Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Paul Gallico Hurry, Hurry, Hurry!

Paul Gallico, sports writer, short-story writer, novelist, and scenario writer, and one of the most popular authors of our time, gives us a carnival tale about a cynical, dissolute scalawag of a fortuneteller and of a shy, dewy-eyed innocent of a girl who put her faith in the old faker... But faker or not, Swami Mirza Baba was a natural-born crimebuster...

One late-summer day around the turn of the century, a cheap carnival came to a small town in Kansas for the county fair, in time to relieve some of the tensions built up by the brutal murder of an innocent widow on a lonely farm and the forthcoming hanging of the farmhand who had been found guilty of the crime.

The morning of the day the fair was to open in Thackerville, the carnival boss, Bowers, strode the busy midway where the concessions were being knocked together — the Ferris wheel and giant swing, the freak and girly shows, the hoopla games and wheels of fortune — and bawled, “Hoi! Gather ’round all hands. The Sheriff wants everybody.”

At that moment the curtains parted at the booth over which hung a garish poster showing a turbaned Indian gazing into a crystal ball and advertising: SWAMI MIRZA BABA TELLS THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE — 25¢, and Nick Jackson strolled out of the booth, spitting a stream of tobacco juice.

He was an unkempt, friendless, lonely man, past 60 but looking older, with a gray, seamed face and small, red-rimmed eyes. Hard-boiled, irreverent, he had the cynicism of a man whose lifetime had been spent in the city slums doing the best he could, and around cheap burlesque shows, traveling circuses, dime museums, and carnivals. He had been shill, barker, shell-game operator, short-change artist, front worker, and con man, but age and drink had made him unreliable in a tight pinch and he had ended up “dukkerin,” as the Romany gypsies called fortunetelling.

“All right now, you rats, listen to me,” the Sheriff began his address. He was a big man with a good forehead and hard, clear eyes. He wore a snakeskin belt and ten-gallon hat, and his neck rose from his flannel shirt like the column of a cottonwood tree. “This is a hardworking community of decent God-fearing people. We’re a-goin’ to let you operate here long as you behave. I know you for what you are, a pack o’ thieves, rascals, and scalawags. But you ain’t goin’ to get away with anything here. I got my eye on all of you and I been around some too.”

Nobody in the group of carny men stirred or said anything with the exception of the old fortuneteller who spat again.

“You wheel-of-fortune men, keep your bellies away from them brakes and lever boards. You skin anybody and you’ll spend the next six months in jail. That goes for you hoopla and ring-the-cane fellers too.”

The grifters exchanged looks but said nothing. They were wondering just how much they would have to shave to stay on the right side. The Sheriff was pleased with the effect of his speech on everybody except the fortuneteller. The hot impudence and contempt in the man’s eyes irritated him. He said:

“You Swami there, or whatever your name is. I don’t know that I’m a-gonna let you work.”

The old man regarded him unblinkingly and said out of the side of his tobacco-stained mouth, “Why? What’s the matter with me?”

“You’re a faker. You can’t read no minds and you can’t predict no future. Let’s see you predict mine, if you can.”

Nick said, “Cough up first, you the same as anybody else.” The Sheriff reached into his jeans and flung a two-bit piece to the fortuneteller, who pocketed it and snarled, “You want a prediction, eh? Couple a months from now you won’t be Sheriff any more.”

There was a roar of laughter from the assembled carnival men.

The Sheriff’s eyes hardened. “Is that right? What makes you think so?”

With an election coming off in November, it was a good fifty-fifty chance and maybe better, Nick knew. He had spent the previous day in Thackerville lounging around the barber shop, the bars, and the general store listening to gossip and picking up stray bits of information which might come in handy. Now he replied, “You got a hangin’ comin’ off next week. How do you know you’re stririgin’ the right feller?”

The Sheriff flushed red and stood silent for a moment on the bandstand. “You watch yourselves,” was all he said finally. He climbed down and strode away, shouldering roughly through the carnival men. Nick merely spat again.

The whole town, Nick had found out, was still on edge over the murder a month ago of the widow Booth, discovered in the kitchen of her farm with her head beaten in with a poker, and over the scheduled execution of Erd Wayne, her hired man, who had been found wandering half dazed about the kitchen with the murder weapon in his hand and blood on his clothes.

