Outside the memorial room, Cammy Falconer and the assembled mourners heard the terrible crashing noises begin. It was, as a Methodist minister would later tell his wife, as if “a hundred demons had gotten in that room and gone mad.” Only when the noises stopped did George Hodges and a couple of men dare to force the doors open. They found Wayne huddled in a corner. Vases of flowers had been thrown against the walls, scarring the beautiful mural and slopping water all over the floor. The corpse looked as if Wayne had tried to drag it out of the coffin. Cammy saw her son’s bloody face and fainted.
Wayne was rushed to the hospital and checked in for nervous exhaustion. He was given a private room, pumped full of tranquilizers, and left alone to sleep. During the long night he was visited by two dreams: in the first, a hideous shape stood over his bed, its mouth grinning in the darkness. In the second, an eagle and a snake were locked in mortal combat—the eagle’s wings sought the open sky, but the snake’s darting fangs struck again and again, its poison weakening the eagle and dragging it to the earth. He awakened in a cold sweat, before the dream combat was finished, but this time he knew the snake was winning.
He chewed on tranquilizers and wore dark glasses as he watched the South’s Greatest Evangelist enter the earth at ten o’clock in the morning.
His duty was crystal-clear.
EIGHT
Serpent and Octopus
35
DR. MIRAKLE WAS SLIGHTLY drunk and exuded the aroma of Dant bourbon like a cheap cologne. A flask full of the stuff sat on the table near his elbow. On a plate before him was a soggy hot dog and baked beans. It was lunchtime, and the air was filled with dust as the trucks and cranes set up the sideshows at the Gadsden fairgrounds; in another week the carnival would be heading into Birmingham, and the season would be over.
Billy sat across from Dr. Mirakle beneath the wooden roof of the open-air café. The Ghost Show tent was already up, ready for tonight’s business. Dr. Mirakle looked distastefully at his food and swigged from the flask, then offered it to Billy. “Go ahead, it won’t kill you. God, to eat this food you need a little antibiotic protection! You know, if you expect to stay with the carnival you’d better get used to the taste of alcohol.”
“Stay?” Billy was silent for a moment, watching as the trucks rumbled along the midway with various parts of rides and sideshows. The Octopus was being put together out there, somewhere in the haze of dust. “I wasn’t planning on staying after we leave Birmingham.”
“Don’t you like the carnival?”
“Well… I guess I do, but…there’s work to be done at home.”
“Ah yes.” Mirakle nodded. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed from a long night of driving and then raising the Ghost Show tent. “Your home. I’d forgotten: people have homes. I had thought you might be interested in seeing my workshop, where I put together all the Ghost Show figures. It’s in that house I own in Mobile—a house, mind you, not a home. My home is this.” He motioned toward the midway. “Dust and all, I love it. Next year the Ghost Show will be bigger than ever! It’ll have twice as many ghosts and goblins, twice as many optical effects! I thought…perhaps you’d like to help me with it.”
Billy sipped at a cup of hot black coffee. “Something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time. Maybe I thought you’d get around to telling me, but you haven’t. Just exactly why did you want me to be your assistant this summer?”
“I told you. I had heard about you and your mother, and I…”
“No sir. That’s not all of it, is it? You could’ve hired anybody to help you with the Ghost Show. So why did you search so long and hard for my mother and me?”
The man looked out at the billowing yellow dust and swigged from his flask. His nose was laced with bright red and blue veins, and the whites of his eyes were a sad yellowish color. “Can you really do what…people have said?” he asked finally. “Do you and your mother have the ability to communicate with the dead?”
Billy nodded.
“Many people before you have said they could, too. I’ve never seen anything remotely resembling a ghost. I’ve seen pictures, of course, but those are easily faked. Oh, what I’d give to be able to see…something that would hint of life in the beyond—wherever that might be. You know, there are institutes devoting their whole resources to exploring the question of life after death…did I tell you that already? One is in Chicago, another in New York—I wrote the Chicago people once, and they sent me back a questionnaire, but by then it was too late.”
“What was too late?” Billy asked.
“Things,” Mirakle replied. He looked at Billy for a moment and then nodded. “If you can see apparitions, doesn’t that fill you with a hope that there is an afterlife?”
