“Too bad,” I responded, never taking my eyes off of hers. It unnerved her. Have you ever tried to keep your eyes on the person you are talking to? Americans aren’t used to it. They look away every now and then to fight their unease. Especially when you are a carnie. Veronica was no exception.
“Alright. What do you want to know regarding my…what was it? Transient lifestyle?” Hmmm…when you add the word lifestyle it made me sound like a hobo sporting platform sandals and lime green eye shadow.
“How long have you been employed by the…” Ms. Gale stumbled over her words in what appeared to be an attempt towards political correctness. “Um…”
“How long have I been a carnie?” I stepped in to rescue her. Now, why did I do that? I certainly didn’t owe this woman an explanation of my chosen profession. In spite of myself, I answered. “Almost twelve years now. I’ve worked with a number of outfits – this one for two years.”
“And what did you do before that?”
“I was a student.” Actually, I still consider myself to be a student. But for the sake of this interview, I thought I’d keep it simple.
Veronica looked me in the eyes. She didn’t seem to believe that twelve years ago I was in high school. I could’ve helped her out, but I held back.
“How old are you?” she asked. Clearly, this woman wasn’t one for social graces. I couldn’t figure out why that was. Usually I’m good at reading people. But was she asking me as a researcher or out of her own personal curiosity?
“I’m thirty-eight.” I could see her doing the math in her head. Eventually, the question would come up and it would confuse her. For some reason, I wanted to let her off the hook. What was wrong with me? I could see Sartre rolling her eyes back in her cage in the trailer.
“I have a postgraduate degree in philosophy. I spent most of my twenties in school. Like you,” I answered before she asked.
“Like me? What do you mean?” Veronica sat straight up.
I leaned forward and looked her in the eyes again. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you appear to be about twenty-six or so. My guess is you have been in school ever since kindergarten. I’m also guessing you’ll go for your PhD. as soon as you are through with your thesis.”
I expected her to be angry. Hell, I expected her to throw her beer in my face and walk off. She didn’t.
“Is it that easy to see?” Her question was strangely straightforward.
Shaking my head, I let her off the hook. “No. It just takes one to know one. I did the same thing until I ran out of degrees. Then I ran away and joined the carnival.”
Veronica sighed as if she’d been holding her breath all this time. She actually reached for her beer and drained half the cup. I waited.
“Did your family harass you about it too?” She seemed to ask the question with some degree of bitterness. The tide was turning in my favor.
“No. They didn’t really mind. They weren’t even surprised when I became a carnie.” That is actually true. The Bombays don’t care what your cover is. It’s merely important to have one. Well, unless you became an attorney. Then they’d probably kill you outright.
I kind of expected Veronica to see my admission as heartening – something that would inspire her to give me her life story. She didn’t.
“So why did you take your education and throw it away for this?” She gestured around her. Did I detect disgust in her voice? How boring.
“Why not? I can’t see a better place to examine the human soul.” I folded my arms.
My interviewer snorted. “Well, Cy, it seems like a waste to me.”
So that was how it was going to be, eh?
“Tell me, Ms. Gale, what practical applications does your thesis have for everyday life?”
Her eyes snapped to mine. Gone was the brief vulnerability I’d seen earlier. I’d pissed her off. Oddly enough, I liked it.
“I don’t have to explain my intellectual interests to you!” Oooh. A defiant outburst. How original.
“But you are asking me to do that. Aren’t you?” I adopted a more distant tone. For a moment, I’d thought maybe this woman had something more to offer. Instead, she was just another overeducated snob.
“Let’s just keep this professional, Mr. Bombay.”
“Fine.”
She looked back at her notepad. “So, why do you choose to live outside the norms expected by society?”
“I see it as an apprenticeship to a future career in the entertainment industry.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Seriously? That’s interesting. What do you want to do?” Ms. Gale began to scribble on her notepad.
“I want to be a Henry Kissinger impersonator. That’s where the real money is.”
Veronica narrowed her eyes. “That’s not funny.”
I ignored her. “But first, I have work on my condescending attitude. Maybe you can give me some pointers.”
She started to pack up her stuff.
“Of course, the Kissinger thing might be a bit overdone these days. In that case I’ll have to fall back on my dream of studying the effects of business cards on giant, hissing cockroaches.”
She rose to her feet.
“Now my cousin, she’s got some really lofty goals. She wants to drive an ice cream truck. You should talk with her.”
“Thank you for the interview. I appreciate it.”
“Was it something I said?” I clutched my chest dramatically.
Veronica Gale turned a lovely shade of red as she spun on her heel and left me. No sense of humor in that one.
Later that night as we packed up the carnival and I said good-bye to my friends for the last time, I couldn’t help wondering what would become of Veronica Gale. I’d given her some information she could use. Unfortunately, she would end up a dull college professor with no experience in real life. But I couldn’t help that. After all, Disney World and Sartre beckoned, and it was time to begin a new chapter in the life of Cy Bombay, carnie/assassin.
CHAPTER THREE
“I think crime pays. The hours are good, you travel a lot.”
