The Dead Ringer

by Fredric Brown

  He said, “Hi, kids. Bet you had the same idea I did. Have you looked around?”

  “I had the idea, Hoagy, but she did get out. Of the trailer, I mean. The lock on it’s broken.”

  “Sure, that’s why I didn’t search in here. But—maybe she came back. She could have got outside, seen something that scared her, or just got scared of the big wide world itself, and come back in. Let’s be sure.”

  We helped him hunt in all the cupboard and closet space; we looked in and under everything. But we didn’t find Susie. Hoagy offered us drinks and Estelle said “Sure,” so I did, too. While Hoagy was pouring them I went outside with the flashlight and looked under and around and even on top of the trailer, just to be sure.

  Then we had our drinks, and I remembered to give Hoagy back his car keys. And I showed him how I figured Susie had managed to open the cage door. He nodded. He said, “She was smarter than I am. I didn’t figure on that. After I put the hasp on, I tried to pull it loose from the outside, and I couldn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I guess a half hour’s more than up. Let’s go over and meet Am and the others.”

  When we got there, all the original seven of us were back, and at least a dozen others. Nobody’d found a hair of Susie. We split up and tried again, and still no luck.

  By then it was after three. Hoagy said she must have gone to the woods after all, and it’d begin to be light in a couple of hours, so he wasn’t going to turn in. Uncle Am and I decided to stay up, too, and so did Lee Carey. Estelle was getting sleepy so Hoagy and Marge drove her downtown to her hotel. Uncle Am and Carey and I went back to Carey’s trailer. The door was still locked on the inside. Carey hammered on it and called out, but we didn’t get any answer even when we hammered as hard as we could. The lights were still on inside, but we couldn’t see the midget through the pane of the door.

  I walked around the trailer and through the window on the far side I could see him lying on the floor by the edge of the bunk. He was flat on his back with his tiny arms stretched out sidewise. I was scared for a minute, and then I saw him move his head a little, as though he was trying to raise it and couldn’t. I went back and told Carey.

  “The damn fool,” he said. “Well—guess we got to do it.” It was his door, so we let him break it in. The inside of the trailer smelled like a distillery. The bottle of whisky was on its side on the floor, most of it spilled out. We walked around the puddle and Uncle Am bent over the Major.

  Lee made the rounds of the windows, opening them. They’d all been closed and latched on the inside.

  Uncle Am said, “He’s just dead drunk.” He picked the Major up and put him on the bunk.

  “He was sure scared of something,” I said. There was still an inch of whisky in the bottle and we had a drink apiece and Carey got a deck of cards he said weren’t readers, and we played rummy at a nickel a hand until Hoagy and Marge would get back.

  Carey won a buck apiece from us, anyway, even if the cards were honest. He wouldn’t deal, I remember. He said, “Nix. For a nickel a hand I’d cheat like hell, for the fun of it. For real money I might be tempted to be honest.”

  Uncle Am grinned at him. He said, “Unless there was a mooch in the game.”

  “That,” Carey said, “wouldn’t be a game.” It was getting light already when Hoagy and Marge came in. Marge was sobering up and looked better, but Hoagy’s eyes were bloodshot. I remembered he’d been in Milwaukee, making arrangements for our next jump, and had driven back. He probably hadn’t slept at all yesterday, like the rest of us had. Likely enough he hadn’t slept at all in forty-eight hours, since the carney left South Bend.

  We waited until it got a little lighter and then the four of us went out and searched the several acres of woods. It wasn’t very thick growth and none of the trees was so big we couldn’t see up in it. It took us two hours, but we did a good job and we were sure Susie wasn’t there.

  We were all getting sleepy by then, but we were hungry, too, and the chow top wasn’t open yet. So Hoagy drove us all to a restaurant and we had breakfast.

  I phoned the police again and learned there hadn’t been any reports on a stray monkey.

  We went back to the lot and nothing had developed there, either, so there didn’t seem to be anything else we could do.

  Hoagy said, “She must’ve got off the lot, and not into the woods. Probably crawled in somebody’s garage or somewhere, and like as not died there. But hell, we can’t search the town. We’ll just have to wait till we hear something. Anyway, thanks to hell and back, all of you.”

