Tengu (17 page)

Where’s the
nearest circus? Bright Brothers at Anaheim, here this week. Now, you look at
the clown’s face, and you realize what that pattern probably was–the painted
black eyebrows on the clown’s forehead.”

Skrolnik
examined the poster for a long time, chewing his lips. Then he said,
“Okay....
 
But you’re talking about a
clown who can tear a woman to pieces, limb from limb, and then smash a fully
grown, fully trained police officer’s head in?”

“You don’t buy
it?”

“I’m not saying
I don’t buy it. I’m just asking a sensible question.”

Pullet reached
across and tapped some lettering at the foot of the poster. “There’s one
possible answer.”

Skrolnik
reached into his breast pocket and took out a pair of hornrimmed spectacles. He
perched them self-consciously on the end of his snubby nose, and then peered
closely at the poster again. It said: EL KRUSHO, THE strongest man in
america
, see him bend iinch-thick steel bars, As featured in
the movie Kung Fu Revenge.

“El Krusho?”
Skrolnik asked, taking off his spectacles. “I have to go look for a homicide
suspect called El Krusho? How am I going to live it down?”

Pullet
shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I know it seems kind of stupid. But I did some
checking with the Screen Actors’ Guild, and a nice lady there told me that El
Krusho is registered with them, and that his real name is Maurice Needs, and
that he comes from Fridley, Minnesota.’’

Skrolnik
repeated dully, “Fridley, Minnesota?
El Krusho, from Fridley
Minnesota?
I must be dreaming. Look, I’m closing my eyes again. Come
back into the room quietly and wake me up, and tell me that I’ve been
dreaming.”

“I’m sorry,”
said Pullet nasally, a little peeved. “I know it all sounds peculiar, but you
have to admit that it’s a pretty peculiar case.
A peculiar
case, begging for a peculiar solution.”

Skrolnik
sniffed again, stood up, and said, “Why don’t you get some coffee? And bring me
a couple of aspirin, too, while you’re at it. I feel like I’m going to have a
terrible headache.”

“I think we
ought to go down to Anaheim, interview this guy El Krusho,” said Pullet.

Skrolnik stared
at him without any expression whatsoever.

“I mean,”
blustered Pullet, “it does say here that he can bend inch-thick steel bars, and
you remember the gates at Sherry Cantor’s house, the way they were...”

He trailed off.
Skrolnik was still staring at him.

“You don’t
think
...
 
?”
Pullet began again.

Skrolnik said,
“I don’t want to belittle your investigative talents, Detective Pullet. You
have true genius at times. But you mustn’t start leaping to conclusions without
sufficient evidence. You’ve come up with an excellent idea. White greasepaint,
clowns, circuses, all that stuff. It’s an idea we’re going to have to look into
exhaustively. But before we leap into a car and howl down to Anaheim in pursuit
of this...
 
Maurice
Needs
...
 
well, we’re going to have ask ourselves a
couple of questions, right? Like, how come the strong man is wearing the
clown’s greasepaint? Like, why would he want to break into Sherry Cantor’s
house and tear her to pieces? It certainly wasn’t for money, nothing was taken.
It wasn’t a sexual attack, either. It was just rrrippp, killing for the sake of
it.
Dismemberment for the sake of it.
So why?
Because even if there isn’t a reason, there has to
be a reason why there isn’t a reason. You get me?”

Detective
Pullet reached into his coat pocket. “This is the piece de resistance,” he said,
and
laid
down on Skrolnik’s desk a glossy
black-and-white publicity photograph. Skrolnik irritably reached for his
glasses again and held the picture up to the light of his desklamp. It showed a
young, curly-haired man arm in arm with a hugely built wrestler type. Both of
them were grinning at the camera inanely, as if they were slightly high on
ganja.

“This
curly-headed guy on the left is Mack Holt– Sherry Cantor’s ex-boyfriend,” said
Skrolnik slowly.

“And the big
muscle bound guy on the right is Maurice Needs, a/k/a El Krusho,” said
Detective Pullet. “This picture was taken on the set of a movie called Kung Fu
Heroes, which was the picture that El Krusho made just before Kung Fu Revenge.
Mack Holt played a young Hell’s Angel who appears on the screen just long
enough to be smashed to pieces by three crazed exponents of the martial arts.”

