“Your leader will come forward!” shouted a blue officer as if he were addressing a rowdy schoolyard.
Marmi stepped up. “You may speak to me,” she said smoothly. She had swapped her robes for a floral sundress, and while the change made her appear harmless and ordinary, her height and carriage still alluded to her authority.
“A negress in charge, huh? Unlock your trucks,” ordered the first officer. “Line your people up over there with their papers.”
Although subjected to searches countless times, everyone still waited for Marmi's order. Wordlessly, she gestured to them and it was done.
The Inquestor finally strolled up to her. “I’m sorry for my colleague's enthusiasm,” he said graciously, shielding his eyes from the sun to look up at her. “My boss saddled me with a load of lackeys, and all they want to do is show me how tough they can be.”
Marmi said nothing. Instead she tried to read the peculiar Inquestor as she surrendered her papers to him.
“This is just a standard search. A little practice for the Inquestors of tomorrow. There's nothing to fear.” Carver took her identification, his black eyes just as calculating as her gold ones. “As long as you’ve got nothing to hide.”
René and Coronado made a beeline for the back of his truck. Amandine was digging in her coat for her own papers when Sangria cracked the trailer door.
“A search?” She frowned at the police lining everybody up along the side of the road.
“Are you worried?” Amandine asked. “René told me that this happens all the time.”
Sangria put on a pair of sunglasses and descended the trailer steps like a movie star. “I'm only surprised it took this long.”
Amandine and Sangria were joined at the end of the line by René and Coronado. They waited and watched while two officers ransacked the trucks, and one interrogated everyone in turn. As he made his way down the line, his every step was shadowed by the Inquestor.
Amandine thought the Inquestor looked a little short for a high officer, but of course it could have just been his careless posture that made him appear that way. In fact, the more she studied him, the more she realized that nothing about his attitude conveyed his status except for his black suit, similar to the uniform her father wore with total solemnity and pride. Amandine wondered what her father would have had to say about the flippant officer sauntering down the line towards her now.
“This seems rather unprofessional and downright unkind,” Amandine muttered as one blue officer dumped out a drawerful of Caremlita’s underwear and proceeded to wave her slip in front of the other like a flag. “And I bet a pocketful of parrot feathers they won’t even clean up after themselves. Whatever are they looking for?”
“Anything that might make them suspect that we’re harboring rebels,” Coronado said with contempt. “That could be explosive material, drugs, weapons, the French, banned music records, too much cash, or even too much food.”
“Did you say 'the French?'” she asked in amazement.
The illusionist nodded, tapping a pack of cigarettes in his hand but not taking any. “It's not widely known, but we learned from these frequent searches that simply speaking French puts you beneath the worst scrutiny. I suspect it has something to do with old war-time prejudices. Nick said that the French Resistance would always attack American troops, even after the NAR switched sides. Now the French have a reputation for being sneaky, underhanded saboteurs, and they’re always prime suspects for insurrectionists.”
Amandine pondered this. Her mother's arrest was beginning to make more sense. “What about René?” she asked. “And Jean-Claude and Ambroise?”
“Please,” Sangria scoffed. “You’d have to be crazy to start trouble with Jean-Claude and Ambroise.”
She was right. The two men glowered at the officer who had emptied Marmi’s tent onto the dirt until he put it back the way it was.
“And the medicine and explosives? But Mister Coronado, your truck is full of them!”
René gestured for Amandine to be quiet. The officer had finally come to Sangria, but to his disappointment, the Inquestor took over from there. She held out her papers with a limp wrist and a giggle.
“Good afternoon, miss,” he said, standing close. He hadn't read more than Sangria's name because he was busy looking the pretty, young performer over. “'Sangria Groviglio.' Well, that just rolls off of the tongue like poetry, doesn't it? Tell me, is that really your name?”
The contortionist nodded. “Yes, sir, it truly is. Miss Sangria Groviglio. What may I call you?”
