Unhappy Hooligan

by Stuart Palmer

  “Yes, but—” Rook began.

  “You know what?” The Chief wagged his cigar. “I like the dame for it.”

  “Mavis? Excuse me, but I think you’re nuts.”

  “No, I mean the dame at the circus. This Mary Kelly du Mond or whatever it is. If McFarley gave her the fast talk and led her on, and then she found out that he was no millionaire and that he was just using her to experiment on, like you’d experiment on a rat in a laboratory…”

  “She wouldn’t kill anybody, and if she did she’d not be able to keep the secret for twenty-four hours,” Rook said stoutly. “Kelly isn’t the type.”

  “No? Beautiful women are quite often the exact type. They think that, because of their looks and their sex appeal, they can get by with murder. Look at Madeleine Smith, and Elizabeth Wharton, and Cordelia Botkin, and our own local Barbara Graham…”

  “I never liked the verdict on that last one,” Rook said. He picked up the notebook and the translation. “This is either the key to the whole thing, or else I’m barking up the wrongest tree in the blindest blind alley in history. Maybe—maybe it’s what isn’t here that’s really important. I mean what somebody thought might be there. Because somebody committed a robbery looking for this notebook night before last, and they only missed it because it had happened to have slipped down through a ripped pocket and into the lining of a costume jacket—the one McFarley wore and the one I wear now. That proves the murderer is worried. I’m going to figure out a way to worry him some more.”

  “You’re going back to the show?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Alone? Better I should give you a couple of the boys. If Jason and Velie went with you—”

  “Sure, they’d arrest everybody who’s on that list of McFarley’s experimental subjects and try to beat the truth out of them. No, Mr. Parkman, no again. It wouldn’t work. The circus people are close-mouthed and clannish where the law is concerned; some of them have been pushed around too much in the past. And at the first trace of any strong-arm stuff they’d yell, ‘Hey, Rube!’ and toss your bright boys into the briney. You’ve got no jurisdiction out of the city, remember. No, I’m working on a better plan. We’ve got to make our man declare himself—if it is a man. And we’ve got to use circus methods. When in Rome, wear a Roman nose and burn Roman candles.”

  “I hope you know what you’re up to,” said the Chief dubiously.

  “I hope I know, too,” said Howie Rook, “and if you take my advice you’ll remove the heat from Mavis. She’s jittery already, and I’d very much like to have her on hand for a little party I’m dreaming up.”

  “And you’d also maybe like a free trip to Hawaii, with no holds barred?”

  Rook blinked, and then nodded. “Oh, so! You are using a planted microphone in her hotel room, then!”

  “Natch,” admitted Parkman. “We omit no reasonable precautions, why should we? All is fair, my dear Howie, in love and war and criminal investigation. Okay, okay. When you think you’re ready to throw this mysterious party you’re talking about, I’ll take it upon myself to have two of our men and some local law and Mavis McFarley all there. In for a dime, in for a dollar. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got other work to do.”

  “Thanks,” said Rook. He helped himself to another of the Chief’s Corona Coronas, and took his departure. Once out in the corridor he manfully resisted an impulse to drop down to the detective bureau to needle Jason and Velie a bit. It wasn’t the time; he might have to put up with them later, but there was no use taking them into his confidence at the moment. There were too many strings untied, too many stones under which he had not had time to look.

  He stopped in at a near-by phone booth and called Vonny McFarley’s number, with no result except that he was again greeted by Miss Deep South, who regretted that Vonny was out. “She’s workin’,” explained the girl. “Or practically—she’s auditionin’ for a job as dress model out at Robinsberg’s Eastwood. But I could have her call you—”

  “You could not,” said Howie Rook. “But tell her I’ll phone her in the morning around nine o’clock, and she’d better be there. The name is Rook—”

  “Niyun o’clock?” gasped the girl. “But we—Vonny never gets up early—”

  “I’ll keep ringing until she does,” promised Howie Rook, and hung up. Then he went over to the Tribune Building and buttonholed Lou Elder at the desk in the crowded, noisy, ink-smelling city room. It was a desk Howie Rook knew well, still ornamented by the baseball bat that he himself had kept handy as a warning to publicity men.

