“I like it. Close to Miami, and not too far from Winter Haven and Sarasota, where a lot of circus people spend the winter.”
“You still see your old circus friends?”
“I see the ones that are left. I joined the circus back during the First World War, when I shoulda been in school.” His old eyes clouded for an instant. “Most of the people I knew are dead now.”
“You were a clown that long ago?”
“No, no, not at first. Believe it or not, Mr. Nicholas, my first circus job was carrying water for the elephants, just like in all the old stories. But I was a clown before I was twenty, and I stayed a clown for nearly forty years, till my first heart attack. I was there. I saw it all. I started with the Great National Circus in their final years, and then switched to Barnum and Bailey.”
Judy Benson came back carrying another glass of fruit juice. “This is for you,” she told Nick. Then she sat down, still unsmiling.
“Thank you. Your grandfather was just telling me about his early circus days.”
She eyed Nick in silence and Herbie Benson continued, “I think those early days with Great National were the best of all. They had a really big spread, with acrobats and lions and even a Wild West show. Come in here, I’ll show you some of their posters.”
“Grandpa,” Judy cautioned, but the old man was already on his feet, leading Nick into the next room.
It had been a dining room at one time, but when Nick passed through the swinging door he saw that it was now given over completely to the memories and trophies of a lifetime. There were garish circus posters and framed programs dating back more than 50 years, along with dozens of photographs of a sad-faced clown with groups of children or greeting some celebrity or simply alone in a circus ring. A cluster of limp balloons bearing the words Herbie the Clown hung over a picture of two clowns inscribed Herbie and Willie.
But it was one of the circus posters that interested Nick. Yellowed with age and curling at the edges, there could be no doubt this was the poster he’d been hired to steal. Five stiff-bodied acrobats at the top flew through the air with awkward grace, with the one in the foreground sporting a Teddy Roosevelt mustache that made him seem the twin of the one high on a trapeze in the background. A slim banner beneath them read: The Flying Fantini Brothers.
In the lower portion of the poster a faded purple rhinoceros glowered out from a swampy setting of trees and ferns. “I never saw a purple rhino,” Nick said, recalling the famous verse by Gelett Burgess about a purple cow.
“These posters are real Americana,” the old man told him. “I’ve been offered a thousand dollars for my whole collection intact, but of course I would never sell.”
“How much would an individual poster be worth?”
“Alone? Not much—next to nothing, unless you came across some kind of a crank collector. They reprint these things too much nowadays. Who’d want to pay good money for an original when he could buy a reproduction at the local bookstore for a dollar or two?”
“You’ve got something there,” Nick admitted. He pointed to the 1916 poster. “This must have been early in your career.”
“The year before I joined Great National,” he answered with a trace of pride.
“You must have known a lot of clowns in your day.”
“All the big ones. Willie was a special friend.”
“Ever know one named Mason?” If a man wore clown makeup, it seemed logical to Nick that he might be a former clown.
“What circus was he with?”
“I don’t know. I could have the name wrong.” His eyes strayed back to the purple rhino and the clowns and the five acrobats. “You know, there’s something peculiar about that poster, but I don’t know what.”
“They’re funny-looking by today’s art standards, I guess, but I love every one of them.”
They chatted a while longer and then Nick rose to leave. Stealing the poster seemed so simple that he wondered why the mysterious Mr. Mason hadn’t simply hired the first crook he could find and pay him $50 to do the job. Herbie walked him to the porch and they shook hands. “You’ve brightened my day,” the former clown said. “I always like to talk circus. Come back sometime and I’ll put on my clown makeup for you.”
“I’ll do that,” Nick said, and waved goodbye.
He was just starting the car when Judy Benson came running out of the house. “Mr. Nicholas, could you give me a ride down to the store? I have to do some shopping for my grandfather.”
“Sure. Climb in.”
“Nice car you have.”
Nick nodded.
“You don’t talk like a southerner. Are you from this area?”
He pulled slowly away from the curb, aware that her sudden friendliness was in sharp contrast to her earlier coolness. “No, I’m from up north. Just driving through.”
“But this is a rented car, rented here in Florida. You’re not just driving through at all.” Her voice was suddenly accusing.
“I happen to live in New York and I don’t own a car. I flew down here and rented this one.”
She didn’t reply immediately but stared straight ahead. Finally she said, “My grandfather is a sick old man, Mr. Nicholas. His heart is very bad. If anyone were to swindle or steal his possessions, the shock would kill him.”
“Why do you tell me this?”
“Because another man came to see him only a week ago. He wanted to buy one of my grandfather’s posters, and then he just tried to steal it. Luckily I arrived in time and threatened to call the police unless the man left. After that I made Grandpa promise never to let anyone in the house unless I was there.”
“And you think I’m connected with this other man? What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. He had fat cheeks and wore a rumpled suit.”
Nick recognized the description of Mason’s driver, Jimmy. So the man in the clown makeup had made a previous attempt to get the poster. Still, why had he felt it necessary to hire Nick?
“I don’t know the man,” Nick said.
