Mrs. Pollifax Pursued

by Dorothy Gilman

  "Sounds a reasonable equivalent of shock treatment," said Mrs. Pollifax, "but I doubt its use for Boozy Tim just now."

  Shannon giggled. "No, we don't have a goat or a medicine man." With a glance at the sky, she frowned. "Don't like the look of those clouds."

  "Rain?"

  "A wipe-out night it if rains, honey. Where you off to now?"

  Displaying her notebook and pen Mrs. Pollifax confided that she was on her way to the Snake Woman's long sleek trailer. "To interview her," she said, and aware that she was even more interested now in the man who lived with her, she added, "And her companion."

  "Oh, Jock." Shannon made a face. "Funny. I know his type and believe me, his sort usually has an eye for the girls but he's too busy managing her." With a shrug she added, "Maybe that's why she lets him call the shots, to hold onto him, but he can sure be nasty. So good luck, honey."

  It was Jock who opened the door to Mrs. Pollifax: lean, handsome, impatient, his eyes cold until he registered the fact that she was the woman from a newspaper, at which point he smiled, flashing perfect white teeth against his tanned skin. "Hey, Elda," he shouted. "Publicity. The interview lady." With exquisite politeness Mrs. Pollifax was ushered inside. "Have a seat—no, not that one, take this."

  The Snake Woman walked out of an inner room saying doubtfully, "Publicity?"

  Mrs. Pollifax scarcely recognized her this morning: there was no slash of scarlet across her lips, the curls had been sleeked back and she wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Oh dear," she said, "I was feeding Herman."

  "I'll do it," her companion told her, "but take off your glasses, will you?"

  "You know I can't see much without them."

  "Take them off" he said. "You want your picture in the papers with them?"

  Mrs. Pollifax politely intruded to say, "No camera yet, that comes later."

  At this Jock gave her an indignant glance but rallied to say, "Well, tell her how you grew up in Borneo, Elda." He walked out, presumably to feed Herman.

  The Snake Woman smiled faintly. "I wasn't born in Borneo, of course, I grew up in farm country out West, Nebraska, and then Montana. Would you like coffee?"

  Mrs. Pollifax had seen enough of her surroundings by now to refuse, once her gaze had fallen upon the large glass cages that lined one wall oí the room, each one occupied by what had looked like giant coils of rope until one of the ropes had drowsily stirred. Nor was she unaware of the white mouse that suddenly scampered across the room. Bringing out her notepad she said, "I see you really live with your snakes .., let's begin with your name."

  The Snake Woman sat down at the other end of the coffee table and said, "Okay, I'm Elda Higgins."

  "And Jock, he's Higgins, too?"

  "Oh no, we're not married. Not yet anyway," she said comfortably. "He's the one who talked me into this. I was teaching, you see, at a small midwestern college—teaching herpetology." Her voice sharpened, for a second became almost sarcastic as she added, "He told me what a lot of fun it would be, and lots of money, too, if I showed off my snakes at big expositions, seeing I had so many as pets." She rose and went to one of the cages and Mrs. Pollifax winced as she drew out a six-foot-long snake with brown stripes. "He likes to be held," she said, carrying him back to the chair. "He's a boa, isn't he beautiful.7 His name is Jimmy."

  "Boa constrictor'!" Mrs. Pollifax said weakly.

  "Yes."

  Recovering, Mrs. Pollifax asked if she was finding her new career fun and profitable.

  Elda sighed. "Profitable? Well, it should be, it's just—" She hesitated. "No, not yet. We started the season with a big exposition in New York State and it looked great, but then Jock quarreled with the management, so we came here. We came late." She said with a wry smile, "So I can't say there's much money yet, no, this being so small a carnival."

  Mrs. Pollifax smiled sympathetically. "I couldn't help but overhear yesterday—I was about to knock on your door— that you'd wanted to leave earlier."

  Startled, Elda said, "Oh, Jock—Jock doesn't like the police." Aware that she'd been indiscreet she added quickly, "Really it was me, it just seemed as if we could do better somewhere else, it's not that late in the season. It's the money, you see, it costs to keep the place warm enough— nearly eighty degrees—for the snakes, and feeding them's expensive, and there's the travel, and the trailer payments, and I've got a daughter back in Nebraska . .." Her voice trailed away as if she might cry if she continued.

