by Abbey, S. C.
“The two of you. Not a single word anymore.”
Chapter 15
OUTSIDE THE TATTERED patched tent was a weathered wooden hand-painted sign that read ‘Seek Ye Fortune Here’. It was propped up by cables extended from metal poles from the sides and looked very much like a typical gypsy fortune teller’s tent with nobody waiting in line. Harvey approached the center of it and swept the curtain to the left which acted as the door to the tent. An old and tired voice uttered from the inside.
“Come in, come in. Just give an old woman a minute to get ready. You are my first customer of the day after all.” Said an old woman. The sound of moving furniture could be heard as Harvey lowered his head and entered the tent. The stench of burnt out candle wicks flooded the space. He involuntarily started to breathe shallower. “Come in. Have a seat.” Said the old gypsy woman. She was dressed in a fluffy, billowing white blouse with generously puffy sleeves, and a fading bold yellow and red striped skirt that reached the ground, covering her feet. Strands of beads and pearls adorned her neck, with seashells braided into her hair tied back by a black bandana. She was moving about the rear end of the tent arranging her books. It doesn’t seem to help much with improving the cluttered room. Charms of symbols Harvey have never seen before hung from above his head. Various shapes and sizes of dream-catchers decorated the ceiling as well. Harvey spotted an extremely intricate and realistic looking skull with a burned out candle stuck on it on a side table as he carefully tiptoed past the messy space toward the chair that was offered to him. He hoped that didn’t belong to a real person.
The old lady who seemed to have stopped her tidying eyed Harvey on his meticulous advance toward her. She pulled a heavy chair from her table and sat squarely on it. “Tell me, what is it you seek?”
Harvey looked dumbfounded at the old lady as if he had expected otherwise despite the entering of a fortune teller’s tent. “I don’t know. I guess I’m not too sure myself.” Said Harvey. He paused and look at his watch. “Maybe this is a bad idea, I mean I’m not even superstitious to begin with. Sorry for wasting your time.” Harvey began to stand up from his seat.
“Nonsense. Please, sit down. This one’s on the house. Consider it a free trial.” Said the old woman. She smiled to reveal her broken teeth. It almost looked comical. “You seem like the tarot card kind. Now, if you would be so kind and help me shuffle this deck, and pick three cards.” Said the old lady as she table-shuffled a deck of tarot cards. “Think about the things and people that matter to you most when you are at it and face them down on the table in any sequence and direction you like. No cheating.”
Harvey took the deck of cards off the desk the old lady had slid toward him. It felt much heavier in his hands than it looked. He started shuffling the cards in his hands and place 3 cards on the table in front of him as he was told. He handed the rest of the deck to the old woman.
The old woman stretched out her frail hands to reach for the first card on Harvey’s left. She flipped open the card.
“First in the sequence, represents your past.” Said the gypsy fortune teller. “The upright hangman – symbolizes sacrifice, letting go.” She closed her eyes with her hands on the hangman and cocked her head a little to the right as if she was trying to listen for something. Her eyes opened as she let go of the card. “Tell me, have you lost a loved one in your past?”
Harvey’s eyes widened at the question, impressed with its veracity. “Both my parents actually.” Admitted the young professor. “I lost both of them when I was a kid. And my brother, I lost him too. Quite literally.”
“Yes, yes that makes sense. The upright hangman shows that a loved one had sacrificed his or her life to protect you, so that you may lead a normal one. It may not necessarily mean death, though death is usually the explanation.” Explained the old woman.
“They didn’t sacrifice their lives. My mother passed away due to an illness, my father died in a plane crash.” Said Harvey, puzzled at the explanation.
“The cosmos do not lie.” Said the old woman as she looked into Harvey’s eyes. She continued after the interruption, “The hangman however, also suggests the act of letting go. You would do no good lingering in the past, or attempt to seek anything from it.”
