Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival

by Don't Stop The Carnival(Lit)

  "De boss"?" he said.

  "Yes, the boss."

  Norman came out into the moonlight, picking his way on the rocks. He wore a crimson linen dinner jacket, black tie, black trousers, and patent-leather pumps, an interesting contrast to Hippolyte's array.

  "Well, Hippolyte, how've you been?"

  The Frenchman wrinkled his brow. "Not too good. I got headaches again."

  "Did you go to the hospital? They can give you stuff for that."

  "Yah. I go. Dey give me injection, too."

  The two men stared at each other.

  "Well, Hippolyte, what can I do for your?"

  The Frenchman looked vacant and sheepish, and scratched his nose with the handle of the machete. After a pause, he said, "I came for de clock."

  "Clock? What clock?"

  "I leave my alarm clock by de gardener shack."

  "So? You came for your alarm clock."

  "Yah."

  "All right. Come along. Let's get you your alarm clock."

  He motioned to Hippolyte to go first. Norman was showing a lot of grace under pressure, for a peaceable middle-aged New Yorker with a coronary history, but he wasn't up to walking ahead of the Frenchman and presenting his back to the machete. Hippolyte docilely obeyed, scrambling along the rocks, and then striking up a path through the brush. It was an almost black path, but Paperman followed him, and in a minute or so they were on the rear lawn near the gardener's shack, well away from any of the hotel lights; a stretch of level grass surrounded by thick dark shrubbery, and lit by the high moon.

  "That's quite a short cut," he said.

  "I go down by dere to fish, some time."

  They came to the closed door of the gardener's shack, where they could hear Millard's loud, regular, peaceful snores.

  "Millard sleep," Hippolyte said. "I come back de next time."

  "No, no, as long as you're here, let's get you your alarm clock, by all means." Norman rapped at the door. The snoring went on. He knocked again.

  "Ugh. Ugh. Who dah?"

  "The boss. Open up, Millard. Hippolyte wants his alarm clock."

  "Yes, please."

  Stumbling and thumping inside; the door opened. Millard, naked to the waist, and wearing his ragged gardening pants, stood there yawning, holding a cheap tin clock, with no glass over its bent hands and yellowed face.

  "Wha' Hippolyte?" Millard handed Norman the clock, showing no trace of surprise or annoyance.

  "Why, he's right here. He's come for his clock."

  Norman gestured and glanced at Hippolyte, and uttered a startled gasp. There was only moonlit air where the Frenchman had stood seconds before. In the nearby shrubbery there was a rustling sound.

  "Hippolyte!" he shouted. "Hippolyte! Hippolyte! -All right, Millard. Thanks."

  Norman handed back the clock and ran to Lovers' Beach.

  Almost the first person he noticed in the mill of the merrymakers on the sand was the kitchen maid, Delia. She was easy to spot because of the new yellow-and-white smock that Sheila had put on all the maids for the party. "Delia!" He pushed through the dancers to her. She was cavorting with Lionel Williams, and she wore his hibiscus wreath. "What are you doing? Where's Lieutenant Woods?"

  "Couldn't find no lootenant, suh," the girl said with a furtive giggle, her hips working like a flywheel.

  "Go away, Norm," Lionel said. "Delia's my girl now. No cutting in. Jiminy crickets, what a bash!"

  Norman worked his way along the beach, and saw Woods sitting at a table with Cohn, drinking beer.

  "There you are," he panted, shouldering through to them.

  "What's up?" said Woods genially. "You look 'horossed.' Sit down, and have a beer."

  Norman started to explain. He had not spoken half a dozen sentences when Woods, smiling but alert, held up a hand and turned to Cohn. "How long ago did the fellows leave? Can you still catch them?"

  "I can sure try." Cohn got up and loped away.

  "Yes, sir," Woods said. "Go on. Skivvies, and a straw hat, and a machete, you say? I'd like to see that. And where's your fat friend? The one he's after?"