“All right, Mr. Nicholas. I hope you’re telling the truth, because there’s an unpleasant surprise waiting for the next person who tries to rob my grandfather.”
He ignored the threat in her words and said, “Tell me one thing. Why was this man so anxious to buy or steal the poster, when your grandfather is so sure it’s valueless?”
She turned her deep brown eyes toward him. “I haven’t the least idea, Mr. Nicholas.”
Nick knew he could do nothing further that day, so he returned to his Miami hotel and spent the early evening on the beach, watching the yachts cruising over the blue waters of Biscayne Bay. At sunset he went in for a swim, and when he returned to the damp sand he found Jimmy, the man in the rumpled suit, awaiting him.
“So you been to see old Herbie?”
“Yes,” Nick said warily.
Jimmy smiled a lopsided sort of smile. “Mason thought you’d be better than me. He thought you could get the poster after I failed. But he was wrong, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried yet.”
The smile broadened. “He said you were pretty good. A unique thief-detective, he called you.”
“Anyone could climb through his window and steal that poster.”
“Yeah? You think so? You met the granddaughter yet?”
“I’ve met her.”
“She tell you what she does for a living?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“She’s with the circus, same as her grandfather used to be.”
“As a clown?” Nick asked, unbelieving.
Jimmy shook his head. “She has a sideshow act with a little circus that tours around Florida. She’s a snake charmer.”
“A snake—”
“That’s right, wise guy. Every night she puts her grandfather to bed and lets loose a sackful of rattlesnakes in that house. Still think you can just climb through the window and steal that poster?”
Nick Velvet drove to the hot
el where he’d met Mason the previous evening. There were some things to be straightened out, among them his fee. For wrestling rattlesnakes Nick charged more.
As he went down the hall toward Mason’s room he saw a tall graying man with his hand on the knob. The man turned suddenly as Nick approached and asked, “Are you looking for Mr. Mason, too?”
“I am.”
“He’s not here. I’ve been knocking and no one answers.”
Nick tried the door. It was locked. “You a friend of his?”
“I’m a lawyer.” The man flipped a card from his inside pocket and Nick read:
Haskin Kimbell
Jeans, Kimbell & Sachs
Miami, Florida
“Pleased to meet you. My name is Nicholas.”
“Are you in Mr. Mason’s employ?”
“In a way, yes.”
The lawyer pursed his lips, hesitating. “Would you be the man he hired to get the circus poster?”
“Yes,” Nick admitted. “But I have to speak to him about our arrangement. A complication has come up.”
The tall lawyer glanced around. “Let’s go somewhere and talk. The downstairs bar, perhaps.”
The bar had a scattering of late-evening drinkers, but Nick and the lawyer easily found a booth where they could not be overheard. When the drinks arrived, Haskin Kimbell dropped the small talk and said, “Let’s get down to business, Mr. Nicholas.”
“What sort of business?”
“Do you have the poster?”
“I told you, there’s a complication.”
“It’s urgent that we obtain it.”
“We?”
Haskin Kimbell sighed. “I represent the sole surviving heir to the Fantini oil fortune.”
“Fantini?” Nick remembered the name on the poster—The Flying Fantini Brothers.
“They were acrobats in their younger days, traveling with the circus. But after one of them was crippled in a fall they left the circus and went into the oil business, drilling wildcat wells. It was in the early nineteen-twenties, a good time for wildcatters. They struck it rich and over the years built up a considerable fortune. The last of the brothers—so everyone thought at the time—died a year ago at the age of seventy-three. He left no family, no heirs, and an estate estimated at ten million dollars.”
“Is there a will?”
“There is, but it was drawn a decade earlier while his brothers were still alive. It left his entire estate to the brothers or brother who survived him. If none survived, the estate went to various charities.”
“And you say no brother survived?”
The lawyer sipped his drink. “So it was believed at the time. Now a man has appeared who claims to be the last surviving brother. His name is Anthony Fantini, and he is my client.”
“He must have offered you some proof.”
“Proof of events sixty or seventy years ago can be hard to produce. The brothers were born in Italy and came here in the early years of this century. The birth records in their Italian village were destroyed during World War Two, and no one alive today remembers the family. Unfortunately, the records of the Great National circus have also been lost over the years. In simple truth we don’t know with certainty just how many Fantini brothers there were. Four can be accounted for, but my client claims he is the fifth brother. If that is true he is entitled to the estate.”
“He must have something to support his claim.”
“A great deal. He knows everything about the family’s early life. The one thing we’re lacking is convincing evidence there were five Flying Fantini Brothers instead of four.”
“The circus poster!”
“Exactly. The number of Ringling Brothers, for example, can easily be certified as five because a group portrait of them appeared on early Ringling posters. Likewise, that Great National poster can prove there were five Fantini brothers. Shortly after I took the surviving Fantini’s case, this man named Mason approached me with an offer. He claimed to know of this old circus poster which would prove there were five Fantinis. He offered to deliver it for what might be called a finder’s fee.”
“How big a fee?”
“Six figures. Recently he told me he’d hired you to get the poster. I came here tonight to see if he had it yet.”
“My agreement is for delivery by Thursday or before.”
