Carny kill

2

This Robert Cochrane reminded me of a character out of _The Informer_. As Irish as Paddy's potato. Built like one, too. Big, round, rough. He didn't have the faith-andbejasus brogue though, which was a shame. Then he would have been complete. He must have been getting on to sixty.

"C'mon in and grab a seat. That one-where I can look at you. Carny man, huh?" He grinned at me like a Halloween pumpkin.

"The word really does get around," I said, and sat in a chair on the other side of his desk. "Or does it show on my face?"

"Gabby gave me a buzz," he explained. "I like to keep in touch."

"Gabby," I said. "Oh, the shooting gallery op." It was one of those ironic reversals. The guy who hardly ever opens his mouth is usually tagged Gabby.

"Spielers I don't need," Cochrane told me right off. "They're a dime a dozen."

"So are strippers," I said. "But who ever turns a pro down?"

The light went on in his pumpkin face again.

"You're good, huh? What have you done?"

I named a few outfits I had worked for. Then I said, "My wife used to have an act. I spieled for her."

He was studying me now.

"What's your name?"

"L. M. Thaxton. Thax is good enough."

His grin came back. "I'll bet that first initial covers up a doozy."

I smiled. "How would you like to be called Leslie?"

"What about this sleight of hand?" he wondered. "You good at it?"

I hunched forward and put both my elbows on the desk, picked up a number four pyramid-shaped sinker he used as a paperweight in my left hand and held it up to him. Then I made a flicker of motion with my right forefinger and the split instant his eyes trembled I ducked my left hand at the wrist and showed him my open palm and he was staring at an empty hand.

A real legerdemain artist is born, not made. Constant practice is vital, sure. But it doesn't add up to a good goddam if the sense of prestidigitation isn't inherent in the performer. The big trick is in directing the attention of your audience at the instant you substitute one thing for another. I had directed Cochrane's attention to my right hand when I shot the sinker down my left sleeve.

Cochrane was beaming like a kid. Funny thing about him-as old as he was and as long as he'd been around illusionists, he still got a kick out of that sort of thing.

"It's up your left sleeve, huh?" he said.

"Sure-it was," I said and I shot my left arm straight out at him and turned over my fist and opened it and it was still empty. He smiled and looked in my right hand and took back his paperweight.

"You've got the knack," he admitted, "but…" He thought about it for a bit. Then- "Here's a thought. You good at the shell game?"

I said I was and he said all right, he would put me in the carnival attraction with a stand and the shell game, to add to the atmosphere. Then he became serious.

"This ain't the old carny you and I knew," he warned me. "We don't pick the marks up by the heels and shake 'em till they're dry anymore. Times have changed."

"Yes they have," I said. "The shooting gallery op still keeps a sap under the counter and you still pay the law blind money to ignore the nautch girls."

He grinned. "You're guessing. Sure, we've got a lot of old time carnys working this lot, and they're as sharp as ever. But once you get around you'll notice we got highschool and college kids working here. Nice clean kids that keep the atmosphere homey."

He looked at me as if he were trying to see inside me, see what made me spin.

"I want it to stay that way, Thax." He meant it.

For a moment I felt an old familiar unease, and I wondered if he had heard about me. Then I figured probably not-otherwise he would want to kick it around before he hired me. There were some outfits up north that wouldn't touch me with an elephant gaff.

"Sure," I said. "I won't give you any grief."

I meant it. I liked him.

Then he named a price and I didn't think much of it and I gave one with a better name, which he countered, and I countered it, and we settled somewhere in between, and then he gave me a card that said I was employed by the Cochrane Enterprises.

"How's the grouch bag holding?" he asked.

"All right. I've got a few bucks."

Damn few. Five bucks was the truth. But I didn't want to start out by touching the boss.

"Got a place to sack?" he asked. "There's a bunkhouse around behind the Watusi Village. Some of the boys use it."

I knew those bunkhouses. They're used by the rummies who swamp up the lot and by the alky-paralyzed geek. Though this place wouldn't have one because there is nothing homey about a geek's atmosphere.

"I'll make out," I told him.

"All right, Thax. I'll have Gabby set you up a stand. Keep your nose clean."

"Like a whistle," I said. I really did like him.

It was dusk when I came out and Neverland was full of clamor. Cochrane's lot got a good play.

The place was laid out like a wagonwheel with a big garden in the hub. It had a fountain with colored lights and liquid music coming out of the water and that sort of thing.

The Coke and popcorn and ice-cream vendors wheeled their barrows up and down the flowered lanes and hawked their appeals to the common hunger and thirst of the citizenry. Little, overpainted, short-skirted highschool girls ran around in shrieking batches with armloads of kewpie dolls and peanuts and floss candy, and small gangs of pimply, shaggy-haired teenage boys prowled doggedly after them, laughing and smirking and desperately trying to show everyone just how goddam rough and manly they really were by yelling _Aw hell_ and _My ass_ in their pubertyshrill voices.