“I never thought there wasn’t.”
“Ah. Blind faith, eh? And how do you arrive at that conclusion? Your religious beliefs? Your crutch?” Something angry and bitter flared behind Dr. Mirakle’s rheumy eyes for an instant, then subsided. “Damn,” he said softly. “What is Death? The ending of the first act, or the final curtain? Can you tell me?”
Billy said, “No sir.”
“All right, I’ll tell you why I sought you out. Because I wanted desperately to believe in what I heard about you and your mother; I wanted to find someone who might…help me make sense of this preposterous joke we refer to as Life. What’s beyond all this?” He made a wide gesture—the café, the other workers and carny people sitting around talking and eating, the dusty midway.
“I don’t know.”
Dr. Mirakle’s gaze fell to the table. “Well. How would you? But you have a chance to know, Billy, if what you say about yourself is true. My wife, Ellen, had a chance to know, as well.”
“Your wife?” It was the first time the man had mentioned his wife’s name. “Is she in Mobile?”
“No. No, not in Mobile. I visited her one day before I found my way to Hawthorne. Ellen is a permanent resident of the state insane asylum in Tuscaloosa.” He glanced at Billy, his lined face tight and tired. “She…saw something, in that house in Mobile. Or did she? Well, she likes to fingerpaint and comb her hair all day long now, and what she saw that pushed her over the edge is a moot point, isn’t it?”
“What did she see?”
Mirakle took out his wallet and opened it to the photograph of the young man in the service uniform. He slid it across the table to Billy. “Kenneth was his name. Korea. He was killed by mortar fire on…oh, what’s the date? I carried the exact day in my head for so long! Well, it was in August of 1951. I seem to remember that it happened on a Wednesday. I was always told that he favored me. Do you think so?”
“In the eyes, yes.”
Mirakle took the wallet back and put it away. “Wednesday in August. How hot and final that sounds! Our only child. I watched Ellen slowly fall into the bourbon bottle, a tradition I have since clung to wholeheartedly. Is there such a thing as ever really letting a dead child go? Over a year after the burial, Ellen was taking a basket of clothes up the stairs in our house, and right at the top of the stairs stood Kenneth. She said she could smell the pomade in his hair, and he looked at her and said, ‘You worry too much, Ma.’ It was something he used to say to her all the time, to tease her. Then she blinked and he wasn’t there. When I got home, I found she’d been walking up and down those stairs all day hoping she could trigger whatever it had been that had made her see him. But, of course…” He looked up at Billy, who’d been listening intently, and then shifted uneasily in his chair. “I stay in that house for most of the winter, in between seasons. Sometimes I think I’m being watched; sometimes I can imagine Ken calling me, his voice echoing through the hallway. I would sell that house and move away, but…what if Ken is still there, trying to reach me, but I can’t see him?”
“Is that why you want me to go to Mobile with you? To find out if your son is still in that house?”
“Yes. I have to know, one way or the other.”
Billy was pondering the request when three
women, laughing and talking, came in out of the dust. One of them was a lean black girl, the second was a coarse-looking redhead—but the third young woman was a walking vision. One glance and he was riveted; it was the girl whose picture he’d admired outside the Jungle Love sideshow!
She had a smooth, sensual stride, and she wore a pair of blue jeans that looked spray-painted on. Her green T-shirt read I’m a Virgin (This Is a Very Old T-Shirt) and she wore an orange CAT cap over loose blond curls. Billy looked up into her face as she passed the table, and saw greenish gold eyes under blond brows; her aroma lingered like the smell of wheatstraw on a July morning. She carried herself with proud sexuality, and seemed to know that every man in the place was drooling. She was obviously used to being watched. Several roustabouts whistled as the three women went to the counter to order their food.
“Ah, youth!” Even Dr. Mirakle had tried to suck in his gut. “I presume those ladies are dancers in that exhibition down the midway?”
“Yes sir.” Billy hadn’t been inside yet. Usually after a day’s work it was all he could do to fall onto his cot at the back of the Ghost Show tent.