  "I'll write that down, it's very interesting," said Mrs. Pollifax, scribbling a few lines. "Have you known Jock long?"

  "No, not long," she said and then, brightening, "but he knows carnivals and that sort of thing, he used to be a barker in the Strates Shows, and—"

  "And sold you on the idea," said Mrs. Pollifax. "And the snakes, are they still highly dangerous?"

  "No, not now," Elda said with a flash of anger.

  "Not poisonous?"

  The anger faded and she said without expression, "Jock refused to live with me unless their venom ducts were cut." She gave an abrupt laugh that sounded false. "Well, he probably was right, because they don't like him, but I'll tell you this." She leaned forward, with passion in her voice, "No rattlesnake or python or boa ever, ever, bit me, I've raised them since I was a kid of seven or eight years old, and never, never did they hurt me."

  "How do you do it?" asked Mrs. Pollifax, marveling.

  Elda leaned back, relaxed again, to say easily, "Well, they know me, you see, we're friends. I talk to them, pet them, feed them, tame them. There aren't many deaths in the United States from snakes, you know, it's mostly from the diamond-back rattlers, and I don't fool with them. King-snakes, boas, pythons, and sidewinders are what I have. Three gorgeous pythons." She nodded toward the cages along the wall. "Want to see them?"

  "Uh—not just now. Would you call yourself a snake-charmer?"

  Elda laughed. "Oh, there aren't any snake-charmers, just strong-minded people."

  Strong-minded Elda might be, thought Mrs. Pollifax, but not where Jock was concerned. With an uneasy glance at the boa that was slithering out of Elda's lap she rose, saying, "I think this gives me enough material for the moment, I want to talk to some of the concessionaires I've not spoken with yet."

  "Oh, them." Casually picking the boa up from the floor, Elda opened the door for Mrs. Pollifax and blinked at the sun outside.

  Mrs. Pollifax said, "Do you know any of your neighbors? Mingle at all?"

  Elda said eagerly, "Oh I'd love—" She stopped and glanced back toward the kitchen. "No," she said. "No, I don't know any of them."

  Jock again, thought Mrs. Pollifax, and left, feeling that she was not going to be of any help to Willie; any talents she might possess for ferreting out skullduggery had become sidetracked by the novelty of her surroundings. Considering Elda the Snake Woman, for instance, she thought her as caged as any of her pythons but this could, of course, be only a cover; she might instead be a consummate actress and not a professor of herpetology at all. The police had certainly made her companion Jock nervous but it was quite possible this was for reasons other than international espionage. . . .

  She had overheard the police interviewing Jasna and her father yesterday, and if his blindness was what had reduced them to bringing a class act to Willie's small carnival she thought they concealed his blindness very well. At the Ten-in-One last night she had witnessed their performance with much interest. In his white satin robe and with his full black beard he had resembled a Russian patriarch, the dark glasses quite understandable due to the brilliance of the spotlight trained on him. She noted that he had already been placed in position before the curtain was raised: the two worked hard at concealing his handicap. There was also Lubo, stubbornly and relentlessly secretive—even Kadi hadn't been able to pry any information from him—yet carnies, she realized, were not the usual run of people; in any normal society she supposed they would be called misfits: voluptuous Shannon, for instance, who scorned Broadway to move, move, mov
e . . . Boozy Tim whose eccentricities were regarded here with pride and even awe; where else would he find so amiable and responsive an audience?

  The sun had emerged again from behind the clouds, and its heat flavored the air with the scent of sawdust. She decided to see if Pie-Eye had opened up his Cat-Rack booth yet, and headed for the midway. The man called Jake was fussing with the transformer and gave her a nod as she passed. She had not yet met Pie-Eye but she had glimpsed him at his stall the night before and had noted the bright pink turban he wore around his head, setting off a lean and swarthy face with a pencil-line mustache that punctuated thin lips. Now she saw that his booth was open and that he was talking to—of all people—Kadi, which she thought would definitely make her questions easier. She strolled across the midway to join them.

  "He's not pie-eyed," Kadi told her, "but nobody can pronounce his name so he's called that, but he doesn't like it. His name's really—" She looked at him questioningly.