“I’m Inquestor Carver.” He tore his gaze away from her ample red lips long enough to finish skimming her documentation. “You’re American. Perfect. This won't take long.”
“I don’t mind.” Sangria slipped her sunglasses off and demurely nibbled on the earpiece. Amandine noticed that an extra button at the top of her dress had come undone. “I could stand here with you all day.”
René rolled his eyes, and the Inquestor anxiously cleared his throat.
“I can't help but wonder what a lovely young woman such as yourself—” He finally noticed Amandine. “—And your charming friend here, are doing with this bunch of weirdos.”
Amandine stared intently at Carver as she handed him her papers. She hadn’t forgotten her mother’s last warning to beware of inquestors, but this one was as good-looking as a silent film star and just as monochromatic, even in broad daylight. He had a stubborn smile that broke through each time he tried to look serious, and his eyebrows jumped with interest whenever he listened. He felt friendly. What’s more, he felt familiar, but Amandine couldn’t even begin to guess where she might know him from.
“Oh, well, you see...” Sangria tucked her short hair behind her ear with a pout. “I was in a bad way during the war. Nobody wanted me, but these people took me in. It was very fortunate because I’m an excellent performer.”
“What do you do?” Carver asked. Her papers detailed all of this, but they were hanging at his side, completely forgotten.
“Well, I can dance.” She ticked off her talents on her fingers and pretended that they took great effort to remember. “I can play the violin. I can do a little gymnastics and acrobatics…” Like a dim light bulb flickering on, her face lit up and she pointed to her last finger. “I’m also a very adept contortionist.”
“Golly gee, you are talented.” Carver guffawed and dabbed the sweat off of his brow with his handkerchief. “I’m sorry you had to resort to this. You know, there are places you could go. Shelters called replacement homes for young, unattached women such as yourself. They give you honest work, a safe place to live, and they could even pair you with... eligible officers in need of a wife.”
Sangria beamed as if she wanted nothing more in her life than a chance at marrying an inquestor. This seemed to please Carver, and he turned his attention to Amandine.
“Miss Stewart,” he said. “Forgive me, I can't pronounce your name. Is it like Amanda? Rhymes with Caroline?”
“It's ‘Aman-deen.’ Rhymes with ‘Caro-leen.’”
He paused and only one eyebrow jumped this time. “There is no profession listed here. No profession and no family makes you an excellent candidate for the replacement home.”
“Actually, I just got hired yesterday by this group to make costumes,” she said proudly. “It's my first real job.”
Carver sighed melodically and returned their paperwork. He wrote down some information on his notepad before tearing off the page and holding it out to Amandine. “Take this. When you get close to a train, you ladies should take it to the city and contact these people. They will take better care of you.”
Sangria took the paper instead, folded it carefully, and tucked it down inside the front of her dress. The Inquestor watched it vanish and turned bright red.
“Thank you ever so much, Inquestor.” She took his gloved hand in both of hers. Leaning in close, she smiled victoriously at the simple power she held over him. “You have a marvelous
day, now.”
Carver encouraged the original officer to take over with a gesture when it was Coronado’s turn. The illusionist confidently extended his papers. “It's really warming up today, isn't it, Inquestor?”
Carver ignored him; he was still staring at Sangria as she lazed against a tree, absently fanning her exposed collarbone with her papers.
The blue officer spoke. “Antonio Coronado, aged forty-two, medically trained by the Spanish army, in the country working as a magic-man...”
While Sangria's performance was perfect, Amandine noticed Coronado's eye twitch at this remark.
“You're related to the fat one?” the officer asked.
Composing himself, Coronado answered sweetly. “Yes. She's my younger sister.”
The officer threw his papers back at him with disinterest. He moved in front of René, who gripped his hat in his hands and stared at the ground.
“You! Papers!”
Trembling, René pulled them from his pocket.
