The Howling III (21 page)

“You’re not going to ask me to, you know, do it for him, are you?”

“Not if you don’t want to, my boy. That act’s our bread and butter, and there’s no use giving it away, not even to the boss.”

“It isn’t that I don’t want to, Mr Styles, it’s just that I can’t, like, make it happen just any time.”

“I get the picture, lad. You need the stimulus. Anger, despair, some powerful emotion. We’ll work that out. By the way, “Mr Styles” makes me nervous. Call me Bate.”

Malcolm grinned shyly and nodded.

“What we need now is a name for you.”

“I have a name.”

“No, no, no. Malcolm definitely does not fill the bill. We need something to draw in the marks. Something to whet the people’s appetites for what they are about to see. Like Torcho, the Fire Eater.”

“I don’t eat fire.”

“I know that, boy. I was merely using it as an example. As a matter of fact, it didn’t do much for Torcho either.” Styles was silent for a long minute. He closed his eyes, lay his head back, pursed his lips and passed a hand over the wisps of grey hair that remained on his scalp. Suddenly his eyes popped open. He smiled broadly, showing brown-stained teeth.

“I’ve got it. Wolf Boy. Grolo the Wolf Boy.” He waited for a reaction.

Malcolm frowned.

“Something wrong?”

After a moment’s hesitation Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t want to be called that.”

“What’s the matter with Grolo?”

“That’s okay. It’s the other part.”

“Wolf Boy?”

Malcolm nodded.

“Judas Priest, why not? It’s short, descriptive, and has a nice scary ring to it.”

“I don’t like it.” There was a new, cold note in the boy’s voice.

“Then we shall discard it,” Styles said decisively. He again went into his thinking posture - eyes closed, head back, lips pursed. This time he was out with it in thirty seconds.

“Animal Boy.” He studied Malcolm through narrowed eyes. “Can you live with that?”

“I guess so.”

“Then it’s Grolo the Animal Boy. I don’t think it has the same appeal as Wolf Boy - “

Malcolm’s eyes darkened.

“But, after all, you are the attraction here, and we’ll call you anything you like.”

*****

They left Styles’s antiquated trailer together and tramped across the dark field toward Jackie Moskowitz’s Airstream. The concession stands were up, the tents in place, the small ferris wheel erected, all ready to go at ten tomorrow morning. Some of the attractions like the kootch show and Bateman’s tent would not open until evening.

In the back of the food tent the perpetual poker game was in progress. The laughter and good-natured cursing of the carnival hands floated through the clear night. Elsewhere it was quiet. The town of Silverdale, immediately to the north, showed only a sprinkling of lights.

The showman and the boy came to a stop at the owner’s blimp-shaped trailer. Styles gave Malcolm a reassuring wink and banged on the aluminium door.

The little owner was wearing yellow pyjamas and a cut-off robe when he opened the door. He looked at Styles and the boy with distaste.

“Jesus, Bateman, is this important? I just took a sleeping pill.”

“I told you I’d get a new show.”

“Well?”

Styles swept his hand in a grand gesture toward Malcolm.

“I give you Grolo the Animal Boy.”

Moskowitz squinted up at them. “Come in here in the light.”

Styles urged Malcolm into the trailer, then followed. The showman stood back while Malcolm shifted nervously from foot to foot. Moskowitz walked slowly around the boy, examining him from all angles.

“Animal Boy? What the hell does that mean? He’s not a geek, is he?”

Styles was offended. “Jackie, you’ve known me long enough to know I wouldn’t bring you a geek. Grolo here will turn into a raging, roaring, frothing animal before the eager eyes of the paying customers. He will be a sensation.”

“Yeah? What’s the trick?”

“Jackie, please. Would you ask Houdini how he did his water torture escape?”

“I would if he was looking for work.”

“This is by way of a trade secret. Even I do not know how he does it.”

“Okay, okay, so don’t tell me.” Jackie picked up one of Malcolm’s hands and examined it. “He don’t look much like an animal.”

“Not now, he doesn’t. Just wait until tomorrow night when there’s a tent full of marks waiting to see him.”

“I don’t know, Bateman. I was thinking of using your space for a baseball pitch. I haven’t had one for two years.”

