Something hit the crowd at its edge and mashed it forward and to each side. Then the blue legs moved in.
“I told you to beat it out of town.”
The face of the cop seemed a mile above him, as if it were looking over the rim of a well.
Same cop. Two-dollar fine and get out of town.
“Wheeeeeeee! Ho—ho. Hah. Officer … officer … whahhoooooooo!”
The hand that jerked him to his feet seemed to plunge out of the sky. “I told you to scram, bum. Now you going to walk down to the lockup or you going on a stretcher?”
A quick thrust and his hand was twisted halfway up his back; he was walking bent over to keep from getting his wrist broken. Through waves of laughter the world seeped in, coming in slices, as if the laughter split at the seams and showed a little raw and bloody reality before it closed up again.
“Where we going, officer? No, no, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Down cellar?”
“Shut up, bum. Keep walking or you’ll get your arm broke. I’ve got a good mind to work you over before we get down there.”
“But, officer, they’ve seen me once down there. They’ll get awfully tired of seeing me. They’ll think it ridiculous, me showing up there so often. Won’t they? Won’t they? Won’t they? You’ve got no rope around my neck. How can you be sure I won’t run? Wait for the moon—it’s coming out from under the rain pretty soon; any minute now. But you don’t understand that. Officer, wait …”
They had left the crowd and cut down a side street. To the left was an alley, dark, but with a light at the other end of it. The cop shifted his grip on the prisoner’s hand, letting go for a fraction of a second, and the pitchman spun free and began to run. He was sailing through air; he couldn’t feel his feet touching the stones. And behind him the heavy splat of shoes on cobbles. He raced toward the light at the end of the alley, but there was nothing to be afraid of. He had always been here, running down the alley and it didn’t matter; this was all there was any time, anywhere, just an alley and a light and the footsteps spanging on the cobbles but they never catch you, they never catch you, they never catch—A blow between his shoulders knocked him forward and he saw the stones, in the faint light ahead, coming up toward him, his own hands spread out, fingers bent a little on the left hand, thumbs at an eager angle, all spraddled out as if he were making shadows on a wall, of two roosters’ heads, the thumbs forming the beaks and the spread fingers the notches of the combs.
The nightstick had struck him, whirling through the space between the two men. It bounded off, hitting a brick wall with a clear, wooden ping as the cobbles met his hands and the jar of the fall snapped his neck back. He was on his hands and knees when the foot caught him in the ribs and sent him sprawling on his side.
The great oval face ducked out of sight. The cop had bent to pick up the nightstick and the top of his cap cut off the sight of the face, above its V of shirt and black tie. That was all you could see.
He heard the shattering crack of the nightstick across his shoulders before the pain fought its way down the clogged nerves and went off, spraying around inside his brain like a hose jet of hot steel. He heard his own breath pop out between his teeth and he drew his feet under him. He was halfway erect when the stick knocked the rest of the breath out of him, smashing against his ribs.
It was somebody else’s voice. “Officer … oh, Jesus … I ain’t done nothing … gimme a break … oh, Jesus …”
“I’ll give ye a break. I’ll break every bone in your head, you stinking crumb. You as’d for it. Now you’re gonna get it.”
The stick landed again and the pain was white and incandescent this time as it slowly slid up his spine toward the brain on top.
The world came back and Stanton Carlisle, his mind sharpened to a point, saw where he was. He saw the lift of the cop’s upper lip, revealing a gold crown. And in the faint light, behind him now, he noticed that the cop needed a shave. He was not over forty; but his hair and the beard beginning to sprout over the jowls were pearly. Like fungus on a corpse. At that instant pain from the blow across his buttocks reached his mind and a thousand tumblers fell into place; a door swung open.
Stan closed in, clamping one hand on the cop’s lapel. His other hand crossed it, under the jowls, seizing the opposite lapel in its fist. Then, twisting sideways to protect his groin, Stanton began to squeeze. He heard the nightstick drop and felt the big hands tearing at his forearms, but the harder they pulled the tighter his fists dug into the throat. The day-old beard was like sandpaper on the backs of his hands.
