by Mike Resnick
The replacements for Treetop and Big Alvin showed up just then, and Thaddeus broke away to start directing the removal of Dapper Dan and Rainbow to the trailer. Then it was show time, and he marched the six healthy aliens—Gloria hadn't come back with Four-Eyes’ pills yet—onto their platforms.
Since it was even colder in the sideshow tent than the dormitory tent, I decided to fill a number of cups with coffee and carry them around to the exhibits on a tray. I had just handed one to Bullseye and was about to offer a cup to 3-D when I saw a tall, well-dressed man with piercing eyes and an aquiline nose standing at the back of the crowd. I had only seen him once before in my life, but Mr. Romany wasn't the kind of man one could forget in a dozen lifetimes.
Thaddeus had just finished describing Stretch and his totally fictional origin to the crowd, and while they were all busy gaping at him, I walked up and tugged at Thaddeus’ sleeve.
“What's up?” he asked.
“He's here!” I whispered. “He's found us!”
“Are you surprised?” he said with a smile.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Finish showing off the exhibits,” he replied easily. “Don't worry about Romany—he's not going to make a scene in front of a crowd.”
Thaddeus went right back into his patter, and it was another fifteen minutes before he finally ushered the crowd out. Mr. Romany was last in line, and after everyone else had left he stopped just short of the doorway and turned to Thaddeus.
“You have done a very foolish thing, Mr. Flint,” he said.
“Foolishness is in the eye of the beholder,” replied Thaddeus with a grin. “Now, if it was me, I'd say that walking alone into the enemy's camp was pretty damned foolish.”
“Are you trying to frighten me?” asked Mr. Romany, cocking an eyebrow and looking mildly amused.
“Perish the thought,” said Thaddeus. “Just making an observation. What are you doing here?”
“You know perfectly well what I'm doing here,” said Mr. Romany. “I want them back.”
“I don't doubt it,” replied Thaddeus with a chuckle.
“Well?”
“This is neither the time nor the place to talk about it.”
“This is precisely the time and the place,” said Mr. Romany.
“Use your brain,” said Thaddeus. “It's in both of our interests to keep what's going on a secret. There are too many people passing through here.”
“How about your office?”
“Out of the question. There's a bar in town called Lucy's Tavern. Meet me there in an hour.”
“How do I know you'll show up?” asked Mr. Romany suspiciously.
“You don't,” answered Thaddeus. “But you do know I can't move the show in less than a day, so you can always come back here and find me.”
Mr. Romany seemed to be considering it. “Why must we go into town? Why not speak here, on the grounds?”
“Because I don't want your telepathic friend anywhere around when we talk.”
“Then you know about him?”
“Of course I know about him,” said Thaddeus. “Who the hell do you think you're dealing with?”
Mr. Romany consulted his wristwatch. “One hour,” he said, and walked out of the sideshow tent.
“See?” Thaddeus said to me. “Nothing to it.”
“It's not over,” I replied.
“You still don't understand how the game is played, do you?” he said with a smile. “He wanted to talk now. I made him back down. He wanted to talk here. I made him go into town. He probably wanted Bullseye around. I made him meet me alone.”
“What does that prove?”
“It proves that he's operating under a lot more restraints than I am,” answered Thaddeus. “And it also means that, tough as he looks, he's not going to be able to make any effective threats.” He paused to clear his throat.
“Maybe I can't stop Dapper Dan from killing himself, and maybe I don't know how to make Alma happy, but Romany is a different cup of tea: we're playing in my ball park again, and I know all the ground rules. Put the freaks away and grab your jacket. You're coming with me.”
“But why?”
“Because he won't want you to,” said Thaddeus. “What's the good of dealing from strength if you don't play any cards?”