Wayne had been tried and found guilty when banker Samuel Chinter had supplied evidence for the motive, testifying that he had refused Wayne the loan of $1,500 to buy the Coulter farm that was up for sale. There had long been rumors that the widow kept that amount, her late husband’s insurance, in the house in cash. But, testified banker Chinter, the widow actually kept her money in the bank and so the murderer would have got no more than a few dollars for his crime. Wayne’s defense had been lame. He had been about to enter the kitchen for supper, he had said, when he was struck from behind and remembered nothing more.

It was, as the Sheriff had said, an open-and-shut case, and it had been conducted vigorously by the county prosecutor who hoped to reach the state legislature via the conviction, in spite of the fact that a lot of people had liked Erd Wayne. Some said he wanted the farm so that he could ask June Purvey to marry him but was not the kind to stoop to murder to get it. Still, the evidence seemed conclusive and sometimes fellows in love lost their heads. One never knew...

“Hayseeds,” muttered Nick Jack-son, eyeing the teeming midway from the entrance to his booth. He wore a soiled wrapper now, with stars and moons sewn onto it, and a turban with shaving-brush bristles and a ten-cent-store diamond stuck in the front of it.

He gave readings automatically. “A dark man is coming into your life... You have been worried lately, but things will get better... Beware of a blonde woman... You are a sensitive type misunderstood by your family.”

The curtains to the booth parted admitting the next customer, a young girl in a white cotton frock tied with a blue sash. Her dark hair, worn long, was gathered together in the back by a ribbon of the same color. She was 18, shy, nervous, frightened. But what startled the fortuneteller the most as his shrewd eyes analyzed her, missing nothing, was her innocence.

“Are you Mirza Baba?” she asked.

“Yup!”

“Can I have a reading?”

“Two bits.”

She opened her purse. He always made them pay first. A glance into pocketbooks yielded valuable clues. He saw the snapshot of the young man in an open-neck shirt. She handed him a quarter.

“You are worried about someone near and dear to you.” A safe opening — her nervousness, the snapshot...

Her dark eyes opened wide and she stared at him amazed. Tears formed in them. “I’m June Purvey,” she said.

“I knew that,” the old man lied. He scrutinized her with renewed interest. Hers was a simple, dewy beauty the contemplation of which unaccountably made his heart ache. Unaccustomed to emotion and pain, he suddenly turned savage and said harshly. “They’re a-goin’ to hang your man...”

The girl gave a low cry of despair, put her head down on the table, and sobbed uncontrollably. Nick was used to clients dissolving into tears when he sometimes prodded them on the raw or guessed their secrets. Yet the grief of this child touched him.

He hedged, “...unless something happens to prevent it.”

The girl lifted her tear-lined face and clutched miserably at the straw. “Oh please, Mr. Baba, help me. Please. He didn’t do it. Look here — you can see he didn’t do it.” She opened her purse and presented the photograph.

The odd thing was that at that moment, with the snapshot in his grimy fingers, Nick would have bet that Erd Wayne was innocent. His profession had trained him to read faces instantly. Life in a sordid world more black than white had taught him all the telltale marks left by greed, viciousness, hatred, and malice. The face of the man in the picture was frank, open, and honest.

“That’s right,” he agreed, “he didn’t do it. I can see that.”

“Then won’t you help him, please, Mr. Baba? I’ll pay you. I’ve brought money...” She opened her purse again and produced a roll of bills that made the old man’s eyes light up with cupidity.

“It’s eighty-five dollars that I’ve saved. But I would pay you more — anything you wanted. I could send you some every week. I work at Pete’s dry goods store.”

“You Erd’s girl?” Nick asked.

June shook her head. “No...” And then added, “He ain’t spoken yet.”

“What you doin’ this for then?”

“Because I love him.”

Nick was unable to understand the depth or simplicity of her reply. To him love was desire. He said, “Supposing he was to get off and go sparkin’ someone else, hey?”

June regarded him miserably for a moment, then replied fiercely, “I wouldn’t care, long as he was alive!” She pushed the money toward him. “You could find out the truth,” she said. “You can read their minds. Nobody can hide anything from you. If the murderer came here you’d know.”

“Yup, I’d know.”

“Then take it.” She indicated the bills.

Nick said, “Gimme half. You can pay the rest when I find something out.” He counted out 40 dollars and then added the odd five-dollar bill. He had no compunction at taking her money. This was how he earned his living, separating the gullible from their cash. It surprised him, though, that he had not taken it all. He said, “I’ll keep my inner eye peeled. Don’t say nothing to nobody. You can come back tomorrow.”

She got up to go. Her eyes were filled with trust and relief. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Baba. God bless you!”

He watched her go, suddenly filled with a strange, angry desire to free hired man Wayne.