The three women got their food and sat at a nearby table. Billy couldn’t keep his eyes off the one in the CAT cap. He watched as she ate her hot dog with a rather sloppy abandon, talking and laughing with her friends. Her beautiful eyes, he noticed, kept sliding toward two guys at another table. They were staring at her with a silent hunger, just as Billy was.
“She’s got ten years on you, if a day,” Dr. Mirakle said quietly. “If your tongue hangs down any farther you could sweep the floor with it.”
There was something about her that set a fire burning in Billy. He didn’t even hear Dr. Mirakle. She suddenly glanced over in his direction, her eyes almost luminous, and Billy felt a shiver of excitement. She held his gaze for only a second, but it was long enough for wild fantasies to start germinating in his brain.
“I would guess that your…uh…love life has been rather limited,” Dr. Mirakle said. “You’re almost eighteen and I have no right throwing in my two cents, but I did promise your mother I’d look after you. So here’s my advice, and take it or leave it: Some women are Wedgwood, and some are Tupperware. That is the latter variety. Billy? Are you listening to me?”
“I’m going to get some more coffee.” He took his cup to the counter for a refill, passing right by her table.
“Live and learn, son,” Dr. Mirakle said grimly.
Billy got his fresh cup of coffee and came back by the table again. He was so nervous he was about to shake it out of the cup, but he was determined to say something to the girl. Something witty, something that would break the ice. He stood a few feet away from them for a moment, trying to conjure up words that would impress her; then he stepped toward her, and she looked up quizzically at him, her gaze sharpening.
“Hi there,” he said. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”
“Take a hike,” she said, as the other two giggled.
And suddenly a flask was thrust under her nose. “Drink?” Dr. Mirakle asked. “J.W. Dant, finest bourbon in the land.”
She looked at them both suspiciously, then sniffed at the flask. “Why not?” She took a drink and passed it around the table.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Reginald Mirakle, and this is my right-hand man, Mr. Billy Creekmore. What Mr. Creekmore meant to offer you lovely ladies is an open invitation to visit the Ghost Show at your convenience.”
“The Ghost Show?” the redhead asked. “What kind of crap is that?”
“You mean that funky little tent on the midway? Yeah, I’ve seen it.” The blonde stretched, her unfettered breasts swelling against her shirt. “What do you do, tell fortunes?”
“Better than that, fair lady. We probe into the world of spirits and speak to the dead.”
She laughed. There were more lines in her face than Billy had thought, but he found her beautiful and sexually magnetic. “Forget it! I’ve got enough hassles with the living to screw around with the dead!”
“I… I’ve seen your picture,” Billy said, finally finding his voice. “Out in front of the show.”
Again, she seemed to pull away from him. “Are you the bastard who’s been stealin’ my pictures?”
“No.”
“Better not be. They cost a lot of money.”
“Well…it’s not me, but I can understand why. I…think you’re really pretty.”
She gave him the faintest hint of a smile. “Why, thank you.”
“I mean it. I really think you’re pretty.” He might have gone on like that, had Dr. Mirakle not nudged him in the ribs.
“Are you an Indian, kid?” she asked.
“Part Indian. Choctaw.”
“Choctaw,” she repeated, and her smile was a little brighter. “You look like an Indian. I’m part French”—the other women hooted—“and part Irish. My name’s Santha Tully. Those two bitches across the table don’t have names, ’cause they were hatched from buzzard eggs.”
“Are you all dancers?”
“We’re entertainers,” the redhead told him.
“I’ve been wanting to see the show, but the sign says you have to be twenty-one to get in.”
“How old are you?”
“Almost eighteen. Practically.”
She gave him a quick appraisal. He was a nice-looking boy, she thought. Really nice, with those strange dark hazel eyes and curly hair. He reminded her, in a way, of Chalky Davis. Chalky’s eyes had been dark brown, but this boy was taller than Chalky had been. The news of Chalky’s death—murder, she’d heard—still disturbed her, though they hadn’t slept together but two or three times. Santha wondered if this boy was involved in any of the creepy things that had been happening to her in the last few weeks; somebody had put a half-dozen dead roses on the steps of her trailer, and she had heard strange noises late at night as if someone were prowling around. That’s why she didn’t like to sleep alone. One night last week, she could’ve sworn that somebody had been inside her trailer and gone through her costumes.