  Uncle Am said, “Now that it’s light, maybe we should try the lot once more. We might have missed something.” Hoagy said, “We’ve done enough. Let’s get some sleep.” Carey said, “She can’t be on the lot.” He was wrong, but we didn’t find that out until afternoon.

  We broke up, and I went to our sleeping tent. Uncle Am came in a few minutes later. We were both too tired to talk. Uncle Am went to sleep the minute his head hit the pillow. I guess I was too tired to sleep; it took me a while.

  I kept wondering what had happened to Susie. I remembered the old gag about the half-wit who had found a horse by imagining he was a horse and figuring out where he’d go.

  I tried that, but I didn’t get anywhere; I couldn’t imagine myself a chimp, no matter how I tried.

  I got to wondering what Major Mote had been scared about. I thought, maybe he really knows something that gives him cause to be scared like that. He’s a midget and one midget was murdered on the lot ten days ago. Maybe that was why he was scared. And, hell, we’d all walked off and left him alone; we’d been a big help. He’d been unconscious in a wide open trailer all the time we were searching the woods and eating breakfast.

  But Carey must have found him okay when he went back to his trailer just now, or we’d have heard.

  My thoughts kept going in circles for a while—until I started thinking about Rita and wondering how soon she’d get back from Indianapolis. It might be today!

  After a while, I went to sleep.

  Despite all the searching we’d done, it was a mark who found Susie on the carney lot. Found her in the middle of a busy afternoon with the carney running around her and Susie floating dead in the water.

  In the water of the diving tank where Hilo Peterson, the Death-Defying Dare-Devil Diver (which Uncle Am says is as nice a chunk of apt alliteration’s artful aid as he’s seen) does his free act once an evening.

  The mark spotted Susie from the Ferris wheel; at least, from up there he saw something floating in the water of the tank down at the end of the midway. He couldn’t see what it was, from that far. But after his ride was over, he went down to the tank and walked up the ramp leading to the edge of it and looked in.

  That’s how Susie was found.

  Word passed around the carney lot and reached Uncle Am and me in our booth down near the entrance, and we ran down the front canvas and went back there.

  By that time they’d taken Susie out of the tank and wrapped her in a piece of canvas to take her away. Somebody had told Hoagy and he was there.

  The crowd was so thick around the tank that we didn’t even try to push through it. Uncle Am said we might as well go back to the ball game and mind our own business, and we did.

  But during the supper-hour lull we closed up again and went back to the tank. They were draining it by then. Maury was directing the job, and looking plenty disgusted.

  “God damn prima donna,” he said. “Says he won’t dive into water that’s had a dead monkey floating in it all day. So we got to refill it for him.”

  Uncle Am chuckled. “Would you, Maury?”

  “Me? I got sense enough not to high-dive into four feet of water anyway. If I was dumb enough to do that, I don’t know what difference a little monkey-flavor would make.” I walked up the ramp and looked down into the tank. You could figure how it happened, easy. The tank itself was six and a half feet deep, which put the rim just above eye level, even for a tall
man. And that was why nobody had discovered Susie until the mark had seen her from the Ferris wheel. The tank was advertised to contain four feet of water; actually the water was about six inches deeper than that, so the level of the water was two feet under the rim of the tank.

  I could picture how it could have happened. Susie’s escape must have been after one o’clock, and this end of the midway was dark. She’d been thirsty, maybe smelled the water, and Crawled up the ramp. She leaned over the edge to drink, and, being sick and weak, had fallen in.

  When I came back down the ramp, Maury said, “Say, Ed, there’s a letter for you at the office.”

  Uncle Am said, “Go get it, kid. I’ll meet you at Hoagy’s.”

  CHAPTER VII

  I got the letter. It was from Rita, postmarked Indianapolis, and on hotel stationery. It was just a short note:

  Dear Ed:

  Dad’s worse instead of better. I don’t know just when I’ll get back. But wait for me, Eddie. You know what I mean.

  Rita.

