Buttercup (10 page)

“Need to make a stop,” Silvio grunted. “You boys hang back.

There’s something I come for.”

Before either man could press for an answer on the ‘what’ could summon him on a ride like this, Silvio threw open the door. That night, that one bliss filled night, was all that got him through the next four years in prison busting rocks. When he broke out, he hit the ground running.

He’d been running ever since. But never once had he forgotten. Tonight, he was determined to find out if she did the same.

Silvio stalked through the crowded midway. His eyes were barely seen under the downward slant of his fedora. To his left were lighted booths where carnies called to townies to test their luck on games of chance for penny prizes and day old stale treats. A nearly six-foot tall Asian, covered in tattoos, juggled flaming sticks for a small crowd while another man who looked like his twin prepared to walk over a bed of nails.

Grown men in tattered clothes, mended with bright patchwork, wore painted white faces with ghastly drawn red lips and darkly drawn triangular brows. The clown impersonators passed off balloons to the young people, seducing their parents to empty their coin purses. Silvio felt all of their stares: watchful, curious, unwelcoming glares. To his right were tents offering just a little more to adults behind the cover of the curtain.

From freak shows to peep shows, you could take your pick. He kept going.

With the night cloudless and the moon full, he felt her. She was near.

Silvio reached the end of the midway. He glanced up at the painted sign. It wasn’t Lady Joyce headlining. The barker called a new name. Her name. Others hurried briskly, several side-stepping him. Each man was drawn by the loudmouth midget's call. Buttercup’s infamy was evident in the townsmen’s eagerness to empty their pockets into the hats of the lot men who blocked the entrance. Silvio pulled on the front of his fedora, tipping his hat further down his face when the Indian passed him. He’d wait out the crowd and find another way to slip inside.

“You lookin’ for her, ain’t-ya?” a soft voice spoke.

Silvio’s gaze turned to the tents. A woman appeared through the dark folds of one. An aging gypsy woman, vaguely familiar, her eyes black as a cobra’s, fixed on him. It was the witch from before. She was the one who taunted his gullible friend and the one that sold them out the first time they arrived those years ago.

“I know you.” She pointed a gnarled finger at him. Her shawl dropped from her grey streaked hair to rest around her shoulders. Her sun-aged face was covered in so many wrinkles he could see nothing of the woman she once was. Silvio was compelled to hold her stare, and her face split into a toothless smile. “Buttercup! You come for her. You come for our Buttercup? Haven’t you?”

“Where’s her tent?”

“Tent?” the witch cackled. She covered her head once more with her shawl. It spared him the haunting cruelty of her features. But his trigger finger itched to draw on her just the same. Silvio parted the fold of his coat with his hand and let it slip back to where he tucked his pistol.

“Buttercup don’t have no tent. She got her own boxcar. Aint you see the sign? She's carnie royalty now.”

Silvio looked back to the line of men entering the tents. The shows were starting. Where there once was only one, he saw at least three. The need to escape the strange woman overcame him. He started away, but the gypsy spoke again. “The cards told me you’d come,” the old woman rasped. “I tell Buttercup the day draws near. She betta’ be ready. I say,
he
will come to take what is
his
; this time Tiny and Lone Wolf can’t make it different. This time he who rides by the gun will have his revenge. And for some coin, I will tell you what she had to say of your return. Help you find your way.” The woman’s cruel gaze went east. Silvio’s head turned slowly. His eyes followed. There were several boxcars lined up away from the carnival. It was what Buttercup once referred to as the
bone yard
. The witch laughed again. It was a nasty, phlegm filled laugh that went through him like the cool autumn wind and rattled a nasty cough in her chest like crumbling paper. Then she rasped, “You thinkin’ that Buttercup belon’ to you…the truth is, you belon’ to her.” Another cold wave of bitter laughter escaped the gypsy woman’s pale, dry lips. “You been dreamin’, boy?”

