Cold Steel and Hot Lead [How the West Was Done 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

“Yes,” said Rudy. “Do you have any enemies? What a silly question. Everyone in this racket has many enemies.”

Derrick smiled. “So does everyone in my racket.”

“Oh, of course,” Jeremiah said weakly. He seemed much too weak for this show business. He was draped over the chair back like he was a piece of tissue. “There’s that knife thrower Eliazar Castillo. He hates me because I’m too intelligent. And Major Littlefinger has had it out for me ever since someone in the audience mixed him up with one of my little people.” He chuckled tiredly. “They thought he was made of wood. Oh, and Herman LaGrange with that cockatoo act. He’s loathed me since one of his birds repeated something I said in confidence.”

“Herman LaGrange is here?” asked Rudy. “He’s a likely suspect. He’s been looking daggers at me ever since I closed the curtain on his wife’s half-woman act.”

Jeremiah sat up, alert. “That man was
torturing
that poor woman!” He turned to Derrick. “He would make his wife sit suspended, absolutely immobile, in sheer
agony
for over five minutes. Whenever anyone would suggest closing the curtain he’d rampage down the aisles and thrash the person.”

Rudy added, “He just loved torturing her, didn’t he? So one night I closed the curtain. I made believe a policeman had forced me to do it, but he didn’t believe me.”

Jeremiah waved at him with a limp hand. “Oh, you could take him on any day. He’s one of those bullies who aren’t nearly as strong as they’d like to think.”

Derrick prompted, “So you suspect this LaGrange fellow may have stolen Memphis Kittie just to make your act look bad?”

“It happens all the time,” said Rudy. “Once, a contortionist was in a lather with me, so he rigged my stirrup so I couldn’t release myself at the crucial moment when I was riding like greased lightning upside down under my horse’s flank.”

Jeremiah asked, “Why was he angry?”

Rudy shrugged. “I hadn’t given him something he wanted.” The contortionist had actually turned into a shit fire when Rudy had refused to bed him. Rudy liked them dark, and this fellow was blond. And very devious, evidently.

“In any event,” said Derrick, “Kittie will turn up sooner rather than later, if LaGrange stole her. Rudy, why don’t you and I sneak back to the circus and see what this LaGrange fellow is up to?”

“I’ve got a different idea.” Rudy banged his chair down in front of Jeremiah and sat. He looked the punch man straight in the eye. “I am the Master Mystifier,” he said grandly, gesturing at a poster he had nailed to the wall.

Jeremiah barely flinched, but Derrick craned his neck with great interest. Rudy had had the posters made to advertise himself as Remington Rudy, the Master Mystifier, the Sensation of London—although he’d never been to England. He was tired of tumbling and rolling over bushes and stickers or landing in cow shit. He wanted to start a new, less dangerous career. The artist had gotten a bit carried away with the overzealous hypnotic gaze of his eyes, as it looked as though he wore glasses consisting of whirlpools. But the gist was there—that Rudy could mesmerize anyone into recalling long-buried events.

He told Derrick, “I’ve been using my skills to heal people. I’ve had great success with these new techniques. But for now I want to see if Montreal Jed here can recall seeing anyone creeping to the back of his cabinet and taking Memphis Kittie.”

Derrick read from the poster, which depicted a bottle with wings and a bird that looked as though it had been enlightened. A religious halo surrounded his holy head. “‘A Grand Illusion with the Learned Bottle and the Invisible Pigeon’? If the pigeon is invisible, how can we see it?”

Rudy waved a dismissive hand. “Ignore that part. That’s just to get people’s attention, so I can mesmerize them. But I discovered I’m a conductor of animal magnetism. Have you heard of that, Jeremiah?”

“Yes,” the punch man said dubiously. “You can convey the flow of magnetic fluids by movements of your hands or eyes. I don’t believe you even have to actually touch the person, am I correct?”

“Right,” said Rudy. “Hindus in India are able to go into a meditative trance by focusing on one object. In that way, they can gain insight into a single subject.”

Derrick said, “I’ve heard of their sleep temples, where they take the sick to be cured by hypnotic suggestion.”

