Catch a Falling Clown

2

Someone had electrocuted an elephant. There was no doubt about that. The wrinkled gray bulk lay on its side, feet out, trunk curled down, eyes closed. A single night-light cast shadows on his feet, and the maybe of a breeze made the sparse wiry hairs of his body bend and shiver. I have seen humans lying dead. Even when the death was bloody or crazy, it always seemed part of something natural that made me angry, not sad. And here was this smelly mass of an animal filling me with sorrow.

“Something really sad about it,” said Kelly at my side. I looked at him and could see that he was talking about himself as well as me.

Kelly was about my size, receding hairline, a nose like Bob Hope’s, and a mouth that moved easily into a warm grin. His shoulders were slightly stooped and his chest thin. He was about my age, maybe a year or two younger, and there was a look on his face that made it clear that he was carrying something he wanted help with.

After I had entered his train car, Kelly had excused himself from Tiny Tyne, a plump fellow clown he had been playing rummy with, introducing me not as a private detective but as a friend of a friend looking for a job.

“What was that all about?” I asked as he led the way across the field.

“Sorry, Mr. Peters,” he whispered. “I don’t know if what I think is happening is happening, and I’m not putting my neck out till I know.” As we walked, stepping around shadows and footprints of mud, he told me about the circus.

The Rose and Elder Circus was a thin idea held together by favors, hope, and a few dollars from the hardware empire of Joshua R. Rosenbaum, the Rose and the angel. His investment was on the verge of nightmare, which is somewhere between Palm Springs and Mirador. It was an after-the-season show put together from acts, crew, and equipment rented from the big shows that had ended their seasons. Rose and Elder’s biggest attractions were Kelly the clown and Gargantua the gorilla from Ringling. Kelly had gone along for the one-month run as a favor to Elder, an old friend.

The show was a patchwork of acts on the way up and on the way down, grifters and grafters, refugees and runaways. The doctor for the show was over eighty, some of the acts couldn’t speak English, and about half of the crew had never seen a circus before.

In spite of this, Elder, whose idea the whole thing was, had managed to put on a circus, three rings, popcorn, peanuts, elephants, and sideshows. He had a dozen trailers, seven trucks, and fifteen railroad cars.

“In here,” Kelly said, pointing the way with his lantern, and in I went.

The elephant lay in a corner, and we simply looked at him in silence for a few minutes.

“What makes you think someone killed him?” I said.

“Her; this bull’s a female,” he said.

“Bull?”

“All elephants are called bulls in the circus,” he explained. “She was a good one. Two years ago, ten Ringling elephants died of arsenic poisoning in Atlanta. Police said it was an accident. Last year, there was a fire in the elephant tent when we were in Kansas. Lost another dozen.”

“But …” I tried.

“Look,” he said and walked behind the dead animal where he lifted a piece of canvas. I followed him and found myself looking into a gray dead eye of the elephant. It was hard to force my eyes away to the sight under the canvas.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Wires, rigging for tent lights. All attached to that pole where this bull was tied with a metal chain. Someone just touched the two wires together, and she went down. I was in here when it happened, and I saw a little spark. So I went over when they called the doc. Someone had gotten to the pole and pulled the wire off. Must have seen me coming and backed off before they could hide it. I couldn’t prove anything, so I just shut up when the doc said the elephant had a heart attack.”

I looked down at the mass of wire, which meant nothing to me, and then at the man who held the lantern.

“It’s more than the elephants,” I said.

“More than the elephants,” he said. “Whoever did this saw me coming to check the wires. I think they know I’m thinking more than they want me to think. Truck went wild yesterday, almost ran me down. Driver was off having a sandwich when it happened. It might have been an accident.”

“OK, but why would anyone want to kill the elephants?” I asked, keeping my eyes from those of the bull behind me.

“We’ve got maybe forty elephants in this circus,” he said, the lantern light sending shadows to his face that suggested the face of a clown or a skull. “An elephant normally costs fifty thousand dollars. Something like that. Kill off the elephants and you haven’t got much of a circus. Damn, you can’t even replace elephants with the war on.”

