The Collection (150 page)

That explained everything — except one thing. I said,

“Haskins was too far away to have rung my doorbell. Burke
wasn't there. Who rang it?”

“The cat,” said Lieutenant Becker simply.

“Huh?
How?
 The button was too high for it to—”

The lieutenant grinned. He said, “I told you Lasky was crazy
about that cat. It had a doorbell of its own, down low on one side of the door
frame, so when he let it out it wouldn't have to yowl to get back in. It could
just ring the bell with its paw. He'd taught it to do that when it wanted in.”

“I'll be damned,” I said. “If I'd thought to look—”

“Black cats look pretty much alike,” said the lieutenant,
“but that was how Haskins knew this was Lasky's cat. From across the street he
saw it ring that trick doorbell.”

I looked at the cat and said, “Satan,” and he opened his
eyes. “Why didn't you explain that, damn you?” He blinked once, and then went
back to sleep. I said, “The laziest animal I ever saw. Say, Lieutenant, I take
it nobody's going to claim him.”

“Guess not. You and your wife can buy a license for him if
you want to keep him.”

I looked at Ruth to see how she liked being mistaken for my
wife. There was a slight flush in her cheeks that wasn't rouge.

But she smiled and said, “Lieutenant, I'm not—”

I said, “Can't we get two licenses while we're at it?” I
wasn't kidding at all; I meant it. And Ruth looked at me and I read something
besides surprise in her face — and then remembered the lieutenant was still
around.

I turned to him. “Thanks for starting this, Lieutenant, but
I don't need a policeman to help me the rest of the way — if you know what I
mean.”

He grinned, and left.

Pop Williams rolled them out and they came snake-eyes again.
He spoke eloquently and bitterly about the matter while he watched Whitey
Harper pick up the two quarters and the jig next to him pick up the two dimes.

Pop reached for the dice, and then looked into his left hand
to see how much of his capital remained. A dime and a quarter were there.

He tossed down the two-bit piece and Whitey covered it.

Pop rolled a five-three. “Eighter from Decatur,” he said.

“Shoot the works.” He dropped the other coin in his hand,
and the jig covered. Pop whispered softly to the cubes and let them travel.

Four and a trey for seven.

He grunted and stood up.

Valenti, the daredevil, had been leaning against a
quarter-pole, watching the crap game with bland amusement.

He said, “Pop, you ought to know better than to buck those
dice of Whitey's.”

Whitey, the dice in his hand, looked up angrily, and his
mouth opened, then went shut again at the sight of those shoulders on Valenti.
Shoulders whose muscles bulged through the thin polo shirt he wore. Valenti
would have made two of Whitey Harper, who ran the penny-pitch, and he'd have
made three of Pop Williams.

But Valenti said, “I was just kidding, Whitey.”

“Don't like that kind of kidding,” said Whitey. He looked
for a moment as though he were going to say something more, and then he turned
back to the game.

Pop Williams went on out of the tent and leaned against the
freak-show picket fence, looking down the midway. Most of the fronts were dark,
and all the rides had closed down. Up near the front gate, a few of the ball
games and wheels were still running to a few late suckers.

Valenti was standing beside him. “Drop much, Pop?”

Pop shook his head. “A few bucks.”

“That's a lot,” said Valenti, “if it's all you had. That's
the only time it's fun to gamble. I used to be dice-nutty. Now I got a few G's
ahead and a few tied up in that stuff—” he waved a hand toward the apparatus for
the free show in the center of the midway — “and so there's no kick in shooting
two bits.”

Pop grunted. “You can't say you don't gamble, though, when
you high-dive off a thing like that, into practically a goldfish bowl.”

“Oh, that kind of gambling, sure. How's the old girl?”

“Lil? Swell. Blast old man Tepperman—” He broke off into
grumbling.

“Boss been riding you again about her?”

“Yeah,” said Pop. “Just because she's been cantankerous for
a few days. Sure, she gets cantankerous once in a while.

Elephants are only human, and when Tepperman gets
seventy-five years old, he's not going to be as easygoing as old Lil is, drat
him.”

Valenti chuckled.

“ 'Tain't funny,” said Pop. “Not this time. He's talking
about selling her off.”

