Nightmare Alley (13 page)

The old man’s hard little colorless eyes rested on Hoately as they would on a spider in the corner of a backhouse. “Stand here.”

“You’re the boss.”

The old man’s gaze flickered over the Ten-in-One tent. He pointed to the geek’s enclosure. “What you got in there?”

“Snake charmer,” Hoately said casually. “Want to see him?”

“That ain’t what I heard. I heard you got an obscene and illegal performance going on here with cruelty to dumb animals. I got a complaint registered this evening.”

The showman pulled out a bag of tobacco and papers and began to build a cigarette. His left hand made a quick twist, and the cigarette took form. He licked the paper with his tongue and struck a match. “Why don’t you stay as my guest and view the entire performance, Chief? We’d be glad—”

The wide mouth tightened. “I got orders from the marshal to close down the show. And arrest anybody I see fit. I’m arresting you and—” He slid his eyes over the performers: Bruno placid in his blue robe, Joe Plasky smilingly assembling his pitch items, Stan making a half dollar vanish and reappear, Molly still sitting in the Electric Chair, the sequins of her skimpy bodice winking as her breasts rose and fell. She was smiling tautly. “And I’m taking that woman there—indecent exposure. We got decent women in this town. And we got daughters; growin’ girls. We don’t allow no naked women paradin’ around and makin’ exposes of ’emselves. The rest of you stay right here in case we need you. All right, you two, come along. Put a coat on that girl first. She ain’t decent enough to come down to the lockup thataway.”

Stan noticed that the stubble on the deputy marshal’s chin was white—like a white fungus on a dead man, he thought savagely. Molly’s eyes were enormous.

Hoately cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Looky here, Chief, that girl’s never had no complaints. She’s got to wear a costume like that on account of she handles electric wires and ordinary cloth might catch fire and …”

The deputy reached out one hand and gripped Hoately by the shirt. “Shut up. And don’t try offering me any bribes, neither. I ain’t none o’ your thievin’ northern police, kissin’ the priest’s toe on Sundays and raking in the graft hell-bent for election six days a week. I’m a church deacon and I aim to keep this a clean town if I have to run every Jezebel out of it on a fence rail.”

His tiny eyes were fastened on Molly’s bare thighs. He raised his glance ever so slightly to take in her shoulders and the crease between her breasts. The eyes grew hot and the slack mouth raised at the corners. Beside the Electric Girl’s platform he noticed a neat young man with corn-yellow hair saying something to the girl who nodded and then darted her attention back to the deputy.

The law lumbered over, dragging Hoately with him. “Young lady, git off that contraption.” He reached up a red-knuckled hand toward Molly. Stan was on the other side of the platform feeling for the switch. There was an ominous buzzing and crackling: Molly’s black hair stood straight up like a halo around her head. She brought her finger tips together. Blue fire flowed between them. The deputy stopped, stony. The girl reached out, and sparks jumped in a flashing stream from her fingers to the deputy’s. With a shout he drew back, releasing Hoately. The buzz of the static generator stopped and a voice drew his attention; it was the blond youth.

“You can see the reason, Marshal, for the metal costume the young lady is forced to wear. The electricity would ignite any ordinary fabric and only by wearing the briefest of covering can she avoid bursting into flame. Thousands of volts of electricity cover her body like a sheath. Pardon me, Marshal, but there seem to be several dollar bills coming out of your pocket.”

In spite of himself, the deputy followed Stan’s pointing finger. He saw nothing. Stan reached out and one after another five folded dollar bills appeared from the pocket of the denim shirt. He made them into a little roll and pressed them into the old man’s hand. “Another minute and you’d have lost your money, Marshal.”

The deputy’s eyes were half shut with disbelief and hostile suspicion; but he shoved the cash into his shirt pocket.