  I went around to Hoagy’s trailer but instead of going in, I called to Uncle Am, and he came out.

  I showed him the letter. I said, “I want to call her up, Uncle Am. Maybe—”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. He said, “Okay, kid. Want some money, in case you decide to go?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve still got nearly all of what you gave me last time, because I didn’t stay then. I’ve got over eighty bucks. That’d be plenty—if I should decide to go.”

  He said, “Marge wants us to eat with them, says they’ve got plenty cooked and it’s about ready. Want to call afterward, and eat first?”

  “No, you go ahead and eat with them. I—I’d rather call first and get it off my mind. I’ll eat somewhere afterward. Say, how’s Hoagy feeling?”

  “Not too bad. Guess it’s better to have it over with. I’ll see you later, then. Or will I?”

  I told him I wouldn’t go to Indianapolis without letting him know, and that I’d have to come back to get some clothes anyway.

  I took a bus downtown and phoned Rita’s hotel from a booth. She wasn’t in, so I ate some dinner and then tried again, and got her.

  “Listen, Rita,” I said, “can I come? Maybe I can help?” I didn’t know how; it sounded silly to me as I said it.

  “Please don’t, Eddie. I told you why. And you couldn’t help. There isn’t anything you could do.”

  “How is he?” I asked. “Any change since you wrote?”

  “We don’t know, Eddie. It’s—not sure either way. It’s a sort of crisis coming up, the doctor says. He’ll turn the corner in a day or two—or he won’t. And—I’ll come back to the carney. But don’t come here; wait for me.”

  “Sure. But I wish I could do something.”

  “You are, Eddie. Just by waiting. I’m coming back. Honest.”

  “That’s swell,” I said.

  “I hated the carney, Eddie. But I’m coming back because you’re there. And—I’ve got an idea for the two of us, Eddie.”

  “So have I,” I said.

  “I don’t mean that, you dope. Well—that, too. But I mean something with money in it. And honest, too.”

  I said, “I suppose there are honest ways of making it. What’s the idea?”

  “I’ll tell you then. Not now. Love me, Eddie?”

  “A little bit,” I said.

  “I love you a little bit, too, then. And damn your hide, you stay away from Estelle, or I’ll scratch her eyes out.”

  “I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Don’t brag, Eddie. Bye now.”

  “Good-by, Rita.”

  I felt so swell that I decided to hell with busses and took a taxi back to the lot.

  After we’d closed up that night, Uncle Am didn’t go to the G-top like he usually did. I went back to our sleeping tent, and so did he. I sat down on my cot and he on his.

  I didn’t know what I wanted to do; I didn’t feel like reading. I felt too good to read. Music wouldn’t be bad, except I didn’t want to play it myself, and I’d been bothering Lee Carey too much lately.

  Uncle Am said, “How’s the tram coming, kid? Haven’t heard you playing much lately.”

  “I’ll get back to practicing,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “What do you want to do tonight?”

  “I dunno. Nothing, I guess.”

  “Sleepy?”

  “N-no.”

  Uncle Am said, “Kid, you’re really gone on that blonde? Clear overboard? Hook, line and sinker?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “And she’s nuts about you?”

  “Unless she’s after my money.”

  Uncle Am grinned. Then he asked, “How soon will she be back?”

  I told him about the phone call and what we’d said.

  He said, “I guess you’re gone on each other, all right.”

  I asked, “Is that bad?”

  “Kid,” he said, “it’s your life. I wouldn’t advise you about anything. Anything serious, I mean. I’m not a Dutch uncle.”

  “No matter what I decide to do?”

  “Ed, if you decide to go in for burglary, I’ll buy you a crowbar. It’s your life. But how about tonight? Feel ambitious?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Dress up, then. Let’s hit the town. I haven’t seen a floor show for so long I’d like to see if they’re still as corny as they used to be. Want to?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Uncle Am said, “For cripes’ sake, kid, what’s eating you?” We were in a roadhouse or night club, I don’t know which you’d call it, just outside of Fort Wayne. It wasn’t a bad place. The air was a bright haze of smoke, and the band was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think. We’d been yelling at one another, and it was too much trouble.