We both looked at the dead elephant for a few more seconds and headed toward the entrance to the tent.

“What do they do with a dead elephant?” I said.

“Don’t know,” sighed Kelly, stepping into the night. “Don’t want to know. What I want to know is who is trying to ruin this circus and maybe kill me.”

“In reverse order,” I said.

“Together,” he corrected. “It’s too late to meet people. You can start in the morning. What can you do?”

He stopped and looked at me.

“I can start asking questions and try to find someone with a motive for trying to …”

“No, I mean what can you do that would fit in a circus?”

I thought about it for a minute. I could fire a pistol, but not very well. I could take a punch but had already taken too many of them. I … “Nothing I can think of,” I said.

“I’ll think of something in the morning,” Kelly said. “Don’t talk in front of Tiny. Tiny’s a good enough guy, not a bad clown, but he’s a talker. I’ll get you some cherry pie when we get up.”

“Cherry pie?” I said, following him up the stairs of the train car.

“Circus for easy work,” he said.

“Right,” I said, following him up the three metal steps.

Our footsteps clanged across the field and echoed back at us from the nearby railroad cars. Kelly stopped at the top and looked back.

“I like it at night like this,” he said. “You look out and know what’s under those tents and in those wagons, and you can’t believe that tomorrow it’s all gonna be moving and that you’re going to be out in front of thousands of people, well, maybe hundreds. It’s like another world you know is there and can’t believe will come out.” He shrugged and stepped into the railroad car.

Tiny was still there. There was an extra mattress in the wagon. Kelly wanted to sleep on it, but I told him a hard mattress on the floor was good for my bad back.

The two clowns played rummy under a small, yellow-bulbed lamp, and I took off my jacket and shirt, scratched my stomach and felt my stubbly face. Kelly told me where to find soap, water, and a towel. It had been a light day. I had done some driving, laid out a drunk in a tavern, met a clown or two, and examined a murdered elephant. I expected the days to get busier and was bothered by the fact that I felt tired. Somewhere in my battered suitcase back in my battered car was a toothbrush whose bristles sagged like a forgotten Christmas tree and a can of Dr. Lyon’s tooth powder that would have done me no harm, but I wasn’t up to it. I lay back on the mattress with my arms under the thin pillow and looked at the wooden ceiling. Tiny asked me a question, which I answered with a lie before I fell asleep.

Dreams, I’ve discovered, come in threes. I can usually remember the first two, and I always feel that it is the third one, the one I can’t remember, that will really tell me something. In my first dream, I was wandering through the streets of Cincinnati. Everything was red, bright red, not the red of blood but the red of good-smelling new bricks. Even the cars were red. As usual in my dreams, there were no people in Cincinnati but me. I walked into a row house and closed the door behind me, suddenly scared, not of what was inside, but of something outside. Then someone or something knocked at the door. I didn’t want to open it. I knew what was on the other side. A clown would be on the other side. Not my old friend Koko, but a six-foot clown with a grinning face. Who needs a clown at your door? Nothing’s funny about a clown.

“Who’s there?” I said, holding one foot against the door.

“I have a message,” came the high voice from the other side of the door.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to make it sound tough.

“Life is a circus,” came the high voice.

“A circus?”

“Yes,” he said. “Usually that means living is fun. But a circus is hard work, blisters to make a few minutes look funny, dangerous, or interesting.”

“Then life is a circus?” I asked, looking around for someplace to hide.

He didn’t answer. I knew he was looking for another way in.

In my nightmare I told myself I was having a nightmare, but that didn’t make it better. I told myself to wake up, but I couldn’t. I think I whimpered, and then I was in another dream, a dream I’d rather not talk about. Then the third dream I can’t remember. But when I was safely in dream number three, I found myself back in Cincinnati, back in the house with the door. “Wait,” I said or thought, “this isn’t fair.”

