Nightmare Alley (12 page)

Stan looked back to the rear of the tent. In the corner by the geek’s enclosure Sailor Martin had a couple of local youths engrossed in the strap on the barrelhead. He took a leather strap, folded it in the middle, then coiled it on the top of a nail keg. He placed his own finger in one of the two loops in the center and pulled the strap. His finger had picked the real loop in the strap. Then he bet one of the marks he couldn’t pick the real loop. The mark bet and won and the Sailor handed him a silver dollar.

Zeena drew the curtains of the little stage and came out at the side. She drew a handkerchief from her bosom and touched her temples with it. “Whew, ain’t it a scorcher today?” She followed Stan’s glance to the rear of the tent. “The Sailor better go easy. Hoately don’t like anybody to case the marks on the side this far south. Can’t blame him. Too likely to start a rumpus. I say, if you can’t make a living with your pitch you don’t belong in no decent Ten-in-One. I could pick up plenty of honest dollars if I wanted to give special private readings and remove evil influences and all that stuff. But that just leads to trouble.”

She stopped speaking and her hand tightened on Stan’s arm. “Stan, honey, you better take a walk over there and see what’s going on.”

Stan made no move to go. On the platform he was king; the marks in their anonymous mass were below him and his voice held them, but down on their level, jammed in among their milling, collective weight, he felt smothered.

Suddenly one of the youths drew back his foot and kicked over the nail keg on which Martin had wound the strap with the elusive loop. The Sailor’s voice was raised just a fraction above conversational level and he seemed to be speaking to the mark when he said, clearly and coolly, “Hey, rube!”

“Go on, Stan. Hurry. Don’t let ’em get started.”

As if he had a pistol pointed at his back, Stan marched across the tent to the spot where trouble was simmering. From the corner of his eye he saw Joe Plasky hop on his hands down the steps behind his own platform and swing his way toward the corner. He would not be alone, at least.

Plasky got there first. “Hello, gents. I’m one of the owners of the show. Everything all right?”

“Like hell it is,” blustered one of the marks. A young farmer, Stan judged. “This here tattooed son-of-a-bitch got five dollars of my money by faking. I seen this here strap swindle afore. I aims to get my money back.”

“If there’s any doubt in your mind about the fairness of any game of chance in the show I’m sure the Sailor here will return your original bet. We’re all here to have a good time, mister, and we don’t want any hard feelings.”

The other mark spoke up. He was a tall, raw-boned sodbuster with a mouth which chronically hung open, showing long yellow teeth. “I seen this here trick afore, too, mister. Cain’t fool me. Cain’t nobody pick out that loop, way this feller unwinds it. A feller showed me how it works one time. It’s a gahdamned swindle.”

Joe Plasky’s smile was broader than ever. He reached in the pocket of his shirt and drew out a roll of bills and took off a five. He held it up to the farmer. “Here’s the money out of my own pocket, son. If you can’t afford to lose you can’t afford to bet. I’m just returning your bet because we want everybody to have a good time and no hard feelings. Now you boys better mosey along.”

The youth shoved the five into the pocket of his pants and the two of them slouched out. Plasky turned to the Sailor. His smile was still there, but a hard, steady light shone in his eyes. “You dumb bastard! This is a tough town. The whole damn state is tough. And you haven’t any more sense than to start a Heyrube. For Christ’s sake watch your step! Now give me the five.”

Sailor Martin spat between his teeth into the dust. “I won that fin and I could of handled them two jakes. Who elected you Little Tin Jesus around here?”

Plasky put his fingers in his mouth and whistled a single blast. The tip around the last platform was on its way out and Hoately turned back. Joe waved his hand in an arc and Hoately signaled back and let the canvas drop to close the front entrance. Outside old Maguire began to grind, trying to gather a tip and hold them until the show was opened again.

Bruno dropped lightly from his platform and strode over. Stan felt Zeena beside him. Major Mosquito was running back on his infant’s legs, shrilling something incoherent.

Joe Plasky said evenly, “Sailor, you been leaving a trail of busted hearts and busted cherries all along the route. Now you’re going to hand me that fin and pack up your gear. You’re quitting the show. Hoately will back me up.”