“A baseball pitch? Can you imagine people paying more to knock over weighted metal milkbottles than to see a genuine bona-fide animal boy?”

“People like to throw baseballs.”

“They like to be scared too. Why do you think horror movies clean up?”

“Well

“Jackie, let me try it for this one week in Silverdale. I’ll guarantee you a minimum.”

“Guarantee?”

“More than that. If we don’t outdraw the kootch show and the Ring-Toss, I’ll make up the difference out of my own pocket. And if we bomb, you can leave us here and you’re out nothing.”

“Are you sober, Bateman?”

Styles held up a right hand. “Not a drop since early this afternoon.”

The little man cracked off a huge yawn. “Okay, you got a deal. I want to see this act myself. But remember, if your animal boy is a dog, it’s adios.”

“Fair enough, Jackie, fair enough.”

“Now get out of here and let me get some sleep.” He looked up doubtfully at Malcolm. “Uh, so long, Grolo.”

“Goodnight, Mr Samson,” Malcolm said.

As they walked back across the field together Styles clapped Malcolm on the back. “Congratulations, my boy, you’re in show business. This calls for a toast to our future success. Or do you indulge?”

“I don’t drink, but you go ahead, Bate.”

“Thank you, my boy, thank you. I believe I will. Then perhaps I’ll take a stroll over to the kootch girls” trailer. Care to join me in that?”

Malcolm flushed. “Well, I, uh, don’t know if I, uh…”

“That’s all right. Plenty of time for sport. Probably better for you to get a good night’s sleep. I’ll fix you up with a blanket roll in the trailer and try not to wake you when I come in.”

*****

Malcolm jolted out of a light sleep when Bateman Styles returned to the trailer sometime after midnight. It took a moment to realize where he was, then he closed his eyes and feigned sleep as the showman bumbled about the trailer trying clumsily to be quiet. Soon Styles was in his bed, snoring. Malcolm dozed off again with a tiny contented smile on his lips.

Bateman was up at dawn, apparently none the worse for his night’s carouse. He scrambled some eggs and made hash-browns for the two of them, then left Malcolm alone.

The sounds and smells of the carnival as the people started coming in were enticing, but Malcolm stayed in the trailer. He was not yet ready to move among people again.

In mid-afternoon Styles returned looking pleased with himself.

“Good news, boy. At virtually no expense, I have procured a cage,” he said. “We can’t convince the good people you’re dangerous without a cage, now can we?”

He saw Malcolm’s expression darken and went on quickly. “It isn’t much of a cage, really. It would barely hold a determined pussycat. However, it will do until we can find something more impressive. It was lucky that Clete Matthews still had it from the time he was carrying a chimp act. The thing still smells faintly of chimpanzee, but I daresay we can get used to that, right?”

“Sure, I guess so.”

Bateman studied the boy for a moment, then sat down on the rumpled bed. “Kid,” he said, “I want you to understand what’s going to happen tonight. You’ll be in the cage inside the tent with a curtain pulled to hide you till we’re ready. I’m out front talking - turning the tip, as we say, - to get the marks to part with their coin and come inside. Then I come in and say a lot of things to you and about you that won’t sound nice. Don’t you pay any attention. It’s showbusiness. I want to get the marks riled at you so you can work up enough passion to… do the thing you do. You just… let yourself go, or whatever it takes, okay?”

“Okay, Bate.”

“Fine. We’re going to make us a few bucks, my boy. And maybe have some chuckles along the way.” He pulled out an old-fashioned turnip watch. “Are you ready to go at it?”

“I’m ready if you are.”

“Then let us proceed.”

*****

Styles put up the same garish canvas paintings that he had used for his dismantled freak show. There had been no time to prepare a new one, and Bateman reasoned that any pictures were better than no pictures. He climbed up on the platform and observed for several minutes the trickle of locals who passed on the sawdust walkway below him. Then he blew into his hand mike, heard the resultant blast from the speaker, and began to improvise a spiel.

“Inside, ladies and gentlemen, inside, inside, inside. Inside this tent you will positively not see - ” he pointed to the garish pictures in turn, ” - Collosus the giant. You will not see Rosa the Bearded Lady. You will not see Torcho the Fire Eater. All this I promise you. What, then, you ask, will I see on the inside for the price of one lonely dollar? A fair question. I would tell you, my friends, I would describe in detail the wonder inside, but frankly you would not believe me. You would not believe me, and I would not blame you. For inside, inside, inside, for the price of one dollar, I have for you the most inconceivable, incredible, impossible, astounding, amazing, astonishing sight on the face of the earth.”