  "Pyrrhus," he announced. "The name of a king," he reminded her firmly.

  "Yes indeed, and how do you do," said Mrs. Pollifax. "And you run the Cat-Rack game?"

  He shrugged. "This year, this season, yes." He smiled at her benevolently.

  "And other seasons?" she asked, returning his smile.

  Again he shrugged. "Anything, everything! Mental telepathy, fortune-telling, Spin the Wheel, the penny-pitching board, I can do anything. I am a psychic and also," he admitted charmingly, "a genius."

  "That's a great deal of talent," she told him, and added mischievously, "I wonder that you're here and not at one of the big expositions."

  His charm at once vanished. He stared at her with suspicion, saying coldly, "I go where I choose—where my destiny points—I move with the wind."

  "It's a southeast wind today," Kadi said ingenuously. "A hot one, too." She winked at Mrs. Pollifax and turned to leave. "Let's go find Boozy Tim, Emmy." Once out of hearing she whispered, "Nobody likes Pie-Eye, Gertie says they think he's a bit light-fingered and on the lam. Maybe he's the one."

  "I'll make a note of that—and of your expanding vocabulary," teased Mrs. Pollifax. "Any more sketching?"

  Kadi glanced down at her sketchbook. "Only of the two men in the Chigi Scap Metal van who chased me. At least I tried, except of course I never saw them close-up."

  Glancing at the two faces Mrs. Pollifax murmured, "Older than I thought. Asian, perhaps? Rough and tough as well, from the look of them, not at all the sort anyone would appreciate being pursued by."

  "No," said Kadi. "I just thought, if I tried to get them on paper, I might get them out of my dreams. They chased me into your garden last night, too, when I was asleep." Having stated this in a matter-of-fact voice she added with a smile, "Did you know Boozy Tim's sailed all around the world on cargo ships? Except that when Willie found him he was homeless and living on the streets."

  "I didn't know that."

  Kadi nodded. "There's more news I haven't told you: I've been offered three jobs already—three! Pogo, the Professor, and—don't faint—Willie. For the summer."

  "Willie!"

  Kadi nodded happily. "He wants me to make a sketch of him for his livingroom—although not to replace Elvis Presley—and to design new carnival posters and touch up the Ten-in-One canvases, especially El Flamo and the Dancing Girls."

  Amused, Mrs. Pollifax said, "And have you said yes?"

  Kadi looked troubled. "I told Willie I had to find out first about Sammy." Glancing up and down the midway she added, "Where can Boozy Tim be? Jake," she called to the ride foreman, "have you seen Boozy Tim?"

  Jake gave her a shy smile; everyone smiled at Kadi, noticed Mrs. Pollifax; it was impossible not to, for she was blossoming like a girl at her first prom, her eyes shining, cheeks pink, dark hair blown into tangles.

  "Boozy Tim?" repeated Jake. "Gone into town. Walked."

  Surprised, Mrs. Pollifax said, "On such a hot day? Shannon said he wasn't feeling well this morning."

  Jake frowned. "She offered him a ride but he said he wanted to walk." He shook his head. "Hardly ever leaves the show, guess he needed something really bad." He added consolingly, "He'll be okay, it's only three miles and Shannon said she'd keep an eye out for him to give him a ride back."

  Mrs. Pollifax was considerably relieved to hear this.

  She and Kadi approached their trailer together and Mrs. Pollifax unlocked the door, an act that proved more difficult than usual. "Stubborn," she said, inserting the key a second time and frowning.

  "Maybe needs oiling," said Kadi.

  "Certainly needs something." Once again Mrs. Pollifax withdrew and inserted the key in the lock and this time it turned hard but unlocked the door.

  They walked in and Mrs. Pollifax said, "Oh-oh."

  "What?" asked Kadi.

  "You'd better find Willie, we've been searched," she told her. "Carelessly, too. I left my purse under the pillow, totally concealed but now half of it's visible, and where's your knapsack?"

  Startled, Kadi glanced quickly around the small trailer. "It's on the seat by the table but I know I left it on my bunk. Emmy—"

  "Find Willie, you can see if anything's missing when you get back. The side window's open and the screen knocked out. Whoever it was must have left in a hurry when they heard us outside."

