The Marble Kite (9 page)
Authors: David Daniel
I said the pleasure was mine. “He's pretty circumspect,” I said to Sonders when the old jazzman had left to navigate back to his digs.
“A true gentleman,” Pop said.
“Are all your people?”
His gaze sharpened. “What's that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “I came over here tonight to learn things. I'm trying to do the job.”
He let the bold eye linger a moment, then sat down. “What's to tell? I've got a lot of people work for me, okay? Are you asking if any of
them
could've killed that girl?”
them
could've killed that girl?”
“Or been accomplices before or after the fact? If the girl was killed back there in Pepper's trailer, as the police say she had to be carried out to the field. Maybe someone heard or saw something.”
“Look, everyone here's got a story. Police, lawyersâeven you being hereâit's got people jumpy. But I'll tell you this: I know these folks. I'll vouch for 'em.”
“Let's concentrate on Troy Pepper, then. He hasn't been with the show long. He doesn't say much, isn't especially close to anyone. Is that about right?”
“It don't make him a criminal.”
“It makes him more of an unknown, though. I'm going to be asking questions, digging into his past, his habits. It'll be helpful if you can keep your eyes and ears open, too.”
“I intend to.”
“Okay The outspoken one tonight, the clown. What's his scene?”
“Embry's generally burned about something or other. He's been in the business as long as I have, though not with me all that time. He knows all the old tricks of the trade. Like he does a walkaround, the way he used to do with the circusâstroll the crowd, interacting with folks. He's good at working a slow crowd. Gets them loosened up and spending money”
I didn't mention that he'd pinched Phoebe's butt, or that I'd caught him watching me earlier; if curiosity were a crime, I'd be on death row “A cop I know says you've got some people here who might raise suspicion.”
“Seems you got cops on your mind.”
“I know a lot of them. Cops who'll give me the time of day, that's a different story This one is to be trusted.”
“Who the hell you working for, anyway?”
“You want to tell me categorically that none of your people have ever been collared, so we can put that to rest?”
He frowned. “Okay sure. Moses had a couple pops, way back in his music days, when whiffing weed was common as chewing gum, but the public protectors of everyone else's morals put the rap on it like it was the devil's work. Big deal.”
“I didn't mean him. And I'm hip about reefer. When Robert Mitchum got set up in the late forties, the tabloids made him out to be a wild-eyed dope fiend.”
He nodded, obviously remembering. “Mitchum was cool. Okay some have got rap sheetsâand jailhouse body art, and three-pack-a-day smoke joneses. So what? In my book, I trust most of them a lot farther than I do these clucks running Fortune Five Hundred companies. Besides, where the hell you think I get my people? At job recruiting fairs? We travel ten months a yearâ
hard
travel. You see any first class accommodations out there? This is the best it gets,” he said, nodding around at the flimsy paneling with its good-citizen awards and city keys and the rumpled cot beyond the folding partition. “I need people with few attachments and lots of loyalty, who can take the pay, which, frankly, stinks. Who can work outdoors, and survive on food that'll give you indigestion now and probably heart disease later. I need someone who can
deal with tedium and disrespect, with bum weather and cop suspicion and equipment that busts down just before showtime and sometimes breaks a jack's leg in the bargain. You know what it costs for insurance premiums? Am I getting through? Oh yeah, and private dicks who expect there to be problems and damn sure look hard to find 'em.” His face blazed so red I thought the tufts of white hair would ignite. “Let's see, am I leaving any of the perks out?”
hard
travel. You see any first class accommodations out there? This is the best it gets,” he said, nodding around at the flimsy paneling with its good-citizen awards and city keys and the rumpled cot beyond the folding partition. “I need people with few attachments and lots of loyalty, who can take the pay, which, frankly, stinks. Who can work outdoors, and survive on food that'll give you indigestion now and probably heart disease later. I need someone who can
deal with tedium and disrespect, with bum weather and cop suspicion and equipment that busts down just before showtime and sometimes breaks a jack's leg in the bargain. You know what it costs for insurance premiums? Am I getting through? Oh yeah, and private dicks who expect there to be problems and damn sure look hard to find 'em.” His face blazed so red I thought the tufts of white hair would ignite. “Let's see, am I leaving any of the perks out?”