The officer scanned them suspiciously. Where everybody else’s official photo was framed by a thin black line, René’s was boxed in by a bright red bar. “Ren Person, aged nineteen— a Frenchman?” The officer's face changed to a mix of anger and triumph at this discovery.
“Officer, his name is René Personne and he is indeed a Frenchman,” Coronado cut in, and René looked relieved that somebody else was speaking for him.
“Wow, a person of interest on your first search?” Carver jostled the police officer with his elbow. “You boys will be inquestors by the weekend.”
Coronado laughed. “No, sir.”
“Why is that funny?” the officer demanded.
Coronado shrugged. “The boy is an idiot, I'm afraid. Dumb as a hammer, but I keep him around because he can use one.”
The officer glared skeptically at René. “Speak for yourself!”
René shot a look at Coronado, who gave him a permissive nod. He appeared to concentrate very hard. Finally, he mumbled, “Oui?”
“English,” Coronado reminded him firmly.
“...yes.”
“What are you doing in America, Frenchman?” the officer asked impatiently.
Coronado cut in again. “I brought him myself. You see, twelve years ago I was driving in Paris when the poor street urchin ran beneath my truck. His leg was crushed and his already meager intelligence suffered when his head struck the pavement. I am a good Christian, sir— a Catholic, of course— and I couldn't leave him in that state. I used my medical training to doctor him as best I could, but the damage was, as you can see, severe. See how he still favors one leg?”
René shifted his weight to one side before the officer looked and Carver snorted.
“I decided to take him in,” Coronado continued. “I fed him, clothed him, and gave him honest work. I am responsible for this poor creature now. He would probably die in the streets if it weren't for me.”
Just then, the searching officers reached Coronado's truck and tried the back doors, but they wouldn’t budge. One stepped up onto the bumper to peer in the back window. “Inquestor!” he shouted. “This one is locked and packed to the gills with bottles and boxes! Could be drugs or other contraband.”
Coronado laughed nervously and reached into his pocket. “My apologies. I thought I unlocked that.”
The officers snatched the keys from him and flung open the doors. To their surprise, they found that except for a couple of dirty bird cages, the truck was completely empty.
In a white flash, Carver drew his pistol and held a genuinely petrified René at gunpoint. “Well?” he asked excitedly. “What's in there?”
They tapped the walls, checked the windows, and searched the truck all over again in bewilderment. “Nothing, Inquestor. It's empty.”
The blue officer in charge signaled to the others. “Come on, let's go. This place is a damned circus.”
Carver shrugged and holstered the gun.
“Actually, we're just a traveling show,” Coronado said with mock-helpfulness and a wave. “Have a nice afternoon, officers. Hail to the Republic.”
Carver was the only one who waved back. “Yeah! Hail and all that jazz!”
The blue officer tossed René's papers over his shoulder. Coronado picked them up and watched while the NAR agents went into the service station. As soon as the door closed behind them, he turned back to his companions with an unlit cigarette sticking out of his wide smile.
“I swear, René gets dumber every time Antonio tells that story.” Sangria closed up her blouse and ripped Carver’s note to shreds.
René stormed up to Coronado and snatched his papers back. “He pulled a gun on me, Antonio!”
Coronado shrugged.
“Searches are not the time for tricks,” he fumed. “He could have shot me!”
“Cool down, caballero.” Coronado stepped back and spread his arms in an invitation. “You’ve got a fast hand. You could have shot him back.”
René shook his head and stooped to help everyone gather their scattered belongings from the ditch. “I'm not falling for it. You can't goad me into lighting your cigarette for you.”
“Come on,” Coronado was still wearing a smug grin. “Why waste a match when it’s such a fun trick?”
René shook his head again, but then had a sudden change of mind. “Oh, fine. Have it your way.” He pointed at Coronado with a snap.
Coronado smelled something burning, but it wasn't his cigarette. Searching, he discovered that the pocket that held his identification was on fire.
“Dommage,” René shrugged and scooped up clothes from the tall grass. “I missed.”
