Unhappy Hooligan

by Stuart Palmer

  His first impulse was to shoo them away, and then realized his self-assumed obligations; he had to smile (he had once heard somewhere that you did it by saying “cheese” silently) and he had to pat little heads. He was amply rewarded by the look of pure, unbelieving rapture they gave him when he paused, and he began to realize at that moment the real, intrinsic obligations of the one who dons the motley. It is an obligation older than history, older than wonderful Joe Grimaldi, the king of clowns, older than Felix Adler and Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs and all the rest. To bring laughter…

  Yet it was naturally with some relief that he gently closed the door of the gimcrack telephone booth upon his avid little fans, and put through his long-distance call to Los Santelos. He finally got through to the detective bureau, and at the first mention of the name “McFarley” was switched again. “Homicide,” somebody answered, and his painted eyebrows went up. They went higher still when he was advised that Sergeants Jason and Velie were the detectives assigned to the McFarley case. Something had been going on, something big. After a short wait, Jason’s voice came over the phone.

  This spoiled Rook’s original idea of posing as an anonymous member of the working press interested in the McFarley case, but he laid his cards—such as they were—on the table. “It’s Howard Rook. You arrested me Friday morning, remember?”

  The bright young officer was amused. “Sure! The clippings man. So you actually fell for that gag and ran away with the circus? The boys down here at Headquarters are all laughing themselves sick.”

  “They’re not laughing half as hard as I am at the idea of you being assigned to Homicide,” Rook told him tartly. “And just when did the McFarley case get to be Homicide’s anyway? I thought you’d made up your hot little minds that it was suicide.” Jason wouldn’t or couldn’t answer that one. “All right,” continued Rook. “Then tell me, just where is the little black notebook that was found in McFarley’s apartment, huh?”

  “What notebook?”

  “Thanks, that answers one question. The other is—what happened to the grease paint and other make-up stuff that was in the apartment?”

  “There wasn’t any—”

  “Thanks again.” Rook hung up and hurried back to Clown Alley, pursued by youthful admirers who waved him a sad farewell. There he barely had time to light one of his dollar cigars before Hap Hammett came up to him. The big clown was wearing his Punch-and-Judy costume, a tiny puppet stage opening out from his artificial paunch.

  “Make your phone call all right?” he wanted to know.

  “I’m not sure that I didn’t make it all wrong.”

  “So? Anyway, you skipped the second walkaround,” said Hap. “Cordelia missed you; she had to take all the jumps and she’s getting lazy in her old age.”

  “Business,” Rook explained. “It’s over now.”

  “Well, clown, I’ve got some business for you. Nothing hard. In the next walkaround you use a stale loaf of bread—”

  Howie Rook listened, but his mind was elsewhere. “Tell me something, Hap,” he said suddenly. “What would have happened if your dog had caught the rabbit that day last week?”

  “Plenty! Cordelia would have had to go; you can’t have anything around the circus that scares the kiddies into hysterics, even once. And I suppose I’d have had to go too—because she won’t take food from anybody but me, and I couldn’t see the mutt starve to death in some kennel.” Hammett looked almost apologetic. “We’ve been together for five years. Come on, there’s the music change.”

  Hap dashed ahead, and Howie Rook followed, as instructed, a few lengths behind. He was supposed to gnaw hungrily at the stale loaf of bread which had been provided from the garbage cans of the cook top; he was supposed to pantomime adoration for any pretty girl in the front row of seats. “And keep away from any children with sacks of candy,” Hap warned him. “Because if they offer it you have to take it, and eat it!”

  All went passably well until they were halfway around the Hippodrome and then Howie Rook suddenly froze as he caught sight of a face in the third or fourth row. The woman wore a scarf around her head, and dark glasses, but in spite of all this, he was almost positive that it was Mavis McFarley. He forgot to keep in character; he forgot to smile and leer at her. But on a wild impulse he did come close enough to the barrier to say, “Meet me after the show—ticket wagon!” But Mavis only stared blankly after him as he raced hastily on. Rook almost got into Hap’s act again—he had nearly made it around the Hippodrome track—before a dozen or so dashing steeds came thundering down upon him on their way to the rings; he had cut too close inside toward the ring bank and had to scramble for his very life.