“Open the door,” came the high clown voice. “Open up.”

“No,” I cried, trying to wake up, making the effort. I opened my eyes and found myself facing the grinning face. The voice came out of it, the clown voice.

“That’s right,” he said, leaning over me. “Open them up.”

Sheriff Mark Nelson of Mirador was kneeling next to my mattress, dressed in a white suit tapped with spots of sweat. Maybe he thought it was natty to wear sweat-spotted suits. His hat was in his hand, and his thumb was rubbing the dark sweatband. I looked around for Alex the deputy, and my mind was read.

“I told Alex to wait outside,” said Nelson. “I wanted to renew our acquaintanceship. Nice, crisp, brisk day outside,” he sighed. “Good air round here.”

“You want me to move to Mirador,” I said, trying to sit up.

“Have to spruce you up a bit if it came to that,” he said. “You smell like a Mex field hand.”

I was awake now and making no attempt to resist scratching my neck, face, and stomach. I was aware of the hole in my undershirt and the absence of my client.

“What can I do for you?” I said.

“Ah,” said Nelson, enjoying his moment before pouncing. “You could invest a few million dollars in Mirador real estate if you had it, but barring that, you can come for a little ride with me and Alex so we can talk over old times and the scrape you put on my car and Lope Obregon’s skull last night.”

There was a bowl of water in one corner of the wagon and a mirror over it. I moved the five steps to it, examined the bowl to determine if it was clean, came to no conclusion, and stuck my face into it. It was cold and tight. I dried myself on a towel that was definitely not clean and turned to grin in the mirror. I looked rotten.

“So I’m under arrest,” I said, reaching for my jacket, which had gotten kicked around by clowns or cops.

“No, no,” chuckled Nelson, advancing on me. He was a few inches shorter than me, and his teeth were clean. His breath smelled minty and sweet enough to make me feel like throwing up.

“Good,” I said. “I’ve got some work to do here. Been good to see you again.” I tried to step past him, and he moved out of the way.

“Alex is out there,” he said. “He’s not going to let you go. I told you never to come back to Mirador. Now I’m going to show you I mean what I say. I really do. If I don’t show people I mean what I say, pretty soon people are going to start testing, taking advantage. Can’t have that happen.”

“So we’re going for a little ride?” I guessed.

“Precisely,” he said, pointing to the door. “And at the end of that little ride I’m going to watch with great regret while Alex …”

“Teaches me that you mean what you say?” I supplied.

“Thank you,” he said politely. “I rather expect that it will be a singularly instructive lesson, and I cannot vouch for what remains of your nose.”

“Sheriff, did anyone ever tell you that you sweat like a hog?” I whispered.

Nelson’s grin dropped for a full half-second and then came back happier than ever.

“We have chatted long enough,” he said. “Now let us get to it.”

There were no windows I could go through, just the door. I stepped out into the morning. It was foggy, a gray fog that hid the tents and train and anything else not more than fifteen feet away, but it didn’t hide the sounds. Motors were churning, people calling, animals bellowing. Laughs, shouts. The spots of light that managed to make their way through the fog were like pinholes that showed nothing beyond themselves. Alex was clear and near in his denims and white cowboy hat. He was bulky and dark, not a beer bulky but a natural bulky, and I knew what he could do. There was no smile on his face, no sign of recognition.

“Good morning, Alex,” I said. “Como esta?”

Now that we were outside and within Alex’s reach, Nelson felt safe enough to violate my body. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently, as if he were a trainer preparing his fighter before the scheduled four-rounder.

“Alex isn’t much of a talker, as you may recall,” said Nelson. He fit his hat back on his head and played with it quickly to make it feel snug. “Car’s over there,” he said. “Fog is tempting, but Alex would catch you, and Alex gets mad if he has to run in the morning.”

“You still doing Alex’s talking for him?” I said. “He’s a big boy. Maybe he can tell me how he feels. Maybe Alex doesn’t want to march on my face.”

