by Lowe, Tom
“Have a seat at the table. I’ll heat the water. Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He sliced a wedge of carrot cake, placed it on a paper plate, and set it in front of her on the table. “With this cake, you’ll get your veggies, too.”
Courtney smiled and used a plastic fork to take a bite. “It’s so good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Isaac placed tea bags in two steaming cups and sat across from Courtney. He pushed a cup near her plate. “Courtney, you don’t belong here. Find something else.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go. I needed the work. And I haven’t finished what I set out to do.”
“What if you don’t find him?”
“I’ll find him. If not here, some other carnival, fair, or circus.”
“You’ve been working this circuit for three months. The season’s usually six to eight months. Where are you going to go after that?”
“I guess I’ll find work at some other carnival.”
“It’s a rough life, kiddo. You get in this game and it changes you. Since I’ve come to know you, I don’t believe you’re put on this earth to work the carny circuit. Some people come here ‘cause they’re running from something. Others are running to something. It’s a human train, a vagabond life, picking up and moving on like migrant workers comin’ to a new field to pick the marks, empty their pockets after they cash their Friday paychecks. That’s not you, not who you are.”
“Why do you stay, Isaac?”
“Look at me. I’m three and a half feet tall. Where am I gonna earn a living? But you don’t have to. You have your whole life ahead of you. This guy you’re looking for, why’s it so important to find him?”
“Because he took something from a person I love very much, my grandmother.”
“What if you don’t find him?”
“I can go to my grave knowing I tried.”
“You’re a little young to talk about end-of-life scenarios. You once told me the man you’re hunting for is a hypnotist, someone who can get others to do stuff.”
“Yeah, he’s good at it, too. Scary good.”
“At any one time in the summer, there are more than two hundred carnivals touring the states. I’ve worked a bunch of ‘em. Seen some excellent hypnotists, some not so great, and a few that used magic and hypnotism for no good. Saw it more years and years ago, back when little people like me were called freaks. Back in the days of touring with the bearded lady, the three-headed cow, and a whole bunch of people and critters that looked like long-distance ancestors who were rejects from Noah’s ark.”
“You’re not a freak. You’re a sweet and caring man.”
Isaac nodded and looked at her, his olive-green eyes filled with compassion. “Courtney, what you don’t know is that Lonnie was a dealer for Tony Bandini and his older brother Carlos.”
“What?”
“He moved meth, pills, coke. Somewhere between Boston, Buffalo, and here in Florida, the accounting didn’t jibe. I’d heard that Lonnie was into the Bandini brothers for five grand. Carlos Bandini runs five carnivals. He’s here from time to time. Neither he nor Tony offer many repayment plans.”
“Did Tony Bandini or his brother kill Lonnie?”
“I doubt it. But Tony would just as soon take him out as not. Probably ordered it done. Cops won’t trace it back to him unless they can find the actual hit man. The Bandinis have a network of roustabouts. It sends a message to other dealers—the house gets paid first. Tony Bandini doesn’t care if you take the fall, he probably planned it that way.”
Courtney pushed the plate away, her eyes burning. “I gotta go.”
“Go where?”
“Bandini’s office. I need to—”
“Listen to me, Courtney. Play it cool. You walk in there and you’ll walk into a hornet’s nest. You don’t know this guy. He’s about as dangerous as they come.”
She stood. “I’ve seen a lot of dangerous people in my life. I’ll start by asking him if I still work here. I guess we’ll see where it goes from there. Can I borrow your phone for a minute?”
“Yes, but stay away from Bandini’s office tonight. Promise me?”
“I can’t make a promise that I know I won’t keep.”
He shook his head and handed her his phone. “Are you calling your grandmother?”
“Yes, and then I’m calling the man who picked me up on the side of the road at night. If he’s not there … if anything happens to me, if for some reason I vanish, I want you to ask him a question for me. His name is Sean O’Brien.”