Silvio tensed. He hated those that laughed at him and mocked him without cause. The mention of dreams made him waver, for just a moment. Then he clenched his fist realizing he could snap her neck if he wanted. He leveled his eyes on the woman and took a step toward her. A step from Silvio Garelli usually was all that was needed. But the gypsy didn’t move. She sneered like some venomous snake, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, feeding off his uncertainty. Feeding off his rage.

“Believe me now. Believe me later. She won’t leave this carnival with
you... and when you knows the truth, you’ll grow to hate her.”

“Boss?”

Silvio turned, reaching for his gun.

Dragging his bum leg and holding his hat down on the top of his head against the increasing force of the night wind, was Manny. Trailing close behind came Red and Touchy. Silvio glared at his men, watching their approach. His hand relaxed on his piece. The gypsy witch slunk back into the shadows. When he recalled her again, he looked back to find her gone.

“Boss, sorry, boss. We, um, they, um, we really need to get back on the road before daylight come.” Manny removed his hat and scratched at his head. He cast his eyes to the others and then to Silvio. “I told them to wait on you, but they…well it’s getting late and… they…”

“What the fuck is this? A fucking carnival?” Touchy asked, scowling at the townspeople running or walking in clusters to the latest trick tent or carnie rides. Red popped his collar on his coat and glared directly at Silvio. “We thinking of doing some business here, boss?”

“Like I said, this is my business, personal business.”

All of them froze at the word, personal. They knew so little of each other. But they knew one thing. None of them had personal business since they broke out of the clink and started hitting banks that weren’t dried up from the Depression. It was simple. They moved as one until the last job.

Then they’d depart. That was the deal, and
this
was the last run. So why stop for ‘personal’ business now? Silvio read their thoughts. He clenched one hand tightly into a fist. He wouldn’t explain any of it further than that.

A voice snapped over his thoughts like a lion tamer’s whip.

“Tonight’s your night!!”
The midget tapped his cane on the platform.
“We
got some naughty for you boys. She’s here, back for one last show if you payin’

right…”
Tiny pointed his cane to the opening in the tent. The hooch show’s music nearly drowned out the midget's high-pitched voice.

Silvio’s men all looked in the direction of the voice. The midget waddled gap legged back and forth. The rambunctious crowd inside could be heard in loud waves of catcalls and hand whistles. Silvio checked again for the witch. She was gone. It didn’t matter. Before the bitch could finger him, his business at the Carnival would be done. The show would soon start. Buttercup was within his reach.

“Boss, it’s a bit risky tonight. We got to get a move on,” Manny said. All questioning eyes returned to him.

Silvio clenched his jaw and weighed his options. “We part ways here then,” he announced.

“What?” Touchy shouted.

“Boss? What you mean? What that mean we part here? That’s not.

That’s not how it goes. Right, boss? We go to Mexico. Together. That’s the plan. The four of us together.”

“Like I said, it’s personal. So if any of you got that itch, I suggest you scratch it now. Make a decision, boys. I’ve made mine.”

The three men exchanged looks. The wind whipped at the tails of their coats. Its low howl mixed in with the surrounding fanfare, but the three stood silent. Red scratched his jaw. “Nah, we stick together. You got business then you got business. I need a break. Fuck, we all do. A few hours won’t make a difference.”

“But—” Manny started. He received a silencing smack to the back of his head from Touchy. Manny’s hat was nearly knocked from his head.

He stepped back, scowling but said nothing.

“Fuck, kid. Let it go. Boss needs to make a stop, and then we stop.

Nobody breaks up the gang in this pisshole.” Touchy nodded respectfully to Silvio. “We’ll lay low; we’re here if you need us.” He then turned and walked off. Red tipped his hat at Silvio and soon followed. Manny was the last standing before him. He dropped his hands in his pockets and looked back at the boys, unsure. His clubfoot slowed him as he approached. “If you tell me what we here for, I can help, boss. You need anything?”

“Keep the boys out of the hooch tent. That’s what I need for now.

Tell Red I expect trouble, so be ready. Until I say better, make sure Touchy keep's a cool head. I’ll find you when I need you.”

