Madball

by Fredric Brown

  THE MURDERER SIGHED with relief. Dolly had got away from Leon and now she was with Joe. The first hurdle.

  He'd glanced at his watch just as she'd gone in. Six minutes after two o'clock. Give them till half past, he decided. Twenty-four minutes, just to be sure, in case they did any talking first. Not that it really mattered how Quintana found them; he'd kill them just for being alone together. But hell, why not be kind to Joe and Dolly and let them have a little time together, as long as it wasn't long enough that there'd be any chance of Dolly leaving to go back to her own bed? Give them that much of a break, at least. Twenty-four minutes. Maybe thirty overall, counting the time it would take him to start the ball rolling.

  He checked himself while he waited. He had the razor blade. The gun he hoped he wouldn't have to use - and wouldn't have to unless a wheel came off somewhere. He was wearing the crepe soled shoes that let him walk silently. If things went wrong, the car was ready.

  And now it was half past two.

  He left the trailer and went quietly around behind the tops until he found the freak show top, the corner of it where Quintana would be sleeping. He looked around carefully to be sure no one was in sight and then took out the razor blade, a Gem blade that had only one edge and a stiff back, and made a six-inch slit in the canvas. He held the slit open a little and put his eye to it. He could see perfectly; there was more light in there than here outside. The bedding. Quintana asleep on it, lying on his back. He could even hear Quintana's breathing.

  He made his voice sepulchral. "Leon Quintana!"

  No movement. He said it again, just a trifle louder. He saw Quintana's head raise.

  Quickly now, before he got thoroughly awake. "Your wife is with Joe Linder, in Joe's top."

  Quintana was sitting up fast now, so he got away from there quickly and silently, back to his own trailer.

  Again he stood in the dark watching through the window. Almost at once Quintana came in sight running. He wore only a pair of shorts but he had two knives, one in each hand - and held not for throwing but as a knife fighter holds them. He shouldered his way through the flap and there was a scream.

  He shuddered.

  Almost instantly carneys were coming running from several directions, mostly from the freak show top where a lot of them slept on or under the bally platforms. Dixie, the sword swallower, and Frank the magician were the first ones out in the open. And then Admiral Tim, the midget, came running after them on his tiny legs, looking, in his underwear, more like a child than ever.

  They were standing, looking around, the three of them, still trying to guess where that horrible scream had come from, when Quintana came out of the sleeping top. There was blood on him, and he still held a knife in either hand and both of the knives were dripping.

  He looked at Dixie and the Admiral and Frank and then dropped both knives and sat down on the ground, put both bloody hands over his face and started to sob.

  Others were coming up now. A knot of people was forming around the sleeping top and somebody with a flashlight went inside but came out quickly. Nobody touched Quintana but Dixie carefully kicked first one and then the other of the knives away, out of Quintana's reach.

  Smitty, the bookkeeper, came up in a bathrobe, asked a few questions and then took off on the run. He'd be going to phone for the police or an ambulance or both.

  And now was the time to find out, to be sure. There were enough people around that it was all right for him to go there too. And he was still set for his getaway if he learned that either Dolly or Joe was alive.

  He left the trailer and went over to the knot of people around the sleeping top. He touched Barney King's shoulder. "What happened, Barney?"

  "Dolly was in there with Linder. Quintana killed them."

  "God. Killed both of them?"

  Barney nodded.

  Still, he wanted to be sure, to be completely sure. He pushed his way past the others to the flap, pushed it aside and looked in with his flashlight.

  Quietly he backed away.

  He wouldn't have to make a getaway. Not tonight, not ever. He was safe now.

  He stayed with the crowd a while; it was a crowd by now, hung around with it until the sound of approaching police sirens started to melt the crowd away. He went back to his trailer then, undressed in the dark and got into bed.

  Safe, completely safe. Everything had worked perfectly.

  But he wished he'd taken Barney's word that they were both dead instead of looking inside. He knew it would be a long time before he'd forget what he'd seen there.