Stan went on, “And I see that you have bought your wife a little present of a few silk handkerchiefs.” From the cartridge belt Stan slowly drew out a bright green silk, then another of purple. “These are very pretty. I’m sure your wife will like them. And here’s a pure white one—for your daughter. She’s about nineteen now, isn’t she, Marshal?”

“How’d you know I got a daughter?”

Stan rolled the silks into a ball and they vanished. His face was serious, the blue eyes grave. “I know many things, Marshal. I don’t know exactly how I know them but there’s nothing supernatural about it, I am sure. My family was Scotch and the Scotch are often gifted with powers that the old folks used to call ‘second sight.”’

The white head with its coarse, red face, nodded involuntarily.

“For instance,” Stan went on, “I can see that you have carried a pocket piece or curio of some kind for nearly twenty years. Probably a foreign coin.”

One great hand made a motion toward the pants pocket. Stan felt his own pulse racing with triumph. Two more hits and he’d have him.

“Several times you have lost that luck-piece but you’ve found it again every time; and it means a lot to you, you don’t exactly know why. I’d say that you should always carry it.”

The deputy’s eyes had lost some of their flint.

From the tail of his eye Stan saw that the Electric Chair above them was empty; Molly had disappeared. So had everyone else except Hoately who stood slightly to the rear of the deputy, nodding his head wisely at every word of the magician’s.

“Now this isn’t any of my business, Marshal, because I know you are a man who is fully capable of handling his own affairs and just about anything else that is liable to come along. But my Scotch blood is working right this minute and it tells me that there is one thing in your life that is worrying you and it’s something you find it difficult to handle. Because all your strength and your courage and your authority in the town seem to be of no avail. It seems to slip through your grasp like water—”

“Wait a minute, young fella. What are you talkin’ ’bout?”

“As I said, it’s absolutely none of my business. And you are a man in the prime of life and old enough to be my father and by rights you should be the one to give me good advice and not the other way round. But in this case I may be able to do you a good turn. I sense that there are antagonistic influences surrounding you. Someone near to you is jealous of you and your ability. And while part of this extends to your work as a peace officer and your duties in upholding the law, there is another part of it that has to do with your church …”

The face had changed. The savage lines had ironed out and now it was simply the face of an old man, weary and bewildered. Stan hurried on, panicky for fear the tenuous spell would break, but excited at his own power. If I can’t read a Bible-spouting, whoremongering, big-knuckled hypocrite of a church deacon, he told himself, I’m a feeblo. The old son-of-a-bitch.

Stan’s eyes misted over as if they had turned inward. His voice grew intimate. “There is someone you love very dearly. Yet there is an obstacle in the way of your love. You feel hemmed-in and trapped by it. And through it all I seem to hear a woman’s voice, a sweet voice, singing. It’s singing a beautiful old hymn. Wait a moment. It’s ‘Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me.”’

The deputy’s mouth was open, his big chest was lifting and falling with his breath.

“I see a Sunday morning in a peaceful, beautiful little church. A church into which you have put your energy and your labor. You have labored hard in the Lord’s vineyard and your labor has borne fruit in the love of a woman. But I see her eyes filled with tears and somehow your own heart is touched by them …”

Christ, how far do I dare go with this? Stan thought behind the running patter of his words.

“But I feel that all will come out well for you. Because you have strength. And you’ll get more. The Lord will give you strength. And there are malicious tongues about you, ready to do you an injury. And to do this fine woman an injury if they can. Because they are like whited sepulchers which appear beautiful outward but are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness and …”

The deacon’s eyes were hot again but this time not at Stan. There was a hunted look in them too as the youth bore down:

“And the spirit of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has shined upon them but in vain, because they see as through a glass, darkly, and the darkness is nothing but a reflection of their own blackness and sin and hypocrisy and envy. But deep inside yourself you will find the power to combat them. And defeat them. And you will do it with the help of the God you believe in and worship.