But this boy’s eyes were friendly. She saw in them the unmistakable sheen of desire. “Come see the show, both of you. Tell the old bat out front that Santha sent you. Okay?”
Dr. Mirakle took the empty flask back. “We’ll look forward to it.”
Santha looked up into Billy’s eyes. She decided she wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers. He seemed nervous and shy and…virgin? she wondered. “Come by the show, Choctaw,” she said, and winked. “Real soon.”
Dr. Mirakle almost had to drag him out.
Santha laughed. The two cute roustabouts were still eyeing her. “Virgin,” she said. “Bet you twenty bucks.”
“No takers,” the black girl told her.
And in the swirl of dust spun up by the heavy trucks Dr. Mirakle shook his head and muttered, “Entertainers indeed.”
36
“LAST SHOW OF THE night!” the platinum-blond female barker was bellowing through a microphone. “Hey you in the hat! How about a thrill, huh? Well come on in! It’s all right here, five lovely sensually young girls who just loooove to do their thang! Hey mister, why don’t you leave your wife out here and come on in? I guarantee he’ll be a better man for it, honey! Last show of the night! Hear those drums beat? The natives are restless tonight, and you never can tell who they’re gonna do… I mean what they’re gonna do, ha ha!”
Billy stood with the rest of the interested males grouped around the Jungle Love show. He wanted to go in there, but he was as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rockers. A man wearing a straw hat and a flashy printed shirt drawled, “Hey, lady! They dance nude in there?”
“Does a big bear shit in the woods?”
“You don’t dance nude do you, big mamma?”
She let out a husky laugh that shook her rouged cheeks. “Don’t you wish, little boy? Last show of the night! Fifty cents, fifty cents! Half a dollar’ll get you in, you provide your own sin! Come on, ste
p in line!”
Billy paused. Dr. Mirakle had told him that if he absolutely insisted in coming to the “strip show,” then he should put his wallet in a place where light fingers couldn’t get to it, and he shouldn’t sit next to anybody who put a hat in his lap.
When Billy had passed the Octopus he felt a rush of dread through him, and thought he heard awful distant shrieks emanating from the covered gondola. But no one else seemed to hear them. Buck had given him a baleful glare, warning him to stay away. In motion, the Octopus cluttered and groaned, the tired engine snorting steam; the green tarpaulin covering the scabrous gondola cracked in the wind. As far as Billy knew, Buck never took the tarpaulin off; the gondola itself had to be attached to the machine, otherwise the Octopus would be off-balance and would go pin wheeling across the midway like a huge, deadly top. Buck was trying to keep riders out of that gondola, Billy knew, because the man must be fearful of what might happen should anyone get inside it. Maybe Buck was trying his best to keep it muzzled, Billy thought. What if, for lack of steady victims, it was feeding on Buck’s soul and body—taking an arm, slicing a finger or an ear—while the dark ripples of its power strengthened and spread?
“Fifty cents, fifty cents! Don’t be shy boys, come on in!”
At least in there he could lose himself, Billy thought. He moved forward, and the barker motioned toward a cigar box. “Fifty cents, hon. If you’re twenty-one I’m little Orphan Annie, but what the hell!…”
Inside, in a smoky haze of green light, a dozen long benches faced a stage with a garishly painted backdrop of twisted jungle foliage. The drumbeats bellowed from a speaker hidden off to the left. He sat in a center row as the place filled up with hooting, shouting men. They started clapping in time with the drumbeats, and there were hoarse yells for the show to begin. Suddenly the blond barker was up on the stage, and the drumbeats ceased. She said through a microphone that buzzed and warbled with feedback, “Okay, hold it down! We’re gonna start in a minute! Right now I want you to take a look at these playing cards I hold in my hand, but don’t look too close unless you want your eyebrows burned off! Yessir, straight from Paris, France, showing the kind of pictures that make a man want to get up and crow! You can’t buy these in the local Woolworth’s! But you can buy ’em right here, for only two dollars and seventy-five cents! Yessir, they know how to play cards in Paris!…”
Mystery Walk Page 26