I grinned. “I get the idea.”
“A crack like you made, I'm not sure you do. We're the only ones we got, so we depend on each other. We're each other's family.”
“I apologize.”
“I'll put my jacks alongside any state or city workers you want, and I'll bet mine can outwork 'em two to one. Hell, a lot of these people have been with me for yearsâand you been here for about ten minutes. I hope I've hurt your feelings.”
“If my hide was that thin I'd have lasted in this
racket
ten minutes.”
racket
ten minutes.”
He harrumphed. “All right, we understand each other.”
“Yup, so back to my questions. You said that you've got people with you who have some history. Not Pepper, though.”
“Is that a question?”
“Poorly worded.”
He glanced at the low curved ceiling of the motor home, then sighed. “One time. In Jersey, when he was young. Long before he came to work for me. But he wrote it right on the application form the first day. He paid for it. It was in the past, he said. And I said all right, keep it there.”
It was the incident that Ms. Parigian at youth and family services in New Jersey had told me about, when Troy Pepper had been given an option of jail or the service. It made me feel a bit better that he had owned up, and that Pop had now, too. I got more comfortable in the chair. “Where you from, Pop?”
“Me? Newport News, Biloxi, San Diegoâhere and there.”
“Navy towns.”
“The old man was an anchor-clanker, swore if he didn't make chief petty officer he'd muster out. Twelve years later, he was still swabbing decks. My mother told him get out or she was going to run off and take
us kids. He got used to dry land eventually, but he couldn't sit still. He strayed into carnivals because it was a chance to move around but keep his family. Eventually he bought a piece of the action. Summers I traveled with the show. Those were good days.”
us kids. He got used to dry land eventually, but he couldn't sit still. He strayed into carnivals because it was a chance to move around but keep his family. Eventually he bought a piece of the action. Summers I traveled with the show. Those were good days.”
“Is this the same show?”
“More or less. I don't know for how much longer, though.” He hesitated, then said, “I've been getting some pressure to sell.”
“Who from?”
“There's an outfit called Rag Tyme Shows, with a yâa better name no one's ever thought of. All they talk is trash. They're medium sized, but they seem to want to become the Microsoft of carnivals. They don't got the manners, or the nice suits, but they got the same shark values. It's run by a couple of sharpies named Louie Hackett and Bud Spritzer.”
“I can hear their sport coats already.”
“As New York as an egg cream, the pair of âem. Few years back, they offered to buy the showâwhich right away means someone should be comin' after them with a net. You got to have a screw loose to want to be in this business.”
“You're in it.”
“Case in point. Anyway, I told 'em forget it. A year later, I had to make some equipment upgrades to meet new safety regsâgoddamn Democrats in the statehouse. Well, dough was hard to come by. It always is. But I got a lender and borrowed against equity. Come to find out later, the lender sold the note. Guess who to?”
“Rag Tyme, with a y.”
He shook his head in disgust. “The juice went up ten percent. I go to Hackettâhe's the business guyâI say, âWhat the hell is this?' Very calmly he shows me spreadsheets, and according to that, he says, with revenues flat and yadda yadda ⦠I told him his math was bogus, and so then he hauls out the signed contract, which says that he can use his firm's own accounting methods, and I realized he had me. I said, âI'll pay you back, every dime. But don't horse with me. I don't want you talking to anyone, my wife'âmy wife was alive at the timeââfriends, workers, no one. If I don't give you your money by the fifteenth of each month, you can chop this off!' And I showed 'em this.”
He showed it to me, too. “You've still got the finger,” I said.
“And a gut you could strain coffee through, not to mention four payments still due on the loan.”
“Four months isn't so bad. I just put on a thirty-year straitjacket.”
“Good luck, but the way this note is written, if I miss a bounce, just one, the remaining comes due all at once.”
“Is that legal?”
“The whole donut. Or I forfeit the show My lawyer said it was legal. Stupid but legal.” He sighed bleakly “Now I don't know if I'll make it.”
“Could you borrow?”
“How the hell you think I got into this fix?”
“How much are you talking?”
“You don't want to know. A lot more than I can afford.”
“Sometimes selling to a hungry buyer can mean money in your pocket.”