  “Nothing,” I yelled across the table. “I’m all right.”

  “It says here,” said Uncle Am. He grinned. “There’s a three-buck cover charge at this robbers’ roost, and you’re showing only three cents’ worth of amusement. We’re getting gypped.”

  I glanced at the small, crowded dance floor, and then back at Uncle Am. “Shall we dance?” I asked him.

  “We shall not,” he said. “But the floor show’s coming up in a minute, after this number. Get in the mood for it. Quit sobbing into your beer. It’s good beer.”

  “It’s good beer,” I told him, “but I don’t like beer. Know what beer tastes like?”

  He said he didn’t want to know, but I told him anyway. He said I should have my mouth washed out with it, so I took another sip, to oblige.

  The floor show came on, and it was just about what I’d expected. An emcee, dressed to within an inch of his life, in the fancy exaggerated clothes that only an emcee would wear, telling dirty jokes and getting a big hand for them. God knows why. They weren’t funny. And a blues singer, and a magician who wasn’t as good as Lee Carey but had a smoother line of patter. And a tap dancer and a stripper.

  I pretended to enjoy it, to keep Uncle Am from worrying about me. When they started dancing again after the floor show, Uncle Am called for the check. It was nine and a half bucks; we’d each had a club sandwich, he’d had two bottles of beer and I’d had one.

  He saw me looking, and his eyes twinkled. “And you thought the carney was a gyp joint. Kid, we give value. We’re the suckers; we ought to take lessons from places like these.”

  He paid the bill and we went out. There was a taxi in front, and we got in. My uncle asked, “Is there a wheel around?”

  “Well—” The driver shoved his cap back and turned around to look at us.

  “We’re with the carney,” my uncle said.

  “Oh. Sure, I can take you to the Club Sixty.” He started.

  Uncle Am said, “Relax, kid. It’ll be on the other side of town. Any place a taxi driver leads you to is on the other side of town. If he knows one in the next block, he’d still take us to the Club Sixty.”

  “Uh-huh
,” I said. I was thinking about the place we’d just left. I asked. “Where the hell do people get the money to throw away like that?”

  Uncle Am shrugged. “They take in each other’s washings, I guess. But what’s money? Oh, sure, there are times when a dollar bill looks bigger than a nine-by-twelve carpet. But if you’ve got money, and more coming in, what’s it good for?”

  “Your old age,” I said.

  “If you spend it fast enough, your old age takes care of itself. You won’t have any. How’d you like the stripper?”

  “She was all right,” I said. I didn’t tell him that every time I looked at her, I’d thought of Rita.

  He chuckled. “That’s real enthusiasm for you. Say, what do you want to talk about?”

  His voice was mocking, but there was real concern in it, too. I felt a little foolish. After all, why was I being a wet blanket? Just because Rita wasn’t back yet? Hell, wasn’t I a thousand times luckier than I’d dared to hope? She was coming back.

  “Guess I’m being silly,” I admitted. I cast around for something to talk about. I said, “Wonder what’s happened to Cap Weiss. Has he given up the investigation?”

  “He’ll be around. We’ll be seeing him. I’ll bet we see him tomorrow.”

  “Why tomorrow?”

  “Susie.”

  “Huh?” I said. “What’s a chimp getting drowned got to do with the murder?”

  Uncle Am shrugged. “Maybe nothing. But don’t think the Fort Wayne cops aren’t keeping an eye on the lot, and don’t think they aren’t in pretty close touch with the Evansville boys, and that means with Cap Weiss. He’s probably been busy running down angles on the dead midget—what’s his name?”

  “Lon Staffold.”

  “That’s it. Kid, I wish I had your memory for details. Well, for pretty damn sure, Weiss hasn’t got his teeth into anything that leads back to the carney, or he’d have been back here before this, with a calliope and six machine guns. Say, you been keeping your eyes and ears open?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like Weiss wanted you to. Got anything to tell him?”

  “No.”

  He turned and looked at me, in the cab. “Don’t sound so disgusted about it. What’s wrong?”