Nightmare Alley

by William Lindsay Gresham

  Stan leaned back and let the sun strike through his eyelids. He was gaining. A week had filled him out. Almost back to his old weight. His eyes had cleared and his hands hardly shook at all. He hadn’t had anything but beer in a week. A guy who’s good at the cold reading will never starve. When Joe turned back to the porch Stanton slid the red cylinders from the chair to his pants pocket.

  The truck bounced off the side road in a cloud of dust, white under the full moon, and turned into a state highway. Zeena drove carefully to spare the truck and Joe sat next to her, one arm on her shoulders to steady himself when they stopped suddenly or slowed down. Stan was next to the door of the cab, his palmistry banners in a roll between his knees.

  Town lights glittered ahead as they topped a gradual rise. They coasted down it.

  “Almost there, Stan.”

  “You’ll make it, kid,” Joe said. “McGraw’s a hard cookie, but he ain’t a nickel-nurser once you got him sold.”

  Stan was quiet, watching the bare streets they were rolling through. The bus station was a drugstore which kept open all night. Zeena stopped down the block and Stan opened the door and slid out, lifting out the banners.

  “So long, Zeena—Joe. This—this was the first break I’ve had in a hell of a while. I don’t know how—”

  “Forget it, Stan. Joe and me was glad to do what we could. A carny’s a carny and when one of us is jammed up we got to stick together.”

  “I’ll try riding the baggage rack on this bus, I guess.”

  Zeena let out a snort. “I knew I’d forgot something. Here, Stan.” From the pocket of her overalls she took a folded bill and, leaning over Joe, pressed it into the mentalist’s hand. “You can send it back at the end of the season. No hurry.”

  “Thanks a million.” The Great Stanton turned, with the rolled canvas under his arm, and walked away toward the drugstore. Halfway down the block he paused, straightened, threw back his shoulders and then went on, holding himself like an emperor.

  Zeena started the truck and turned it around. They drove out of town in a different direction and then took a side road which cut into the highway further south, turning off it to mount a bluff overlooking the main drag. “Let’s wait here, snooks, and try to get a peek into the bus when it goes by. I feel kind of funny, not being able to see him to the station and wait until it came along. Don’t seem hospitable.”

  “Only smart thing to do, Zee. A fellow as hot as him.”

  She got out of the cab and her husband hopped after her; they crossed a field and sat on the bank. Above them the sky had clouded over, the moon was hidden by a thick ceiling.

  “You reckon he’ll make it, Joe?”

  Plasky shifted his body on his hands and leaned forward. Far down the pale concrete strip the lights of a bus rose over the grade. It picked up speed, tires singing on the roadbed, as it bore down toward them. Through its windows they could make out the passengers—a boy and a girl, in a tight clinch on the back seat. One old man already asleep. It roared below the bank.

  Stanton Carlisle was sharing a seat with a stout woman in a gay flowered-print dress and a white sailor straw hat. He was holding her right hand, palm up, and was pointing to the lines.

  Joe Plasky sighed as the bus tore past them into darkness with a fading gleam of ruby taillights. “I don’t know what’ll happen to him,” he said softly, “but that guy was never born to hang.”

  CARD XXII

  The Hanged Man

  hangs head downward from the living wood.

  IT WAS a cheap straw hat, but it added class. He was the type of guy who could wear a hat. The tie chain came from the five-and-ten, but with the suit and the white shirt it looked like the real thing. The amber mirror behind the bar always makes you look tanned and healthy. But he was tanned. The mustache was blackened to match the hair-dyeing job Zeena had done.

  “Make mine a beer, pal.”

  He took it to a table, put his hat on an empty chair and unfolded a newspaper, pretending to read it. Forty-five minutes before the local bus left. They don’t know who they’re looking for up there—no prints, no photo. Stay out of that state and they’ll look for you till Kingdom Come.

  The beer was bitter and he began to feel a little edge from it. This was all right. Keep it at beer for a while. Get a stake, working the mitt camp. Get a good wad in the grouchbag and then try working Mexico. They say the language is a cinch to learn. And the damn country’s wide open for ragheads. They advertise in all the papers down there. Give that mess with the cop time to cool and I can come back in a few years and start working California. Take a Spanish name maybe. There’s a million chances.

  A guy who’s good at the cold reading will never starve.