A few strollers stopped to listen to the spiel, grinning at the cascade of superlatives. Styles noted that nobody was reaching for his wallet yet.

“At momumental expense and superhuman effort the Samson Supershow has brought from faraway shores the most bizarre attraction ever presented in the Western world. Yes, in this very tent, my friends, blessedly caged to keep us from being attacked, is Grolo… the Animal Boy!”

The tip was building, but not fast. The Wheel of Fortune across the way had twice as many waiting to dump their coins on Umbach’s crooked wheel. Styles forged on.

“Before your very eyes - no mirrors, no tricks with the lights - before your very eyes Grolo will become the, fearsome, the terrible, the fantastic… Animal Boy!”

The showman continued to improvise in this vein while a few people paid their dollars and straggled into the tent. For the first time since he had watched Malcolm’s remarkable transformation the previous afternoon, Bateman began to have doubts. What if the kid couldn’t do it? What if he hadn’t really done it in the first place? Styles had put down a few belts of Old Overholt earlier to brace himself for delivering the bad news to his people, and it would not be the first time he had seen things that did not happen.

He pulled aside a flap and peeked into the tent. One good thing - if the kid did funk out on him, he wouldn’t have a lot of money to refund. Not more than a dozen people stood on the dirt floor waiting for the show. Might as well get on with it, he decided.

Styles broke off the spiel and entered the tent. He stepped up on to the low platform at the far end and paused dramatically with a hand on the worn velvet curtain.

“My friends, in the next few moments you are going to see something no other human eyes have - “

“Get on with it, old man,” said a teenager who had come in with two friends. “We already heard the bullshit.”

“Yeah,” said a man with the weatherbeaten face of a farmer. “Let’s see what you got back there.”

“Very well, my friends,” said Styles without breaking stride. “Your impatience is understandable. Without further ado I give you… Grolo the Animal Boy!”

He snatched aside the curtain to reveal the chimp cage. Seated inside, for the top of the cage was too low to allow him to stand, was Malcolm. He looked around at the small crowd, his eyes large and apprehensive.

After the first intake of breath, a muttering rose in the crowd.

“That’s an animal boy?” somebody said.

“What else does he do?”

“It’s just another phoney!”

“Fake!”

“I want my money back!”

The last comment triggered Bateman Styles to action. He glared into the cage, giving Malcolm a wink that the marks could not see.

“I don’t blame you one bit, my friends, and believe me every penny will be refunded to you. You see, it is not only you, but myself as well that has been flim-flammed here. I was given the most solemn assurances that this was, indeed, the authentic Animal Boy you may have read about or seen on television. I am embarrassed to admit to you that this young imposter hoodwinked me.”

Speaking directly to Malcolm, he said. “Young man, you are a liar. A cheat. You misrepresented yourself to me and you have tried to steal the money from these good folks out in front. You are nothing more than a contemptible juvenile hoodlum. You should be caged in prison.”

To people out front, who were enjoying his tirade, Styles added, “Go on, friends, tell this young impostor what you think of him and his type.” Searching for a reference they could relate to, he added, “This is the same kind of punk who tears in here on a motorcycle, freaked out on drugs and who knows what all, and rips up the landscape, then goes roaring back to the city, leaving you to clean up his mess. Go ahead, tell him what you think of him and his kind.”

The people watching understood that this was somehow part of the show, yet they were carried along by Styles” florid speech.

“Boo!” came the first tentative yell.

“Get out of here!”

“Dirty biker!”

“Go home, faggot!”

Someone picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it. The stone clanked off the bars of the chimp cage.

*****

Malcolm listened to the shouts and jeers and tried to concentrate on what Bateman Styles had told him to do. Styles had been kind to him and asked no questions, and he did not want to let the showman down. He concentrated. Nothing happened.

The boos got louder. Styles began to sweat as he anxiously watched Malcolm through the bars. The marks were getting carried away by their own voices. One of them heated a penny with a cigarette lighter and tossed it into the cage.