Skrolnik sat
down again. He stared at the photograph for a little while longer, and then
tossed it away across his desk. “I don’t know whether to sing ‘God Bless America’
or go for a shit,” he said. “Forget the coffee. We’re going down to Anaheim.”

They spoke very
little as they drove through the dusty sunshine toward Anaheim. It was a very
hot afternoon, and the Buick’s air conditioning was gurgling and splut-_ tering
with every bump in the Santa Ana Freeway. Skrol-nik said from time to time, as
if it were the first time he had ever said it, “El Krusho. Jesus.”

Bright Brother
Grand Circus had erected its big top just two blocks south of Lincoln Avenue,
on Euclid. Detective Pullet parked the Buick next to a filthy truck that had
DANGER

MAN-EATING
LIONS stenciled on the side. “Your middle name isn’t Daniel, by any chance?” asked
Skrolnik, as he stepped out of the car ankle-deep into a dry sea of popcorn
cartons.

It took them
nearly a quarter of an hour to find the chief clown. He was a morose, aging
man, with a face like a canvas bag full of plumbing tools. He was sitting on
the fold-down sofa in his silver Airflow trailer drinking Coor’s and watching
baseball on a snowy-screened portable TV.

His lean body
was wrapped up in an aquamarine bathrobe.

“Mr.
Cherichetti?” asked Skrolnik, tapping on the open door.

“Who’s asking?”
demanded the clown.

“Sergeant
Skrolnik.
Homicide.
You got a minute?”

“For what?”

“For questions.
Nothing personal.
Just a few questions.”

Cherichetti
sniffed loudly and kept his eyes on the baseball. “I didn’t murder anybody, if
that’s what you’re asking.”

“Did I say you
murdered anybody?”

“You’re from
Homicide, right? Detectives from Homicide want to find out who murdered whom.
Did you get that good grammar?
Whom
, right?”

Sergeant
Skrolnik walked along the aisle in the middle of the trailer and made a show of
admiring the Canvas-Tex reproductions of Olde Masters, including the “Monarch
of the Glen” by Landseer and Boy’a “Maja Nude.” He delicately touched the rim
of a blue-and-yellow cut-glass vase with his fingertips. “Nice place you got
here, Mr. Cherichetti.
Tasteful.
Can you tell me where
you were at half past seven on the morning of August ninth?”

Cherichetti
raised his hooded eyes and looked at Skrolnik with a noticeable lack of
clownish humor. “I have to answer that?
By law?”

“You don’t have
to answer anything. It depends whether you want to help me find the guy who
tore an innocent young woman into pieces, that’s all.”

“Sherry
Cantor?”

Skrolnik
nodded.

“Well, I seen
her once or twice, in the flesh,” said Cherichetti. “That was before the TV
show, you know?
Two, three years ago.
She used to come
to see the circus with Maurice and some other guy.”

“Maurice Needs?
El Krusho?”

“El Krusho,”
said Cherichetti with disdain.

Skrolnik raised
an eyebrow at Pullet. “Well,” he said. “Tell me, Mr. Cherichetti, was there
ever any evidence in your eyes that Maurice Needs and Sherry Cantor were more
than just friends of the same mutual friend? What I mean is
,
do you think there was any kind of romance between Maurice Needs and Sherry
Cantor?
Anything like that?”

“Depends what
you call romance,” sniffed Cherichetti. “I don’t call it romance, everybody
getting into the same bed together.”

Skrolnik
gripped Pullet’s wrist. For Christ’s sake, he thought to himself, this kid
Pullet has a nose for homicide like a hunting dog. Needs and Holt and Sherry
Cantor all shared the same bed?

What a motive
for Needs and Holt to tear the poor girl to pieces. What an incredible percent
solid brass motive. Both of them were jealous, loverboy and strongman, and when
she left both of them to rub shoulders with the glittering and the
good-looking, both of them plotted to kill her.
And how?
With the ready-made weapon of El Krusho’s invincible and
irresistible hands.
What a case! What a fucking gold-plated 100 percent
amazing easel

“Is El Krusho
here today?” asked Skrolnik. “I’d really like to talk to him.” Cherichetti
shook his head. “He’s gone up to Venice to see some girl. He won’t be back
until tonight’s performance, seven o’clock.”

“You know where
in Venice? What kind of car he’s driving?
Anything like
that?”