  “Not bad, not bad at all,” Hap Hammett told him as he staggered into the wings. “Only next time don’t work so close to the horses, and just pantomime at the pretty girls; don’t talk to them. Clowns are supposed to be mute.” The man evidently had eyes in the back of his head. “And, Rook, while you’re with us, don’t get overeager and add new business unless I say so. That’s where McFarley almost got into a jam; he decided to substitute a lemon for the loaf of bread, just for a gag.”

  “But I’d prefer a lemon to that stale bread. What earthly harm would that do?” They were walking back toward the dressing rooms.

  “He happened to suck the lemon right in front of the bandstand, when Leo Dawes was cuing an aerial act. Ever seen what happens to a cornet player when somebody sucks a lemon? Leo went sour and missed a beat and Gina Nondello lost her hold during a triple somersault and had to hit the net—unprepared. McFarley didn’t know any better, but I thought for a while that Leo would tear him limb from limb. And Art Nondello was worse; they had to hold him to keep him from going after McFarley with a tent stake.”

  “I will make a mental note to avoid lemons,” promised Howie Rook. But he went through the rest of the show almost mechanically. In the fire-rescue scene, the last crazy-act, he found himself rescued more roughly than ever; his hat was knocked off and when he bent to pick it up, one of the midgets—presumably Olaf, for he wore cop uniform—gave him a most resounding whack on the sit-upon with a slapstick, sending him sprawling. For a moment Rook saw red, but the tiny clown pantomimed terror and ran to hide behind the immaculate evening tails of the equestrian director, the master of ceremonies of the whole show, who scowled and nodded them both off.

  He was a stiffish, military Prussian type named Nordling, according to the program, who wanted little truck with the smaller people of the circus and who dwelt in Olympian splendor in his own private car. But he gave Howie Rook a very hard look, and Rook did his best to give it back—then remembered that clowns can only smile. He raced obediently off.

  In the last walkaround with Hap, Rook took pains to work close inside to the barrier between the performers and the crowd, trying to catch Mavis McFarley’s eye. But the seat she had occupied earlier was now empty, and so was the one next to it. He hurried on out and around, and back to the dressing rooms. Tonight, he decided, they could have the grand spec finale, the parade of ponderous pachyderms and blood- sweating behemoths and lovely ladies (from eighteen to eighty) without him. He had to change and get out front, but fast. But he did pause long enough to get out of the Iron Maiden shoes and into his own.

  “What is the big hurry?” Hap Hammett wanted to know, coming up quietly behind him.

  “I’ve got a date.”

  “But surely Mademoiselle du Mond will wait for you,” Hap told him wickedly. “Aren’t you going to change and clean up?”

  He realized suddenly that the appearance of a clown, even an amateur clown, on the Midway at this hour would be the signal for a free-for-all. He splashed fervently in Hap’s pail and used Hap’s soap and towel. “Okay?” he asked, when he was through.

  “No,” said Hap firmly. “You look particularly leprous around the ears. Get back to the pail, clown.” And Howie Rook reluctantly got back; he scrubbed until even the veteran was willing to let him go. “Take care of yourself, clown,” H
ap Hammett said. “She’s murder.”

  There was the word again; used so freely around the place. Didn’t any of them know what had happened—or were they all ganged up on him, pretending vast ignorance of the fate of James McFarley?