“He's talked like that before, Pop. I can see his point of
view. A tractor—”

“He's got tractors,” said Pop bitterly. “And none of 'em can
shove a wagon outta mud like Lil can. And a tractor can't draw crowds like a
bull can, neither. You don't see people standing around watching a tractor. And
a tractor ain't got flash for parades, not like a bull has.”

To circus and carney, all elephants are bulls, regardless of
sex.

Valenti nodded. “There's that. But look what happened in the
last parade. She gets out of line, and goes up on a parking lot and—”

“That damn Shorty Martin. He don't know how to handle a
bull, but just because he's dark and you put a turban on him and he looks like
a
mahout,
 the boss puts him on Lil for the parade. Lil can't stand him.
She told me— Aw, nuts.”

“You need a drink,” said Valenti. “Here.” He held out a
silver-plated flask. Pop drank. “Smooth,” he said. “But kind of weak, ain't
it?”

Valenti laughed. “Hundred-proof Scotch. You must be drinking
that stuff they sell two bits a pint at the jig show.”

Pop nodded. “This ain't got enough fusel oil, or something.

But thanks. Guess I'll go see if Lil's okay.”

He went around back of the Dip-a-Whirl to where he'd staked
the bull. Lil was there, and she was peacefully asleep.

She opened little piggy eyes, though, as Pop walked up to
her.

He said, “Hiya, girlie. G'wan back to shuteye. We got to
tear-down tomorra night. You won't get much then.” His hand groped in his
pocket and came out with the two lumps of sugar he'd swiped from the cookhouse.

The soft, questing tip of her trunk nuzzled his palm and
took the sugar.

“Damn ya,” Pop said affectionately.

He stared at the huge dim bulk of the bull. Her eyes had
closed again.

“Trouble with you,” he said, “you got temperament. But
listen, old girl, you can't have temperament no more. That's for prima donnas,
that is, and you're a working bull.”

He pretended she'd said something. “Yeah, I know. You didn't
used to be— But then me, I wasn't always a bull man, either. Me, I was a clown
once. Remember, baby?

“And now you're just an ol' hay-burner for shoving wagons;
and me, I ain't so young myself. I'm fifty-eight, Lil.

Yeah, I know you got fifteen years on me, and maybe more'n
that if the truth was known, but you don't get drunk like I do, and that makes
us even.”

He patted her trunk and the big ears flapped once, in lazy
appreciation.

“That there Shorty Martin,” said Pop. “Baby, does he tease
you, or anything? Wish
I
could ride you in the parade, drat it. You'd be
all right then, wouldn't you, baby?”

He grinned. “Then that there Shorty would be mahout of a
job!”

But Lil didn't appreciate puns, he realized. And jokes
didn't change the fact that pretty soon he was going to be out of a job because
Tepperman Shows was going to sell Lil. If they could find a place to sell her.
If they couldn't— Well, he didn't want to think about that.

Disconsolately, he walked over to the jig village back of
the Harlem Casino.

“Hi, Mista' Pop,” said Jabez, the geek. “Lookin' kinda low.”

“Jabe,” said Pop, “I'm so low I could wear stilts and walk
under a sidewall 'thout lifting it.”

Jabez laughed, and Pop got a pint on the cuff.

He took a swig and felt a little better. That stuff had            authority
to it. More you paid for liquor, the weaker it was.

He'd tasted champagne once, even, and it had tasted like
soda pop. This stuff—

“Thanks, Jabe,” he said. “Be seeing you.”

He strolled back to the crap game. Whitey Harper stood up as
Pop came under the sidewall.

“Bust,” Whitey said. “Keep track of those dice for me, Bill.
I'll get 'em later. Hi, Pop. Stake me to Java?”

Pop shook his head. “But have a slug of what's good for what
ails you. Here.”

Whitey took the offered drink and headed for the cookhouse.
Pop borrowed a quarter from Bill Rendelman, the merry-go-round man, who was now
winner in the crap game.

He took two come-bets, one for fifteen and one for ten, and
lost both.

Nope, tonight wasn't his night.

Somewhere toward town, a clock boomed midnight. Pop decided he
might as well turn in and call it a night. He could finish what was left of the
pint in his bunk.