  It was a long time before he could get to sleep and twice he wakened from dreams that weren't exactly nightmares but still weren't nice things to be dreaming.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IT HAD BEEN DAYLIGHT for several hours before the light in Dr. Magus's eyes brought him near enough the threshold of consciousness to make him turn over and bury his face in the pillow. But the act of turning brought him across that threshold, unreturnably across. Moving his head had done it; movement had wakened the little monsters inside his skull and they had immediately picked up their pneumatic drills and started trying to drill their way out through his forehead and temples. Others with pickaxes and peaveys started chipping away at the backs of his eyeballs. And simultaneously he became aware of the taste in his mouth; it was a taste which he knew well and which experience had taught him could be removed only by quantities of ice water.

  He groaned and sat up, moving slowly and carefully.

  Yesterday's hangover was as nothing to this one. This was one that only heroic treatment could help.

  He pulled on trousers and a shirt, the first of each that came to hand, then got cautiously to his feet and stepped into a pair of old slippers.

  A bucket and a two-quart tin pail. With one in either hand he went out onto the midway and trudged toward the chow top. Few carneys seemed to be up and about although the length of Dr. Magus's shadow ahead of him told him that it must be almost nine o'clock. His shadow carried a bucket and a pail too; he felt sorry for it if it felt as bad as he did.

  In the chow top he put pail and bucket on the counter and sank down onto a stool in front of it. "Fill 'em, huh, Hank?"

  "Sure, Doc. First time you've brought them in a month. Same like last time?"

  "Yes, Hank. And please hurry. I am dying."

  He watched while Hank went to the soft drink cooler and picked out a chunk of ice as big as his head. Hank put it in the bucket and then held the bucket under the water tap until it was about half full. From the coffee urn he filled the smaller pail with steaming black java. "Let's see, Doc, it's no cream, no sugar, ain't it?"

  "Right," Dr. Magus said.

  He carried the pail and bucket back to the mitt camp without having tasted either. The coffee would still be too hot and the water wouldn't be really cold yet. He put both of them on the ground and sat beside them and next to the foot locker, from which he took two mugs and a big bandana handkerchief. He dipped one mug into the ice water and drank deeply, sighed deeply as the outer layer of the horrible taste washed away. He filled it and drank once more. Then he dipped the bandana in the bucket and tied it around his head without wringing it out. Cold water ran down his face and neck but he didn't bother to wipe it off. He dipped the other mug into the coffee pail, dipping only a small quantity so it wouldn't be too hot to drink. He sipped it and decided he'd live. The next step would be a cup of coffee laced with whisky.

  A voice from outside called, "Hey, Doc, you home?"

  "I'm beginning to think so. Come on in."

  It was Showalter, the lieutenant. He stood just inside and looked down at Dr. Magus. He said, "Brother. Do you feel as bad as you look?"

  "Fortunately, Lieutenant, I do not know how I look so I cannot make the comparison. And please do not tell me how I look; it is a matter which at the moment arouses no interest in me. Please sit down so I can see you without bending my head so far back."

  He finished the coffee in the mug and di
pped the other mug into the ice water again; it was quite cold by now. He drank half of the contents and poured the other half over the bandana handkerchief on his head.

  "And now," he said. "will you be so kind as to hand me that whisky bottle? Helping yourself to a drink if you wish."

  The lieutenant didn't take a drink but his eyes widened a bit as he saw the label on the bottle. "Old Bushmills. That stuff costs money, Doc. You always drink it?"

  "I do not. Special celebration last night. My fifty-third birthday. Or I think it was. Today's my hundredth." He dipped the coffee mug into the pail again and added whisky from the bottle. He sipped. "Lieutenant, if you share the general delusion that expensive whisky leaves one with less of a hangover than does cheap whisky, disabuse yourself of the idea at once. It is quite the other way around, in fact. With good whisky the hangover is worse because its taste is so smooth that one inevitably drinks much more than one would of lesser liquor."

  "This place smells like you took a bath in it. Say, Doc, were you a witness last night?"

  "Not that I know of. A witness to what?"