“Not these guys. Hungry sure. They call it mergers and acquisitions, happens all the time, right? Supposed to be good for everyone? Horse manure. The strong eat the weak, and crap out the bones of workers. Good for who?” He twisted his lips. “Fuckin' Republicans.”
“What are you, a Whig?”
“A thinker. I'd have been lucky to get fifty cents on the dollar. And what they'd do if they bought me out, they'd put in people they already got on their payroll, and my workers would be on the bricks. This show maybe ain't much in the big schemeâit ain't Cirque du Soleilâbut I put years and sweat into it. Rag Tyme is strictly a bottom feeder, looking to wipe out competition. There's a tired show that comes through these parts in late springâmaybe you've seen them. Moths fly out of their equipment when they open it up, and you can hear the gears creaking in Boston. That's one of theirs. It's a wonder no one ends up killed on the rides, or gets ptomaine off the food. But Louie Hackett don't seem too concerned, as long as the bottom line is in his wallet.”
“You mentioned another name, too.”
“Bud Spritzer. The Squisher. He used to pro wrestle.”
I knew it had sounded like more than a fizzy drink. “He goes back. Wasn't there some controversy about him?”
“That's a way to put it. He kept some kind of choke hold on an opponent too long one time, guy ended up with scrambled eggs for a
brain. Spritzer had to give up the ring. He knocked around the rackets for a while. He's a businessman now.”
brain. Spritzer had to give up the ring. He knocked around the rackets for a while. He's a businessman now.”
“With a knuckle-crusher handshake and a specialty in hostile takeovers, I'll bet.”
“Hackett is the so-called brains of the outfit, Spritzer is the ball buster.”
“Have they been around lately?”
He tugged an earlobe. “I get your drift. The answer is no.”
“No they haven't been around? Or no to my drift?”
“Both. I ain't heard from them since May, which is jake with me. But I don't figure them in this. Do you?”
I shook my head. “I can't see how”
“Any luck, they won't get wind of it. The carny world's a small one. If they do hear, you can bet your britches they'll come sniffing around, chipper as popcorn, checkbook in hand, and it'll be two bits on the dollar now. Judas H. Priest. Listen to me. I got to get off the pity pot. Take a walk with me.”
Outside, the moon that had shone the other night was fatter now in the indigo sky, hanging imperiously above the river, oblivious to the follies and travails of the people on the little blue planet it looked down upon. Traffic streamed by on the boulevard in long parallel glows of red and white lights, duplicated on the other side of the river and doubled by reflection in the water.
“Look at that,” Sonders said morosely “Nice evening, a lot of them folks could be here, walking around with their families, their sweethearts, eating fried dough and corn on the cob ⦠winning Kewpie dolls. Having fun. That's it in a nutshell, ain't it? Giving people a break from their lives, something a little different from what they get elsewhere.
And
âI'm not gonna snow you with a Mother Teresa riffâwe could be doing twenty-five, thirty grand tonight ⦠instead of sitting here dark and the season growing long.” He ran a palm across his head and looked at the moon. I half expected him to howl. “But then I think, what kind of shallow guy am I? I've got one of my people sittin' in stir, could be facing hard time.” He dropped his arm. “It's a changed world from the one I used to know”
And
âI'm not gonna snow you with a Mother Teresa riffâwe could be doing twenty-five, thirty grand tonight ⦠instead of sitting here dark and the season growing long.” He ran a palm across his head and looked at the moon. I half expected him to howl. “But then I think, what kind of shallow guy am I? I've got one of my people sittin' in stir, could be facing hard time.” He dropped his arm. “It's a changed world from the one I used to know”
“Back in the good old days, when a dollar was still worth forty cents,
and risque was couples sitting around the living room listening to Rusty Warren records.”
and risque was couples sitting around the living room listening to Rusty Warren records.”
“Hold the jokes, will you?”
“You hold the straight lines.”
“I wish I could.”
I felt for him; a good old guy who was trying to do right by his people. Sonders saw a mission in what he did, and it wasn't all about profit. The question was, had others done right by him? As though he'd read my thoughts, he called after me as I made for my car. “Hey Rasmussen. Find out, will you?” His gruffness was gone, and for the first time, standing there in the gleam of light from the parkway he looked older than his years, tired and stooped and a little lost. “Find out what really happened?”
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