And the luck boys were there too. It's easy to spot them when you know what to look for. There was one-a big curly-haired, rose-cheeked man who might have passed for a prosperous lawyer-who was holding up his hand to attract the attention of a more or less middle-aged group of marks.

"The management has requested me to warn you that there's been a report of a pickpocket in here this evening. Please, ladies and gentlemen, watch out for your wallets and purses. And please do not hesitate to inform one of the uniformed guards if you should happen to notice this man. The management will pay a reward for his apprehension. Thank you."

It was an old dodge. I grinned at the luckboy and held up my five dollar bill and put it back in my pocket.

I went over and joined the gang of lusty-eyed marks in front of the kootch bally stand, telling myself I might as well get some use out of my Neverland card. But the truth was I wanted to see that dance of Billie's. The girl who collected tickets gave me a funny little look when I flashed my card but I didn't think anything about it.

The little theater was dark, except for the lighted stage, and it looked like some fairy designer's idea of a lush seraglio with all the Far East draperies on the walls and the scimitars and the swords with the rippled blades and the high domed ceiling with luminous stars painted on it.

The orchestra sat gook-legged on a Persian rug and they were dressed to look like Malay pirates I guess. They had two-three wood drums and a couple of pick and twang gutstrung boxes that looked like the barbaric cousins of the guitar. And there was a horn.

Three nautch girls in skimpy harem-type outfits were on stage and they went through their gyrations like they weren't being paid enough for it, showing a lot of meaty white thigh and breast. It wasn't much. I found myself a vacant seat in the back where I figured Billie wouldn't be able to see me in the dark.

Then she came out and they hit her with a pink spot. She was wearing some lawbreaking sheer turquoise veils and a lot of bangles and heavy makeup and that was about it. She was incalculably voluptuous.

One of the drums said domm and she slapped her hands and hip-slung a hole in culture that would take a decade of hardbound morality to shore up.

It had a lot of the Yankee Go Go in it and maybe some of the South American Mandango and damn little that was indigenous to the Far East. But that was all right because the marks hadn't paid the price of admission to see a National Geographic type show. They simply wanted to see near naked girls gyrate.

It began with a surge that vacuumed us out of the darkened room, out of the night and Neverland, and we were spellbound and tense as we went drifting along on a throbbing plain of savage fantasia.

Her floss hair flying, her hips whirling on an oiled spine, shoulders arched and arms out and hands fondling invisible and suggestive objects, she started to shed her veils, tossing them off with an air of ecstatic abandonment. The last one hung poised on her tremulous breasts, and she reached for it and tore it down to her waist and it clung there for a moment, tight to her damp form as she whirled and whirled, and then it flew off.

The drumbeat pulsated fever in our blood and rushed us through a wild panorama of paganism. It was unabashed desire swept by flesh and pink light and throbbing sound. It shattered in the physical and regrouped with a turquoise and gold spurt. It fired the senses and split the soul. It ended with a rush and threw us brutally back to the world and the night and the little darkened room. It left us shaky and sweaty and maybe even a little afraid. Afraid of ourselves, I suppose. Or of our desire. Or that our desire would go unassuaged.

There was a lot of applause for Billie, except from the female portion of the audience who looked rather arch and cold about the whole thing. Billie was good. I don't mean she would ever end up as Fred Astaire's partner, but for a baref ace sex dance she had it.

The girlfriends of the male marks were too disdainful and above it all to comment on the dance, but some of the wives had a thing or two to say and they didn't mind who heard them. The husbands seemed rather reticent and averted their eyes as they filed out of the room. One heavy woman with jowls like a fat bulldog's stormed by me dragging her mousy spouse in her overly perfumed wake.

"Shameless!" she hissed at him in a stevedore's voice. "The most shameless exhibition I've ever witnessed. I can't imagine why you insisted on seeing such a vulgar display, Walter."

Poor little Walter sent me a prideless glance of despair and murmured, "Yes, honey."

I didn't get off free either. The strip barker tagged me as I was walking out.

"Thaxton? Billie Peeler wants to see you a minute."

"Me? Why?"

"I wouldn't know, Jack. But be sure and look me up and tell me all about it when you find out. Promise?"

Then he grinned at me in a nice way so I didn't go ahead and call him a smart bastard as I'd started to.

Billie came through a side door wearing a wrapper that covered her up like a nun, and I could see from her eyes that she was about to be peeved. The barker gave me a wink and patted Billie where he shouldn't and went off about his own business.

"Did Rob Cochrane give you a job?"