Nick Jackson was what was known as a cold reader. With no props such as cards or crystal ball, he sat at a table and dissected his clients, probed them for their weakness and hidden troubles. He employed a combination of ready patter, shrewed observation, knowledge of human nature and evil, and the natural desire of his victims to talk.

“Some men cannot resist the impulse to have just one more drink,” he would say to some unhappy housewife with bitter lines about her mouth, watching her face for clues. If the lips tightened, the eyes widened with a hint of tears, he had the secret of her visit. If the expression remained blank he continued smoothly, “But that, fortunately, is not the case with your husband.” Then he would fish in other waters — blondes, cards, the ponies... Soon they would be spilling everything to him, convinced that he had read their innermost thoughts and secrets.

The afternoon of the next day a young girl came in. But she was not innocent. Nick could tell when they had had experience.

His knowing eyes estimated her. Straw-colored hair, small greedy mouth, high-school senior ring, good clothes. When she opened her purse to pay him he glimpsed a rouge compact and a diamond ring, the stub of a railroad ticket to Kansas City, and a scrap of paper with the address, in masculine handwriting, of one of that city’s shadier hotels. It was as though she had presented her immediate history to him written down in a copybook.

He said, “Sit down, dear.” He thought of the Sheriff and his hardworking community of decent God-fearing people and laughed inwardly. “You are the affectionate type; your warm generous nature gives you away. I see someone who loves you. But wait. I see another woman at his side. The man is married, is he not?”

The girl’s eyes filled with fear. “How do you know?”

“Nothing is veiled from Mirza Baba. Shall I tell you more?” From outside sounded the cries of the barkers, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” and the groaning of the carousel organ and the snap-snapping of the cheap rifles in the shooting gallery. The girl nodded silently.

“I see a train ride. You are alone and nervous. You are walking along a street in a big city. You come to a hotel. There you meet your lover. The two of you go inside...”

The girl’s moan interrupted him and she appeared on the point of collapse. “Oh, God, you’ve found out. My father will kill me if he finds out.”

Her story came pouring from her. Her name was Clyde Vroom. A much older married man in the town had fallen in love with her. She had wanted pretty things. He had given her a diamond ring, which she had never dared wear, and other gifts. He had painted a glowing picture of the wonderful time they would have together in the big city, and she couldn’t resist his invitation to spend a week-end there with him. She had told her father she was going to visit a girl friend in a neighboring town.

Nick was doing arithmetic. The ring must have cost nearly a thousand dollars, the other gifts several hundred. Where would a man in a small town lay his hands on that kind of money without his wife or someone finding out? He asked, “What was his name, dear?” It was a mistake. If he had kept quiet or prodded her some more it would have slipped out.

She was on her feet, her little mouth twisted with fear, her eyes wide with terror. “Oh, God! You’ll find out if I stay here any more. You’ll read it in my mind...” She snatched her purse and fled from the booth.

Nick went to the entrance and watched her panicky passage down the midway. He gazed at the mingling of farmers and villagers out for a holiday. He wondered what other secrets were to be dredged out from behind those bland, smooth faces, what other guilts smoldered beneath denim, seersucker, dimity, or poplin.

He saw June Purvey standing near the frozen custard stand, her dark unhappy eyes trying to catch his. She probably had been waiting there all day, watching.

Nick signaled to June Purvey with a jerk of his head and went back inside. A moment later she came in. She plucked at his soiled wrapper, crying, “Oh, Mr. Baba... Have you found out who did it?” Her voice shook with strain and anguish.

He replied, “Nope,” and then quickly corrected himself, “Mebbe. The psychical aura is kinda confused. I gotta git more impressions. I see a figure but there is a veil in front of it.” Then abruptly changing his tone, “You know a. girl named Clytie Vroom?”

June nodded, puzzled. “Yes. I went to school with her.”

“Know who her feller is?”

June thought... “I don’t think she has one, a steady I mean.” She blushed suddenly. “I think maybe the Sheriff is sweet on her. I’ve seen him walking her home from the bank several times. Clytie works at the bank, you know.” Then June drew in her breath sharply crying, “Oh... but...”

“The Sheriff’s married,” concluded Nick. “Never mind; it probably don’t mean nothing. You run along. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

The next day was Sunday and unbearably hot. Although the fairgrounds were crowded, Nick gave only a few desultory readings and mostly sat waiting in the stifling booth rolling Bull Durham cigarettes, thinking of the man in the county jail waiting to be hanged by the neck until dead and wondering if it could really be pinned on the Sheriff. He daydreamed with vicious satisfaction of unmasking the man who had called them all rats and scoundrels, and singled him out for abuse.