Carver trotted out of the service station, pleased as punch now that he had a thermos full of fresh coffee and a moon pie. He beckoned the other police officers into his car and all four piled into the Interceptor. The blue officers sat in silence for some time while Carver filled out some paperwork and ate his moon pie. They exchanged wary glances until finally the most senior police officer spoke up from the passenger's seat. “Inquestor, wasn't that the girl you were looking for?”
Carver took a long drink of coffee and hissed when the drink burned his tongue. “Sure was.”
“Why didn't you arrest her?”
Carver didn’t answer. Instead, he watched the performers pick up the last of their possessions from the ditch. The fat lady was weeping with humiliation while a man with half a moustache tried to comfort her. The Chinese woman finished folding the last of her enormous underthings and returned them with a double-bow before retreating to her own trailer further up the road.
“They’re a suspicious-looking group,” the Inquestor said to himself. He glanced at the officers in his backseat and added, “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Extremely, sir,” said one. “I think you ought to shoot them all and save yourself the time and paperwork.”
“Shoot them? Me?” The Inquestor gasped. “Oh, no! I can't shoot. I’m probably the worst shot in the NAR. The foxy, blonde administrator who serves the Chief Inquestor his coffee can handle a gun better than me. And while I’m sure you eager-beavers think I’m always sending update reports to headquarters—” He fluttered his incomplete form at them before tossing it into the backseat. “Snuffing people always means more paperwork, not less.”
“You’re being modest,” said the first. “I heard that they called you ‘The Marksman’ at the academy.”
“My classmates were trying to be funny,” Carver frowned. “I can’t shoot the broad side of a barn. I mean, I try. I go the range when I have time, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. Take earlier, for example—”
He took out his sidearm with a spin and showed them his gleaming weapon. The nickel-plated 1911 was standard issue to all inquestors, used just as much for ornamentation as it was for defense.
“There was a crooked administrator back in Cold River,” he explained. “It was right before I got stuck with you boys. He had his back to me, maybe six feet away. I had a clear shot, bu
t I missed.” Carver pretended to shoot all over the place. “He bolted and managed to slip past me. I finally nicked him on his way out the front door, but since I already unloaded my entire magazine I couldn’t put him out of his misery. He bled out in the courtyard in front of all of his employees.” He holstered his weapon and shuddered. “What a mess! That's why I prefer a more hands-on approach.”
The officers were grinning at each other. “So let's get hands-on. Make ‘em sing, just like those bakers.”
Carver shook his head as he made his decision. “I’m going to follow this girl to Nieuwestad. I got a feeling she’s going to lead us to something big.”
The group stopped again outside of a small town several hours before sunset and the moment the trailers were parked, everyone had a routine. Jean-Claude and Ambroise put up Marmi's tent before they headed off to exercise. Sasha and Piotr unpacked their cooking equipment and went to draw water from a nearby stream. The dancers set about housekeeping, cleaning road dust from their tiny homes while the others were responsible for setting up furniture and gathering firewood.
Amandine followed suit and busied herself cleaning. As she wiped down the window, she spotted René heading down from Mamri’s tent with his wallet and a stack of papers in hand, likely on his way into town again. She hoped he would invite her to join him, and no sooner did she think this when he veered off the path and headed straight towards her hut.
“Why, hello again.” She waved with the cloth, sending a puff of dust in his direction. “What can I do for you?”
“As wonderful as it is to see you again so soon, I am actually looking for Sangria.” René put his head in the doorway and found the contortionist lazing on her bunk. “I need you to come to town with me.”
“Me?” Sangria glared over her magazine. “Why me and not your new favorite little rag doll?”
“Because...” He searched for a reason and decided to go with the truth. “Marmi said Amandine can't go with me unless we have a chaperone.”
“Aha!” Sangria turned the page with a decisive slap. “Forget it.”
Threadbare- The Traveling Show Page 9