  "Here on this beach somewhere."

  "Well, maybe to start with you'd better collect him, you know?"

  "All right."

  Norman circled the beach and cut through the dancers once, twice, and a third time. When he came back to Woods's table, Cohn was there with three other UDT men. Woods was slapping a long flashlight against his palm as he talked to them.

  Norman said, "I can't find him. He's not on this beach. He's not at this party. Not now. I'm certain he isn't. But he was."

  Woods said, "He probably toddled off to his room to sleep. You better check that. Most of the fellows just went back to the base, sir. It's too bad, because all of us working together could find your handy man fast. This is a tiny island. Us five can round him up, too, but it'll take longer."

  "This man is dangerous," Norman said. "He's supposed to have killed a policeman. Don't you think I should notify the police?"

  "Well, I don't know," Woods said. "They sort of have a losing score with him, don't they? We've had a lot of training in disarming a man. Why don't we try first?"

  "If you want to, I'll be desperately grateful. But shouldn't I warn my guests now?"

  Woods looked thoughtful. Cohn said to the lieutenant, "Sir, I think somebody's more likely to get hurt if they all start panicking around, and talking about a maniac on the loose, and all that."

  Woods nodded. He said to Paperman, "Let's first see how we make out. All right? I'd guess he'd stay where it's dark, and not bother anyone.

  Except your fat friend, of course, if he finds him. Just keep him out of the way." He gestured to the four frogmen. "All right. You all know where to go. Shove off, and we'll join up at the hotel steps." The men trotted away in different directions.

  2

  Hastening back across the lawn, Norman saw Governor Sanders and Iris leaving the main house. Sanders had his arm around her waist and was holding her elbow. As she put her foot on the top stair her legs collapsed under her, and Sanders was caught off balance. She tumbled free, pitched all the way down the stairs, and sprawled face down on the gravel path. Norman ran to help. Her face was scratched and bleeding when they raised her to a sitting position, and her torn dirtied dress was pushed up above her skinned knees. She looked from Sanders to Norman, her head lolling, her eyes hardly focusing. "Norman, y'ole Jewboy,

  I felt sorry for you, that's why. take the f---place apart." She fell dead asleep in Sanders' arms.

  Sanders pointed to her purse lying on the grass. "Get the key of her cottage, please."

  Norman retrieved the purse, saying, "Can you carry her?"

  "I've done it."

  Sanders raised her to her feet, and swung her up awkwardly in his arms, staggering. "Just open the door for me. I'm glad we made it outside. She really didn't do anything very bad in there."

  Norman opened the Pink Cottage door. The governor plodded in with the limp, hoarsely breathing woman. "Her dress is ruined, anyway," Sanders said, putting Iris on the divan. "Might as well leave her as she is for now." He went to a closet, took out a knitted red-and-black comforter that Norman hadn't seen before, and covered the unconscious woman. He got a damp towel from the bathroom and sponged her face.

  Meadows was whimpering, scratching, and clanking his chain in the porch. Norman said, "How about turning him loose?"

  "Why?"

  "Well-just to take care of her. Just an extra precaution. There's a lot of drunks around tonight." Norman was in a tremendous hurry to look for Atlas, and he didn't want the governor to know about Hippolyte-not yet, anyway. He was hoping to avoid an alarm.

  "I guess so." Sanders went to the porch, and a moment later Meadows bounded in and licked Iris's face.

  "There's nothing more to do," Sanders said. "She'll sleep for hours. She may wake up in a very bad state. You'll let me know?"

  "I'll send my wife in, early in the morning, and then I'll call you."


  Sanders looked down at the swollen, paint-smeared, scratched face of Mrs. Tramm, and then at Norman, with a disturbingly penetrating glance. "What did you think when you first met Iris here? Tell the truth. The blond goddess of the island paradise?"

  "Something like that, yes."