“And while I feel the spirit talking to me straight out, like a father to his son, I must tell you that there’s a matter of some money coming to you that will cause you some disappointment and delay but you will get it. I can see that the people in this town have been pretty blind in the past but something in the near future will occur which will wake them up and make them realize that you are a more valuable man than they ever would admit. There’s a surprise for you—about this time next year or a little later, say around November. Something you’ve had your heart set on for a long time but it will come true if you follow the hunches you get and don’t let anybody talk you out of obeying your own good judgment which has never let you down yet —whenever you’ve given it a free rein.”

Hoately had evaporated. Stan turned and began to move slowly toward the gate. The midway outside was buzzing with little groups of talk. The entire carny had been sloughed and the deputies had chased the townies off the lot. Stan walked slowly, talking still in a soft, inward voice. The old man followed beside him, his eyes staring straight ahead.

“I’m very glad to have met you, Marshal. Because I expect to be back here again some day and I’d like to see if my Scotch blood had been telling me true, as I’m sure it has. I’m sure you don’t mind a young fellow like myself presuming to tell you these things, because, after all, I’m not pretending to advise you. I know you’ve lived a lot longer than I and have more knowledge of the ways of the world than I could ever have. But when I first set eyes on you I thought to myself, ‘Here’s a man and a servant of the law who is troubled deep in his mind,’ and then I saw that you had no reason to be because things are going to turn out just the way you want them to, only there will be a little delay …”

How the hell shall I finish this off, Stan wondered. I can talk myself right back into the soup if I don’t quit.

They reached the entrance and Stan paused. The deputy’s red, hard face turned toward him; the silence seemed to pour over Stan and smother him. This was the pay-off, and his heart sank. There was nothing more to be said now. This was where action started. Stan felt out of his depth. Then he suddenly knew the business that would work, if anything would. He turned away from the old man. Making his face look as spiritual as possible, he raised one hand and rested it easily in a gesture of peace and confidence against the looped canvas. It was a period at the end of the sentence.

The deputy let out a long, whistling breath, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and stood looking out on the darkening midway. Then he turned back to Stan and his voice was just an ordinary old man’s voice. “Young fella, I wisht I’d met you a long time ago. Tell the others to go easy in this town because we aim to keep it clean. But, by God, when—if I’m ever elected marshal you ain’t got nothing to worry about, long as you have a good, clean show. Good night, son.”

He plodded away slowly, his shoulders squared against the dark, authority slapping his thigh on a belt heavy with cartridges.

Stan’s collar was tight with the blood pounding beneath it. His head was as light as if he had a fever.

The world is mine, God damn it! The world is mine! I’ve got ’em across the barrel and I can shake them loose from whatever I want. The geek has his whisky. The rest of them drink something else: they drink promises. They drink hope. And I’ve got it to hand them. I’m running over with it. I can get anything I want. If I could hand this old fart a cold reading and get away with it I could do it to a senator! I could do it to a governor!

Then he remembered where he had told her to hide.

In the black space where the trucks were parked, Zeena’s van was behind the others, dark and silent. He opened the cab door softly and crept in, his blood hammering.

“Molly!”

“Yes, Stan.” The whisper came from the black cavern behind the seat.

“It’s okay, kid. I stalled him. He’s gone.”

“Oh, Stan, gee, you’re great. You’re great.”

Stan crawled back over the seat and his hand touched a soft, hot shoulder. It was trembling. His arm went about it. “Molly!”

Lips found his. He crushed her back on a pile of blankets.

“Stan, you won’t let anything happen to me—will you?”

“Certainly not. Nothing’s ever going to happen to you while I’m around.”

“Oh, Stan, you’re so much like my dad.”

The hooks which held the sequinned bodice came open in his shaking fingers. The girl’s high, pointed breasts were smooth under his hands, and his tongue entered her lips.

“Don’t hurt me, Stan, honey. Don’t.” His collar choked him, the blood hammering in his throat. “Oh. Stan—hurt me, hurt me, hurt me—”