  Lou’s face was grave. “It’s all fixed about the photographer,” he said quickly. “And you can have all the space you want, maybe even a feature in the Sunday mag section. But it looks like that’s as far as we can go. I took it up with Karp and Judkins in the business office, and they were pretty cool on the idea…”

  “Thanks,” said Rook, rising.

  “Where you going, pop?”

  “I’m going upstairs to see them.”

  “They’re out,” Lou said. “I mean really out.”

  Rook nodded. “Important newspaper business. Karp is probably trying to break a hundred at Lakeside, and Judkins is having a high colonic, or something. But this thing is really big, Lou. Hit ’em again on it when you can locate those penny-pinching characters—tell them the story blows tomorrow. I’ll phone you from the circus grounds tomorrow morning. I don’t have to remind you that this sheet—and you—owe me something.”

  “Yes, but—” Lou scowled. “Oh, all right. I’ll make another pitch first thing in the morning. I’ll do my best, pop.”

  “Thanks,” said Rook, and departed, feeling despondent but dogged. The weight of years was on his shoulders; part of that, he knew, came from lack of sleep and food and beer. Those lacks he could rectify at once, and he did.

  It was late in the afternoon when he caught the bus for Vista Beach, and he was still tired enough so that he closed his eyes on nearly a hundred miles of some of the most beautifully breathtaking coastal scenery in California; he slept the sleep of the dead. Drowsily disembarking at last, he went to his hotel and changed into sport clothes. Then he started out for the circus grounds. He had his usual trouble in locating a taxi, and finally resorted to hitchhiking, being carried down Highway 101 in a ramshackle truck driven by a Japanese gardener who turned off a side road half a mile before they reached the circus grounds. Rook congratulated himself that he had plenty of time to make the evening show, at least.

  Only the circus wasn’t there any more.

  He stood alone on a barren waste of soiled sawdust, decorated with bits of candy wrappers, popcorn sacks, pop bottles, burst balloons and cigarette butts. Half dazed, he moved around the area, not knowing what he was looking for. Maybe a clue—it was about time he stumbled on something along those lines. But it wasn’t his lucky evening—he saw nothing except one lonely toy chameleon, which scuttled hastily into its lair in the sawdust at his approach. Dropped by some child, he thought. Well, it would have a better chance here in the open, on its own, than in some hastily contrived aquarium to be constantly teased by grubby little fingers…

  There was no telephone booth now where he could phone for a taxi—Rook had the two-mile walk back into town, growing slowly and steadily angrier as he walked. He was normally—he told himself—a patient man. But things were beginning to pile up on him; he was being stopped and hindered and thwarted at every turn. And now even the circus wouldn’t stand still; though he had seen that fantastic little city come into being only a few days ago, it had seemed so perfect, so complete and permanent, that even now it was hard for him to believe that in such a short space of time it could have burst like a soap bubble…

  “‘Here today and gone tomorrow…’” he quoted, not that it made him feel any better. It was not too difficult to find the circus’ immediate itinerary; he picked up a copy of the South Coast News at the Vista Beach drugstore and discovered that it was playing Seaside, fifty miles to the
south, today and tomorrow. And there was no bus for almost an hour.

  Throwing all discretion to the winds, he dug rashly into the remainder of the expense money that Mavis McFarley had advanced him, and commandeered a taxi for the trip. After another nap, which lasted most of an hour, he was in Seaside—past and out of Seaside, and at the circus grounds. Again the location was on a flat headland above the Pacific, the Big Top and the lesser tents looking as set and permanent as ever, myriad color lights blazing, a fair crowd still roaming the Midway. But the show was under way. Rook had been around long enough now so that, from the strains of music coming from the Big Top, he knew just what acts were on. It would be just about time for the clown fire-rescue scene, and he heaved a sigh of relief at not having to be the one rescued this time.

  He went immediately to the silver wagon, to beard Mr. Timken in his den. Once more he perched upon the upended wastebasket, and prepared to state his case. The circus manager was in a happy mood—for him. “Sellout tonight,” he said genially. “Maybe the word got around, and they were expecting you to make a personal appearance, huh?”