  Sanders regarded Iris for a moment, smiling without amusement. He brushed hair out of her eyes. "I suppose I should get back to the party, and keep the talk down. Meadows, take care of her."

  Emerging from the cottage, they saw Woods, Cohn, and two other swimmers talking in a huddle near the steps to the main house; four muscular brown men, almost naked in the warm night.

  "Hello, Lieutenant," the governor said, "leaving the party so soon?"

  "Well, sir, pretty soon now."

  "I hear your boys made another fine jump. Well done." The governor went into the hotel.

  Woods said to Paperman, "No sign of him, but Thompson is still beating along the rocks on the north side. Find your fat friend yet?"

  "I'm just going up to his room."

  "Well, unless Frenchy's better at getting himself into solid thorn brush than we are-and we're not bad at it, and he's as naked as we are -he's probably in some crawl hole, or maybe he broke into one of the cottages. We didn't want to search them without your say-so."

  A squat round-headed UDT man came trotting into the light, signaling lack of success with upturned hands.

  "That does it. Nothing to do but keep looking," Woods said. "Better locate your friend, though."

  "If he isn't already dead," said Norman nervously.

  Woods smiled. "I really don't think Frenchy's got him this fast, sir. The question is-"

  "Wait a second." Norman held up his hand, and listened. He was hearing hoarse guffaws and shouting in the hotel, coming from the vicinity of the bar or the dance terrace. The words were indecipherable, but the noise was as characteristic as the call of a moose. "Waw haw grow ror wah haw haw," came the voice. Then, somewhat more clearly over the party noise, "Con permisso!"

  "That's him," Norman said.

  "Fine," said Woods, "now we know where he is."

  "Not so fine," exclaimed Norman, feeling greatly relieved and much more frantic, all at once. "He's in there ruining my dinner party! Don't you realize that? He's absolutely fractured. And Hippolyte's lurking around somewhere, that's for sure, and he'll hear him, too, sooner or later. Suppose he comes charging among all those women in his wet drawers, swinging the machete? What then?"

  "Well, we can keep a pretty good watch out here, sir-"

  "Yes, but he knows this place! Suppose he slips through? He'll start a riot. Tilson's guests will all be swimming for the shore in their dinner clothes. I'll probably go bankrupt. He may behead a couple of people in sheer playfulness as they run around screaming. I'm just mentioning a few small possibilities here-"

  Woods put a hand on his arm. "Sir, you keep your friend in there. Frenchy won't get past us, and we'll find him."

  "In fact, this will probably bring him out of hiding," Cohn said. "Make your friend holler loilder."

  "That's something that's never been necessary," Norman said.

  "Before we check the cottages," Woods said, "can you tell us of any hole where he might be hiding? Some place he'd know about, and we wouldn't?"

  Norman bethought himself, after a moment, of the crawl space beneath the hotel, where the pump was. He described it to Woods.

  "That sounds real possible. Bob, why don't you volunteer to take a look in that hole?" The lieutenant handed Cohn the flashlight. "You've got sort of a stumpy neck, it's less of a target."

  "I unwillingly volunteer," Cohn said. "Where's this death trap, now, Norm?"

  Paperman led him around the back of the hotel and pointed down the sandy embankment. "Through the trelliswork there. You'll see the hole in the wall. Good luck, Bob. Be very careful, please."

  Cohn said, "You know, I don't like this one bit. I'm too short for Hazel as it is." He went down and disappeared in the gloom.

  The Atlas noises were definitely coming from the dance terrace now, and there was handclapping too. Norman dashed through the kitchen passageway and the lobby to the terrace, and saw Atlas dancing the meringue with Sheila, in a ring of laughing, applauding guests. Atlas now wore a brown silk dinner jacket, with his blue television evening shirt, and black trousers. A big cigar was in his teeth, and Sheila's chefs cap was on his head. The cook seemed both amused and annoyed; at any rate, she was dancing, and they made a monumental pair.