Manny frowned. It was brief. He gave an obedient nod before turning and limping away. Silvio’s eyes returned to Madame Danique’s tent. She wasn’t there. But she knew where his Buttercup would be after the show. That information he couldn’t pass on. He entered her tent to find it darker than the night outside of its folds. But even in the dark cramped quarters, he confirmed she wasn’t there. How did she get past them all?

“Fuck this!” Silvio stormed out. He’d find Della's train car on his own.

“Hey, mister.”

Silvio nearly knocked the young lad down. His eyes dropped to the little brown boy. The child wore clothes a size too big. A confederate soldier jacket nearly swallowed him. His britches were tied around his waist by a braided rope. Even in the grass Silvio could tell he wore no shoes, and it was fucking freezing out.
Where did the kid come from
?

The boy smirked up at him, as if he, too, had heard his thoughts.

What was he five, six? Silvio narrowed his eyes on the little ankle-biter.

Was the kid from the carnival or from the piss-poor town? He didn’t really give a fuck. The kid was in the way.

“Wanna see a trick?” The boy put his hands out and flipped them front to back. He gave a broad cheeky grin. “Huh? Do ya? Do ya?” His curly bushy hair was twice the size of his small head. The mass blew back in the wind. Silvio also noticed his cheeks were peppered in tiny freckles, just like the kind he had when he was young. Strange that this kid had freckles. It was obvious he was a colored boy, despite his fair skin.

“Not now kid. Scram.”

“Wanna see a trick?” the boy repeated, this time more firmly.

Silvio almost laughed at the bass in the child’s voice. Then came the last call for the hooch show. Silvio headed for the tent. The little one kept up with him. He bounced and skipped along like a jumping jellybean. Wasn’t the kid cold? Where the fuck were his shoes?

Silvio frowned. No matter how fast he walked, he couldn’t shake the kid. Then the child jumped in front of him again as if springs were attached to the bottoms of his bare feet. “I’m a magic man, mister…

wanna see a trick!”

“Beat it, kid!”

In a flash the kid pushed at Silvio’s legs as hard as his little hands could muster. Silvio reached for the child’s shoulder to move him aside—

a mistake. The little boy darted inside the open fold of his coat, giggling.

Suddenly the long tails of Silvio’s wool trench covered the kid, running around and through his legs. He reminded Silvio of a slippery and quick jackrabbit he chased one spring for supper as a child. He could never quite get a hold of it. The boy was quick. Silvio turned in a 180-degree circle trying to reach inside then behind him to free the tyke. Like a bullet, the kid shot free of his legs and ran for the tents. He was gone. Problem solved. Well not quite. A quick pat down revealed Silvio’s pockets were a little light.

“Motherfucker!” The kid was a pickpocket. Just that quick he had cleaned him out. Silvio chased after him, running between the tents to the other side. The kid had lifted $200 from him. He couldn’t let that slide. He looked left, then right. The child was barely seen running through the tall grass for the train cars.

Silvio didn’t need this. Damn it to hell. Why should he even bother? The more he gave chase, the angrier he became. Almost two hundred bones lifted from him by a six year old.

Silvio stopped. He again looked left, then to his right. He moved through the shadows, careful to not be seen as he silently crept from around empty tents and trailers. He lost the kid to the darkness.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Silvio grimaced.

He had to think on it again. Was it a kid? Was it a midget hustling him? It had happened so damn fast. No, it was definitely a kid. It was pointless to waste another minute on the search. Stalking off, his ear caught a hint of laughter followed by child-like giggles. It was almost faint enough to be the wind. Silvio’s head turned. The feeling of being watched made the hairs on the back of his arm stand on end. The clouds moved over the moon, and the absence of light was complete. His eyes sought out the figure in the shadows. Back tracking, he was careful not to make a sound. Then a child’s giggles grew distinct. Swiftly, he dipped around the side of the train car and caught the kid. He grabbed a fistful of the front of the child’s shirt and lifted him, kicking and screaming, from the ground. It was definitely a kid who was too young for the game he was running. The boy kicked his dirty feet, hitting at him with his tiny fist. “You don’t lift from me kid. You hear me?”