“He drives a
‘69 Pontiac, you know, the one with the long pointy hood. Turquoise blue,
except for one door, that’s beige. The girl lives on Rialto Avenue, pretty
girl, he took me around there once to meet her. Her name’s Bitzi or Titzi or
something like that.
Pretty girl.”

Detective
Pullet said, “Mr. Cherichetti, there’s one more thing. Do you happen to have
noticed if any of your greasepaint has been missing lately? Any of it been
dipped into by somebody else, or maybe stolen?”

Mr. Cherichetti
frowned at them.
“My slap?
Why would anyone want to
steal my slap?”

“Well, it could
be relevant,” said Pullet.

“I don’t know,”
said Cherichetti, slowly shaking his head. “I use so much of the stuff I
wouldn’t notice.”

At that,
moment, a hefty black-haired woman in a spangled corset and fishnet tights came
up the steps of the trailer, patting sweat from her face with a multicolored
towel.

“What goes on
here?” she asked.

“The police,”
explained Cherichetti. “They came to see me because they felt like a laugh.”

The woman
stalked aggressively into the trailer and planted her fists on her spangled
hips. “They wasted their time, huh? Nobody gets a laugh from you.”

Mr. Cherichetti
raised his beercan and said, “This is Josephina, my girlfriend.
The most beautiful woman in California, if not the universe.”

Skrolnik looked
from Josephina to Cherichetti and then back to Josephina again. He gave
Cherichetti’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Good luck,” he said. “It looks
like you need it.

Come on,
Pullet,
let’s go see what the score is in Venice.”

J
erry Sennett was putting the finishing touches to a homemade
pepperoni pizza when the doorbell rang. He dusted the flour off his hands, took
a quick swallow of whiskey from the glass beside the pastry board, and then
walked through his living room to answer it. It was Mack Holt, in jeans this
time, and a T-shirt. He looked hot and agitated.

“Mr. Sennett?
Jerry? I’m sorry. I should have called first.”

“You saw the
news bulletin?”

Mack nodded.
“You’re right. It’s the same mask. The damned same mask! What was that you said
about ‘a cold wind’? That’s like something psychic.
Intuition,
or something. ‘‘

“Well, you can
call it a hunch, if you want to,” said Jerry. “Listen, I’ve just made a pizza.
Do you want to stay and have some? It’ll take a little while to bake.”

“Pizza?
Well, sure. I mean, I don’t want to impose on you.”

Jerry smiled.
“I told you before. I am impervious to imposition. Anyway, my son David’s
staying with friends this evening out at the beach. He’s reached the age when
he has a social life of his own, which apparently doesn’t include dear old
Dad.”

No Mom?” asked
Mack. It was an innocent question, not prying.

“Mom–my wife,
Rhoda–well, she died a few years ago,” said Jerry. “Since then I’ve been trying
to bring David up on my own. With varied success, I might tell you. He’s
cheerful.

Ebullient, even.
But I sometimes think he lacks the security
that a mother could have given him.

Do you
understand what I mean?”

“I sure do,”
said Mack. “My parents broke up when I was ten, and I missed my dad like hell.
He married some waitress from Albuquerque. Not that I blame him, she was half
his age and real pretty. I mean, real pretty. But, you know, I didn’t get any
of that friendly cuffing around the head, none of that talk about football and
airplanes and cowboys. I used to look at other kids who had two parents, two
normal parents, you know, and I used to be so damned jealous.’’

“You’re not
jealous now, though?” asked Jerry, pouring Mack a drink.

“I don’t know.
Maybe.
Maybe I still envy them their memories.”

Jerry sat down
on the sofa and crossed his legs, watching Mack with sympathy but also with the
perceptiveness of a trained intelligence officer. It was a habit that
thirty-eight years had done nothing to erase. Jerry wanted to know things
because he had been trained to want to know things. His old instructor had
rasped at him, “The intelligence officer who isn’t incurably curious isn’t
worth doodly-squat. Dis-miss!”

Jerry said,
“What about Sherry? Did Sherry represent any kind of security for you? Did you
ever talk about getting married?”

“We lived together
for quite a while,” said Mack. “I guess I always assumed that we were going to
stay together forever. She was very warm, you know. One of these girls you can
sit with all evening, and you don’t have to say a single word, and you know
that you’re getting through.”