“Then you can get it? You know where it is?”
“I’ve seen it,” Nick admitted. “But tell me about Mason. What does he look like?”
The lawyer seemed puzzled. “Haven’t you met him?”
“Not in the flesh.”
“He looks fairly ordinary. Middle-aged, gray hair. Nothing unusual.”
Nick decided not to mention the clown makeup. “All right. I’ll have the poster by Thursday morning. You can meet me in Mason’s hotel room if you wish.”
“Fine.”
“One last thing. You mentioned a fall that crippled one of the Fantinis. Surely there must be newspaper accounts of it. Even if the circus records are lost, the papers would tell you if there were four or five brothers.”
Kimbell shook his head. “I’ve been over all that—everything. There were some brief newspaper accounts, but none mentioned the number of brothers. I even checked back issues of trade papers like Variety and Billboard, but they only added to the confusion. It seems when the brothers first started out, there were only three because the others were still too young. I’ve found mention of three Fantinis and four Fantinis, but nothing about my client—the fifth and youngest of them. He was only with Great National that one season, so that poster is the only proof in existence.”
“There were only boys in the family? No surviving sisters?”
“All boys. Born a year or two apart just before the turn of the century. My client was seventeen when he joined the act, and of course he’s well into his seventies now.”
“So you really need the poster.”
“I really need it.”
“I’ll get it,” Nick promised.
He spent most of the next day in his hotel room experimenting with a variety of grease paints and makeup kits. Finally, around dinnertime, he gazed into the mirror and was satisfied. He washed off the makeup and ate a quick dinner alone. Then, as the long evening shadows began to fall across the bay, he put the materials he’d need in a paper bag and carried them down to his rented car. Less than an hour later he was back in Snake Creek.
Herbie Benson’s house was dark except for a single light in an upstairs bedroom. Nick parked down the street and worked quickly to apply his makeup. It was more difficult in the car than it had been in his hotel room, but after a half-hour’s work he was satisfied. As a final touch he stuck on the round rubber nose and then walked quickly down the street to the house.
He rang the doorbell twice before Herbie appeared at an upstairs window. “I can’t come down!” he shouted. “Go away, whoever you are!”
Nick stepped into the glow from a street light. “Herbie! Don’t you remember me?”
“Who is it?”
“Herbie, I used to work with you years ago. Don’t you remember Willie?”
“Willie? Is that you, Willie?”
Nick had remembered the clown on the photograph with Herbie and had tried to duplicate his makeup. With Herbie’s age and poor eyesight in Nick’s favor, he thought he could bring it off. “Come down and open the door, Herbie. I have to talk to you.”
“I can’t come down. She’s turned the snakes loose.”
“Then I’ll come up.”
Nick boosted himself onto the porch railing and from there to the drainpipe and the porch roof. In a few moments he was at the old man’s window. Herbie squinted, reached for his thick glasses and put them on. “You look different. You sure you’re Willie?”
“Who else would come to see you with a clown outfit on?” Nick climbed quickly through the window. “Remember the old days? The good times we had?”
“You’re not Willie.” The voice was firm. �
��You’re too young.”
“I’m Willie’s son. He sent me to you. He needs something from you, Herbie, and he needs it pretty bad.”
“What’s that?”
“One of your circus posters, Herbie.”
The old man let out his breath. “I couldn’t! That’s what the snakes are for! She said that guy tried to steal my collection. She leaves the snakes every night and comes back to pick them up in the morning.”
“But you could get through the snakes, couldn’t you, Herbie?”
“Oh, sure. But Judy would be awfully upset.”
“Even if you did it for an old friend?”
“Well …” He hesitated, and Nick saw him eye the clown makeup with something like nostalgia. “You did a nice job of putting that on, but the mouth’s too crooked.”
“Think you could fix it?”
“Sure. I’ll show you how. Us clowns gotta stick together.”
He sat Nick down on a straight-backed chair and got out a couple of jars of grease paint. After a few minutes of work he was satisfied. “There now, that’s lots better! You look like a real clown now.”
“About the poster—”
“Sure, your dad can have it—I got plenty of them. Which one does Willie want?”
“The Great National, from 1916.”
“Yeah. That’s the one the other fellow wanted, too. Kind of a popular poster, isn’t it? Come on down with me.”
“But the snakes—”
“They won’t hurt you.”
Nick followed him gingerly down the stairs, watching and listening. As he crossed the dark living room behind the old man he heard a warning rattle and his hand went for the little pistol under his arm.
“I said not to worry,” Herbie insisted. “They’re carnival snakes. The poison sacs have been removed. Think she’s dumb enough to work with the real thing?”
Nick relaxed, realizing it was true. “They certainly do their job, keeping prowlers away.” By the glow of the street light he saw a diamondback rattler slowly uncoil and slither away under a table.
Old Herbie removed the 1916 Great National poster from the wall and started to roll it up. “Say hello to your dad for me.”
“Can I pay you for it?”
“It’s not worth anything alone. Take it—a gift from a fellow clown. It was your father who helped me put together most of this collection.”
Thefts of Nick Velvet Page 15