  With Kadi gone Mrs. Pollifax looked through her purse, finding its contents disarranged but nothing missing, not even the seventy dollars in her wallet. Whoever had searched it, however, would know now, from her checkbook and credit card, that her name was not plain Emmy Reed. She wondered how important this was.

  When Willie at last arrived he looked grim. "Someone checking you out I do not like. What's missing?"

  "I don't like it either," she responded, "and nothing at all has been stolen."

  "Worse yet," said Willie, looking grimmer.

  Kadi was groping through her knapsack, finally spilling its contents across the bunk: two chocolate bars, four sketch' books, a change purse, wallet, a book, pens and pencils, a passport, three lipsticks, a brush and comb, and a small folder neatly lettered: Résumé, Kadi Hopkirk.

  Mrs. Pollifax smiled a little at the collection. "All there?"

  Kadi nodded.

  "I don't like this at all," repeated Willie. "In broad daylight, too, and nothing missing. It makes me think whoever knifed Lazlo really must be here still and is getting nervous. Or curious. If you'd been robbed it would have been one thing, but with nothing taken—"

  "Do you think my so-called interviews are making someone edgy?"

  Willie considered this. "No," he said thoughtfully, "it's more likely someone feels watched."

  "Certainly not by me," she said indignantly. "The only person I've consistently watched each evening is the Professor, when he saws Kadi in half." Glancing past Willie to the window she saw Boozy Tim trudging past the trailer with a large white paper bag in one hand, and she gave a sigh of relief. "Thank heaven! There's Boozy Tim at last, we've been worried about him."

  Willie looked grim again. "Just the person I want to see." Striding to the open door he called out to him, and stepped down from the trailer. The two met just outside the window. "Boozy Tim, what the hell's wrong with you, you been sick?" he demanded. "Everybody comes to me and wants to know what the hell's wrong with you today."

  Boozy Tim said earnestly, "Just trying to think, Willie. Honest, Willie, if I could think hard enough I just know I could help with that Santa Claus fellow that stepped on my foot."

  Willie's voice turned gentle. "Not sick, then?"

  "No, Willie, just trying hard to think."

  "Well, don't try anymore, Boozy Tim—don't" Willie told him. "We're all missing your smiles."

  "You are, Willie? Really? Okay, Willie, I'll stop if you say so."

  "I do say so. C'mon, let's hit Mick for a cup of coffee at the grab-joint, you look tired."

  So that's it, thought Mrs. Pollifax; Boozy Tim had wanted desperately to please Willie, and it was no wonder if he had lived o
n the streets before being embraced by the carnies. Shannon had described the carnival as a family, and for the regulars who joined the show every year she could see that it must be exactly that.

  Kadi, re-packing her knapsack, said, "Guess I'll take a shower now, it'll be show-time soon enough."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. The incident had ended, she would presently restore the window screen to its frame, join the crowd for an early dinner at the cook-house and at six the carnival would open, but she knew that it would not be quite the same, for something had changed: Lazlo's attacker was no longer a mysterious possibility but was becoming a presence.

  At six o'clock Mrs. Pollifax moved against the influx of townies streaming through the gate to head for the Ten-in-One. She walked to the sound of the merry-go-round playing the lilting strains of the "Blue Danube," and by the time she entered the big tent the music had changed to a jolly "Ciribiribin." It was ritual now to watch Kadi's first performance of the evening, after which she would accompany Kadi as she hurried over to Pogo's shooting gallery to become his stick for fifteen or twenty minutes. Once inside the tent she paused beside the Talking Sphinx—Ask Any Question, the Sphinx Will Answer You!—and wished she could ask if it was a murderer who had searched their trailer this afternoon, but the young ventriloquist behind the sphinx would only think her quite mad.

  It was a warm night, even warmer under the Ten-in-Ona canvas. She took her place in the bleachers and watched Norbert the Contortionist wrap his legs around his neck, marveled at El Flamo the Fire-Eater; and then as the Professor arrived on the stage she turned her head to see what sort of business the carnival was pulling in this night. It was now that she saw Boozy Tim standing in the shadow of the bleachers watching, his eyes narrowed and as intent as laser beams. He had said, Honest, Willie, if I could think hard enough I just know I could help with that Santa Claus fellow, and Willie had said, Don't try anymore, Boozy Tim, don't.