“Exactly!” cried Rudy, glad that his new friend had instantly divined his aims. “Here, allow me.” He withdrew the glittery wand that Jeremiah still clutched and held it upright vertically about six inches from his nose. “Focus on the tip.”

Immediately Jeremiah went cross-eyed. As he was a very limp fellow to begin with, he seemed as though he’d be a good subject.

Rudy intoned, “I, the true Dunraven, will never fail you. Now focus on the wand and my voice. You will think of nothing but my voice and the wand.”

Instantly, Jeremiah’s eyelids began to waver. Though he hadn’t had any whiskey he began to wilt as though roostered. He was a very good subject indeed.

“Now think back to an hour ago. Standing in front of your spirit cabinet.”

“Spirit cabinet…” Jeremiah repeated dully. His lower lip slacked, displaying his burned-out teeth. This was the result, Rudy knew, of breathing magnesium “lightning” over the heads of one’s audience.

“You put Memphis Kittie into the cabinet, and you locked her in.”

“Locked her in.”

“Can you see what’s going on around you? Describe to me what’s happening.”

“Amazing Johnson puking.”

Derrick chuckled, but Rudy frowned. “Who is Amazing Johnson?”

“Fat man. He ate too many tortillas and then drank forty rod, and now he’s puking behind the puppet theater.”

“All right. Forget about Amazing Johnson puking. Look around you as you stand before your spirit cabinet. Did you lock Memphis Kittie in?”

“Yes.”

“Now I want you to go around behind the cabinet.”

“Major Littlefinger is in the way.”

Major Littlefinger was apparently one of the midgets who had it out for Jeremiah. “Well, knock him aside. Now look at the back of the cabinet.”

Jeremiah fell silent. Although his eyes were open, he seemed to be asleep. A good sign.

Rudy prompted, “What do you see?”

Jeremiah frowned. “I see the audience.”

“Don’t you see the back of the cabinet?”

“No. Because I never
went
to the back of the cabinet. I stay in front, so no one can accuse me of tomfoolery.”

Rudy sighed. “Well, go around to the back, so you can see who is there, stealing Memphis Kittie.”

Derrick suggested quietly, “Or maybe she snuck out on her own.”

“Yes,” Rudy agreed. “Can you walk around to the back?”

“But I never
go
around to the back! I never—oh, wait. I see something. The back panel is opening. Memphis Kittie is crawling out. I can see one of her gloved hands, and now her other bare hand is peeking—
Ah!”

“The contortionist has taken Kittie.”

The sudden raspy whispering came from the other side of the room. All three gasped and jumped, their eyes fixed on the spirit cabinet from which the voice seemed to emanate. Rudy’s immediate thought was that someone had snuck into his hotel room and secreted themselves in the cabinet, perhaps while they were away watching the circus. It was a definite male voice but very flimsy and muffled, as though the speaker were talking through his hand or something thick like a piece of leather.

“Are you throwing your voice?” Rudy whispered to Jeremiah, whose round eyes were as big as tenpin balls.

Jeremiah shook his head rapidly. “No,” he said, ghostlike. “I can do it, but my thrown voice sounds much more girlish.”

Louder, Rudy shouted at the cabinet, “Which contortionist took Kittie?”

After a brief pause, the muffled voice answered, “Sideshow Jeremy, how could you allow your act to be ruined by a mere acrobat? You are defiling the very noble heritage of the circus!”

Rudy and Derrick stood at the same time and strode for the cabinet.

“Now look here—” Rudy started to shout as he reached for the cabinet’s handle. He was going to wallop this imposter into the middle of next week, but suddenly—and this was even more impossible to believe than someone sneaking into his cabinet—the speaker was
standing beside them
, without the benefit of having used the cabinet’s door.

Not only that, but the speaker was distinctly spectral. Rudy could see right through his torso to Derrick’s waistcoat. He had the overlarge muttonchop whiskers that Rudy thought looked outlandish, and he was clad in coattails on a cutaway frock coat, which seemed to indicate that he, too, was a traveling showman.

But he was transparent.