  "A witness to the murders." Showalter's eyes were on Dr. Magus's face. "Good God, you mean you slept through the slaughter last night and still don't know about it?"

  "I do. What happened?"

  "Dolly Quintana and Joe Linder. Quintana killed both of them, caught 'em in the act, in Linder's tent."

  Dr. Magus swore luridly and at length.

  "Doc, what time did you go to sleep?"

  "I don't - it couldn't have been much after midnight."

  "But you must've been out this morning to get that coffee and the ice. You didn't talk to anybody at all?"

  "Only to the counterman in the chow top, Lieutenant. I guess Hank must have assumed that I already knew about it, though, or he would certainly have told me."

  "I should think he'd have said something about it even if he thought you knew."

  "He saw I was in no mood for conversation, I presume. When did it happen?"

  "We got the call at two-forty a.m. It happened only minutes before that."

  "Have you got Quintana? Or did he run?"

  "Didn't even try to run. And we've got his confession, signed and in detail. Not that we'd need it. He was sitting there on the ground in front of the tent, crying, blood all over him and the knives, two of them, right near. But just the same - Doc, the other carneys pretty much know you and like you, don't they?"

  "In general, I believe so. Why?"

  "Look, maybe you can do me a favor. We want to find some witnesses to this thing last night. One or more people who actually saw Quintana coming out of the tent with the knives still in his hands. And the first arrivals did see him - that's the story we get only it's always second hand. Everybody we talk to knows there were some others who got there first, only they don't know who or won't tell us. We want to find some who actually saw Quintana before he dropped the knives."

  "But why, if you have a signed confession from him?"

  "There's always a chance a guy will repudiate a confession, change his mind and claim we beat him into signing it or something, see? In this case, we can pin it on him anyway. I'm pretty sure. But it'll be easier, more positive, if we've got those first witnesses lined up, just in case."

  "I see. But where do I come in? I wasn't one of them."

  "Because you can find out who they are. The carneys won't give you the same runaround they give us."

  "Possibly. But if they have not - ah, what is the phrase? - come forward, then it's because they don't want to. And for obvious reasons. They would hate to be subpoenaed to come back here for the trial from possibly thousands of miles away. You can't blame them, Lieutenant."

  "Yeah, that I understand. But, Doc, if you find out who they are I don't ask you to give me their names. You wouldn't do that even if I asked. But I'd like you to talk to them like a Dutch uncle, explain to them that there's only the slimmest chance we'll ever need them, but if that chance comes up, they wouldn't want Quintana to go free on this, would they? You carneys stick together, yeah, but not when it's a deal like last night. None of them would be on Quintana's side, would they?"

  "None of them, I'm sure. As little sympathy as carneys have with the Law, there is a limit to what they will condone in one another. Besides, Dolly and Joe were carneys too, and both of them much better liked than Quintana."

  "That's what I figured, Doc. And you personally, you wouldn't want to see Quintana beat the chair, would you?"

  "I personally-" Dr. Magus stopped to refill his coffee mug, two-thirds from the coffee pall and the rest finishing off what was left in the whisky bottle. And to let himself think. He personally thought Quintana was a psychopath, a person who needed to be shut away by society for its own protection, but to be pitied rather than hated, a person who, though not insane by legal definition, would more justly be placed in an asylum for the criminally insane than in the electric chair. But why argue the point? He said, "I personally would be glad to throw the switch, if your sovereign state requires such assistance."

  "Attaboy, Doc. Then find out who those witnesses were and talk to them, huh? Talk them into coming to us and letting us get signed statements from them - and it's a thousand to one we'll ever need more than that. And listen - was Mack Irby well liked?"

  "Fairly well. Why?"

  "Another argument for you. Quintana killed Irby."

  Dr. Magus's eyebrows raised. "He confessed that too?"

  "Nope, won't admit it. But we found Irby's dough - two hundred and forty bucks, just about what we predicted. It was rolled up and stuffed in the bell of a cornet in Quintana's trunk."

  "Couldn't that be coincidence? I mean, couldn't it have been Quintana's own money hidden there, just happening to be about the right amount?"