I escorted the six aliens back to the tent, made sure that Gloria had dropped off the sodium pills for Four-Eyes, and hunted up my jacket. I considered telling Mr. Ahasuerus that Mr. Romany had found us, but decided not to get his hopes up. (It wasn't until we were halfway to town that I realized he would know anyway: the others had to have seen and recognized Mr. Romany during the show. I spent the rest of the ride wondering if Mr. Ahasuerus would think me Thaddeus’ lackey for not telling him.) The town was like most northern Vermont villages: narrow streets, a huge town square, old frame buildings (mostly saltboxes, with hydra-headed chimneys) that had been converted into stores and shops, and an occasional long low office building with so much glass on display that you couldn't help wondering how they heated it when the really cold weather arrived.
Lucy's Tavern was the carny folks’ hangout when they weren't working or drinking in their trailers. It was an old three-story home with tongue-in-groove paneling that boasted an undersized bar and about a dozen small tables with uncomfortable wooden chairs in what had once been the living room. Each table possessed a bowl of peanuts, provided gratis by the management, and the floor was littered with peanut shells, which remained where they fell, either to add to the atmosphere or because Lucy and her employees were simply disinclined to sweep them up.
It was mid-afternoon when we arrived, and the place was totally deserted, except for a bored-looking bartender who had his nose buried in a National Geographic magazine. Mr. Romany was sitting at a table in the farthest corner of the dimly lit barroom, waiting for us with a bottle of Schlitz and a half-empty glass in front of him.
Thaddeus left me at the table, ordered a couple of beers at the bar, and returned a minute later.
“I thought you were coming alone,” said Mr. Romany.
“I told you once before,” grinned Thaddeus. “He's my bodyguard.”
Mr. Romany stared at me.
“He's small, but he's wiry,” added Thaddeus. He pulled up a chair and seated himself. “Did you have a nice trip?”
“Once I got out of jail.”
“View it as an occupational hazard,” said Thaddeus, still smiling.
“I've endured worse.”
“If you had any playing cards with you, you could have turned it into a paying proposition,” said Thaddeus.
“Shall we stop the small talk and get down to the business at hand?” said Mr. Romany coldly.
“It suits me,” agreed Thaddeus. “How about you, Tojo?”
“Fine,” I said, startled.
“All right,” said Mr. Romany. “You have committed a serious crime, Mr. Flint. Even by the rather lax standards of this planet, kidnapping is a major felony.”
“Then you should report me to the police. If you had committed a crime, I certainly wouldn't hesitate, as you may have noticed.”
“We both know that is impossible.”
“Well, we're both in the same boat then, aren't we?” replied Thaddeus.
“You don't want the authorities to know they're aliens, and I don't want the authorities to know I've kidnapped them. I guess we're just going to have to trust each other.”
I watched Mr. Romany very closely for a reaction, but there wasn't any.
Either his face was incapable of any other expression, which was certainly possible, or else he was playing his cards very close to the vest. I opted for the latter: he had known he couldn't bluff Thaddeus by invoking the authorities. He had mentioned it more as a matter of form, just to get it out of the way.
“What is to prevent me from stealing them back?” he said, and then I knew he was bluffing. He just wanted Thaddeus to outline how thoroughly he had gone about protecting the ali
ens to gain some insight into his antagonist.
“Not a thing,” replied Thaddeus calmly. “Of course, if you do, I'll kill the Missing Link and the Man of Many Colors.” He paused to let that sink in.
“Check the tent it you like. You won't find them there.”
“Where are they?”
“Somewhere up in Maine,” lied Thaddeus. “Of course, I don't have to kill them. I might just turn them over to the government. I mean, once you've taken Mr. Ahasuerus and the rest away, I'd hardly be hurting my own income, would I?”
This time there was a reaction, a slight tightening of the muscles in Mr. Romany's lean, intent face. I knew that if I had seen it, so had Thaddeus—and he would doubtless file it away for future use. Obviously exposure meant more to Mr. Romany than the deaths of a couple of the aliens.
“You're being very unreasonable about this,” said Mr. Romany at last.
“You've gotten away with kidnapping, you've doubtless made a considerable amount of money because of it; now return them and no further action will be taken.”
“No action has been taken at all,” replied Thaddeus.