It was no good my saying no because the ticket girl must have already told her I had a Neverland card.

"Sure and he did that, the darlin' bhoy."

"Then why did you have to come sticking your banjo eyes in here?" Now she was mad.

"Why not?" I already knew but I wanted her to tell me.

"You know damn well why. It's all right for a bunch of marks to goggle at me when I look like Eve, but it's something else if someone I know pays to do it."

"I'm safe then. I didn't pay. I used my Peter Pan card."

"Thax-"

I grinned at her. "I'm just kidding, Billie. I'm sorry. Really."

"Well-" her voice wasn't as peevish now, "you should have known better. That little bitch Sandy who collects the tickets saw us talking earlier on the lot. She thought it was very funny that you should sneak in to see me in the altogether as soon as you got a free pass."

"I'll send her a bomb for Easter," I promised.

She looked at me and we smiled at each other and then for a long moment we didn't seem to know what to say next.

"Well," she said, finally, "I've got to get ready for the next show." She started to turn away but stopped, and she said, "I'm really glad you got the job, Thax."

So was I. At least right then I was glad.

I decided to grab a bite before I scouted up a flop for the night, and I went up a path to a quaint little restaurant called the Queen Anne Cottage.

I was jostled on the steps by Some people coming out and I told one of them-the biggest man in the group-to watch it, buster. He asked me how I'd like a bent nose to watch and I asked him wouldn't he rather wait until he had more than three friends to help him and he said he wasn't going to need any goddam help and then his wife or his secretary or whatever she was broke it up.

When I put my hand in my pocket my five was gone. Those luck boys were damn thorough.

I was standing on the porch muttering filthy words to myself when a highschool or college kid wearing a red-andwhite guide uniform stepped up to me and asked was I Mr. Thaxton, sir?

"So what?" I wanted to know.

"Mrs. Cochrane wants to see you, sir." He was really a very polite boy. One of Cochrane's nice clean kids.

"Mrs. Cochrane?" I didn't get it.

"The owner's wife, sir." He was very patient with me. Too patient.

"Look, son," I said. "I can add two and two. But why's she want to see me?"

"I'm sure I don't know, sir. She simply asked me to-"

"Yeah, yeah. So where do I find the owner's wife?"

"She has a suite of rooms above this restaurant, sir."

Everybody who was anybody seemed to live and work over some kind of joint in this place. The nice clean boy told me to go around to the back, where I would find a door marked Private. Naturally.

I thanked him, and then I added, "Oh-and don't call me Sir. I work here just like you."

"Yes sir," he said promptly. "I know that."

Very polite. But that sir business made me feel my thirtytwo years. Maybe more.

I went around back and opened the door that always had to say Private when it was around back and went up a maroon carpeted stairway that was walled in with way-out paintings that made you feel like you were trying to climb out of the paint pots of a surrealist artist's nightmare.

I came to another door. It didn't say Private so I opened it and stepped into a blaze of light. It was like stepping into an interrogation room. Some kind of baby spot stood back in a corner and hit me all over with a brffliant pink light.

I had a quick, vague impression of Swedish modern as I put up an arm to ward off that damn glare, and then something went ssst right by my head and thh-ok in the paneled wall.

I was already on my way to the floor.

It was reasonably soft-about two inches of thick carpeting and as woolly as a fat lamb. All I hurt was my left elbow. Then I turned a little and glanced up at the knife jutting out from the wall. It was no longer than a butcher knife and it had a mother-of-pearl handle and no hilt-guard.

I knew that kind of knife. In fact there was a time when I used to have bad dreams about them. My wife used to throw them back when we were in carny together.

A laugh that was a sort of throaty tinkle, if there is such a laugh, came out of the darkness beyond the baby spot. And I knew who I was going to see when the rest of the lights went on.

They went on and I saw I was right about the Swedish modern motif and about the possessor of the unusual laugh. My ex-wife was reclined on some kind of cushy sofa that seemed to be made entirely of satin pillows. She was wearing one of those gold-glittery outfits with the toreador jacket and skintight pants. And gold sandals. And her toenails too. Gold.

She had changed her hair. It used to make Monroe's platinum head look like dishwater blonde. Now she was flame headed. But her face hadn't changed in five years. The same cold, sensual, calculating look that I had fallen in love with when I was twenty and stupid was still there.

I looked to be sure she didn't have another knife handy before I picked myself off the rug.

"You'd never draw a crowd with that toss, May," I said. "It was off a foot."

"You lying sonofabitch, darling." She smiled at me. "It took the peachfuzz off your ear. Do you want to change your pants?"

"No," I said. "I'm still wearing my diapers."

I pulled the knife loose. It gave me a bit of a struggle. May always did have a beautiful throwing arm. That's what used to worry me-when we'd have our fights.