Some figures, I couldn’t tell how many, were moving toward us through the fog as Alex stepped forward to help guide me to the sheriff’s car.

“Alex will do what he must,” said Nelson piously. “Is that not right, Alex?”

Alex shrugged. I had no idea what Alex thought about me, whether he liked me, hated me, or didn’t give a damn either way. I did know from looking at him that he’d do what Nelson wanted, that times were still hard and money scarce in Mirador.

Nelson and Alex flanked me and moved forward two or three feet before two figures in the fog came in range. One of the figures was Emmett Kelly. The other was a sinewy man with a perfect thin, waxed mustache. He was wearing a gray windbreaker and had a serious look on his lined face. His head was totally bald and looked polished.

“Hold on,” said the bald man with Kelly.

“I mean to,” said Nelson. “I mean to hold real tight to this rascal. He has committed several crimes and must come to town to deal with his rash acts.”

“My name is Elder,” said the man with the mustache. “I’m one of the owners of this circus. We hired Mr. Peters last night. He is part of this organization.”

“And …” grinned Nelson, tightening the grip on my arm.

“And we expect charges to be stated and the employee to be released in good health when those charges are dealt with,” said the man. Kelly caught my eye and nodded knowingly. I winked. I didn’t know what we were communicating, but it beat being dragged into the fog by the two-man Mirador police force.

“In fact,” said Elder, stepping forward, “if the charges are not too grave, we would appreciate dealing with them now. Maybe we can settle this without recourse to a trip to town. We are a bit shorthanded. The war and … you understand, I hope.”

I think Nelson was about to say that he did not understand when more figures emerged from the fog. It looked like one of those patriotic movies I used to see in grade school with people out of American history stepping through mist to tell me to be a good American and support the war or the President, and they were just as silent as those silent images, but they weren’t Presidents. They were a dozen or more men of all ages whose muscles were outlined under their work shirts and jackets.

“I mean to take this man,” said Nelson, his voice cracking rather like Jean Alvero, the prostitute of the night before, but there was nothing charming in Nelson’s statement, nor was there anything forceful. I looked at Alex, who showed only a twitch of annoyance. There was no backing down in Alex, but he and I and everyone including Nelson could tell that Nelson meant the opposite of what he was saying.

Alex, Nelson, and I were now circled by the circus chorus, and Elder kept getting more and more polite. Nelson’s hat came off, and the sheriff found that it needed immediate attention and cleaning with a soggy handkerchief.

“The charges are?” said Elder.

“Assault, disorderly conduct, damage to public vehicle, drunk and disorderly,” said Nelson, whose grin was gone.

Elder advanced to within three feet of Nelson and showed an incredibly lined, weatherbeaten face over his mustache. “I’d really like to know who brought the charges.”

“A respected member of our community,” screeched the sheriff.

“Well,” said Elder, looking evenly at Alex and then at the sheriff. “We are shorthanded, and I’m afraid if you take our man here it might mean we couldn’t do our show tonight, might have to pack right up and not play our second night in Mirador. Now, I understand some important people in this country plan to bring their kids tonight, you know, take their minds off the war. I think they need a little entertainment, and they’d be awfully damned angry if the circus pulled up and left. They’d like to know who was responsible, and I’m afraid we’d have to tell them about this.”

Nelson’s eyes went around the circle of faces and came to me. I choked on a smile.

“You wouldn’t do that,” he said. “You’d lose too damn much money.”

“We’d do it,” said Elder. “And you’d lose too. You appointed or elected here? Doesn’t matter either way.”

“Do we take him?” said Alex, looking placidly at Nelson. You could read whatever you wanted or nothing into Alex’s face. Nelson might have read disapproval.

“I’m really sorry about last night,” I said soberly to Nelson. “I apologize, and I’ll pay for the paint job on the police car.”

“You step one foot outside this circus ground,” Nelson hissed softly in my ear, “and I’ll grab your ass so tight you’ll need a surgeon to get me loose.”

“Colorful,” I whispered back.