  When, dressed in his newly acquired best, he came out again on the Midway, the crowd had poured itself out of the Big Top, out of the garishly lighted splendor into a California night chilly and heavy with fog that drifted in from the sea which pounded on the cliffs, half a stone’s throw away. There was no sign of Mavis around the ticket wagons anywhere. He waited in the shadows, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

  Time moved imperceptibly on. There was just a chance—and he had to play his chances. He felt in his pockets for a cigar, then suddenly remembered that he had left it in the pockets of the clown coat. It was just as well; he knew there was no use getting into that expensive habit when any day now he must return, like Cinderella at the stroke of twelve, to simpler ways. His old briar pipe would have warmed and comforted him more anyway, if only he had thought to bring it along with him on this wildest of wild-goose chases. “I must go where the wild goose goes…” he quoted a recent popular song, feeling more than a little silly. He should never have left the ivory tower, where he could write nasty letters to the newspapers about what the police didn’t do. The police, he realized now, must have often come up with the same thing he faced—a blank wall, and nothing to do about it…

  And then—when he was just about to give it up as a bad job—he saw Mavis McFarley coming toward him, almost running. “It was really you, then!” she said breathlessly. “I couldn’t be sure. In make-up one clown looks just like another clown. I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

  “Quite all right,” said Rook, drawing her back into the shadows between the tents. “I wasn’t quite sure it was you anyway, in the dark glasses and all.”

  “Naturally,” she said, “I don’t care to be seen at the circus, particularly not so soon after my husband’s death. It would seem heartless, you see?”

  Rook didn’t see, at all. But he said, “What are you here for? Checking up on me?”

  She gave him an odd look. “Maybe. Maybe I just wanted to talk to you, and of course there’s no way to telephone anybody on a circus lot. I suppose Mr. Timken could have had you called to the phone in the silver wagon, but I didn’t think you could speak freely there.”

  “We can speak freely now,” Rook reminded her. “Well?”

  “I—first, I want to know if you’re on the track of anything yet?”

  “I’m not following anything but the elephants so far,” Rook confessed. “There aren’t any obvious, tangible clues, if that’s what you mean. But I have found out that your husband was persona non grata to some of the people on the circus lot. They thought he was unlucky. There seem to have been a series of minor mishaps while he was here. Was McFarley a practical joker by any chance?”

  She looked puzzled, and shook her head. “Not that I ever knew of.”

  “Well,” said Howie Rook sensibly, “you didn’t come all the way down to Vista Beach just to inquire about my progress, did you?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I found out something today that I thought you ought to know. It has nothing to do with the circus, but you can’t afford to miss any angles at a time like this. I discovered that for some months Vonny has been taking singing lessons. Not the regular kind, but from a coach who works with would-be canaries—you know, the girls who sing pop music in cafés and on radio and TV. I have a hunch that she was planning to work up an act or something with this boy friend of hers, the musician she was once married to!”

  She waited for his reaction, but Rook only snorted. “I know that,” he said. “Or at least I gathered as much from what she told me this afternoon.”

  “Vonny was here? Today?”

  He nodded. “Not that she had much of anything to contribute—” Rook broke off suddenly, nodding toward where the darker shadow of a man’s figure showed against the gray of the canvas, not fifteen feet away. “We have company,” he whispered. “Somebody is spying. Shall I say ‘Boo!’?”

  “Paul!” Mavis cried quickly. “Paul, you promised! You—” She took one impetuous step forward, and stopped. The shadow had quietly dissolved into nothingness.

  “I guess it wasn’t Paul,” said Rook dryly. “Who is Paul, and just how does he fit into the picture?” He took her arm and steered her closer toward the comforting lights of the now almost-deserted Midway.

  “Paul?” said Mavis lightly, perhaps too lightly. “Oh, he’s just an old friend who rode down with me. I don’t like driving alone at night. For that matter, I don’t like circuses, either. I hate the very smell of the place!” Her pretty nose wrinkled fastidiously. “Well, as I was saying about Vonny and her grandiose ambitions—”

  “I wish,” Rook interrupted wearily, “that you two would stop trying to cast suspicion on each other. Suppose Vonny did have a financial motive? The police—and they aren’t fools—would have thoroughly investigated that angle. Can you honestly stand there and tell me that you think Vonny could be the murderer?”