  Norman found Henny and Mrs. Tilson in the ring, giggling together. "Ye gods, Henny, why didn't you stop him? This is so awful."

  Letty Tilson, all dimples and diamonds, in a knee-length bouffant black dress, said, "Oh, pshaw, Norman, he's funny. Let him be."

  Henny said, "Have you ever tried stopping Lester?"

  Lester and the cook danced by them, and Sheila rolled her eyes at Paperman. "Suh, de fot porson make me come and dance," she cried. "De steaks dey all ready."

  "Steaks, shmakes," roared Lester. "Hey, Norm! What does your meter read now? Haw haw!" And he spun away.

  Mercifully the music soon stopped. Sheila snatched her cap off Atlas's head and retreated in grinning embarrassment, shaking her head at all the jokes the guests shouted at her. Atlas rolled up to the Papermans, sweating. "I'm telling you, Norm, your fancy party was dying," he panted hoarsely. "I was just doing my duty as senior partner, here, stirring things up a bit."

  "Well stirred," Mrs. Tilson said. "It's my party, Mr. Atlas, mine and my husband's, and I'm much obliged to you. You're a real live-wire."

  Atlas at once put on his company manners: the straight back, the softened voice, the ingratiating smile. "Well, hello! I'm not aware that I was invited, and I'm off to Lovers' Beach now, but I just thought I'd look in."

  "Of course you're invited. Don't you dare go away, now."

  Norman said hastily, "No, don't go, Lester. Don't think of it. There's an extra place at our table. Come along, they're going to serve any minute."

  "Well, how nice of you all," Lester said.

  Norman's table was one of the outer ones, at the edge of the dining terrace; and Lester dropped himself in a chair with his back squarely against the low terrace wall, before Norman or anyone else asked him to. After this, all Norman could think of was that it was now possible for Hippolyte to climb the rough fieldstone wall and kill Atlas with a blow. It was not only possible, it seemed to Norman the next event of interest that was going to occur. Atlas's shiny red skull was a terribly recognizable and visible target. He sat right under a flare. Norman had a vision, almost a hallucination, of Hippolyte rising up and shearing off Atlas's head so neatly, with that razor-sharp machete, that it would remain sitting on Lester's shoulders, not even bleeding; and there would be no immediate way of knowing what had happened, except that Atlas would at last shut up.

  With this gruesome fantasy strong in his mind, Norman made a poor show of accepting compliments on all sides for the massed flowers decorating the terrace, the individual place cards that the depraved Church had done in water colors before sailing away, the gardenias at each lady's plate, the orchid centerpieces, and all the other touches on which he had labored. So restless was he that he excused himself as waiters began bringing in bowls of salad and steaks on wooden boards, while others passed around the tables pouring Burgundy; and he went out to talk to Woods.

  The lieutenant stood as before at the entrance to the main house, with one other frogman. "Hi," he said. "No luck yet. The boys are making another sweep all around. Then if you give us the okay, we'll try the cottages. He's got to be hiding, if he didn't swim off."

  "I take it Cohn came back alive."

  "Greasy, but alive, yes."

  "Do you know where Atlas is sitting?"

  "Yes," Woods laughed. "He doesn't have a worry in the world, does he?"

  "Nobody does," Norman said, in a flare of irritation. "They're all having the time of their lives, they think everything's peachy. And I'm
hovering between a heart attack and a nervous collapse."

  "Well, now, Mr. Paperman, why don't you go on back and have a good time yourself? If he shows, we'll get him for you."

  Norman went back, endured Henny's growl at him for letting the wonderful steak get cold, and did his best to eat. But he could hardly choke down a few mouthfuls. He would not drink wine. He had drunk nothing since Hippolyte had appeared. Atlas, of course, ate enough steak for three, and drank wine to correspond, all the time joking in his foghorn voice. Norman thought that Hippolyte, even if he were blind, could home in on that voice to strike and kill.