  "Nope, Doc. I'll tell you how we're positive. We didn't give this out before because we didn't want the murderer to know it, but I can tell you now. I made a trip to Glenrock, to the bank where he cashed that two-grand check and bought traveler's checks with eighteen hundred of it. And since it was only the day before and the amount had been pretty big - big enough so they telephoned the insurance company to make sure the check was okay - the teller remembered the deal. And he remembered he'd asked Irby how he'd wanted the two hundred cash and Irby said ten twenties would be okay. And the teller counted the ten twenties off a stack of new ones that had just come in, fresh off the press and with consecutive serial numbers, see? He couldn't tell us the exact serial numbers because they used others of them too, but they knew the series and approximately how the numbers would run."

  "And those twenties were in Quintana's trunk?"

  "All ten of them. Brand new, serial numbers consecutive and just about the serial numbers the teller said they'd be. The other forty bucks was in old bills, tens and fives; that's the money Irby had with him at the time of the accident less whatever he spent in the hospital."

  "I'll be damned," Dr. Magus said.

  And he meant it. He'd always figured Quintana, because of his psychopathic jealousy, as an accident going somewhere to happen. But he'd never figured him as a killer for money. Even now, he couldn't see Quintana in that role. If Quintana had killed Irby it seemed more likely that he suspected Irby of making a pass at Dolly and had killed him for that reason, taking the money to make it look like a robbery kill. Although two hundred forty bucks is worth taking along if it's in your victim's pocket, even though it isn't the reason why you killed him.

  But if Quintana's motive had been jealousy, it would have to be from something that had happened more than seven weeks before the murder, some slight thing Quintana had brooded over and built bigger during Irby's absence. Certainly he hadn't had time to make a pass at Dolly Monday night.

  Apparently Showalter had been thinking along the same lines, although with less information. He said thoughtfully, "It's funny, Doc. Anybody but Quintana, I'd figure it was Dolly who was with Irby Monday night. With Quintana's knowledge, to finger him for the rob
bery. The old game. But damn it, he was too crazy jealous of her for it to have been that. What's your guess, Doc? Could it have been Dolly with Irby and Quintana not jealous about it because he'd put her up to it?"

  "Ummm," Dr. Magus said. He knew damned well Dolly hadn't been with Irby because it had been Maybelle. But that still wasn't any of the lieutenant's business. He said, "I don't think so. But how's this for a possibility? Leon wakes up and finds Dolly gone. To the doniker, as he learns later, but he doesn't know that. Goes out hunting for her. Tries Jesse's top because he knows how often it's used for assignations. Hadn't brought a knife so picks up a tent stake. Makes noise coming and Irby crawls out - or maybe was crawling out just then anyway for another purpose - and he kills Irby before bothering to make sure it's Dolly he's been with. Goes on in to kill Dolly - but it isn't Dolly."

  Showalter looked doubtful. "I suppose it could have happened that way, but wouldn't the woman have told us? If she'd known Quintana killed the guy she was sleeping with would she still have kept her mouth shut?"

  "Couple of possibilities. Scared of Quintana and thought it would be her word against his. Or more likely, she's somebody's wife - not Quintana's, but he's not the only jealous guy in the world - and couldn't give Quintana away without admitting she'd shacked up with Irby."

  "I won't buy it. I think Quintana would have killed her too, to be sure she didn't talk. Nope, I think it must after all have been a straight robbery kill."

  Dr. Magus said, "I wonder why Quintana hasn't confessed to it, though. Three murders can't get him in worse trouble than two."

  "The hell they can't. And that's another thing makes me think the Irby kill was for money. On the double murder it's just possible that a good mouthpiece might get him life instead of the chair, claiming heat of passion and non-premeditation. But if the Irby deal was a cold, planned kill for money and he confessed to it, he'd get the chair for sure."

  The lieutenant lighted a cigarette and drew on it thoughtfully. "Besides, confessing to it wouldn't fit in with the insanity plea I figure he's going to make."

  "What makes you think that?"