Stan felt the wall of the alley jar against his shoulder, felt his feet leave the ground and the dark weight fall on him; but the only life in him now was pouring out through his hands and wrists.
The mountain on him wasn’t moving. It was resting. Stan got one foot free and rolled both of them over so he was on top. The massive body was perfectly still. He tightened the choke still more, until his knuckles felt as if they would burst, and he began to tap the cop’s head against the cobbles. Rap. Rap. Rap. He liked the sound. Faster.
Then his hands let go of themselves and he stood up, the hands falling to his sides. They wouldn’t work any more, wouldn’t obey him.
A bundle of astro-readings had fallen out and lay scattered on the stones, but he couldn’t pick them up. He walked, very straight and precise, toward the light at the other end of the alley. Everything was sharp and clear now and he didn’t even need a drink any more.
The freights would be risky. He might try the baggage rack of a long-haul bus, under the tarpaulin. He had traveled there once before.
Nothing more to bother about. For the cop was dead.
I can kill him again. I can kill him again. Any time he starts after me I can keep killing him. He’s mine. My own personal corpse.
They’ll bury him, just like you bury a stiff, clotted handkerchief.
I can kill him again.
But he won’t come again. He’s a dead pigeon.
I can kill him again.
But he’s dead from a bum ticker.
I can kill him.
CARD XXI
Strength
A rose-crowned woman closes a lion’s jaws with her bare hands.
IN THE evening light a tall figure, gaunt, with matted yellow hair, leaned over the top fence rail, watching a man and woman planting corn. The woman thrust a hoe handle into the earth and the man, who seemed to have no legs, hopped along on his hands, dropping grains of corn into the hills and smoothing the earth over them.
“Wait a minute, Joe. There’s somebody wants us.”
The big woman strode over plowed ground, pulling off her gloves. “I’m sorry, bud, but we ain’t got nothing in the icebox to give you for a lump. And I ain’t got time now to fix you a sit-down. You wait till I get my pocketbook from the house and I’ll let you have four bits. There’s a lunch wagon down the road.” She stopped and caught her breath, then said hoarsely, “Glory be, it’s Stan Carlisle!” Over her shoulder she called, “Joe! Joe! Come here this minute!”
The hobo was leaning on the fence, letting it carry his weight. “Hi, Zeena. Saw your ad—magazine.”
The man drew near them, hopping along on his hands. His legs, twisted into a knot out of the way, were hidden by a burlap sack which he had drawn over them and tied around his waist. He swung up and sat looking at Stan silently, smiling as Lazarus must have smiled, newly risen. But his eyes were wary.
Zeena pushed back her straw hat and recovered her voice. “Stanton Carlisle, I swore if I ever set eyes on you again I’d sure give you a piece of my mind. Why, that child was pretty near out of her head, time she got to the carny. Everybody there thought she was touched, way she’d stumble around. I had her working the sword-box layout and she could just about step in and out of it, she was that bad. You sure done yourself proud by that girl, I must say. Oh, you was going to be mighty biggety— make a star out of her and everything. Well, you got there. But what good did it ever do her? Don’t t
hink I’ve ever forgot it.” Her voice faltered and she sniffed, rubbing the back of a work-glove across her nose. “And what do you do but end up putting that kid, that sweet kid, on the turf—same as any two-bit pimp. It ain’t any fault of yours that the kid pulled out of it so good. Oh, no. I hope she’s forgot every idea she ever had about you. It ain’t your fault she’s married now to a grand guy and’s got the cutest little kid of her own you ever laid eyes on. Oh, no, you done your best to land that girl in a crib house.”
She stopped for breath, then went on in a different tone, “Oh, for God’s sake, Stan, come in the house and let me fry you a slice of ham. You look like you ain’t had a meal in a week.”
The hobo wasn’t listening. His knees had sagged; his chin scraped the fence rail and then he sank in a heap, like a scarecrow lifted from its pole.
Zeena dropped her gloves and began to climb the fence. “Joe, go down and hold the gate open. Stan’s passed out. We got to get him in the house.”