He was feeling swell now. And, as always, when he was in
that first cheerful, happy stage of inebriation, he sang, as he crossed the
deserted midway, the most lugubrious song he knew. The one and only grand opera
song he knew.

The aria from
Pagliaccio.

 
“—and just make light of
your crying
and your tears.

 
Come — smile, then,
Pagliaccio, at the
heart that is broken;

 
Smile at the grief that
has haunted your years!”

Yeah, that guy Pagliaccio was a clown, too, and he knew what
it was all about. Life was beautifully sad for a clown; it was more beautifully
sad for an ex-clown, and most sadly beautiful of all for a drunken ex-clown.

“I must clown to get
ri-i-d of my unhappiness—”

He'd finished the third full rendition by the time, still
fully dressed except for his shoes, he'd crawled into his bunk under the No. 6
wagon back of the Hawaiian show. He forgot all about finishing what was left of
the liquor.

Overhead the dim, gibbous moon slid out of sight behind
skittering clouds, and the outside ring of the lot, shielded by tents from the
few arcs left burning on the midway, became black mystery. Blackness out of
which the tents rose like dim gray monsters in the still, breathless night. The
murderous night—

Someone was shaking him. Pop Williams opened one eye
sleepily. He said, “Aw, ri'. Wha' time zit?” And closed the eye again.

But the shaking went on. “Pop! Wake up! Lil killed—”

He was sitting bolt upright then. His eyes were wide, but
they wouldn't focus. The face in front of them was a blur, but the voice was
Whitey Harper's voice.

He grabbed at Whitey's shoulder to steady himself.

“Huh? You said—”

“Your bull killed Shorty Martin. Pop! Wake up!”

Wake up? Hell, he was wider awake than he'd ever been in his
life. He was out of bed, almost falling on Whitey as he clambered down from the
upper bunk. He jammed his feet into his shoes so that their tongues doubled
back over the instep; he didn't stop to pull or tie the laces. And he was off,
running.

There were other people running, too. Quite a few of them.
Some of them from the sleeping cars, some of them from tents along the midway
where a good many slept in hot weather. Some running from the brightly lighted
cookhouse up at the front of the midway.

When he got to the Hawaiian show, Pop stole a glance around
behind him to see if Whitey Harper were in sight. He wasn't.

So Pop ducked under the Hawaiian show sidewall, and came out
at the side of the tent instead of the front of it, and doubled back to
Tepperman's private trailer. Of course, Tepperman's wife might still be there,
but there was something Pop had to do and had to do quick, before he went to
the bull. And in order to do it, he had to gamble that the boss's trailer would
be empty.

It was. And it took him only a minute to find the
high-powered rifle he was after. Holding it tight against his body, he got it
under the Hawaiian show top without being seen.

And hid it under the bally cloth of the platform.

It wasn't a very good hiding place. Someone would find it by
tomorrow noon, but then again by tomorrow noon it wouldn't matter. They'd be
able to get another gun by then.

But this one was the only one available tonight that was big
enough.

And then a minute later, Pop was pushing his way through the
ring of people around old Lil. A ring that held a very respectful distance from
the elephant.

Pop's first glance was for Lil, and she was all right.

Whatever flare of temper or cantankerousness she'd had, it
was gone now. Her red eyes were unconcerned and her trunk swung gently.

Doc Berg was bending over something that lay on the ground a
dozen feet from the bull. Tepperman was standing looking on. Someone called out
something to Pop, and Tepperman whirled.

His voice was shrill, almost hysterical. “I told you that
damn bull—” He broke off and stood there glaring.

“What happened?” Pop asked mildly.

“Can't you see what happened?” He looked back down at Doc
Berg, and Berg's glasses caught and reflected the beam of somebody's flashlight
as he nodded.

“Three ribs,” he said. “Neck dislocated, and the skull
crushed where it hit against that stake. Any one of those things could've
killed him.”

Pop shook his head, whether in grief or negation he didn't
know himself.

He asked again, “What happened? Was Shorty tormentin' her?”

“Nobody saw it,” Tepperman snapped.

“Hm-m-m,” said Pop. “That where you found him? Don't seem
likely Lil'd have throwed him that far if she did it.”