Catch a Falling Clown

8

“You look like a grape popsicle,” Sheldon Minck observed through his thick glasses. Shelly is about five five, fat, fifty-five, bald, smokes very wet cigars, and has dirty fingers and questionable habits which make for particular problems since he is a dentist, the dentist with whom I share an office. More accurately, he sublets a closet to me on the fourth floor of the Farraday Building, the last refuge of forgotten dentists, detectives, pornographers, and agents without clients in various fields of life.

“I’ve had a difficult day, Shel,” I said. “I’ll explain.”

My other two guests nodded in understanding. They are as much in contrast as two humans could be unless we also made one a woman and turned one black or brown or tan. As it is, Jeremy Butler stands about six three and weighs in at just short of 250 pounds, which is rather awesome for a poet and the owner-manager of the Farraday Building. Jeremy had once been a professional wrestler. He now wrestles with meters and the grime that threatens to take over his property. In contrast to Jeremy is Gunther Wherthman, who stands no more than four feet high and is certainly a very little person, a midget, who speaks with a precise Swiss accent and wears precise clean suits with vests. His fingernails are never dirty, and he makes a living by translating books and articles from German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Danish into English. Gunther got me the room in Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse in Hollywood after the place I lived in got crushed by a wrecker.

The first piece of business was to clear the room by asking Elder and Peg to give us some time together. Peg went behind a towel hung in a corner and changed, while the four of us said nothing.

Peg smiled at me on the way out, and as soon as the door closed, Gunther, seated on the bed so his feet would touch the floor, said, “You suspect her of something?”

“No,” I told him. “Just want to be sure.”

Gunther nodded in agreement. He wore a beautiful little chesterfield coat.

Jeremy Butler pulled out one of the chairs at the table with a lobster hand and sat carefully. The chair didn’t break. He unbuttoned his flannel jacket and looked at me.

“Been brushing your teeth?” asked Shelly.

“Shel, what are you doing here? I called Jeremy and Gunther.”

“I ran into Jeremy, and he told me you needed help,” said Shelly, removing his cigar to examine the end. His glasses slipped down his nose, and he almost poked himself in the eye with the cigar stub to keep them from dropping. “Besides, they needed a car.”

Shelly’s 1937 Ford was as filthy as his 1914 office, but it ran and defied reason by never causing him trouble in spite of his neglect.

“I’m sorry, Toby,” Jeremy began.

“OK,” I said with my hand up. “Shelly can help. We’ve got a murder or two here, animals, people, and maybe more to come. The local police think I did it, and if they get their hands on me, I will probably lose my hands. So we’ve got to find the killer and protect the circus, and we’ve got to do it fast before there are no more performers to protect. Oh, yes, we’ve also got a runaway elephant.”

“Proceed,” said Gunther calmly, and I proceeded. I told them the whole story. Jeremy and Gunther sat quietly, listening. Shelly was soon floating somewhere, thinking of cavities.

“So,” said Gunther, “it seems an easy process. We list everyone who stood in the tent when the unfortunate Mr. Tanucci died. We then make that list smaller if we can.”

“The killer already has made it smaller,” Shelly said with a satisfied grin.

“How did you get Mildred to let you go?”

“I told her you needed my help.”

“Mildred would gladly see me turned over to the Japanese,” I told him.

“You wrong my Mildred,” countered Shelly.

“Toby,” said Gunther softly. “May I continue?”

I apologized, and he continued. “We may, for the moment, assume that the Tanuccis are not responsible for the murder of their own clan. This may turn out to be a false assumption, but given our group size …”

“Reasonable,” agreed Jeremy.

“We eliminate Toby,” Gunther went on. “May we eliminate the doctor? He is quite old, yes?”

“Probably,” I said. “It would take a quick hand to cut that harness and someone with a steady hand to gun down Rennata so neatly on the beach.”

“Good,” continued Gunther. “We then have Mr. Elder, who you were talking to, which eliminates him….”

“From stealing the harness,” Jeremy said quickly. “He might have an accomplice.”

My chest thumped. Peg might be such an accomplice. “Maybe,” I agreed.

