It was over when she learned Vernon was a bank robber.”

“But she was still keeping in touch with him. Otherwise how did he know where to find her so quickly, the way you carnies jump from town to town, week after week?”

“That’s easy. The carnie bible.”

He stared. “The carnie bible?”

“The magazine, Amusement Business. It lists show dates and locations of all carnivals. All carnies read it religiously, even one in prison like Vernon.”

The sheriff subsided, grumbling.

I went on, “Why did Vernon kill himself, if he did, in about the hardest way possible?”

“How should I know? Remorse, any number of reasons.”

“And what happened to the piece of skin from May’s back?”

“I don’t think anybody can answer that one.” He snorted laughter. “Maybe one of your carnie freaks is a cannibal.”

It wasn’t at all funny, but I let it pass. “I think I know what happened to it.”

“Do you, now? Well, I’d be right interested in hearing.” His slow voice dripped sarcasm.

“That square of skin is some sort of map showing where Vernon hid the loot from the Midfork bank holdup. He was going to prison for the rest of his life, but he wanted a permanent map showing where the loot was hidden in case he ever managed to escape.”

“So? He came back and killed her for it.”

“He doesn’t have it on him. I happened to look for the thing.”

“What right did you... All right, you didn’t find it. So?”

“So, somebody, knowing Vernon had escaped and was on his way here for May and the map, killed May, peeled the skin off, then waylaid Vernon and killed him as well. That’s why two knives were taken from Dirk’s case instead of one. Two murders were planned all along. Now the murderer has a clear path to the hundred grand.”

“Who’s got a clear path? Do you know?”

“I think so, yeah. Bernie?”

Bernie, standing beside me and silent all the while, jumped. “Yes, Patch. What is it?”

“What did you do with the tattoo, Bernie?”

“Me...? You’re out of your mind, Patch!”

“Not the way I’ve got it figured.” I dropped the cigar butt and ground it out. “You told me you didn’t know what tattoo was missing. I don’t believe that. You’d know if a freak in the Ten-in-One had so much as a hangnail. And with May right under your nose day after day... You knew, Bernie. You may not have known what it meant at first, but you found out. Either May told you or you guessed. It’s possible May knew what the tattoo meant and told you. She was conscientious that way and figured she could trust you. You were biding your time, probably until we played Midfork this year, but suddenly you couldn’t wait any longer. With Vernon out of the pen and on his way here, you had to act...”

One thing about Sheriff Tomlin, his reflexes were good. As Bernie broke away at a dead run, the sheriff tackled him and brought him down not twenty yards away.

They found the tattoo rolled up in Bernie’s tobacco pouch, with tobacco shreds stuck to it.

The sheriff showed me the tattoo. At first glance it appeared to be a beautifully detailed pastoral scene, a clutch of farm buildings, a grove of trees and a pasture with grazing animals. Closer inspection disclosed faint figures etched in. They could only be longitude and latitude markings. Beside one tiny tree was an x, so small as to be almost invisible to the naked eye.

I returned it to Sheriff Tomlin. “I hope you find the loot.”

“We’ll find it, never fear,” he said grimly.

I stood and watched them take a stubbornly silent Bernie away, the deputies towing him along between them up the deserted midway. It appeared everyone was bedded down now, but I knew this wasn’t true. They were watching from various points. One carnie — I doubted I would ever know which one — had turned on the lights in the House of Mirrors so I would find Vernon’s body. They would never have told the fuzz, but they wanted me to know.

Now, as the sounds of the siren died away in the distance, the midway was silent and peaceful, at long last buttoned up for the night. I sighed and started up the midway to the office wagon. I knew Tex Montana would be waiting for my report.

I learned later that Bernie finally confessed to both murders and was convicted.

When we played the Midfork Fair a few weeks later, I asked around. They had found the bank loot buried at the base of a tree on a farm a few miles outside of town, exactly where the tattoo had indicated.