The Dead Ringer

by Fredric Brown

  “Don’t talk about it, Rita.”

  “I thought I didn’t want to, Eddie, but I find I do. He knew he was going to die, even right away, after the accident, while all the doctors thought he was going to get better. And he was glad when I came. He—he cried. And after that, I— I just had to stay there until it was all over, one way or the other.”

  “I understand, Rita … What about Chicago? Why are you going there?”

  “Business. I’m going to put us in business, Eddie.” She smiled, mysteriously.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “We’ve got money. The insurance was five thousand, Eddie. I’ve got over four thousand left—I gave him a good funeral, and I spent some I needed on clothes and— How do you like this dress, Eddie?”

  “It’s beautiful,” I told her. “But—five thousand bucks! That’s a lot of hay.”

  “It’s capital, Eddie. The four thousand of it, anyway. If I just lived on it, it wouldn’t last more than a year. And if I put it away to try to save it and kept on working, I’d draw against it—I know—and it wouldn’t last long either. But I know how I can invest it so it’ll bring us plenty. An illusion show.”

  “A what?”

  “You know what an illusion show is, Eddie. It’s got five features—a sword cabinet, a headless lady, a guillotine act, spider girl, and one other— I didn’t get what it was but it’s a newer one than those. And a top, and banners. It’ll be big money for us, Eddie.”

  So many things were going through my mind, I didn’t know which of them to say first. But she didn’t give me a chance to say anything.

  “I want Am to go in with us, if he will. And we’ll need one more girl; four of us can handle it. You and Am—one on the inside and one outside; and myself and another girl for the acts— How do you think I’ll look as a headless lady, huh?”

  “Marvelous,” I said. “But—look, the season’s almost over. It’s late to start a new show.”

  “After Milwaukee and Springfield, the Carney’s heading south; there’s almost two months left. We’ll make enough to get off the nut, and next season—”

  “Off the nut?” I interrupted. “Your four thousand won’t cover it?”

  “The top and everything? Of course not. The guy wants eight grand, but I think I can get it for six. And I’m going to put up only three—we’ll need some for a starter, and for a stake for the winter. I’ll have a year to pay off the rest, and that gives us most of next season, for that.”

  I opened my mouth to say that Uncle Am had some money, too, and might have enough to swing the deal for cash, but I didn’t say it. I wasn’t going to stick his neck out for him by even admitting he had anything in the grouch bag. That was his business, if he wanted to suggest it.

  I said, “It sounds swell, but—”

  “But what, Eddie? Don’t you want to?”

  “Sure I want to, Rita. But— Well, I wish it was my money instead of yours. I don’t like—”

  “Don’t be like that, Eddie. It’s our money. If I’m going to belong to you, what I’ve got goes along with. Or—if you don’t want me in with the bargain—I’ll pay you a hundred a week flat, for managing and spieling. How’s that?”

  I laughed. I said, “I’ll take fifteen cents a week, if you go with it. But don’t jump into this, Rita. You might be buying a clunker. Let my uncle look it over for you before you put up any money. Or get Maury’s advice— he’s been in carney biz since the year one. He can tell you what you’re getting.”

  “Maury does know about it, Eddie. A couple of nights before the night that—that I met you, Hoagy and Marge and Maury and I went downtown for a few drinks after the show, and Maury was talking about this deal. It’s a show with a carney that folded, and Maury said the rest of that carney stank, but this show is good. Said he wished Hoagy or someone would buy it and run it with the Hobart shows; it was what they needed and a real money maker. He mentioned the name of the guy who owned the illusions—he’s sick in the hospital in Chi and that’s why he wants to sell instead of taking the show out with another carney.”

  I said, “But, Rita—”

  “So when I got the insurance money, Eddie—or rather when I knew I was going to get it, I phoned Maury and asked him about it again, and he said it was a swell deal if I could get it for under ten grand. He said I ought to clear a couple of thousand just the rest of this season.”

  I said, “Then it sounds all right, Rita. But can’t you wait and get my uncle’s advice, too? Especially if you want us to go in with you. We’re doing all right on the ball game deal. Maybe he wouldn’t want to gamble.”