  Mavis hesitated. “No, I guess I can’t. In spite of her fearful temper. Besides, she never fired a gun in her life; she was afraid of them, even on camping trips. And she wouldn’t have elephant dirt on her shoes, would she? No, I guess my original hunch was right, and we have to look for somebody who’s with the circus.”

  “Speaking of that,” Rook pressed, “did your husband ever do any legal work for anybody from the circus?”

  She shook her head. “No, not that I know of.”

  “Did he have any law cases where he might have made enemies—anything like that?”

  Again she shook her head. Rook went on. “What about that stabbing on Skid Row some ten years ago, when he helped to deport some sailors off a Greek ship who got into trouble?”

  “Huh?” Mavis looked blank. “Oh, you mean the Finn case! A man named Finn got stabbed or something—Mac has a transcript of the trial in his library. But there wasn’t anything in that to make anybody want to kill him ten years later or any time; he was just doing a routine job, that’s all.”

  Rook shrugged wearily. “Another blind alley. Well, my dear lady, it’s been a long hard day, and I suggest that you run back to the city and let me work at this in my own way.”

  She looked faintly annoyed for a moment, and then she smiled. “Of course. You’re right, and I mustn’t interfere. I’m only in the way here. But telephone me the moment you’ve found out anything, won’t you?” She pressed his hand warmly, and turned away—but Rook caught up with her in two strides.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. “It’s late, and there may be some rather rough characters hanging around.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Mavis said firmly. “You needn’t bother. I’d really much rather you didn’t. It’s better that we’re not seen together, as a matter of fact. Good night, and good luck.” She hurried off.

  For various reasons Howie Rook would have liked to insist on accompanying her, but Mavis was the one who was picking up the tab; he had only the status of an employee. But she hadn’t said anything about not following her, so he cut over behind the freaks’ banners and the kid-show tent, crawled under the ropes and came out at last on the edge of the circus grounds, on the side of Highway 101, moving with a swiftness surprising in one of his age and bulk. He waited there in the shadows for a few moments, and then he saw Mavis McFarley’s flashy red convertible pull out of the parking area on the other side of the highway and swing north. As it passed the lighted space in front of him, he caught a glimpse of an extremely handsome, gray-haired man at the wheel; he was a man with a nose like an eagle’s beak, a jutting jaw, and he wore incongruous yellow gloves.

  “That would be Paul,” said Rook to himself. He shrugged, and turned away. It had, as he had told Mavis, been a long hard day—without a single glass of beer, too. He should be heading back to his hot
el, but suddenly he felt that he wanted to get the feel of the circus lot at night, when he had it almost to himself. The lights of the Midway were dimmed now; only a few pale bulbs were glowing feebly. It was a lonely place with the crowd gone and the blaring music stilled and the gay banners hanging limply in the chill fog. It was as silent as the proverbial tomb—except for the occasional trumpeting of a bull, the heavy roaring of one of the big cats…

  He set out to make a tour of the place, naturally gravitating first to the menagerie. Elephants, he discovered, sleep lying down; zebras sleep like horses standing up. And Biddy the orangutan slept on her pile of straw like a baby, wrapped in her shawl. But she wasn’t sleeping too deeply—for when he paused by her cage the little ape perked up, yawned, and came over to the bars. Then she recognized him, and skirred with pleased surprise.

  “I have nothing for you,” Rook said. “Not tonight. Nothing but a problem. Biddy, this is an odd world, and things are not always what they seem. You see before you a man who is beginning to suspect that he is being used as a red herring.”

  Biddy cocked her head sympathetically.

  “I am confronted with two females of my species, who are to my notion far too anxious to cast aspersions and suspicions on each other. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they were secretly in cahoots?”

  Biddy nodded, grasped the bars, and jumped up and down. Then she turned and leaped over to the side door of her cage, pounding on it with eager fists. She made it clear as clear could be that it was her heart’s desire at the moment to be taken out of the cage and to be cuddled in his arms.

  “Go back to sleep, Biddy,” Rook told the apelet. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” The simian face looked sad, but as he moved away he got a pantomimed kiss through the bars.