  He opened the newspaper, scanning the pictures, thinking his way along through the days ahead. I’ll have to hustle the readings and put my back into it. In a carny mitt camp you got to spot them quick, size ’em up and unload it in a hurry. Well, I can do it. I should have stayed right with the carny.

  Two pages of the paper stuck and he went back and pried them apart, not caring what was on them, just so as not to skip any. In Mexico …

  The picture was alone on the page, up near the top. He looked at it, concentrating on the woman’s face, his glance merging the screen of black dots that composed it, filling in from memory its texture, contour, color. The scent of the sleek gold hair came back to him, the sly twist of her little tongue. The man looked twenty years older; he looked like a death’s head—scrawny neck, flabby cheeks …

  They were together. They were together. Read it. Read what they’re doing.

  PSYCHOLOGIST WEDS MAGNATE

  In a simple ceremony. The bride wore a tailored…Best man was Melvin Anderson, long-time friend and advisor…Honeymoon cruise along the coast of Norway …

  Somebody was shaking him, talking at him. Only it wasn’t any grass tuft—it was a beer glass. “Jees, take it easy, bud. How’d ya bust it? Ya musta set it down too hard. We ain’t responsible, you go slinging glasses around and get cut. Why don’t ya go over to the drugstore. We ain’t responsible …”

  Darkness of street darkness with the night’s eyes up above the roof cornices oh Jesus he was bleeding suitable for a full evening’s performance gimme a rye and plain water, yeah, a rye make it a double.

  It’s nothing, I caught it on a nail, doc. No charge? Fine, doc. Gimme a rye—yeah, and plain water better make it a double rye and plain water seeping into the tire tracks where the grownups were everywhere.

  I ain’t pushing, bud, let’s have no hard feelings, I’m your friend, my friend I get the impression that when you were a lad there was some line of work or profession you wanted to follow and furthermore you carry in your pocket a foreign coin or lucky piece you can see Sheriff that the young lady cannot wear ordinary clothes because thousands of volts of electricity cover her body like a sheath and the sequins rough against his fingers as he unhooked the smoothness of her breasts trembling pressing victory into we’ll make a team right to the top and they give you a handout like a tramp at a back door but the doors have been closed, gentlemen, let them look for threads till Kingdom Come and the old idiot gaping there in the red light of the votive candle oh Jesus you frozen-faced bitch give me that dough yeah make it a rye, water on the side …

  You could hardly see the platform for the smoke and the waiter wore a butcher’s apron his sleeves were rolled up and his arms had muscles like Bruno’s only they were covered with black hair you had to pay him every time and the drinks were small get out of this crummy joint and find another one but the dame was singing while the guy in a purple silk shirt rattled on the runt piano the old bag had on a black evening dress and a tiara of rhinestones

  Put your arms around me, honey, hold me tight!

  She drew the mike toward her and her tits bulged on each side of the rod Christ what an old bag …

  Cuddle up and cuddle up with all your might!

  She rubbed her belly against the microphone …<
br />
  Oh! Oh! I never knew

  any boy

  like

  you!

  “Waiter—waiter, tell the singer to let me buy her a drink …”

  When you look at me my heart…begins to float,

  Then it starts a-rocking like a…a motor boat!

  Oh! Oh! I never knew

  Any boy…like…you!

  “Whew, I’m all winded. Ya like that number? The old ones always the best, ain’t they? Thanks, sport—same as ever for me, Mike. Ain’t I seen you in here before, honey? Gee, you been missin’ a good time …”

  All hallways look alike and the lights burning black dressers and yellow bedspreads kiss me “Yeah, sure, honey, keep your pants on long enough for me to catch my breath. Them stairs— whew!”

  Smell of face powder sweat perfume “Yeah, honey, I’ll peel. Wait a minute, can’t you? Never mind a chaser, just lean on the bottle, sport. Boy, this ain’t bad. C’mon over and get friendly, honey, mamma’s going to treat you right. Gee, ain’t you the handsome one! Hey, honey, how about giving me my present now, huh? Where’d you get all them dimes? Holy gee, you musta stuck up a streetcar company. No more jumpsteady for me, honey, let’s ‘make a baby’—I got to get back.”