  She smiled. “Your uncle Am? Not want to gamble? Don’t be silly. But, all right, I’ll talk it over with him first. And I want to see Maury again, and pick up a few things I left with the posing show. So let’s go out to the lot, huh?”

  “Uncle Am isn’t there,” I told her. “He’s out of town on business. I—I don’t even know how long he’s going to be gone. I guess he’ll be back about tomorrow.”

  “Oh—then if I leave tonight I won’t get to see him. But I want to catch the midnight train to Chicago. I—I think I’d better catch it, Eddie.”

  I looked at her, and I thought, I can talk her out of it. But I said, “Yes, you’d better catch it, Rita. Okay, let’s go.”

  In the taxi, as soon as we were out of the downtown section, I kissed her. We seemed to melt together; it wasn’t like any kiss I’d ever had before. It—it was like a bonfire. It was the real thing; I knew then I hadn’t been kidding myself. It was worth waiting for. I wished, suddenly, that I’d done a better job of waiting; I was sorry now about Estelle. But it didn’t really matter; it hadn’t meant anything, and it hadn’t counted. Just the same, I knew I’d never do it again; from here on in, it would be Rita and me against the world.

  Even Uncle Am—but I hoped like hell we could stay with him somehow. And it had been swell of Rita to know I felt that way and to figure him in on a deal that would keep us all together.

  I know that that kiss did things to her; she was breathing fast when I took my lips away from hers. Her eyes were closed and with my face only inches from hers I could see in the dim light in the taxi how beautiful she was, how perfect, and I thought, this can’t be happening to me. But it was. And it was wonderful, and awful, to know—and I did know for sure, after that—that if I only asked her to stay, she wouldn’t take that midnight train.

  But I didn’t ask. I don’t know why, really, unless there was a vague idea somewhere in the back reaches of my mind that, as penance for my slip with Estelle, I should let Rita catch that train, that I should wait. That didn’t make sense, exactly, but a lot of things don’t.

  She whispered, “It’s going to be wonderful, Eddie.” Her face was alternately in light and shadow as the taxi went by the lights and the darker places between them.

  I said, “It’s been worth waiting for.” And I felt guilty because I hadn’t waited.

  Then we heard the sounds of the carney lot, and the taxi was pulling in to the curb before the main entrance. Just inside the gate, we stopped, looking down the midway. I don’t know why we stopped, or which of us did it first. But we stood there, Rita holding tightly to my arm.

  I don’t know what she was thinking about. I thought of the recent night when I’d seen the midway and heard its sounds through a haze of white mist that muffled the sounds and made rings around the lights. I thought of it because it was a little that way now—only it was my mind, the mistiness of my mind, that did the muffling and haloing. It was, again, as though I were seeing the lot, hearing it, for the first time. Again, everything was different—only in some funny way I couldn’t exactly explain or put my finger on.

  Physically, at least, there wasn’t any muffling of sight or sound. It was a clear night, with just a touch of coolness in the breeze, and the noises were strident through it.

  But it seemed strange and alien to me, as though I hadn’t been with it all season—and part of the season before
. As though, too, I wasn’t going to be with it much longer. It was almost as though I was seeing the carney as a stranger, for the first and last time—and yet with understanding, seeing deeply into it, through the canvas, into the lives and thoughts of the people who were the carney.

  Beside me, Rita said, “I like it, Ed. I didn’t know how much till I got away from it. Those two weeks in Indianapolis, I missed the carney. I missed you worse, but I missed the carney, too. I think I might have come back, even if you weren’t here, even if I hadn’t got the money and would have had to go back to the posing show. There’s something about it, Ed, that gets you.”

  I nodded. I knew what she meant all right. I said, “It proves that one thing they taught me in high school—in plane geometry—is wrong. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts. It isn’t, when the whole is a carney lot. It adds up to a lot more than that—I don’t know how or why, but it does. It does with a lot of other things, too, I guess.”

  “What do you mean, Eddie? What other things?”

  “You and me, for instance. Won’t we add up to more together than we did separately?”