Stan’s knees were weak. Zeena’s hand was on his arm, her fingers gripping it. Would he be expected to take on the Sailor? Joe was a cripple, Bruno a superman. Stan was broader and heavier than the Sailor but the thought of a fight sickened him. He never felt that fists were good enough. He would have carried a gun except that it was a lot of trouble and he was afraid of killing with it.

Martin eyed the group. Bruno stood quietly in the background. “I don’t fight no cripples, polack. And I don’t owe you no five.” The Sailor’s lips were pale, his eyes hot.

The half-man acrobat reached up and took him by the hand, gripping the fingers together and bending them so that the tattooed man quickly sank to his knees. “Hey, leggo, you bastard!”

Silently and with his face a blank, Plasky crossed his forearms. He let go of Martin’s hand and seized the collar of his robe in both fists. Then he levered his wrists together, forcing the backs of his hands into the Sailor’s throat. Martin was caught in a human vise. His mouth dropped. He clawed frantically at the crossed arms of the half-man but the more he tugged, the tighter they crushed him. His eyes began to bulge and his hair fell over them.

Major Mosquito was leaping up and down, making fighting motions and shadowboxing. “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Choke him till he’s dead! Kill the big ape!” He rushed in and began hammering the Sailor’s staring face with tiny fists. Bruno picked him up, wriggling, and held him at arm’s length by the collar of his jacket.

Joe began to shake the tattoo artist, gently at first and then harder. The calm deadliness of that ingenious and unbreakable hold filled Stan with terror and wild joy.

Clem Hoately came running up. “Okay, Joe. Guess he’s educated. Let’s break it up. We got a good tip waiting.”

Joe smiled his smile of one raised from the dead. He released Sailor, who sat up rubbing his throat and breathing hard. Plasky reached into the pocket of the robe and found a wad of bills, took out a five and put the rest back.

Hoately picked the Sailor up and stood him on his feet. “You knock off, Martin. I’ll pay you up to the end of the month. Pack up your stuff and leave whenever you want to.”

When Martin was able to speak his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Okay. I’m on my way. I can take my needles into any barber shop and make more dough than in this crummy layout. But watch out, all of you.”

Middle evening and a good crowd. Beyond the canvas and the gaudily painted banners Hoately’s voice was raspy.

“Hi, look! Hi, look! Hi, look! Right this way for the monster aggregation of nature’s mistakes, novelty entertainments, and the world-renowned museum of freaks, marvels, and curiosities. Featuring Mamzelle Electra, the little lady who defies the lightning.”

Stan looked across at Molly Cahill. When she held the sputtering arc points together she always flinched; the last day or two, whenever he saw it, a little thrill leaped up his spine. Now she bent over and placed her compact behind the electric chair. Bending stretched her sequinned trunks tight over her buttocks.

It’s funny how you can see a girl every day for months and yet not see her, Stan thought. Then something will happen—like the way Molly’s mouth presses together when she holds the arc points and the fire starts to fly. Then you see her all different.

He dragged his glance away from the girl. Across the tent the massive chest of Bruno Hertz shone pink with sweat as he flexed the muscles of his upper arms, rippling under the pink skin, and the crowd rubbered.

Molly was sitting demurely in a bentwood chair beside the heavy, square menace with its coiled wires, its straps and its chilling suggestion of death which was as phoney as everything else in the carny. She was studying a green racing form. Absorbed, she reached down and scratched one ankle and Stan felt the ripple go up his back again.

Molly’s eyes were on the racing sheet but she had stopped looking at it and was looking through it, her mind in the dream she always dreamed.

There was a man in it and his face was always in shadow. He was taller than she and his voice was low and intense and his hands were brown and powerful. They walked slowly, drinking in the summer reflected from every grass blade, shining from every pebble in fields singing with summer. An old rail fence and beyond it a field rising like a wave, a pasture where the eyes of daisies looked up at a sky so blue it made you ache.