“That is due to change. The Human Pincushion is monitoring this conversation. Once he learns that you have no intention of releasing them, they will be forced to take action, with or without my help.”
“Horseshit,” said Thaddeus.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Pincushion can't hear a word we're saying. All he can do is send. If he could receive, he'd have known I planned to take them over in the first place, and you'd have been a little better prepared for me. Now, Mr. Romany,” he said, leaning forward on the table, “if you're all through talking nonsense, maybe we can get to the point.”
“The point is that you have illegally abducted twelve sentient beings and are holding them against their wills.”
“The point,” said Thaddeus, “is that someone is pressuring you to clean this little problem up in a hurry. You're just a goddamned flunky, an advance man or an assistant tour guide or something like that. Someone higher up is starting to worry about Mr. Ahasuerus and his group, and you don't want any black marks on your record. When promotion time rolls around, you don't want them to remember that someone had to bail you out on a little backwater world like this one.”
As Thaddeus spoke Mr. Romany became more and more uncomfortable, fidgeting awkwardly in his chair. “So the problem that confronts us now,” concluded Thaddeus, a contemptuous smile on his face, “is not how we're going to save a bunch of innocent tourists from a life of bondage and degradation, but how we're going to save your ass. Would you say that about sums up the situation?”
Mr. Romany nodded unhappily.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, during which Thaddeus flashed me an I-told-you-so grin.
“All right,” he said when it became obvious that Mr. Romany was not going to speak. “You're a company man who's gummed up the works, and you don't want the company coming down on your head. I can appreciate that, and I'm sure we can work something out.”
“What?” asked Mr. Romany.
“I'm not going to make any demands at all,” said Thaddeus. “That would seem too much like blackmail or extortion. What you're going to do is go home, or to a motel, or wherever the hell you're staying, and see what kind of arrangement you can come up with. Then come by the carnival tomorrow at noon, and we'll talk. I'll be at Monk's bus.”
“Not at the sideshow?”
“No. And if I find out you've tried to speak to Ahasuerus or any of the others, the deal's off.”
Mr. Romany rose from his chair.
“One more thing,” said Thaddeus.
“Yes?”
“No more bullshitting. You've got the makings of a pretty good Thaddeus Flint—but I've been Thaddeus Flint for thirty-four years. You understand what I'm saying?”
Mr. Romany nodded and walked out of the tavern, a far less ominous figure than when we had entered. “Well?” Thaddeus said to me, lighting up a cigarette and downing the last of his beer.
“You knew all along, didn't you?” I replied.
“Tojo, when you've been in this goddamned business long as I have, you can smell a con man at two hundred yards.” He looked out the door at the retreating figure of Mr. Romany. “That goddamned son of a bitch doesn't give a shit for Ahasuerus and the others.”
Just to see his reaction, I said: “Why should he?”
Thaddeus stared long and hard at me. “No reason,” he said at last.
He left a few coins on the table, then walked out to the car.
“Are we going back now?” I asked.
“Soon,” he said. “I want to make one stop first.”
We drove around town until we came to a bookstore. Thaddeus left me in the car for a few minutes, and returned with a hardcover tucked under one arm.
“First goddamned book I've bought in ten years,” he remarked, looking somewhat embarrassed.
“What's it about?” I asked.
“Astronomy.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Just curious,” he said.
We drove back to the carnival in silence. Thaddeus put his book in the trailer, then stopped to examine Dapper Dan.
“How's he doing?” he asked Swede.
“No problem,” replied Swede. “He's pretty weak, but he doesn't seem to be getting any worse.”
“Good.”
“Uh ... boss?” said Swede, and Thaddeus turned to him. “You want me to stick around here or to work the meat show?”
“Stick around.”
“Then who'll do the meat show?” Swede persisted.
“I'll get the Rigger,” said Thaddeus.
“He ain't gonna like it.”
“As long as I'm the boss, he doesn't have to like it,” said Thaddeus. “He just has to do it.” He looked over me. “I'd let you do it if you could.”