  She squeezed my arm a little. “Yes, Eddie.”

  I said, “Anything worthwhile adds up to more than the sum of its parts, Rita. Music. Ever hear a great violinist, Rita, and think what he’s doing?— scraping the hair of a horse’s tail across the dried guts of a sheep. It’s—”

  Rita’s laughter stopped me. She said, “You are funny, Eddie. I never knew anybody like you.”

  I laughed with her, feeling a little foolish for having talked that way, but inside my thoughts were going on. A carney, I thought, is a lot like a violin. It’s made up of things as unromantic as horses’ hair and sheep’s guts, and Weiss is right; it’s pitched to appeal to the nasty instincts of the public, the lust and morbid curiosity and avariciousness—but it adds up to magic, too. There’s something there that’s more than neon and gambling wheels and human flesh and misshapen freakish-ness and—hell, I can’t explain it, but it’s there.

  It was as though I were really seeing and feeling it for the first and last times.

  After a moment Rita stirred. She said, “Eddie, you don’t want to go to the posing show with me. I’ll have to talk to the girls awhile, and—shall I meet you at Hoagy’s trailer?”

  “No!” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it that strongly. I back-watered as quick as I could. “I don’t think anybody’s there,” I went on. “I think Hoagy’s out of town, making arrangements for our next jump. And I heard Marge is helping out at one of the wheels.”

  “Oh. Well, where then?”

  “At Lee’s,” I told her. “About an hour?”

  “I guess so. Yes, it’ll take me at least that long. Don’t get lost, Eddie.”

  I grinned at her. “I’d rather come along,” I suggested. “Inside the dressing tent? Even with me to watch you, I wouldn’t trust you.” She patted my cheek lightly and walked away. I stood there watching her until she was lost to sight in the crowd.

  And I kept on standing there because, in a way, I was afraid to move. There was one place on the lot that I knew I shouldn’t go; and yet I knew that as soon as I started walking, my feet would take me there.

  But I couldn’t stand there forever, and I did start walking, and my feet did take me to Hoagy’s trailer. I don’t know exactly what I’d expected. I knocked on the door; it was closed. Hoagy called out for me to come in.

  Weiss was there. He was sitting astraddle of a chair, leaning on the back of it. His face looked as though he hadn’t slept for a long time. Hoagy was jammed again into the breakfast nook with a bottle in front of him. From his face, I couldn’t tell whether he’d been drinking or not. But the bottle was only half full.

  Marge was back at the end of the trailer, sitting on the bed. She looked huddled up, as though she were cold—or scared.

  Hoagy said, “Hi, kid,” when I came in. “Have a drink?”

  I said, “No thanks, Hoagy.”

  Weiss nodded to me without speaking. There was a silence and I wished I hadn’t come. But I couldn’t walk out again right away, now that I had come here.

  After a while, Weiss said, “Where’s your uncle, Ed?”

  I’d have felt foolish saying I didn’t know, so I said, “In Cincinnati. On business.”

  He stared at me and I knew he was wondering what the business was, but I looked back at him blankly, and he didn’t ask. I kept my eye on Weiss, because I didn’t want to watch Hoagy or Marge.

  Why didn’t I have sense enough to stay away from here, I thought. Hell, I had had sense enough to stay away, but I hadn’t used it. It was like a funeral parlor in that trailer.

  When Hoagy poured himself another drink, the sound of the whisky coming out of the bottle and going into the glass— a sound you don’t even hear ordinarily—was like an exaggerated sound effect in a play on a radio that’s tuned too loudly.

  He drank it—and you could hear that, too. Then he turned around and looked back at Marge. He said, “Isn’t it about time you gave Pete a hand again, honey?”

  Marge got up quickly from the edge of the bed. She said, “Sure, guess it is. Be back pretty quick.” She went out in a hurry, as though she was glad to get away.

  Hoagy said, “Sit down, Ed.” I went over and sat down on the edge of the bed, where Marge had been. That way, I figured, when she came back I’d have an excuse for getting up and I’d make my getaway. She’d be gone only a few minutes if Pete already had a play at his wheel and didn’t need a shill. Otherwise—well, I’d have to stay ten or fifteen minutes more and then leave.