“Now, we eliminate you,” added Gunther, “and may I assume we eliminate Alfred Hitchcock?”

“No,” shouted Shelly, leaping to his feet and pointing his cigar at me. “Movie directors can be killers.”

“Shelly,” I said in exasperation, “why would Alfred Hitchcock be killing people and elephants in the circus?”

“Material for movies,” he said triumphantly. He began to pace the small floor while presenting his theory. “Movie director goes crazy. Can’t think of stories for his movies. Maybe he was scared by a clown or a wombat when he was a kid.”

“What the hell is a wombat?” I said.

“Marsupial,” explained Gunther, “large, rodent appearance. Native, I believe, to Tasmania.”

“What the hell has a wombat got to do with this case?” I said.

“Hitchcock may have …”

“Hitchcock, hell. Shel, just stand still and let Gunther finish.”

Shelly went back to his chair, folded his arms, and pouted while Gunther continued. “Therefore, our most likely suspects are Henry, the animal keeper; Agnes Sudds, the serpent lady, and Thomas Paul, the curious double-faced man for whom you have no affection.”

It sounded reasonable to me.

“Therefore, if we also eliminate Emmett Kelly,” continued Gunther, “it would be best to use our resources in watching the three prime suspects rather than trying to anticipate potential victims.”

It sounded perfectly good to me, which made me wonder for a few seconds why I hadn’t thought of it, but only for a few seconds. I hadn’t thought of it for just that reason-it was reasonable. I was not used to operating from reason.

“It has problems,” said Jeremy Butler, “but it seems the most reasonable to me too.”

“I’m sorry to bring you down here,” I said. “Thanks for the help.”

“I welcome the chance to see the circus,” said Jeremy, standing and examining Peg’s posters. “I’ll get a sense of it, perhaps already have, for my life poem. The elephants’ ears like huge leaves. The burning smell of animal life.”

“That’s donkey piss,” explained Shelley.

“Thanks, Shel.”

Shelly looked satisfied.

I got up slowly. A debate then began over how to treat my once again sore back. Shelly had his pain pills and Jeremy his experience. The back wasn’t bad enough for both yet, so I went with Jeremy’s treatment. I got on my stomach and let him work with his powerful grip. A second of pain and then the relief, not perfect but much better.

I deployed the troops by assigning Shelly to Henry Brain-feeble Yew, assuming Henry was the only one Shelly could watch without being spotted unless Henry was putting on an act. Gunther I sent to Agnes Sudds and the slithering Abdul, and Jeremy to Thomas Paul, should the creature show up as he had promised. I would stay with Peg and try to keep an eye on Elder. It seemed reasonable. We called Elder in to help us find our suspects.

“Don’t I know you?” Elder said to Gunther as I explained our plan, at least all of it except the part about my watching him.

“Yes,” said Gunther with dignity and an accent. “I worked briefly in the circus when I came to this country. Our paths crossed. While I respect it, it is not the life with which I wish to be identified. Please do not take offense.”

Elder touched his mustache and nodded politely.

I wondered how painful the experience of coming back to the circus would be for Gunther. I hadn’t thought about it when I sent for him. I had sent for a friend and forgotten that he was a sensitive small human who was trying desperately to achieve some dignity and distance from the public view of midgets as curiosities and freaks. I didn’t think he could do it with people on the street. It takes knowing someone not to see him.

Elder led everyone out after we agreed to meet again at midnight or when we were sure the people we were watching were well tucked in for the night. It was the best we could do for the moment.

Peg came back with a pair of pants for me, a shirt, and my zipperless jacket.

“Coast is clear,” she said. “The sheriff has gone. I think he’s convinced you went back to Los Angeles.”

I started to dress, put one foot in my pants and tore some stitches. Peg sat down and watched me. The band struck a loud chord far off, and the crowd went, “Ahhhh.”

“Martin the Great,” she said. “Sways on a flexible bar fifty feet high. They think he’s going to fall. A good trick.”

“Dangerous?” I asked, buttoning my shirt.