The knife had perfect balance. No matter how you tossed it the harpoon-sharp blade always led the way to the target. The mother-of-pearl handles had been her trademark. She had always been a great one for classy show. And it looked like she had made it. Mrs. Robert Cochrane. She couldn't be but twenty-five years younger than the canny Irishman.

I wagged the blade at her. "Fun and games, huh May?"

"You know goddam well I could have put your eye out if I'd wanted to, sweetie," she said sweetly. "I've kept my hand in."

I was a believer. May always kept her hand in, and not just with her knives.

"Way in," I said and nodded around at the big, cushy room. "Some opulence."

"Never mind your goddam book words, Thax," she said. She never could stand big words. At least not when I used them.

"A nice mark," I amended. "Very nice."

It was the freaky coincidence of the thing-my ending up at Neverland and her being Mrs. Never Never-that surprised me. Not the fact that she had made out like a foreign loan. Some people, especially some females, are slated for affluence no matter how far down the social strata they start. The crystal gazers like to call it Kismet.

May had come out of one of those naughty houses they used to have in San Berdoo, California. I think the district was called D Street. But it hadn't phased her. The first time she was old enough to recognize the significance of the two-dollar bill one of the truck driver customers handed her mother she knew exactly what it was that made the world go around and she climbed aboard to get her share of the spin.

I had been a husky young carny kid with a good spiel and she had used me for just as long as I was worth anything to her. When she outgrew me she started looking around for a way to dump me. And I had found her the way.

But what really amazed me was that Irishman-Robert Cochrane, her husband. He must have known who I was once I told him my name, and he must have known about the jam I got into when May and I were working together for the Brody outfit. Yet he hadn't said a word. He had gone ahead and hired me. Funny guy. Unless May had held out on him.

"You tell Cochrane about you and me?" I asked her.

"Sure," she said. "When I first came to him. I have nothing to hide. Anyhow, he knew my name. Word gets around, you know."

"Jesus if it doesn't. Everybody seems to know about me like I'd been here all my life. You have anything to do with hiring me?"

May smiled at me. Call it that, anyhow.

"I didn't even know you were on the lot, darling, till Bill Duff told me."

"Good old Bill," I said. "Did he go to that dentist I recommended before I clipped his eyetooth?"

May kept right on smiling at me. She didn't say anything.

"Cozy for you and Bill, huh?" I suggested. "This setup."

"Duff showed up just like you did," she said in a stainless-steel voice. "Broke and whimpering for a job. Rob gave him the job because Rob can't turn down a carny buddy with an empty grouch bag. I would have told Duff to go take a flying leap at the spider lady."

"From what I understand he already had way before we met him," I said. But I said it out of habit-automatic reaction. I was still entranced by the knowledge that the Irishman had hired me even though he knew all about me. A very funny guy.

"Well," I said, "it doesn't really matter."

"So you always say, sweetie," May said.

I came back to the Swedish modern suite above the Queen Anne Cottage.

"Look, May. Times have been soso with me." I fluctuated one hand palm-down in mid air to illustrate the soso-ness of my times. "I need the job. Are you going to queer it?"

She started to uncoil like a cat on the sofa. She reached a very pale gold-tipped hand up to me.

"Rob does all the hiring and firing, sweetie. I wouldn't dream of saying a word. Come here."

"Why?"

"Kiss me."

"Why?"

"Curiosity."

She had something there. I was curious too, to see if it would be the same. Five years is a long time. I sank into the satin pillows and she put a hand on my neck and I put one on her waist and we pulled in. Then she opened her mouth and I covered it with mine and her tongue started to leap, and by damn if it wasn't the same. The same as when I was a husky young carny kid of twenty. Not the same as those last few years before she threw me over.

My left hand immediately grew bored because what kick can a hand get out of holding a woman's waist? So I let it do what it wanted to do and it went sliding upward to find something of a more tactile interest. Once it found it May pulled back.

"I said kiss, sweetie," she reminded me.

"You didn't say kiss what though, did you?" I grinned at her.

She straightened up and went pat-pat at her too perfect fiery hair.

"I rather imagine, darling, that you are going to get yourself into sex trouble again. You're certainly showing all the indications."

"Well, it doesn't matter, does it?" I said. I got up and put my tie in order. "Troublewise, they ain't getting no virgin."

"You can say that again," May said. "Run along now, sweetie, and see if you can keep your pants zipped for a whole week."

She had meant it when she said it was curiosity. There really hadn't been any great passion behind her wet kiss. It was habit with her. You don't melt an iceberg with a blowtorch because there just isn't that much juice in a blowtorch.

"See you, May." I started for the door.

"Yes."

That's all she said. Just yes.