“Let’s move on to the second card in the sequence.” She said and placed her right hand on the middle card. “The present.”
She flipped open the second card. “The reversed fool. The fool may suggest new beginnings and a free spirit, but in reversed, it depicts foolishness, nativity, and recklessness.” Said the old woman. “It is a warning of sorts. One should be cautious of what they are seeking when one encounters this one. It is usually a case of be careful what you wish for, for you might just get it. It also suggests some level of risk-taking would be needed to achieve what one wishes to seek. Matters of the heart, perhaps?”
Harvey chuckled in his heart. The fortune teller obviously doesn’t know what she was talking about. Love was almost the furthest thing that could happen to him now, Harvey thought. He did not vocalize what was in his mind.
“The lovers, the final card you picked.” Said the gypsy woman as she flipped open the third card. “Represents what one should look forward to, the future.”
She took a minute to compose her speech. “The lovers typically symbolizes love, relationships, and union, while in reversed mean disharmony and imbalance. You chose to place this sideways, which also implies the probability of both.” Declared the fortune teller. “You can expect deep relationships to flourish and wither, strong bonds to be made and broken. You will follow or lead people whom you strongly believe in and deny those you do not. As so it seems, you have quite a lot to look forward to, my boy.”
Harvey contemplated what she had said but decided that it could apply to anyone universally and did not take it to heart. He really wasn’t a superstitious person. “That’s a lot for a free trial.”
“I’m afraid I tend to over-deliver.” Rebutted the old woman as she flashed her gums once more. She then turned her head to the entrance of the tent as a young couple chose the exact moment to stick their heads in but stopped in their tracks and muttered an apology when they realized there was already someone in it.
“I guess that’s my cue to leave.” Said Harvey as he stood from his chair. He placed a five dollar note on the table as a gesture of gratitude. “Thank you for the – advice.”
The old woman made no move to reach out for the money. She reclined back into her oversized chair. “You’re welcome, young man. I wish you good fortune in finding what you seek.”
Chapter 16
THE SCARRED-FACE bald man poured the now ready brew from the brass coffee pot into a porcelain mug on the table. The careless maneuver caused much of the brew to splash onto the table as he filled the mug. The mess did not seem to stop him from the indelicate act. He placed down the piping hot coffee pot back on the stove and quickly brought his fingers to his mouth and blew on them. It did not seem to lessen the burn. He then held up the mug and handed it to the other man in the room.
“What do we do with the girl, boss?” the bald man said in his usual rough voice. He gave a look of irritation. “She whimpers all day and night.”
The recipient of the coffee mug took a deep breath with the mug of coffee in front of his nose. He sighed in pleasure. He then took a sip of the brew and his face shrank in disgust. “She’s a lost cause, Tom.” The man said as he placed the cup on the coffee table beside him. “Use a pillow. See to it that she no longer breathes before leaving her in the shed. We have more pressing matters to attend to. More sugar.”
“Aye sir?” The bald man said as he fiddled with the sugar jar, trying to get the lid off. The veins bulged in his thick neck as the beads of sweat streaks sparkled from the artificial lighting in the room.
“A little bird whispered in my ear that a certain professor is barking up the wrong tree looking for the girl.” Said the man sitting in the couch. His fingers toyed with a frayed loose thread ju
tting out from the padded arms of the chair. “We can’t afford no stray dog sniffing the wrong holes you know.”
The lid to the sugar jar popped open and the bald man muttered an expletive of relief. He stuck his fingers into the jar and picked two white sugar cubes from the inside and dropped them into the coffee mug. “Should I tell Kaul to end him then? Stick one in through his back?” He said with a stabbing motion.
“No, no, that would hardly be necessary.” The man said as he held the coffee mug once more in his left hand and stirred the small metal spoon in it with his right. “Besides, that would attract too much attention.”
The bald man stretched his hands to put the sugar jar back on the shelf where it belonged. He hurried back and stood in front of the man in the couch like a dog waiting on its owner. “What should we do then, boss?”