“I know, Thaddeus,” I said.
“Maybe someday when the crowds are smaller.”
“It's all right, Thaddeus.”
“Okay, then,” he said uncomfortably. “How's Rainbow looking?”
“The same,” said Swede. Rainbow was sleeping in the next room.
“Make sure he keeps covered,” said Thaddeus. “Come on, dwarf; let's go to work.”
We walked over to the dormitory tent and ushered the seven healthy aliens into the sideshow after making sure that Four-Eyes had taken his pills. Then Thaddeus started barking, and I went to the dormitory tent to take a nap, since I had had only a few hours sleep the night before.
I woke up around midnight, and wandered out to listen to Thaddeus’ patter for the last show. He was like a jazz musician, using his words like notes, keeping the same basic themes but never quite repeating the melodies. He'd work and rework a line or a joke until he got it polished like burnished ebony, then discard it and try out a new one, and as I studied him I had the feeling that even if I could speak like normal people I still couldn't be half the barker he was. It was an art form, and you don't learn to be an artist. You're either born one, or you aren't. Somehow I knew that I wasn't.
When the show was over and we had closed up the sideshow, we escorted the aliens back to the dormitory tent. Treetop and Big Alvin were back on duty, and Treetop was standing next to Pumpkin, a glass of water in his hand.
“Come on, gorgeous,” he was saying. “Just a little sip.”
Pumpkin backed away from him awkwardly.
“Maybe I'll give you a little bath,” he said, advancing toward her. “Christ, you smell like you could use one.”
She stumbled and almost fell, and he emitted a loud guffaw.
“Not exactly the ballet type, are you?” he laughed.
He was going to say something else, but before he could, Thaddeus had grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and swung a roundhouse blow toward his face. He was too tall for Thaddeus to reach his target, but he caught him on the side of the neck, and it was sufficient to knock Treet
op to the ground.
“What the hell did you go and do that for?” gasped Treetop, getting to his knees and blinking rapidly.
“You were being paid to guard them, not tease them,” said Thaddeus, his fists still doubled up.
“I was just having a little fun with her,” said Treetop, rubbing his neck gingerly.
“You've got ten minutes to round up your gear and get your ass off the grounds,” said Thaddeus. “If you're still here then, we're going to have Round Two.”
“You're firing me for messing with a fucking freak?” said Treetop unbelievingly. “Hell, you treat ‘em like shit yourself!”
“Nine minutes and counting,” said Thaddeus ominously.
Treetop got groggily to his feet, shook his head in bewilderment, and walked out the door.
“Alvin,” ordered Thaddeus, “keep an eye on him and make sure he leaves. If he's still hanging around here in fifteen minutes, I want to know about it.”
Big Alvin nodded and left the tent, looking only slightly less puzzled than Treetop.
Thaddeus walked over to Pumpkin. “Are you all right?” he asked, and she nodded her elephantine head slowly. Then he turned to me. “Tojo, stick around until Alvin gets back.”
“All right, Thaddeus,” I said.
He left the tent, and Mr. Ahasuerus approached me.
“I understand that Romany has found us,” he said.
“I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you,” I answered. “He seems more concerned with his own situation than with yours. I was under the impression that he worked for you.”
“Not exactly,” said Mr. Ahasuerus, looking his disappointment. “We both work for the same employer. You don't think he'll be able to help us?”
“I don't know,” I said. “He's meeting with Thaddeus again tomorrow. I'll know more then.”
The blue man looked as if he was going to say something further, then changed his mind and walked back to his cot. Alvin returned about twenty minutes later to tell me that Treetop had picked up his pay from Diggs and was gone.
I stuck around for a couple of hours, then wandered over to the trailer.
Dapper Dan was sleeping under Swede's watchful eye in the living room, Rainbow was resting in the bedroom—and as for Thaddeus, he was sitting on the floor of the kitchen, his back propped up against the cabinets, pouring over his new book with the single-minded intensity that was usually reserved only for his women and his profits.
