Carny kill

20

Well, and where are they now? -Silver was saying. _Pew was that sort and he died a beggarman. Flint was and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, there was a sweet crew, they was, only where are they Thax. Thax wake up Thax…

Someone was pulling me out of my dream by my shoulder. I opened my eyes and day was smiling through the archer's cross and Billie was standing over me not smiling.

Her eyes were very wide and dark and her face looked pallid. She was wearing a little V of worry between her plucked brows.

"Thax, I've been looking everywhere for you! And so have the police. How long have you been up here?"

I sat up and reached for a cigarette but changed my mind when I remembered that they had had a bath in that ducky lake.

"What time is it?"

"It's nearly nine. Thax, there's policemen all over the place." I said, "Where were you last night, or early this morning? I tried to phone you."

"I was right here. I never went home. When you didn't meet me at the gate I went over to the tree house to see what had happened to you. I saw your shirts and things on the floor so I stayed there to wait for you. Then I guess I fell asleep. Some policeman woke me up over an hour ago. He was looking for you."

"Do you have a cigarette?"

She sat down on the edge of the bed and gave me one from her purse. She said, "Thax-they're saying that Mike Ransome was killed last night."

"That's right. He had an accident and fell on one of May's knives."

"May Cochrane? What happened to her?"

I looked at her. "Nothing that I know of. The last I saw of her she was sitting in the Hispaniola in a daze waiting for the law to come cart her away."

Billie made a little impatient shake with her head.

"I don't understand, honey. What-"

"Mike and May killed old man Cochrane," I said. "Mike did the dirty work. But right off the bat they discovered there had been a witness-when blackmail reared its ugly head. And that's when things started to get messy."

"Blackmail?" Billie said. "You mean there's been a blackmailer in on this murder all along? Who? Bill Duff?"

I really wanted a toothbrush more than a cigarette. It tasted like a freshly printed newspaper. I got up and pitched it out the window.

"Duff," I said, "had an idea what it was all about, and he certainly had blackmail on the brain. But he couldn't get off the ground with it because he lacked a vital part. He didn't have a witness."

"A witness? You mean the blackmailer had a witness to Rob Cochrane's murder?"

I turned and looked at her.

"That's right, Billie. You did have one for a while, didn't you?"

She sat rigidly composed with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were still very wide, very dark.

"That really isn't very funny, Thax," she said.

"No," I agreed, "it isn't. I stopped laughing some time back."

I reached in my pocket and drew out the envelope I had taken from Lloyd Franks' safe. The dip in the lake had given it a puffy look and the ink had smeared some but it was still legible. I handed it to Billie.

She looked at the envelope, at the words written across the face, of it: _To be opened only in the event of my death-Billie Peeler_. It had been sealed originally but I had opened it after I lifted it and so Billie knew that I knew that the page of paper inside was blank. She put the envelope in her purse and looked at me.

"Terry Orme," I said, "was a bitter, lonely little guy who hated people, normal people. I think in his bent little way he thought he was getting even with them by spying on their personal lives-gave him a superior feeling. I'm just guessing about this, but I figure he knew about May and Mike shacking up, and the night he saw Mike dump Cochrane in the Swamp Ride he was dever enough to put two and two together.

"It meant money to him, you see? Big money. And May could afford it. But the rub was he was afraid to approach them personally. Can you picture a gutless midget walking up to a tail murderer and saying, I'm going to blackmail you, buster? So he needed a go between. Someone who had the courage and intelligence to tackle blackmail and get away with it."

I put my hands in my pockets and started to make like Ferris, pacing from window to door and back again. Billie followed me with her eyes.

"You were one of the very few people the sad little bastard liked," I told her. "You used to work together in Kansas City and he probably knew you were a shrewd cooky who would stop at nothing to grab a bundle. So he told you about Mike and May-dumped the whole package in your lap and probably asked for fifty-fifty. Or did you get him down?"

Billie said nothing. She watched me.

"Probably the only stipulation Terry made was that you wouldn't tell Mike or May that he was the witness. Which is the way you would have played it anyhow because you are a shrewd cooky.

"That first night I asked you for a date you said you had to do some paperwork. You were going to write down just what Terry had seen and told you and seal it in a not-to-be-opened-unless envelope and turn it over to some lawyer. That would be your safeguard against Mike and May. They'd be afraid to touch you with that hanging over their heads.

"But nearly every blackmailer thinks of that angle, and they always warn their marks that they've done it even when probably half of them haven't. And you knew that Mike was the kind of nut who just might gamble that you hadn't put anything on paper, and go ahead and risk eliminating you. So you put a curve on your pitch. You made out the envelope and sealed a blank piece of paper in it and turned it over to Lloyd Franks… remember I met you coming from his office the next day?"

Billie watched me.