12
I was getting ready to lock Jupiter and head back to my cabin on the river when Dave Collins leaned in through the open sliding glass doors from the cockpit to the salon. “Sean, is your phone working?”
“Last I checked.”
“Knowing you, that could have been a month ago.”
I lifted my phone off the bar in the salon. “I’d set it to vibrate. Looks like there are three missed calls, and two voice messages. One’s from Nick’s phone and one from a number I don’t recognize.”
Dave shook his head of thick silver-white hair and stepped inside. “Nick’s been trying to reach you. He’s at the Tiki Bar. Said he overheard, and I’m quoting here—two shit-faced carny types talking about the killing at the county fair. He said one guy, a fella who’d partaken in a wee bit more Miller beer than he should have, was telling the other guy that the word on the street, so to speak, is the death of the worker was a contract killing.”
“Are these two men still there?”
“I don’t know. Nick called me after trying your phone for the last half hour or so.”
I said nothing, the only sound coming from halyards clanking against a sailboat mast in the warm night breeze.
“What are you thinking about, Sean?”
“Dan Grant said he found some records indicating Courtney Burke has spent some time in a psych ward. I don’t know the details.”
“Could have been by court order. Her family could have institutionalized her. Regardless, it indicates some kind of mental instability.”
“Not always. Why was she locked in an asylum? We know the effect, but what was the cause. You were trained in understanding human breaking points, how to accelerate reaching them. Sometimes it’s physical. Sometimes it’s mental. It’s still pain, in the case of repeated sexual assaults, it’s layered pain. In my book, years of sexual abuse is physical and mental. It’s encrusted like a hot branding iron on different sections of the victim’s soul. The pain may dull, but the mark to your psyche is like a bad tattoo that blurs through time.”
“Let’s take a walk down the dock.” I turned to Max who napped on the salon sofa. “Hold down the fort. If ole Joe the cat comes near, try not to be too inhospitable.”
***
I could hear the Friday night entertainment at the Tiki Bar before Dave and I reached the end of L dock and opened the locked gate leading away from the boats. We walked around a deserted fish-cleaning station that featured a weathered and knife-scarred wooden table, stainless steel sink, and a thatched roof made from dried palm fronds tarnished in splashes of black and white pelican poop. The smell of fish scales and dried blood mixed with the drifting scent of deep-fried hushpuppies and blackened grouper coming from the bar grill.
The Tiki Bar was filling up with salty regulars and sunburned tourists, a combination that created a culture club of opposites. A solo singer wearing a Panama hat and a surfer’s shirt sat on a stool in a corner, guitar in one hand, the crowd in the other as he led them in a rousing chorus of Irish ballads and Jimmy Buffett songs. After a few drinks and sing-along songs, the drawbridges of class distinctions lowered and the yellow brick road to Margaritaville, by way of Dublin, became a festive group journey. The fishing captains swapped stories of great catches and beating storms in open waters. One middle-aged vacationer grinned and admitted how he’d love to trade places away from the predictabl
e, the office politics—the mundane, to fish for a life of adventure. “We have half-day and full-day rates to get you started,” bellowed a gray-bearded charter captain, lifting a bottle of beer in a toast to the promise of a personal quest.
The entertainer told the crowd he was taking a short break. Kim Davis finished pouring a tall glass of dark beer and handed it to a shiny, red-faced customer wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Kim turned toward Dave as we sat down at the only two open bar stools. “Dave, did you have to round up a posse to find Sean? Nick has been more anxious than I’ve seen him in a long time.”
Dave grunted. “Sean had his phone turned down.”
“Where’s Nick?” I asked.
She glanced over my right shoulder. “Looks like he’s returning from a bathroom break.”
Nick approached the bar, shaking his head, his dark eyes animated. “Kim, can you send a Corona my way?” He turned to me. “Sean, man, I’m glad Dave found you. I was sitting at a table in the corner, doing my monthly accounting, when I overheard these two half-drunk dudes at another table, talkin’ about someone dying—a murder.” Nick took a long pull from an icy bottle, his face blooming in color, the center of his moustache wet from beer foam.
