Catch a Falling Clown: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Seven) (20 page)

“They’re waiting for me,” I whispered to Kelly. Willie turned slowly to look in both directions, took off his hat, rubbed his head to the delight of the crowd, and headed to the center ring while the other clowns exited.

“And now,” said the ringmaster over a crackling loudspeaker, “we direct your attention to the center ring where the Flying Ibems of Peru will dazzle you with their death-defying feats of antigravity.”

Kelly held the rope ladder at the bottom, and I dropped my lasso and held the other ladder. The Ibems came out, bowing to the crowd to the sound of music, and advanced on us.

Their smiles never left their faces, but as they climbed the ladder each one in turn mumbled something about our not getting into their act.

“Don’t worry,” Kelly said without moving his lips. “They’ll get more response because we’re here. They’ll probably ask me to do it again in the next town. Just pretend you’re afraid they’re going to fall. Hold your hat on your head with one hand and run around under them. Keep an eye out for your friends to leave.”

Everything worked the way Kelly wanted. The crowd went wild, and the Ibems were sent out with a wild ovation.

“Now the crowd thinks the Ibems are good sports,” said Kelly. “Let’s get out of here.”

Willie moped ahead of me, and I followed, picking up my lasso and twirling it slowly. The crowd applauded us to the entrance, and Kelly exited with his head bent over.

A figure barred my way, appearing between Kelly and me, a big figure in a costume that looked like a clown’s version of a ringmaster. He was dressed entirely in green, including a high green hat with a white feather. His face was painted with yellow greasepaint, and he held something long and metallic in his hand. Even behind the paint there was no problem recognizing the split-faced Paul, who pushed me back with his belly into the tent.

Another set of acts was coming in, but I couldn’t see them. The lights had gone down and the music was softer. I was aware of twirling human figures and shadows above us as I backed into the tent.

“This,” said Paul softly, holding the shaft in the air, “is an elephant prod. A good jolt from this can make any, even the largest elephant, rethink his rebellion. An extra-good jolt can be a definite danger to an elephant and can easily kill a human.”

He thrust the metal rod at me, and I tumbled backward. My eyes met those of a thin woman in the front row.

“He’s trying to kill me,” I said.

The woman’s cheeks puffed out, and she put a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter.

Paul played his part perfectly, thrusting out his stomach and walking as he pursued me. I scrambled to my feet and tried to run, but the damn inner tube kept me off balance. Paul advanced, holding the prod over his head and whirling it.

I tried to convince four or five men, women, and children that this was no act. I looked up at the glittering women swinging on ropes for help, but they were too far away. The prod hissed through the air and missed my face by inches.

“The circus did this to me,” Paul said, pointing a thumb at his grotesque face.

“Let’s talk,” I tried.

He shook his head to let me know that he had no more to say on that subject. “I had forgotten what it sounded like to have the crowd,” he said angrily. “You hear them? That murmur, attention. We’ll give them something to murmur about.”

The steel rod thrust at me like a sword, and a spit seared through my purple costume and singed the white puff of a button. Paul lunged forward, and the crackling rod punctured my inner tube, which popped and sent a little girl near me into tears.

Released from the tube, I turned and ran for the far exit. Paul was behind me, but I had less weight and more to lose. The crowd went wild as I passed, and high above, I could hear one of the swinging girls shout that I was ruining her act.

I darted through the tent flap, looking for Nelson now instead of trying to avoid him. Things weren’t going quite the way I wanted them to.

I looked around for help, saw none, and headed for Elder’s wagon or where I thought Elder’s wagon was. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was going in the wrong direction. The hulking form of Thomas Paul was outlined behind me, elephant prod in hand, coming steadily. I ducked behind a tent, unsure of whether or not he had seen me, tried to get my bearings, and wondered how I could lure him back to Elder’s office without getting killed. There seemed to be no sound of footsteps, so I decided to peek around the tent. The prod sizzled through the canvas and missed my nose by the thickness of a defense stamp. I could smell the heat.

I bounced off the tent, and a second thrust burned through the canvas where my head had been. The tent ripped, and Paul stepped through. Then the chase went on, and I lost track of where I was and wondered where Paul had picked up all that speed with all that weight. There was a wagon at my back and a dozen places Paul could leap out of. The wagon had a rung ladder. I climbed, trying to keep my baggy clown pants from getting in my way, and stood on top of the wagon. I spotted Paul, and he spotted me. He was on the ground a few dozen feet away. We looked at each other for a second or two, and I yelled for help as he came toward the wagon and up the ladder. The big top was only six or so feet away, and the band was playing a loud wild march that helped drown out my scream. Paul came up, with prod ahead of him, swinging. I leaped to the tent and turned to face him. He followed to the end of the wagon and came after me with an enormous leap that shook the huge tent. Below us, I could hear a few cries of surprise where he had landed.

I backed up, grabbing at canvas, and Paul came resolutely after me.

“Let’s talk,” I said, going higher and higher, feeling the night wind through my greasepaint. Yeah, I thought, let’s talk, one crazy clown to another on the night of a full moon, thirty or forty feet up in the air on a piece of canvas.

“My sister died in the circus,” he said, coming after me.

The people under the big top must have seen the billowing and wondered what hell demon or animal was leaping over them.

“My father, my brother, and my wife died in the circus. Only the two of us survived, and look what it did to me. My face and my brain. We fell. We fell. I remember my father dropping the balance pole and floating past me.”

We were moving steadily upward to the top of the tent, and he obviously had a better sense of balance than I did.

“And,” he said, “the circus just went on. That very next day, as if we had never existed. The show must go on. Why must the show go on? Why do those people have to watch near-death to enjoy their own lives? That world below us is a corrupt world.”