Toward late afternoon Nick heard voices outside the curtain closing the entrance and pricked up his ears. Many workable clues could be mined listening to the snatches of talk between two people before one of them came in, from, “Aw, I dare you. I will if you will,” to such admissions as, “Jim would be furious if he knew I had gone to a fortuneteller,” exposing the timid wife and the domineering husband.

A woman’s voice said, “Vulgar fraud. It oughtn’t to be allowed.”

The man’s: “Oh, I suppose it is amusing. I’d like to see just how far these fakers go.”

The woman’s (with a snort): “Really, Mr. C. If you can’t find something better to spend hard-earned money on...”

The man’s: “Maybe he’ll tell me how to invest and make a fortune.”

The woman’s: “Samuel Chinter! That I should five to see the day when you patronized a fortuneteller.”

And the man’s, finally: “My dear Essie. I see that you are still far from plumbing the more tortuous depths of my character. If you are embarrassed, wait for me at the Ladies Aid Booth.”

Nick indexed mentally: Businessman, but his wife holds one end of the purse strings. Would probably enjoy a fling if he could get it. And he was trying to remember where he had heard the name before. Then it came to him as the curtain parted. Samuel Chinter, president of the Farmer’s Bank, came in.

He sat down opposite the seedy-looking little man in the gown and ridiculous turban. His thin mouth parted in an amiable enough smile as he asked, “Can you make money out of this sort of thing, my friend?”

Nick replied. “Yup. Or I wouldn’t be doing it.” He was studying the tight, too-smooth face. The banker’s skin looked as if it were made of elastic and had been stretched over wood. He noted the lines at each corner of the bloodless mouth and the gleam in the small, butternut-shaped eyes.

“Well, then, my friend, Mirza Baba, if that is your name, supposing you tell me something about myself.”

Nick said, “Two bits,” and waited, watching while the banker took a leather purse from his left hip pocket. This surprised the cold reader since most men kept their wallets on the right. Chinter laid the coin on the table saying, “Always the best course in any business. Trust no one.”

Nick decided he wanted to be rid of him quickly. He said perfunctorily, “I see an office of marble and glass. There is a large mahogany desk. A brass sign on it says, ‘President.’ ”

“Excellent, my friend. Of course you know who I am. Everyone in Thackerville does. Go on.”

Nick felt pushed off base. His mind was not working as coldly and analytically as it should. “You are worried about investments,” he suggested, picking up the clue.

Chinter’s lips parted again, but this time the smile was not amiable. “Every banker worries about investments,” he said. “But if I wanted financial information I wouldn’t come to you. Is that the best you can do?”

The anger he always seemed to feel against these bland, self-satisfied, well-to-do people possessed Nick. “There is an account at the bank that is causing you concern,” he fished, but in safe enough waters. Every bank had at least one account like that. “You do not know how to get out of your difficulty at the moment. Also in this affair you are hindered by a woman.” It was also true that in most tangled accounts where there was an overdraft there was usually a woman involved.

Chinter’s smooth face remained expressionless. But in the hairless space between nostril and lip line Nick saw a bead of sweat which had not been there before. He switched to flattery.

“You are the sophisticated worldly type, too big for a small community. You belong where your talents would be more appreciated. You have a fatal attraction for women — young women. You are held back by people who do not understand you.”

He was watching the banker closely through half-closed eyes as he reeled off the rote spiel he had given a half dozen others. Imperceptibly, almost, he saw Chinter’s head nodding in agreement with each point. “Your heart rules your mind. You are generous to a fault. You...” He paused, suddenly remembering something that June Purvey had said — “Clyde works at the bank, you know” — a hunch! If he could make this sneering man squirm a little...

Nick pinioned the banker hypnotically with his red-rimmed eyes and continued, “I see a ring. A diamond ring in the hands of a blonde woman, a young girl...” Had there been no reaction to this he would have said, “but this does not concern you.”

But there were now three beads of sweat on the mouth and one coursing down the chin. Nick gambled. “The diamond ring is a present. Yet she dare not wear it. I see her again on a railroad train. She is nervous. There is an address in her bag. I cannot read it clearly but it is the name of a hotel in Kansas City.”

He stopped. Chinter did not move. “Go on,” he said hoarsely, “what else do you know?”

Bull’s-eye! Clytie Vroom, then, had gone to her married lover in panic and told him the mind reader had learned her secret. But why had he come there when Clytie had not named him? What further did he fear? With what other guilt was he burdened?