  Howie Rook dryly said that he doubted it. “What word from the top?”

  Timken’s worry lines deepened. “Well, now—the circus business, you must understand, isn’t like any other business. We work on a very narrow margin of profit, and we can’t sling money around as we used to. I’m afraid—”

  “You mean Mr. Rowland turned it down?”

  “Not exactly. As a matter of fact, he’s off on a trip somewhere and couldn’t immediately be reached. The other members of the board don’t want to take the responsibility, that’s the size of it. In their opinion, it’s a matter for the local police.”

  Rook snorted. “The local police! Do you know what sort of law they have in these little resort towns? Usually one elderly gent in a cowboy hat, with a big gun and a big badge, who couldn’t find his own pants’ pocket in the dark.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Timken. “We’ve learned to give ’em a wide berth, except for maybe sending along a few comp tickets. We usually handle anything that comes up our own way…”

  “So who’s handling this? McFarley’s cold in his grave, and Mavis is worried sick for fear she’ll be arrested, and everything is going to hell in a hand basket, and all the co-operation I get I could put in my eye!”

  “I’m sorry,” Timken told him, actually looking sorry. “If John Rowland were around—but he’s off on his yacht somewhere and they can’t reach him by radio. Maybe later.”

  “Maybe later will be too damn late,” snapped Rook. And he went out of there.

  He started back in the general direction of Clown Alley, and then just after he had passed the barrier and was ducking his way under the guy ropes, he was seized upon from behind by none other than Miss Speedy Nondello. “Hey, Mister Rook!” she challenged. “Wait a minute!”

  “Yes, bratling?” he said.

  “You been gone for days,” she said reproachfully. “I thought you’d maybe gone for good, without saying good-by or anything.”

  “Not at all,” Rook told her. “I was busy.”

  “Detectivating?”

  “In a rather mild way, yes. But I’ve about decided to stop being so mild. I feel that I’m about to bare my teeth and hunch my back and howl like a curly wolf—just between ourselves. Hang on to your hat, sister. Pretty soon I’m going to throw a king-sized monkey wrench into the machinery, and you watch the sparks fly!”

  She kept step with him. “You mean you’re going to make like Dick Tracy?”

  “Maybe it’ll be more like Fearless Fosdick.” Speedy firmly stayed with him.

  “I know something,” she said.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Something maybe worth a quarter, maybe?”

  “Maybe,” he conceded. “What priceless gem of information have you stumbled upon?”

  “Lots,” said the child. She took a deep breath. “Gordo’s quit the show—”

  “I know that.”

  “Yeah, but when he came back and caught du Mond everybody figured he was back in. It would have been all right with Mr. Timken. But when they let him out of the hospital, Gordo just disappeared! He wasn’t here yesterday or today. Du Mond was, though. She didn’t swing, but she was in a couple of spec numbers.”

  “So she’s looking for a new human mattress?”

  Speedy smiled. “Maybe, but she’s looking for more than that. Papa says that she’s going to leave the show at the end of the season, and—say, what are coupons, Mr. Rook?”

  He said rather absently, “You’ve read magazines, haven’t you? Coupons, my fair young lady, are the little advertisements you tear out and send in—hernia and piles cured without surgery, learn electronics at home, how to develop your bust or take off fifty pounds in two weeks without dieting, stuff like that. Why?”

  Speedy looked puzzled. “Oh,” she said slowly. “I don’t dig it. Because papa says that du Mond is going to give up show business and marry you and sit around the rest of her life helping you clip coupons!”

  Howie Rook had never swallowed a cigar, but he came very close to it now. “Dear God!” he whispered, not irreverently. He hastily found a quarter, pressed it into the moist little palm, and kindly but firmly waved her away. He went back to Clown Alley and took out his make-up kit.

  So Hap Hammett found him, a few minutes later, returning from his last solo walkaround. The big clown gave him a quizzical look. “Hello, truant,” said Hap. “You’re late—I doubt if you’ve even got time to put on your make-up and climb onto an elephant for the finale.”