“Are they still here?” I asked.
“No. They left when the music started.”
“Describe them.”
“Hell, Sean, they looked like most of the deck hands around here. Like they’d been sleepin’ in their clothes. Kinda like I look after I have been at sea for a couple of weeks. One guy was about twenty, I guess. Blond. Tryin’ to grow whiskers. Wore a Yankees’ hat backwards and a blue Orlando Magic jersey. The other due was older, maybe forty. Heavyset fella. He was wearin’ a black T-shirt with the words Harley-Davidson on the front. He had a tattoo of a naked mermaid on his arm. Big damn tits—” He cut his eyes over to Kim. “Sorry, Kimberly.” She smiled and Nick said, “Both left with barbecue sauce in the corners of their mouths ‘cause they must have eaten a few dozen wings between them. The older guy called the younger one Smitty.”
Dave nodded. “Your powers of observation are improving. Maybe it’s because you’ve spent quality time with Sean.”
“Nick, what exactly did you hear?” I asked.
“They were goin’ through a few pitchers of Miller Beer during the happy hour. Before they left, I overheard some crazy shit. Stuff like how the dead guy at the fair got what was comin’ to him ‘cause he was markin’ the deck.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kim asked. “A payback for a cheating a poker bet?”
“Could mean just about anything,” I said. “Sounds like he was taking a cut of some kind of action.”
Dave nodded. “Carnivals can be a backdrop, true moveable feasts, for crime and those who commit crimes.”
Nick looked around the bar for a moment. “Sean, maybe this means the girl didn’t kill the guy, unless she does hits for hire.”
“It means that the police need to question these two. I’ll put in a call to Detective Grant. Nick, tell him what you told us. Describe the men to him.” I punched in Grant’s number. Nick flexed both hands into fists, relieving tension. Thirty seconds later, Grant answered. “Sean O’Brien. I’m glad you called. Did the girl, Courtney Burke, happen to return to your boat?”
“No, why?”
“Because now a warrant’s been issued for her arrest. Forensics matched. Blood. Prints on ice pick. Her story of a hooded assailant is iffy at best. A witness came forth and said he’d heard them arguing. Seems like Ms. Burke is the jealous type. Sounds like a typical case of hell has no fury like—”
“Sounds like supposition to me, Dan. Listen, I’m standing here at the Tiki Bar at the marina. A friend of mine overheard two men talking. Carnival workers, most likely. They were drinking heavily, and one was telling the other that the murder was a hit—a payback or revenge killing for something.”
“Can your friend ID these men?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but before I speak with your friend, unless the men he overheard were eye witnesses to a murder, most likely they’ll deny having said anything in the bar, and it’ll be circumstantial at best.”
“Dan, just listen to what Nick has to say.”
I handed the phone to Nick, who took a long swallow from the bottle, blew out a breath and said, “Hello.” He placed one hand over his open ear and stepped out on the dock to tell his story.
I turned toward Kim. “Can you remember what these men looked like?”
“Nothing beyond what Nick said. Judy was the server. She left as the night servers came to work.”
“How’d they pay the bill, cash or credit?”
“Hold on, I’ll look at Judy’s tickets.” Kim licked her thumb and leafed through a few dozen receipts. “Looks like this is it. Three platters of wings and four pitchers of beer, table fourteen. Paid half with a credit card, the other half in cash.”
“What’s the guy’s name on the card?”
“Randal Barnes.”
Nick returned. He handed the phone to me. “He wants to speak to you.”
Detective Grant said, “Sean, I’m heading back to the fair. If you hear from Ms. Burke, let me know. Three killings at three fairs, that spells serial.”
“Can you place her at each of the carnivals?”
“Don’t know yet. Shouldn’t be hard to find out.”
“Dan, I have a name for one of the carnies who Nick overheard. The name on the charge receipt is Randal Barnes.”