Rudy looked at Derrick. Derrick’s low-slung jaw told him that he saw this fellow, too. Or was it more proper to say “ghost”? Behind them there came a thud, and Rudy looked to find that Jeremiah had collapsed in a dead faint, slithering out of his chair and onto the floor. So he must have seen the ghost, too.

“Who are you?” Rudy asked what seemed like the most logical question. Showmen loved talking about themselves.

The muffled voice seemed to come from about two feet away from the specter, and his mouth didn’t move. It was as though he were an image projected there before them. Completely static, he seemed to float about a foot above the floor. “I am the Phenomenal Percy Tibbles, the bear wrestler! And I am tired of seeing honest and scrupulous performers being made fools of!”

“All right,” said Derrick. Since he was a cagey politician, Rudy allowed him to go first. “Mr. Tibbles, you have come here to assist us from beyond the veil? Can you demonstrate some of your skills?”

“Not bear wrestling, though,” added Rudy. “Maybe you can demonstrate how you got out of that cabinet without opening the door?”

Rudy really just wanted to see him move, to know more about what forces made him tick, the nature of his reality. Sure enough, when challenged like this, Tibbles moved back to the cabinet. He moved brokenly, erratically, like a few slides projected in a magic lantern show. His limbs didn’t move fluidly but as though someone had made several daguerreotypes entitled “Bear Wrestler in Action” and was somehow projecting them to hover before their eyes. It was the most unreal, unsettling sensation, and Rudy almost forgot to breathe.

Tibbles stuck his mitt at the cabinet, and the hand vanished.

“So,” said Rudy, “you merely went
through
the solid matter of the door?”

“Of course!” barked the voice, which was starting to sound Irish. “That is how we do things on the other side. Of the veil, as you said.”

“So you’re dead?”

“Dead in your terms. Over here we are very much alive! And we do not like to see perfectly good showmen taken advantage of.” Rudy was fascinated to now see the static face change to an amused expression, as though someone had switched the magic lantern slides. “I was with Paddy Worth’s circus in South Pass when I was trampled by a herd of bison.”

“South Pass!” gasped Derrick. “That’s where I live.”

“Heed me!” Tibbles now shrieked, his hands reaching out to them, clawlike. “Do you want to wind up like Paddy Worth? Floating forever in the afterlife, trying to get worldly fools to listen to him?”

“Well,” said Rudy, “what are you trying to tell us? Which contortionist stole Kittie from Jeremiah’s cabinet?”

“I do not know him, but he looked Italian,” said Tibbles. “You must go to Albuquerque to find out more.”

Rudy frowned skeptically. “Albuquerque? In New Mexico Territory? Now look here, Tibbles. I’m not about to traipse all the way to—”

Tibbles’s dramatic moaning shut Rudy up. His photographic arms suddenly appeared as though waving above his head, and his giant daguerreotype mouth changed into the position of an enormous moan, to match the sounds. Experimentally—for the thought had occurred to Rudy that this was some newfangled, elaborate photographic trick perpetrated by one of his enemies—he reached out a hand, surprised to feel Tibbles somewhat solid. He felt like pudding, although as expected, Rudy’s hand went through him.

Tibbles wailed, “Follow the trail of the nail paint!”

And he was gone, as though someone had extinguished the lamp behind the slides.

Rudy and Derrick stared at the spot where Tibbles had been.

Derrick even reached out and felt around in the air where the bear wrestler had stood, as though he would wrench him back here from beyond the veil.

That was ridiculous, of course, and shortly Derrick sighed and headed for the whiskey bottle, which he now needed more than anything. He poured himself a good three fingers of the stuff, gulped, and exhaled, looking out the window. He could see part of the circus setup from here. The colorful canvas tents against the sheet of unblemished snow nearly blinded him. Gypsies huddled around a fire, and a couple of acrobats swung from the wire they’d strung up between telegraph poles.

He turned to see Rudy checking the pulse of the unconscious Jeremiah.

“He’s all right,” said the handsome trick rider. “I think he suffers from neurasthenia. He’s not really cut out for the showman’s life.” Rudy stood next to Derrick at the window. “What do you make of all that?”