She lifted the emaciated body easily in her arms and carried it, legs dangling, toward the cottage.
Morning sun struck through the dotted curtains of the kitchen, falling on the golden hair of a man at the table, busy shoveling ham and eggs into his mouth. He stopped chewing and took a swallow of coffee.
“… that skull buster was known all the way up and down the line. He beat two old stiffs to death in the basement of the jug last year. I knew when he got me up that alley that the curtain was going down.”
Zeena turned from the stove with a skillet in one hand and a cake turner in the other. “Take it easy, Stan. Here’s some more eggs. I reckon you got room for ’em.” She filled his plate again.
Near the door Joe Plasky sat on a cushion, sorting mail into piles by states. It came in bundles; the mailman left it in a small barrel out on the road. On the barrel was painted: “ZEENA— PLASKY.” They had outgrown an R.F.D. box long ago.
“He started working me over with the club.” Stan paused with a forkful of egg in the air, looking at Joe. “So I let him have it. I clamped the nami juji on him and hung on. He went out for good.”
Zeena stopped, holding the cake turner. She said, “Oh, my God.” Then her eyes moved to Joe Plasky, who went on calmly sorting mail.
Joe said, “If it happened the way you tell it, kid, it was him or you. That Jap choke is a killer, all right. But you’re a hot man, Stan. You’ve got to move quiet. And fast.”
Zeena shook herself. “Well, he ain’t moving till we get him fed up some. The boy was starved. Have some more coffee, Stan. But, Joe, what’s he going to do? We can’t—”
Joe smiled a little wider but his eyes were dark and turned inward, thinking. Finally he said, “They got your prints up there?”
Stan swallowed. “No. They don’t print you on vag and peddling falls. Not in that town, anyway. But they know it was a blond pitchman working horoscopes.”
Joe thought some more. “They didn’t mug you?”
“No. Just a fine and a boot in the tail.”
The half-man acrobat pushed aside the piles of letters and hopped over to the stairway, which led to the attic bedrooms. He swung up the stairs and out of sight; overhead they could hear a scrape as he crossed the floor.
Stan pushed back his plate and took a cigarette from the pack on the window sill. “Zeena, I’ve been living in a goddamned nightmare—a dream. I don’t know what ever got into me. When vaudeville conked out we could have worked the night clubs. I don’t know yet how I ever got tangled up with the spook racket.”
The big woman was piling dishes in the sink. She was silent.
Stanton Carlisle’s voice went on, getting back something of the old resonance. “I don’t know what ever got into me. I don’t expect Molly ever to forgive me. But I’m glad the kid got herself a good spot. I hope he’s a swell guy. She deserves it. Don’t tell her you ever saw me. I want her to forget me. I had my chance and I fluffed, when it came to Molly. I’ve fluffed everything.”
Zeena turned back to him, her hands shining from the soapy water. “What you going to do, Stan, when you leave here?”
He was staring at the ember of his cigarette. “Search me, pal. Keep on bumming, I guess. The pitch is out. Everything’s out. Good God, I don’t know—”
On the stairs Joe Plasky made a scraping noise, coming down slowly. When he entered the kitchen he held a large roll of canvas under his arm. He spread it on the linoleum and unrolled it in two sections—gaudily painted banners showing enormous hands, the mounts and lines in different colors with the characteristics ascribed to each.
“Sophie Eidelson left these with us last season,” he said. “Thought maybe you could use ’em. McGraw and Kauffman’s is playing a town down the line from here—be there all this week. There’s worse places to hole up in than a carny.”
Zeena dried her hands hastily and said, “Stan, give me a cigarette, quick. I’ve got it! Joe’s got the answer. You could work it in a Hindu makeup. I’ve got an old blue silk kimono I can fix over for a robe. I reckon you know how to tie a turban.”
The Great Stanton ran his hands over his hair. Then he knelt on the floor beside the half-man, pulling the palmistry banners further open and examining them. In his face Zeena could see the reflection of the brain working behind it. It seemed to have come alive out of a long sleep.