Nick remembered June Purvey saying, “If the murderer came here, you’d know it.” But banker Chinter was the one man who could not have committed the murder for which Erd Wayne was to hang, since he knew that the widow Booth kept her money in his bank and not in her house. Therefore...

Nick’s sordid, cynical mind was now spinning like the drive wheel of a locomotive, weighing, testing, remembering. Figures bashed through his head — the sum of $1,500, the widow’s fortune — enough to buy a diamond ring and other gifts. Who would have easier access to it than banker Chinter? He had only to take it. But if the widow had found out...

The atmosphere in the booth was suddenly thick and heavy with animal fear as Nick droned, “I see the woman who hindered you with the account that was giving you difficulty. She will hinder you no longer. She is dead.”

“Aaaaaah!” A long sigh came from the man on the other side of the table. His right hand dropped casually to his side.

“I see the widow Booth in her kitchen. Outside there lurks a man who must silence her at all costs. The hired man, Wayne, enters, disturbing his plans. But the man outside sees in him the chance to kill and let another hang for it. And l know why the murderer had to silence the widow...”

The explosion of the gun burst shockingly over the noises of the midway and filled the narrow booth with black smoke and powder stink. But the bullet passed harmlessly through the roof, for Nick had seen the glint of metal creeping from the hip pocket where a right-handed man’s wallet ought to be, and had kicked viciously under the table, spoiling his aim.

Then he kicked him twice more in the same spot, disabling him into a groveling wreck on the floor as men, carnies and passers-by, led by the ubiquitous Sheriff, rushed in.

The latter shouted, “I warned you to keep out of trouble. By God, it’s Mr. Chinter. You’ll swing for this, Baba...”

The old man stared at him. “You’re mighty quick with that rope, Sheriff. He’s got the gun, not me.”

Bowers, the carnival boss, had arrived. He took in the situation. “Yeah, Sheriff, take it easy. This bozo, whoever he is, tried to murder one of my men.”

Nick began to laugh, a horrid, high-pitched cackle. “Rats, are we?” he gasped, “Thieves, rascals, scalawags, eh? You’ll keep an eye on us! What about that sweet-smelling hypocrite there? There’s your real murderer of the widow Booth. Are you or aren’t you, banker Chinter?” — and Nick raised his foot again.

The wreck moaned, “Yes. Oh, God, don’t kick me again.”

The fortuneteller croaked on, “He embezzled the widow’s funds to buy his doxy a diamond and other things. Go ask Clytie Vroom to show you the ring. When the widow discovered her money was gone he had to kill her to keep her quiet.”

And he added, “You’re through, Sheriff. You hang too fast in this county.”

He touched the prone man with his foot as though he were filth and said, “Go on. Get that trash out of here.”

The crowd withdrew with the Sheriff and his prisoner, following them silently. Nick Jackson began to set his booth to rights again. He bit off a large chew of tobacco, picked up the overturned table and chair, and fixed the curtain. He fingered the hole in the clapboard roof made by the .38 caliber bullet, and then he grinned. Lack of courage was not one of his failings. He readjusted his turban which had fallen awry in the brief melee and sat down looking moodily before him.

The curtain stirred and parted, admitting June Purvey. She was white, but her eyes were shining with joy. She said, “I heard what happened — what you did. They told me they’re a-going to set Erd free tomorrow.”

Nick nodded. In the excitement of the shooting he had forgotten all about the girl and the man she loved. Then he made a strange admission. “You helped,” he said. “Erd owes you a lot. It was you told me Clytie worked in the bank.”

She said swiftly, “I’d never let him know.”

Nick said, “Mirza Baba reads the future. Erd’s your man.”

Tears fell from the lovely eyes again. She opened her purse and took out the 40 dollars. “It’s all I’ve got,” she said, “but I could mail you a dollar a week for as long as you say.”

Nick looked at the money and at the girl. “All right,” he said, “gimme it.” He took it from her. “You don’t need to pay any more. We’re square.”

June cried, “Oh thank you, thank you, dear Mr. Baba!” Then, going to him, she put her arms around him and kissed him on the side of his bitter, tobacco-stained mouth, and quickly ran out.

The old faker remained sitting there, the wad of bills in one hand. With the fingers of the other he touched the spot that she had kissed, rubbing at it as though the imprint of such goodness, purity, and innocence were something searing and unbearable. He felt older and more in need of a drink than he ever had before and, for the first time in his life, strangely desolate and forlorn.