  Groping in the dark he found it, lying on its side there was still a drink in it oh Jesus I got to get out of here before they see this room …

  The sun blinding him, feel in the lining, maybe some of them slipped down…one more roll of dimes…tie them in the tail of the undershirt this damn fleabag’s a fleabag but the bottle don’t need any corkscrew and to hell with water I fixed ’em all, the bastards, they’ll never find me…covered my tracks too smart for ’em the bastards I bashed him right in the face and he fell back on the divan with his mouth hanging open the old bastard never knew what hit him but I’ll slip them yet and work it in a Hindu outfit with dark makeup but there was one more drink the damn thieves somebody sneak in here and lap it up let me out of here got to get air oh Jesus the goddamned chairs are sliding back and forth back and forth and if I hold on tight to the carpet I won’t slide and hit the wall with his fist beating away on the mantelpiece she sits straight up on the edge of the sofa looking at herself in the glass sign in front of the church when they boarded up the attic door and his hands bunching up the tablecloth as I rammed it into him, Gyp. That fat bastard I hope I blinded him following the star that burns in his lantern head down from the living wood.

  In the office trailer McGraw was typing out a letter when he heard a tap on the screen door. He shaded his eyes against the desk lamp and said out of the side of his mouth, “Yeah, what?”

  “Mis’er McGraw?”

  “Yeah, yeah. What d’ya want? I’m busy.”

  “Wanna talk t’you, ’bout a ’traction. Added ’traction.”

  McGraw said, “Come on in. What you got to sell?”

  The bum was hatless, shirt filthy. Under his arm he carried a roll of canvas. “Allow me t’introduce myself—Allah Rahged, top-money mitt reader. Got m’banners all ready t’go t’work. Best cold reader in the country. Lemme give you demonstration.”

  McGraw took the cigar out of his mouth. “Sorry, brother, I’m full up. And I’m busy. Why don’t you rent a vacant store and work it solo?” He leaned forward, rolling up the paper in the typewriter. “I mean it, bud. We don’t hire no boozers! Jesus! You smell like you pissed your pants. Go on, beat it!”

  “Jus’ give me chance make a demonstration. Real, old-time, A-number-one mitt reader. Take one look at the mark, read past, present—”

  McGraw was letting his cold little eyes slide over the man whose head came within an inch of the trailer roof. The hair was dirty black, but at the temples and over the forehead was a thin line of yellow. Dyed. A lammister.

  The carny boss suddenly smiled up at his visitor. “Take a seat, bud.” From a cupboard behind him he lifted a bottle and two shot glasses. “Have a snort?”

  “I thank you, sir. Very refreshing. I’ll need only a fly and a bridge table—hang my banners on the edges of the fly.”

  McGraw shook his head. “I don’t like a mitt camp. Too much trouble with the law.”

  The bum was eyeing the bottle, his red eyes fastened on it.

  “Have another? No, I don’t like mitt camps. Old stuff. Always got to have something new. Sensational.”

  The other nodded absently, watching the bottle. McGraw put it back in the cupboard and stood up. “Sorry, bud. Some other outfit, maybe. But not us. Good night.”

  The rum-dum pushed himself up, hands on the chair arms, and stood, swaying, blinking down at McGraw. Then he ran the back of his hand across his mouth and said, “Yeah. Sure.” He stumbled, reached the screen door, and pulled it open, gripping it with his hand to keep his balance. He had forgotten the soiled canvas banners with their gaudily painted hands. “Well, so long, mister.”

  “Hey, wait a minute.”

  The lush was already back in the chair, leaning forward, his hands spread against his chest, elbows on the chair arms, head lolling. “Hey, mister, how ’bout ’nother li’l shot ’fore I go?”

  “Yeah, sure. But I just happened to think of something. I got one job you might take a crack at. It ain’t much, and I ain’t begging you to take it; but it’s a job. Keep you in coffee and cakes and a shot now and then. What do you say? Of course, it’s only temporary—just until we get a real geek.”

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Cover image: Bruce Davidson, The Dwarf, Clyde Beatty Circus, Palisades, New Jersey, 1958; Magnum Photos

  Cover design: Katy Homans

  Copyright © 1946 by William Lindsay Gresham; copyright renewed © 1974 by Renee Gresham

  Introduction copyright © 2010 by Nick Tosches

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gresham, William Lindsay, 1909–1962.

  Nightmare alley / by William Lindsay Gresham ; introduction by Nick Tosches.

  p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)

  ISBN 978-1-59017-348-0 (alk. paper)

  1. Circus performers—Fiction. 2. Mediums—Fiction. 3. Swindlers and

  swindling—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3513.R625N54 2010

  813’.52—dc22

  2009051327

  eISBN 978-1-59017-428-9

  v1.0

  For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:

  Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014