“Jesus God, this is manna from heaven, Joe. All I’ll need is a bridge table and a canvas fly. I can hang the banners from the fly. They’re looking for a pitchman, not a mitt reader. Oh, Jesus, here we go.”
Joe Plasky moved away and picked up a burlap sack containing outgoing mail. He slung it over his shoulder and held the top of it in his teeth, setting off for the door on his hands. “Got to leave this for the pickup,” he said, around the burlap. “You folks stay here—I’ve got it.”
When he had gone Zeena poured herself a cup of coffee and offered one to Stan, who shook his head. He was still examining the banners.
“Stan—” She began to talk as if there was something which had to be said, something which was just for the two of them to hear. She spoke quickly, before Joe could return. “Stan, I want you to tell me something. It’s about Pete. It don’t hurt me to talk about him now. That was so long ago it seems like Pete never hit the skids at all. Seems like he died while we were still at the top of the heap. But I got to thinking—a kid will do an awful lot to lay some gal he’s all steamed up about. And you were a kid, Stan, and hadn’t ever had it before. I expect old Zeena looked pretty good to you in them days, too. Pete wouldn’t ever have drank that bad alky. And you didn’t know it was poison. Now come clean.”
The Great Stanton stood up and thrust his hands into his pockets. He moved until the sun, shining through the window of the kitchen door, struck his hair. Soap and hot water had turned it from mud to gold again. His voice this time filled the kitchen; subtly, without increasing in power, it vibrated.
“Zeena, before you say another word, do me one favor. You remember Pete’s last name?”
“Well—Well, he never used it. He wrote it on our marriage license. Only I ain’t thought of it for years. Yes, I can remember it.”
“And it’s something I could never guess. Am I right? Will you concentrate on that name?”
“Stan— What—”
“Concentrate. Does it begin with K?”
She nodded, frowning, her lips parted.
“Concentrate. K…R…U…M—”
“Oh, my God!”
“The name was Krumbein!”
Joe Plasky pushed at the door and Stan moved aside. Zeena buried her mouth in the coffee cup and then set it down and hurried out of the room.
Joe raised his eyebrows.
“We were cutting up old times.”
“Oh. Well, in that outfit I know McGraw a little—only you better not use my name, Stan. A guy as hot as you.”
“What’s calluses on the ends of the fingers, left hand?”
“Plays a stringed instrument.”
; “What’s a callus here, on the right thumb?”
“A stonecutter.”
“How about a callus in the bend of the first finger, right hand?”
“A barber—from stropping the razor.”
“You’re getting it, Stan. There’s lots more that I forget—I ain’t read mitts steady in many a year. If Sophie was here she could give you hundreds of things like that. She’s got a whole notebook full of stuff. It locks with a key. But you’ll make out all right. You always could read.”
Zeena and Joe were sitting in the shade of the porch, opening letters and shaking out dimes. The woman said, “Hand me some more Scorpios, hon. I’m fresh out.”
Joe ripped open a carton. The astrological booklets came in stamped-and-sealed envelopes. They addressed them quickly with fountain pens and threw them in a wire basket to be bundled up later for the postman.
Zeena said, “Beats all, Stan, how this mail-order business snow-balls up. We put in one little ad and plowed back the dimes into the business. Now we got five chains of magazines covered and we can’t hardly stop shaking out dimes to tend to the place here.”
The Great Stanton reached into a saucepan by the side of the steamer chair where he lay in the sun. Taking a handful of dimes he counted out five batches of ten and rolled them into a red paper wrapper—five dollars’ worth. The little red cylinders piled up in a china bowl on the other side of the chair, but he had carelessly allowed several to fall beside him. They were hidden between his thigh and the canvas chair-seat.
Joe hopped off the porch and over toward Stan, holding a basket of dimes in his teeth. He emptied them into the saucepan, smiling. “Little more and we’re going to buy another place—farm next to this one. We’ve pretty near got this place mortgage-free. Long as people want horoscopes, I mean, astro-readings—you can’t call ’em horoscopes through the mail unless they’re drawn to the hour and minute of birth—long as they keep going like this we’re set. And if they slack off, we’ve still got the farm.”
Nightmare Alley Page 29