- Woody Allen
The plain brown envelope was hand delivered by my cousin Paris during Spring Break. He was there with his sister, Liv, and her family, along with my cousins Dak and Gin and their families for a trip to Disney World. Paris and Dak were on a job, unbeknownst to their sisters, and I was pretty sure Dak didn’t even know his best friend was a courier, ferrying an assignment from the Bombay Council for me. That’s the way things work in this family. Everything is kept on a need-to-know basis.
I ripped open the envelope. Another job. Who would it be? A drug kingpin? Mafia? Serial killer? It didn’t really matter because he’d be dead shortly. No point standing on ceremony.
Inside was another envelope – this one with a note from Mum with little hearts drawn on it. Apparently, I’m still her “little Squidgy.” That was somewhat comforting. I dropped her note in Sartre’s cage and she immediately began to shred it.
The arrogant face of a man named Fred Reid stared up at me. Why did I always get the big guys? Mr. Reid looked to be about 265 pounds, maybe six foot four. At any rate, he was much bigger than I am. While I used to not mind a challenge, in a couple of years I’d be forty and not as spry as I used to be.
According to the dossier, Freddie (or Vic, as we call them in the biz) was the son of the English Ambassador to the U.S. Beyond a keen understanding of the words “diplomatic immunity,” Fred was nothing more than an ignorant thug. He’d been picked up on numerous occasions for attempted murder, selling and buying narcotics, and was the top suspect in a number of cold cases that often included the murder of people who were supposed to testify against him. Oh, I was going to have fun with this one.
Vic was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Miami with his father in two days. Not much time to prepare, and I was scheduled to work at Disney World. While that never stopped me before, I did believe in professional commitment. And I liked running the Kali River Rapids ride
. Unfortunately, taking out the Vic came first. Finding a replacement at Disney wouldn’t be tough. It helped to be wealthy enough to bribe coworkers. And since many were college students, finding a replacement was even easier if I threw in a bottle of booze. I always made it the good stuff because I remember the crap I used to drink in college. There’s nothing like a little Grey Goose vodka to break up the monotony between Mogen David and Lancers.
The drive to Miami was nice. Sartre chattered the whole time, indignant about having to leave the trailer behind in Orlando. It was like a giant playpen for her. But I needed to be in the chi-chi hotel where my Vic stayed in order to make it work, and I didn’t want to leave her with someone else. Besides, I liked the companionship, even if the conversation was a bit one-sided.
Sartre calmed down when I gave her some fresh spinach leaves to munch on. I only wished women were that easy.
The Miami Del Rey was located on prime beachfront property. The pink, Art Deco building stood out among the more modern high rises. A five-star hotel, the Del Rey was known for its obliging staff, which catered to the wealthy and spoiled. I loved these places – you know the type – where they don’t have a reservation desk because that would be too gauche. Instead, there’s a woman sitting at a small table in an obscure corner of the lobby. She gave me my room key and made arrangements to have my luggage transferred to my room. She also slipped me her phone number. Sigh.
I reached the door to my room with no problem. Sartre was obediently quiet in my satchel and raised no alarms. She’d been through this drill before. Once inside the room, I unpacked my things, including a collapsible cage for the pig – something I designed myself.
The file included the various peccadilloes of my Vic, along with his schedule. Tomorrow was the fundraiser, but Reid had the bad habit of not showing up for such events. Miami was a city crawling with vice, and with his love for gambling and—I did not make this up—“gender illusionists,” my guess was Reid would be otherwise occupied that evening.
Which left tonight to do the job. Using a cheap, pay-as-you-go cell phone, I called the front desk and asked for Reid’s room. They connected me and I started the trace on my laptop. His room number came up almost immediately, thanks to my cousin Missi, who had come up with this particular technology a few months back. It looked just like a memory stick with a kitten hanging from a branch and the words Hang in There on it.
I changed into a nondescript, black suit and headed up to Reid’s room. Walking past to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I slipped back to the room and knocked on the door. Upon hearing no answer, I slid my all-purpose room card into the slot and was rewarded with a click as the door popped open.
Once inside, I quickly checked the room for surveillance cameras and finding none, began to search for ideas that would help me take this bastard out. It would have been easy to hide and wait for his return, but it was obvious that more than one person shared the room.
I was running out of time. I needed to find something that would tip me off to his whereabouts or plans. It only made sense to kill him outside the hotel. That would take suspicion off of me.
Footsteps in the corridor made my heart beat a bit faster. This was an adrenaline rush, not fear. I didn’t believe in fear – it only made things worse. A key card slid through the lock. I only had a split second to dive into the bathroom and close the door.
Someone was moving about the room, opening drawers and turning the TV on and off. I heard nothing for a few moments. Had he gone? I waited – not an easy thing to do in a hotel shower. I hated hiding. Personally, I preferred the direct approach. Less bullshit and more fun.
After ten more minutes of examining the tiles for mildew, I gave up. Vic must have left. Even so, I slipped noiselessly from the shower and opened the bathroom door. As I started across the bedroom, I heard a cell phone ring. I froze. It was then that I noticed my Vic, stretched out on the bed, oblivious to me as he answered his phone.