“You’re one button off,” she said. “Not too dangerous. Emmett Kelly told me once the most dangerous act he ever saw was a guy named Fitzgerald at a small circus back in Missouri. Fitzgerald worked a high wire without a net, dangerous stuff, didn’t give a darn for the audience. Didn’t make easy things look hard. Tried to make everything look easy. Wouldn’t play for a bow, just walked off when his act was finished. Kelly says he was the greatest, but no one but the circus people ever knew it.”

“What happened to Fitzgerald?” I asked, getting the buttons right.

“Fell,” she said with a sad shrug. “Kelly says almost no one even noticed when he went down. They were all looking at a third-rate family act in center ring.”

“Tough,” I said, dressed and looking at her.

“Circus,” she said. “What now?”

“As they say on the radio, we wait.”

We talked for a while about my father, my brother, the war, the price of gas, her father, her mother, Elder, and snow. I don’t remember how we got to snow. I do remember how I moved over and sat next to her on the bed, and she didn’t complain. My arm went up to her shoulder while she talked about what she liked about the circus. I don’t think anything much would have happened even if Emmett Kelly hadn’t knocked at the wagon door. I don’t know. I’ll never know, but knock he did.

“Come in,” she called, looking in my eyes.

“Some grippers spotted Greta,” he said, still in his Willie costume.

“Greta?”

“The elephant Rennata took with her, the one on the beach,” he explained.

Peg got up. “Where is she?”

“Trucking her back,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Someone shot her, but she’ll probably be all right, according to Doc Ogle. It takes a big bullet and a good shot to bring down a bull.”

“That’s one saved,” I sighed.

“Yeah,” agreed Kelly, “but we’ve got a bigger problem. Now a lion is loose.”

I followed Kelly into the night with Peg behind us. I could see circus people running madly and as quietly as they could with chairs and sticks in their hands, poking into corners, into tents, behind wagons, dark figures. The band in the big top seemed to be playing a march just for them. Musical chairs. Maybe “The Stars and Stripes Forever” would stop, and so would they. It stopped, but they didn’t.

Peg was shivering beside me. The night was cold, but that wasn’t why she was shivering. “They don’t know in the top, do they?”

“No,” said Kelly. “I’ve seen a panic. We’ve got to try to find the cat before the show ends.”

Kelly, looking even more worried than in the center ring, hurried off to look for the lion with no weapon other than his prop broom. I didn’t even have my petrified lasso, and my gun had been confiscated by the Mirador police.

“So,” I said to Peg, taking her hand, “we look for a runaway lion. But first we find out what happened.”

We hurried back to Henry’s tent, but Henry wasn’t there. Gargantua was there, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. He just sat on the floor of his cage eating something that could have been a cabbage, a radio, or a human head. Some people were standing near a cage in the rear. A lion was in the cage.

“You found him,” I shouted to Elder, running forward. The blond, tan man at his side was dressed in white tights and jacket. From a distance he looked twenty. Up close he looked fifty. I recognized him.

“No,” said Elder. “Sandoval came in to check on the cats and saw the cage open. Only one cat had gotten out. The other one stayed.”

“Someone opened up the cage,” Sandoval said with a broad gesture. “Why would someone do such a thing? I need that cat for my act. He can do a rollover …”

“Is he dangerous?” I asked, gripping Peg’s hand.

“Of course,” said Sandoval with indignation. “What is the point of working with cats that are not dangerous? I am an artist, not a sideshow trick.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Sandoval,” said Elder, putting his hand on the performer’s shoulder and looking into his eyes. “You’ve got to keep your act going tonight till I tell you to stop. Do it twice if you have to. We’ve got to have time to catch the cat.”

“Without the rollover?” Sandoval complained.

“I’m afraid so,” said Elder seriously.

Sandoval shrugged and gave a show-must-go-on smile, turned, and hurried out of the tent.

“Chances are the cat will stay nearby,” said Elder, looking at me and Peg. “Well, let’s look. His name is Puddles, but he doesn’t answer to any name. If you find him, let out a yell and get something between you and him.”

“No accident, was it?” I asked.

“You kidding?” said Elder. “Whoever did it pried the damn lock off. Now, let’s find Puddles.”