  Anyway, where I was I didn’t have to watch Hoagy; I was behind his back.

  Suddenly, Armin Weiss raised his head and looked at me. He said, “Kid, what about the hypo marks on Susie’s arm?”

  “What do you mean, what about “em?” I asked.

  “Did you know there were any?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Hoagy mentioned it last night.”

  Weiss said, “They were there all right.”

  He looked disappointed, and another piece of the pattern fell in place in my mind. I saw now why Hoagy had told us about those puncture marks on the monkey’s arm; he’d known that the police would dig her up, even as I had, and that their examination would be more thorough than mine.

  He said, “We dug up the chimp this morning and the coroner looked her over. She was full of morphine.”

  “You mean she didn’t drown?”

  “Sure, she drowned—or, she was drowned is a better way of putting it. She had too much morphine in her to make the trip by herself. Somebody doped her so she wouldn’t struggle and then carried her to the tank and held her under.”

  “Oh,” I said. I’m afraid I didn’t make it sound very surprised. I think I’d known all along that Susie’s death hadn’t been any accident. I think I’d been sure of that even before I’d had a faint glimmering of the reason for it.

  It was quiet again. So quiet that I heard the tiptoeing footsteps outside the trailer. I don’t think anybody else heard them. Anyway, neither Weiss nor Hoagy seemed to hear anything. I guess I’ve got pretty good ears, and I could barely hear them.

  They came to the door, paused, and then seemed to go around the trailer.

  I looked up toward the window behind Weiss’s back. There wasn’t anything there, and then Uncle Am’s face appeared outside the window, looking in. He caught my eye and shook his head slightly, so I didn’t move or say anything.

  He looked at Hoagy, who was staring down at the bottle in front of him. Then he looked back at me. I knew he wanted to get Hoagy’s attention without letting Weiss know.

  I said, “Hoagy, remember that night I thought I saw Susie looking in the window?”

  He said, “Yeah, Ed?” And then, as I’d hoped, the mention of a window made him glance up at the one in front of him. He caught Uncle Am’s eye, and Uncle Am jerked his head backward in a signal.

  Hoagy glanced toward Weiss and saw Weiss wasn�
��t watching, so he nodded slightly.

  I was stuck with the remark I started, so I tapered it off: “I was wondering if— No, that’s crazy. Skip it.”

  Hoagy stood up, and poured himself another drink—a full glass—and raised it. He said, “Marge hasn’t come back— means Pete needs a stick. I’ll wander over and give a hand for a few minutes. Be right back.”

  Weiss nodded and didn’t move.

  Hoagy stood perfectly still for a moment. Then he lifted the glass and drank it as though the whisky were water. He put the glass down, and went out.

  Weiss looked up again. He said, “Ed, what did you and Am do in Cincy?”

  “We saw Mrs. Czerwinski. We went through Staffold’s trunk. And Uncle Am went to the Billboard office.”

  “You found that ad, then? The one in Billboard addressed to Lon S.?”

  I nodded. I was surprised that Weiss knew about that; he hadn’t mentioned it. But then he could have found out about it since the last time we’d talked to him.

  He stood up and kicked aside the chair he’d been sitting on, and started to pace back and forth the length of the trailer. He stopped in front of me.

  He said, “Ed, I know who did these murders. I know damn well who did

  ‘em, but I don’t know why. I can’t make a move till I know why. I haven’t got a case.”

  “Hoagy?” I asked.

  “Sure, Hoagy. But for God’s sake—a midget, a monkey, and a Negro kid! What’s the pattern? I can’t find it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  CHAPTER XV

  The door opened behind Weiss, and he wheeled around. It was Uncle Am. He came in and shut the door behind him.

  He said, “Hi, Cap. You talk pretty loud; I could hear you halfway to the Ferris wheel.” He moved to the chair Weiss had kicked aside and sat down, straddling it, his arms folded along the back of it.

  Weiss asked quietly. “Got all the answers, Am?”