"Then you told May what you had done and said she and Mike could check with Franks if they didn't believe you. The reason you didn't put anything on paper is because you weren't certain just how far you could trust Franks.

"That's the one trouble with mixing murder and blackmail-lack of trust. Terry wasn't absolutely certain he could trust you. That's why he got so jumpy. He was scared peagreen that you might cross him and tell Mike that he was your witness, and then Mike would kifi him. Well-as we both know, Mike did find out and he did take care of the little guy. Um-that reminds me. You made a slip that day. You referred to Terry's death as murder, when everyone else assumed it was an accident. But you knew better. Also, it put you in a bit of a bind.

"Mike was a good chessplayer. The most damaging hold you had over him was that eyewitness. Once he had removed that player from the board all you had against him was hearsay evidence. However, you were still a threat to them because you could tell the law all you knew even if you couldn't prove any of it. So I figure they agreed to go ahead and pay you off in one lump sum for your nuisance value."

I stopped my stroll and looked at her.

"I take it May told you you'd have to wait a couple of weeks until she could find a valid excuse to dig into her husband's estate for the ante. How much was it by the way?"

"One hundred thousand," Billie said promptly and calmly.

"You ever see any of it?"

"One fourth. May had that much cash of her own." Billie dug in her purse for a cigarette. "Let me have a light, Thax."

"Mine won't work. I shampooed them in the lake last night. Let me get this straight. You have twentyfive thou in cash?"

"That's right, darling," Billie said. She found her own match. Then she blew smoke toward me.

"We can leave any time," she said.

"Leave? Where?"

"Here. For the Mediterranean. Just as we planned."

I stared at her. I said, "You're kidding."

She said, "I don't see why I should be. We're clean. No one has anything on us. We didn't murder anyone."

I let out my breath.

"Billie. My dear ex-wife didn't know I was on to her and her Peter Pan boyfriend until someone told her I was getting warm. And you, dear heart, were the only person who knew it."

Billie stared at me through the smoke swirl. Then she dropped her cigarette on the floor and stood up.

"Thax, I wanted that money so damn badly. Don't you understand, honey. You get a chance like this once in a lifetime. I loved you-but I couldn't let anything happen to that money. That's why I went to May, to warn her, to-"

"To have her come unstitched and hire some hoods to eliminate me," I said.

"No!" she cried. "I never dreamed she'd do anything like that. I thought she'd try to buy you off. I thought you'd be reasonable and…" Her voice trailed off and she averted her eyes and put her lower lip between her teeth. Her eyes started to go moist.

"Jesus," I said quietly, looking at her. "I must have seemed like a real Prince Charming to you. Did you really think I'd take it from May, even if she'd been silly enough to offer it?"

"Thax," she murmured. "Thax."

I walked back to the archer's cross and looked down at Neverland. Three or four of Ferris' storm troopers were hurrying about in the near distance, but other than that everything looked bright and peaceful, like a great enchanted land where once long ago men had toiled and built and dreamed and then gone away.

"Billie-I think you'd better start to run now."

"What?"

I turned and looked at her and I felt dead.

"It always comes out in the wash, Billie. So you don't have much time. You'd better take your twentyfive grand and run with it just as fast and as far as you can go. And if you're lucky-maybe you'll even reach the Mediterranean."

Her eyes reminded me of May's eyes. That same dull red gleam back in the pupils.

"You won't come with me?"

"No. Because I could never trust you."

"You stupid fool!" she cried. "You'll never be anything but a carny bum if you stay here. We both have a chance if you'd come with me. We could-"

"You'd better start, Billie. It's later than you think."

She stood glaring at me with those very wide eyes of hers, breathing heavily through her mouth. Then something which must have had to do with her sense of the inexorable relaxed inside her and she closed her mouth and her eyes and gave a small, hopeless shake with her head and turned away.

She stopped and fumbled in her purse, brought out a pack of cigarettes and her book of matches and tossed them on the bed.

"You'll need those," she said tonelessly. "You always seem to be out of matches or something."

"Thanks," I said. It took the place of goodby.

I listened to her heels click down the steps until they were only an echo in my mind. Then I roused myself and went downstairs into the clean bright strength of the new day.

The first influx of marks was starting to pour into the lot when I reached my stand. Gabby was behind his counter and we looked at each other and then he looked away. Bill Duff was on his bally, waiting, and he exchanged a blank glance with me and that was that.

Down at the far end I saw the young new breed dick marching toward me like a soldier on a sacred mission. I made a slow pass with the walnut shells, right over left and switched shells.

"And here they go again, gentlemen!" I called. "Three little medicine bottles with Dr. Thaxton's famous remedy pill that is guaranteed to cure your girl's blues. Step aside, folks. Let the man see the rabbit."

After all, it didn't really matter, did it?