The man sipped the coffee once again and this time, a crooked smile adorned his face. “I have a plan. And looks like fate is on our side, it just so happens we have a dead body to make use of. A dying one, but dead soon enough.”
“I don’t understand, boss.” The bald man said, scratching his oily scalp with his untrimmed dirty fingernails. “What you want me do?”
“Of course you wouldn’t. But you will see. We don’t have to get rid of him ourselves. They will do it for us.”
“They?” The dull expression on the bald man’s face did not change.
“Patience fool, you will see.”
Chapter 17
THE COLD FRESH night air blew strongly against his checked jacket as he immersed himself back into the now pitch dark gloominess. The wind charms which hung from the gypsy tent did not escape the breeze as they sang in an arrhythmic harmony. Harvey tucked his hands under his armpits to preserve his body heat from the onslaught of the cool river wind. His hands were starting to feel numb now and he craved the warm comfort of the tent he had so recently left. Winter was definitely replacing fall swiftly.
He glanced to the direction of the game booths where he man in the leather jacket was still lingering about. His uninterrupted presence the entire day had not escaped Harvey’s eye. Harvey first spotted him on a custom Harley Davidson back at the orphanage when he was alighting his ride but did not feel skeptical about his occupancy by the road. He was like any other man on the street. It was when Harvey had exited the building two hours later when he felt suspicious the man was still at the same spot he had left him. Innocently doing nothing. Suspiciously doing nothing. The ride to the circus confirmed his suspicions as the heavy motorcycle came too close to his vehicle one too many times. Harvey would deliberately slow down after a turn and the man riding the motorcycle would always appear soon enough.
Harvey turned from his side glance of the man to a full on straight stare and the man reacted a little too suddenly by hastily diverting his attention to the Angry Birds game stall beside him. Got you, Harvey allowed a smile of victory to himself. The man was undoubtedly too old to know what Angry Birds is.
Harvey reversed his posture and with his back facing the man, walked toward the end of the pathway where the campfire was. He was certain the man had already chosen to abandon his little distraction. As he approached the bend by a lollipop stand, he realized that the children who had earlier were running about, was nowhere to be seen anymore. It must be bedtime for them. Incidentally, the bears in the cages where nowhere to be seen as well. They must be in the Big Top as part of the circus act. He approached one of the cages to the right and came close enough to smell the stench of it. He then took a quick peek to make sure that the biker dude had been following him. He was, as expected.
Harvey bent his knees a little and sprang into motion. He took a quick sharp dash to the right toward the back area of the right cage and haphazardly chose the nearest khaki tent he could reach in time before the man gets a chance to react to his evasion. He recklessly slipped into the khaki tent and hid behind the flap of cloth and waited while he peeked through the tiny gap between the flap and the main wall.
Sure enough, the man in the leather jacket soon dashed out from the front of the cage and looked around frantically. Harvey could hear him speak a cuss word as he took out his cell phone and dialed. The man placed the phone against his ear, evidently making a phone call. He ran passed the tent Harvey was in and continued in the same direction, now gaining distance away from Harvey.
Once Harvey was sure that the man was physically too far away to be heard, he stood up from his squatting position and wondered who could have sent the man. He snickered at the incompetency of the tail as a soft but discernable low growl of an animal came from within the tent. It sounded very much like a huge cat. It was the kind of sound that our bodies instinctively tell us to run when we hear it. He quickly turned his body to take a better look at the tent he had chosen as his hideout. He was torn between leaving the tent in that instant, as he was technically trespassing, and staying on to explore the source of the sound. His curiosity got the better of him.