“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’d find that quickly? Maybe you still have cop in your DNA, or maybe you just give a damn more than most do.”
“Good luck, Dan.” I disconnected.
Nick said, “Detective Grant didn’t sound too promising to me. Said he’d question the dudes if he could find them.”
“Well, now he has a name,” Dave said.
Kim leaned her elbows on the bar, the lights from a car in the lot sweeping across her face. She said, “I just met the girl briefly when she stopped in here asking directions to your boat, but I got the feeling that Courtney isn’t what she appears.”
“What do you mean?” Dave asked, sipping a vodka over ice.
“I can’t put my finger on it. Working a bar, you develop a pretty good feel for people. I call it the bullshit meter. She seemed real, but somehow cloaked in … I don’t know exactly … she has a mysterious presence about her. Like she’s out of sync with people around here, and so saddened by something.”
“Murder can have that influence on people,” Nick said.
Dave nodded. “The carnival is at the county fairgrounds through Sunday. Maybe Grant will find one or both of them before the carnival pulls out.”
Kim sighed. “I wonder where the girl is right now.”
“Probably returned to the carnival,” I said.
Nick shook his head and reached for the Corona. “Why the hell would she go back there? Back to a place where evil rides the merry-go-round.”
I remembered the look in the girl’s eye as the police officers escorted her away. “She returned because she didn’t kill that guy, but she might know who did … she’s just not certain of that yet. Nick, when was the last time you were at a carnival?”
“Been years, man. Why?”
“Let’s see what Detective Dan Grant and his colleagues can find. They have Randal Barnes’ name. That’s a good start.”
“What if they go on and arrest the girl for murder?”
“If that happens, we can take in a night at the carnival and play a few games of chance.”
Nick sipped his beer and said, “Oh boy. I wonder if any shrimpers are here tonight.”
“Why?” Dave asked.
“Because, as my man Forrest Bubba Gump said—shit’s about to happen.”
Dave said, “I don’t recall that exact line.”
“Close enough,” Nick said, draining the last of his beer and looking straight at me.
13
The Ban
dini Brother’s Amusement office was in a million dollar, custom-made bus. It was parked less than one hundred yards from the midway, in a gravel lot, generators purring, the smell of diesel fumes acrid in the night air. Light spilled from all of the windows, venetian blinds pulled down behind the glass.
Courtney stood at the door marked Office, took a deep breath and knocked on the burnished aluminum. She could hear someone moving inside, a monotone conversation, and then the door opened wide. A man who went by the name of Johnny Johnson, someone Courtney had only seen a few times, stood in the light. He was more than six and a half feet tall, hair in a ponytail, heavy forehead, and flat nose with a faded pink scar across the bridge, shoulders and chest like a hammered armor under a black T-shirt. He wore a gold chain around his wide neck. He grunted. “What do you want?”
“To speak with Mr. Bandini.”
“He’s busy. Go away.” The man started to close the door, but paused, his leaden black eyes studying Courtney’s face in the light. “Wait a sec. You’re the chick who took an ice pick to my ride op, Lonnie Ebert. I heard you were arrested.”
“I wasn’t arrested because I didn’t do it.”
“Go on. Get the hell outta here.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I see Mr. Bandini. He hired me. If I’m fired, he needs to be the one who tells me that, too.”
“What’s going on?” came a question from behind the man blocking the door.
“Nothing, Mr. Bandini. Girl’s just leaving.”
“What girl?” Tony Bandini asked, stepping to the door. He was a foot shorter than the other man, head shaved, glossy with perspiration, lidless snake eyes that didn’t seem to blink. His narrow face was pastel, the color of old bones. He looked down and nodded when he recognized Courtney. “What do you want?”
“To talk about my job.”
“Johnny, check her.”
“Arms out,” Johnny said.
Courtney lifted her arms as he slowly patted her down, his breath reeking of marijuana and tuna. He felt around her breasts, down her waist to her buttocks, his hands moving like a serpent to her inner thighs.