He stood holding the canvas with one hand and pointing downward with his other. The prod was his pointer, and he was God, and there was no reasoning with God.

“I tried to forget,” he said. “I didn’t want any part of it. I knew what he had done to the elephants, but I wanted to forget. Then this circus had to come here, to Mirador, the first circus to come here. They followed me, brought their corruption right to the place where I had retreated. They declared war. He was right. He told me and I tried to hide, but they followed me.”

He took a lunge toward me, and I moved up higher, but there wasn’t much higher to move, and his confession was doing me no good up here with no one but me to hear it and no one to save me.

“So it was his idea,” I said into the wind. A flag was flapping at the top of the tent, and I reached it and clung to it. A strong wind had come up. If I let go, I would probably slide down the tent and into the darkness below to hit the ground or something worse. The best act in the circus was going on where no one could see it.

Paul came puffing up after me. His green hat went flying with a gust of wind.

“Why kill me?” I said.

“Because you know who we are,” he shouted into the wind. “Because someone must be labeled killer if we are not to be.”

“They’ll catch you,” I said.

Paul laughed, a sincere Santa Claus laugh. “You don’t understand. We don’t care if they catch us as long as we destroy all this, make people realize what a sham this is, this thing that kills families for entertainment.”

It was not the time to reason with him. I could have compared the circus to boxing, which I liked, or the war going on in all directions, which I didn’t like.

“Let’s …” I started, and he made a wild lunge toward me, prod out. It went past my neck, and I swung my right arm at Paul’s face. My fist was weak and backhanded, but I had forgotten the severed handcuff that was still on my wrist. It hit him in the face. The prod dropped from his hand, seared through the top of the tent, and plunged down into the sudden light. I looked down to watch it bounce off the side of the ring and send a prancing white horse leaping in fear. I could see crowd faces looking up in our direction.

Paul wasn’t ready to give up. It was clear to me that he planned never to give up. He dug his fingers into the canvas and came back at me. I kept one hand on the flag, which flapped in my face, and tried to ward him off with my manacled hand.

“You’ll kill both of us,” I said reasonably.

Paul was still not listening. He lumbered forward and clamped his arms around my waist. I pounded at his head with my handcuff. He squeezed and tried to pry me loose from my perch. His arms were powerful, and I could feel my head going light. It was no time to meet Koko, plunging into unconsciousness. I’d never come out of the inkwell this time. I pounded at Paul’s head and yellow face as if at a bent nail refusing to go into hard wood.

I was getting nowhere one-handed. It was time to do something. I let go of the flag and threw a left into Paul’s neck. He groaned and let go for an instant. When he did, I kicked him in the chest and he tumbled backward, clutching at canvas. I grabbed the flagpole again as I felt myself starting to slide away.

Paul’s right leg was through the hole he had burned in the top of the tent. He was dangling, grabbing for the tearing canvas. We locked wrists and hands, and I held on, feeling the tear in the tent widen with Paul’s weight against it.

“You hear?” he said, dangling and looking up at me with that split yellow face. “They’re enjoying it. They’re waiting for us to fall so they can tell their aunts and sisters how they paid a few cents to see someone die.”

“We’ll disappoint them,” I said, trying to pull Paul up but feeling his weight increase with each slight tear of canvas and the perspiration of both our hands.

“No, we won’t,” he said. “You’ll never be able to pull me up. But I’ll be able to pull you down. We’ll give them a show. We’ll land right in the center ring laughing at them, you and I, two clowns of hell.”

He was right. My grip on the flag was giving way, and he was holding me in a death grip.

“Swing up,” I said. “Swing up, damn you, you lunatic.”

“Join me,” he said, looking down at the stunned crowd below. He bounced up and down, laughing. The socket of my left arm went sore and numb, and I let go of the flag, but we didn’t plunge through the hole. We slid forward, and Paul, convinced that I was following him into the bright air of the big top, let go of my hand. My leg hooked onto the rope holding the flag, and my head and shoulders went through the hole. I watched Paul, dressed all in green, spin over and over and land with a thud in the silence. It was all upside down and slow, and I felt sleepy. I hung for a second or two and realized that there was still silence, a silence of people expecting me to come plunging through the hole. I disappointed them, eased my way back up to the outside with my good hand, and sat for a long time clinging to the flag. The trip down was slow. My arm was sore, my back was sore again, and the chance of slipping in the wind great, but no one was chasing me with an elephant prod. I waved at the moon, and maybe he waved back.

I made it to the point where I had leaped from the wagon to the tent but didn’t have it in me to make the leap back. I hung down by one good arm and dropped to the ground.

There was still a lot to do. No one had heard Paul confess. As far as Nelson was concerned, I was still a killer. He might have some trouble figuring out why Paul was dressed like that and what he was doing on top of the tent, but that wouldn’t stop him. No, I had to give him a wrapped killer if I was going to get out of this, and luckily, there was still a killer left. Paul hadn’t confirmed much, but he had confirmed something about the second killer. My only fear was that there might be three killers or four or five. How many members of Paul’s family had survived that plunge from the high wire? I was pretty sure of one, but it was getting to the point where I would have to gather the suspects.

I slunk around the tents, moving away from the big top and the noise, toward someplace where I could rest for a few minutes before putting things together.

I could hear people running toward me in the darkness, and I spotted a familiar tent. I plunged into it. It was dark and warm. I could feel the animals rustling in their cages.

“I think he went in there,” came a voice.

I ran behind the nearest cage, and the cat inside bellowed. In the entrance stood someone with a flashlight. The light beamed into corners, and I hovered behind the wheel of the wagon. The figure took a step into the tent and was stopped by the darkness and a loud animal snarl. The figure was small and looked to me like Nelson. The figure backed out.