Alex let go of my arm and walked into the fog in the general direction of town.

“Take two free tickets for tonight,” said Elder, handing the white pieces of cardboard to the sheriff. Nelson snatched them and shoved them in his pocket. Even the chance for a little dignity couldn’t deter Nelson from something he could turn into cash.

“I am not an evil or vindictive man, Peters,” he said, turning to me. “I’m a man who has a job to do and does it. Mirador has to stay untouched. The people expect that, pay for it, and I mean to give them what they pay for.”

“Protection,” I said.

“That is right,” he said, looking directly into my eyes, and I could see that he meant it. In his own way, he really thought he was a just man on a righteous mission. When was I going to meet a bad guy who knew he was a bad guy? Why did all the bad guys think they were good guys? As he disappeared into the fog, I wondered whether Hitler thought he was a good guy. I was sure he did, and that sudden thought made me feel depressed just when I felt I should have been relieved. I’d just been saved from a beating. I didn’t keep count of such things, but it would have been number sixty or seventy, and I would have absorbed it. It was the inability of people to know where they belonged in my fantasy that caused me the real pain.

“Thanks,” I said, putting out my hand to Elder, who took it firmly. The circus figures melted back into the fog, and sounds of waking returned.

“The sheriff bluffs awfully easy,” he said with a grin that turned his already sun-creased face into a walrus-leather mask. “I’m glad that deputy isn’t in charge here, or you’d be on your way to whatever they planned for you.”

Light began to penetrate the fog, and I started to see shapes and activity.

“Emmett told me about you,” said Elder, looking back at some sound he separated from the noise. “I don’t think there’s anything going on here, but it’s his money if he wants to pay you. I just don’t want any panic talk, and I don’t want you stirring anything up that isn’t there.”

A shiny wagon, a massive gold-painted thing, lumbered out into view, pulled by a squat red truck with massive tires. The truck rumbled past us, drowning out other sounds and our conversation; and I found myself looking into the face of the creature in the cage, the gorilla, whose hands clung to the bars of the jiggling cage and who examined me without curiosity.

Kelly backed away as the cage pulled past.

“Gargantua,” he said, without affection. “When I joined Ringling a year ago,” he went on, watching the wagon rumble off, “they wanted me to be part of an act with him. It was called The Wedding of Gargantua. Willie, that’s my clown, would be the jailer outside the cage, keeping the gorilla from running away before the wedding. I never liked the idea, and the monkey didn’t take to me. Went wild. We gave up the idea. I think some clown did him wrong once.”

By now the fog was almost gone. I could smell something cooking, and my stomach rumbled.

“Let’s take him to chow,” said Elder. “Peters, let’s just call you an unpaid member of circus security for a few days. You do what you have to, to satisfy Emmett, and then we say good-bye. Fair enough?”

“OK with me,” said Kelly, putting a hand to his balding head.

“Right,” I added.

“But I tell you there’s no secret plot going on here,” said Elder. “I’ve been circusing for …”

“Elder,” came a scream, and the three of us turned our heads. A woman, her hands in the pocket of a mannish gray jacket, came running forward. She spotted Elder and slowed down to a fast walk. Her dark eyes scanned the three of us, and her mouth was open as if someone had slapped her and she was afraid to say so.

“What is it, Peg?” Elder said.

“Tanucci, the young one,” she gasped. “He … he took a fall. The doc’s with him.”

Elder ran off with the woman after him. I looked at Kelly, whose eyes were wide.

“An accident,” I said. “Circuses must have accidents all the time.”

“Yes,” said Kelly. “But most of the accidents happen to the laborers, not the performers.”

“OK,” I said. “Let’s take a look.”

Before we could take ten steps after Elder, something happened. Kelly sensed it before I did and stopped. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, and then I could tell that the sounds of the circus had changed. The machine sounds had dominated a few minutes ago. Now the sound of animals took over. Bleats and cries and screams and roars, a sad madness of sound.

“What …” I started.

“I think Tanucci’s dead,” said Kelly.