I remained where I was, frozen like a statue. Vic was babbling some nonsense on the phone. I was certainly in his peripheral vision. You’d think he would notice a strange, blond man in a black suit standing in mid-stride just a few yards to his left. I’d like to think I’d notice something like that. It gave me a few seconds to think about how I could kill him.
Looking around without moving my head was a new experience for me. The room was devoid of heavy statuary, .45s with silencers (that would have been too convenient, I suppose), or even a letter opener. I had nothing on me – this was just meant to be a surveillance job. Well, I had my passkey room card, but what could I do with that besides give him a nasty plastic cut? There wasn’t enough time to wait for his cell phone to give him brain cancer, and the landline wasn’t big enough to bash him in the head.
Vic clicked off the phone and that’s when he noticed me standing there. Thank god too, because I was getting sick of acting like I was frozen in time. The funny thing was, he just laid there on the bed. Maybe he was blind?
I couldn’t be so lucky. He hurled the cell phone at me. I guess he could see after all. I dodged the high-tech Treo as it smashed into the wall and into a million little, shiny pieces. Technology today.
I reached for the lamp on the nightstand only to find it was bolted down. Fantastic. It gave Vic just enough time to regain his senses and spring from the bed – a feat that impressed me considering his size. I was even more impressed when he landed a ham-fisted punch to the side of my head.
Bringing my knee up, I connected with his groin, groaning at his lack of foresight. Most men expect that kind of contact and block it. Not this idiot. He actually began to whimper the word “Mommy,” over and over. The two of us stumbled a little, him with swelling testicles and me with a bit of a concussion. Instead of stars, for some reason, I saw the kitten on the memory stick Missi had given me. So, after regaining my senses, I dragged his doubled up body to the terrace. Vic groaned as I pushed open the French doors and looked over the edge of his private veranda. It was about six stories down to the pool. If I managed it just right, I’d be out the door and in the stairwell before he smashed into the concrete just to the left of the pool.
Vic was still in a fetal position. What a loser. I wished all my Vics fell so easily. He was heavy, but I managed to get him to the low fence at least before he rallied and decided he didn’t fancy a swim.
The son-of-a-bitch landed a pretty strong kick to my shin and it stopped me in my tracks long enough for him to rise to his feet. Good. It would be much easier to shove him over the railing if he was standing. With a running start I barreled into his abdomen with my shoulder and he went over like a Slinky. I didn’t wait to see what happened. His scream told me he was on his way down and I was overdue in my own room. After a brief stop to wipe down the lamp I’d touched, I fled the scene of the crime.
“That did not go well,” I informed Sartre as I returned to my room. She looked at me sideways to indicate that that was exactly what she expected from me and went back to munching on a carrot. Since she was of no help whatsoever, I stripped off my clothes and looked in the mirror.
My face was red and starting to swell and my right shin was bleeding. I used styptic powder to stop the blood and opened my shaving kit. Missi had invented a sort of steroid that when injected stopped the bruising process in its tracks. When I traveled, I kept the solution in bottles labeled “insulin.” No one ever questioned me.
The steroid would take about half an hour to work, which meant I couldn’t leave the room until then. Killing Vic in the hotel made for an interesting dilemma. The authorities could launch a room-by-room search and unless there had just been a recent rash of brawling, I’d be the only patron who looked like he’d been in life and death struggle.
Sirens blared outside and I knew it would only be a matter of time. The question was: should I stay or should I go?
CHAPTER FOUR
“The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, �
��You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.’”
- George Carlin
After an hour, curiosity drove me out of the shower and into a pair of linen trousers and a silk shirt. I needed a little intel on the situation and figured I’d get it where most people do – from a bartender. I know, you thought it was more cloak and dagger than that, didn’t you? It may be hard to believe but bartenders have been my most important sources for years. I remember this one time in Ireland when I was being stalked by these IRA operatives. I’d be dead right now if a bartender named Paddy hadn’t let me know I was about to leave the bar with the service unit director’s girlfriend.
Back in Miami, the bar was called FIVE, and the bartender was called Arturo. It was pretty crowded, and I could tell that the “accident” had caused a lot of problems for the hotel. Sorry about that.
Arturo opened up easily when I waved the $100 tip in his face. All he knew was that the manager said some VIP had fallen from the balcony and the place was crawling with State Department flunkies. I decided to stay put for a while. Besides, they had an excellent scotch selection and I had a front-row seat to the madness.
“Twenty dollars for a Chablis?” I heard the blonde next to me complain. “Are you serious? “
I knew that voice immediately. I slid the money to Arturo and he took the hint and handed the lady a Chablis.
“What? I didn’t order this!”
I hoped Arturo wouldn’t rat me out.
“The gentleman did,” I heard him say. Thanks.
“Well.” The woman turned around to face me. “No thank you.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Please, Ms. Gale. I never could resist a damsel in distress.”
Veronica Gale froze before me. “How did you know my name?” She clutched her purse, eyeing me nervously. She looked good. Really good. This little academic drone cleaned up nicely with a revealing, yet plain little black dress and three-inch heels.
Greatest Hits Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-4) Page 61