His face was shadowy still, as his arms stole about her. She pressed her hands against the hardness of his chest, but his mouth found hers. She tried to turn her head away; but then his fingers were caressing her hair, his kisses falling upon the hollow of her throat while his other hand found her breast …

“Over here, folks, right over here. On this platform we have a little lady who is one of the marvels and mysteries of the age —Mamzelle Electra!”

Stan came up the steps behind Joe Plasky’s platform and sat on the edge of it. “How they going?”

Joe smiled and went on assembling the novelties in his joke books, slipping the free gifts between the pages. “Can’t complain. Good crowd tonight, ain’t it?”

Stan shifted his seat. “I wonder if the Sailor will try to do us any dirt?”

Joe swung himself closer on his calloused knuckles and said, “Can’t tell. But I don’t think so. After all, he is carny. He’s a louse, too. But we just want to keep our eyes open. I don’t think he’ll try to call me in spades—not after he’s felt the
nami juji
.”

Stan frowned. “Felt what?”

“
Nami juji
. That’s the Jap name for it—that crosshanded choke I slipped on him. That takes some of the starch out of ’em.”

The blond head was alert. “Joe, that was terrific, what you did. How in hell did you ever learn that?”

“Jap showed me. We had a Jap juggler when I was with the Keyhoe Shows. It’s easy enough to do. He taught me a lot of ju-jit stuff only that’s one of the best.”

Stan moved closer. “Show me how you do it.”

Plasky reached over and slid his right hand up Stan’s right coat lapel until he was grasping the collar at the side of Stan’s throat. He crossed his left arm over his right and gripped the left side of the collar. Suddenly Stan felt his throat caught in an iron wedge. It loosened immediately; Plasky dropped his hands and smiled. Stan’s knees were trembling.

“Let me see if I can do it.” He gripped Plasky’s black turtle-neck sweater with one hand.

“Higher up, Stan. You got to grab it right opposite the big artery in the neck—here.” He shifted the younger man’s hand slightly. “Now cross your forearms and grab the other side. Right. Now then, bend your wrists and force the backs of your hands into my neck. That cuts off the blood from the brain.”

Stan felt a surge of power along his arms. He did not know that his lips had drawn back over his teeth. Plasky slapped his arm quickly and he let go.

“Christ a-mighty, kid, you want to be careful with that! If you leave it on just a mite too long you’ll have a corpse on your hands. And you got to practice getting it quick. It’s a little hard to slip on but once you’ve got it the other fella can’t break it— unless he knows the real Jap stuff.”

Both men looked up as Maguire, the ticket seller, hurried toward them.

“She-ess-oo flee-ess-eyes!” He ducked past them to where Hoately stood on the Electric Girl’s platform.

Plasky’s smile widened as it always did in the face of trouble. “Shoo flies, kid. Cops. Just take it easy and you’ll be all right. Here’s where Hoately will have to do some real talking. And the fixer will have to earn his pay. I been expecting they’d slough the whole joint one of these days.”

“What happens to us?” Stan’s mouth had gone dry.

“Nothing, kid, if everybody keeps his head. Never argue with a cop. That’s what you pay a mouthpiece for. Treat ’em polite and yes ’em to death and send for a mouthpiece. Hell, Stan, you got a lot to learn yet about the carny.”

A whistle sounded from the entrance. Stan’s head spun toward it.

A big, white-haired man with a badge pinned to his denim shirt stood there. His hat was pushed back and he had his thumbs hooked in his belt. A holster containing a heavy revolver hung from a looser belt on a slant. Hoately raised his voice, grinning down at the marks below Molly’s platform.

“That will conclude our performance for the time being, folks. Now I guess you’re all kind of dry and could stand a nice cold drink so I call your attention to the stand directly across the midway where you can get all the nice cold soda pop you can drink. That’s all for now, folks. Come back tomorrow night and we’ll have a few surprises for you—things you didn’t see tonight.”

The marks obediently began to drift out of the tent and Hoately approached the law. “What can I do for you, Chief? My name’s Hoately and I’m owner of this attraction. You’re welcome to inspect every inch of it and I’ll give you all the cooperation you want. We’ve got no girl shows and no games of skill or chance.”