  “Once aboard a bull is enough,” Rook told him. He took his grease pencils and pad of yellow scratch paper, and sought the comparative seclusion of his folding camp chair, where he tilted a cardboard carton on end for a desk and set about the difficult task of literary composition. The show wound to a close with one last fanfare from Leo Dawes’ cornet; the clowns came back to pile up on the dressing-room steps and divest themselves of the motley and the goo, Bozo and several of the others giving him friendly if somewhat puzzled nods in passing. In ten minutes or so they were changed and dressed and away—all but Hap Hammett, who came to plump himself down in his own chair and light a cigarette.

  “What are you up to now, Howie? Going in for art?”

  “I am preparing a time bomb, believe it or not,” said Rook. He hesitated, then extended one of his completed creations, lettered in bright reds and blues and greens on yellow paper. “How does it strike you?”

  Hap read:

  $10,000 REWARD

  FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST AND CONVICTION OF THE MURDERER OF JAMES MCFARLEY—

  CLEMENCY FOR ANY OR ALL INFORMANTS IF INVOLVED

  SIGNED

  ROWLAND BROTHERS SHOWS, PER MR. TIMKEN

  THE LOS SANTELOS TRIBUNE, PER LOU ELDER

  THE MCFARLEY ESTATE, PER HOWARD ROOK

  “Well?” said Rook hopefully.

  “Ten grand is a lot of money,” Hap Hammett said.

  “And McFarley’s killing was a lot of murder.”

  “Yeah, but—Rook, did you ever happen to have heard the one about how sometimes it’s a good idea to let sleeping dogs lie?”

  “I have. And I’ve also heard that murder will out!”

  11

  Dawn comes and darkness fades, and now the thing he fled

  Is a monkey on his shoulder, clinging, clawing, still Undead.

  —Theodore Orchards

  THAT EVENING HOWIE ROOK finished up what he had to do around the circus first and then took a very quiet departure. There was nothing more he could do here—or so he thought at the time—and his eyelids were gritty with sleeplessness. But the bomb he had planted was steadily ticking away, for whatever that was worth.

  As he came out toward the half-darkened Midway he caught a glimpse of Mary Kelly standing beside the temporary phone booths, presumably waiting for a taxi, or for him, or both. Rook melted into the shadows of the Big
Top again, being in no mood to fraternize with her or for that matter with any of the circus people. His name would, he suspected, already be anathema to them.

  He waited for twenty minutes or more, and then finally saw her depart. For his lack of gallantry and enterprise he had a chill, lonely walk into the town, where he immediately sought his hotel, his tub and his bed. He was asleep almost as soon as he touched the pillow, dreaming not a whit and waking about nine o’clock feeling completely a new man.

  “Today’s the day,” said Rook to himself as he dressed hastily and went out for breakfast. Then he came back to his room and set about his phone calls, his early elation ebbing moment by moment.

  Vonnie McFarley, obviously not at her best this early in the morning, informed him that she had no intentions whatever in participating in any offer of a reward. “Benny agrees with me that the police ought to do their own work,” she said. “Besides, what is Mavis paying you for?”

  “I often wonder,” Rook admitted. “By the way, something occurs to me. When I had my brief visit to your father’s apartment I remember seeing that one of his collections of trial transcripts had been put in the bookcase upside down. I am trying to remember the name of the case. Perhaps you could look it up for me. There might be an angle here somewhere. If on the night of the murder, your father had been impelled to look up some old references, and if he had been interrupted by the person or persons we suspect to be the murderer—see what I mean?”

  “I could try,” said Vonnie.

  “Do,” said Rook. “Anyway, if you want to be in what I suspect will be the last act of this little drama, I suggest that you have your Benny drive to Seaside early this afternoon—what I have in mind will be a curtain raiser for the main show, if things go right. Make it about one o’clock.”

  “But—but I have an appointment…”

  “You have an appointment here,” he told her, and hung up.

  Rook’s luck with Lou Elder was hardly more promising. “Like I told you,” said Lou, obviously hauled out of bed by the call, “no dice on our chipping in on the reward. You’ll get space rates on the story, if there is one.”