He walked toward the soft glow of a kerosene lamp that was placed on a table near to the entrance. The wick from the lamp was burning out and the lamp only emitted a weak orange glow. He lifted the lamp off the table and raised it high in front of him to more clearly see the room he was in. The weathered look of the exterior of the tent served no justice to what was within. The clean white walls of the tent was decorated with oil paintings, big and small. It also made the tent look much bigger from within. A comfortable looking chesterfield sofa laid by a corner against the wall with a round three-legged coffee table in front of it. Stacks of leather bound books were placed on it. Beside the sofa was a flap similar to the entrance of the tent, Harvey was certain that the tent was partitioned into separate rooms and that probably led to the bedroom of this humble abode. On the opposite side were bookshelves filled with dusty old books, though they did seem to have been regularly handled. One side of the bookshelves was a traditional gas stove which acted as a fireplace, and a counter of utensils and jars of unidentifiable powder and spices. A cream-colored Smeg refrigerator stood firmly beside it. On the other side was an entrance to a separate room. Harvey whistled a low admiration at the tent-house. It looked comfortable enough for him to live here.
He tip-toed into the darkness that filled the back of the room to investigate further. The beautiful tent had not distracted him enough to forget about the sound from before. He placed one foot in front of the other carefully until he could see the outline of what seemed like a cage nearer to the back of the room, the shadowed outline of iron bars distinctly recognizable. He reached out as he approached the cage and felt cold steel with his fingers.
Roar–
The tiger pounced toward him from behind the bars but fell short at it. Harvey took a huge step back reactively, his heart pounding with vigor in his cheat. He almost dropped the kerosene lamp if he had not gripped a little tighter at the shock. He lifted the lamp toward the cage and could now see what had just scared his pants off. The black facial markings on the orange face of the Bengal tiger stood out with the light from the kerosene lamp now shone at them. Harvey took a full minute admire the majesty stride of the 8 foot huge tiger as it paced impatiently in its cage, clearly nocturnal and hungry. It could only see through the front of the cage as the other three sides were sealed up. The tiger’s yellow pupils dilated in the light as its attention was fully focused on Harvey now, never breaking eye contact. It roared angrily again. Or at least it sounded like it was. An empty cage laid beside the tiger’s cage, side by side.
“Who’s there?” came a voice from outside the tent. The sound of feet shuffling grew.
Harvey barely had the chance to place the burning out lamp on the coffee table in front of the sofa when he was positive the footsteps had reached the outside of the tent. He rushed toward the empty cage and concealed his entire body behind the cage while not entirely sure why he was hiding but it was too late for him to decide otherwise. He did not had time to contemplate the necessity of it before two rough-looking
men entered the tent. One of them was shirtless, his muscles glistered with sweat in the low light.
Crap–
Chapter 18
“SIR, I JUST GOT word from Agent Miller.” Said Agent Darrow nervously.
“Speak.” Detective Frost replied.
A short pause held the silence. “He lost Harvey Nolan at the funfair.”
“F– The what?” Frost could not believe what he had just heard.
“The funfair, sir.” Agent Darrow said matter-of-factly as if it was an everyday occurrence. “Well it’s actually a circus. The one along Raritan River by Buccleuch Park.”
Detective Frost’s anger could hardly be contained. “Was he alone?”
“Yeah. Miller said he had been alone the whole time.” Replied Agent Darrow.
“What in the world is Harvey Nolan doing at a circus all by himself?” Shouted Frost into the phone even though he did not expect Darrow to have the answer.
“No idea, boss.” Darrow said as he cowered at the sudden burst of anger. “I asked Agent Miller to keep an eye on him as you had asked. After the visit at the orphanage, Nolan only stopped by an eatery to pick up a burrito before heading to the circus. He has been there ever since.”
“Did he talk to anyone?” asked Frost as he began to calm down.
“He spoke briefly to a man in a performer’s attire, presumably a staff from the circus. Miller couldn’t get close enough to listen to their conversation.” Darrow said as he diligently recalled every detail Agent Miller had given him. “Nolan then spent some time in a gypsy fortune teller’s tent. I don’t take him for the type that relies on divination.”