by James Swain
“Good afternoon,” Mabel said, sidling up to the bar. The backlit mirror was covered with postcards, most of them showing traveling circuses and sideshows. The dwarf courteously removed his hat, and a butterfly flew out of its folds. He cackled with laughter.
“My name’s Brownie, and this here’s Little Pete,” the bartender said. “How can we help you ladies?”
“I was trying to get some information about a carnival that used to run out of Panama City,” Mabel said, “and was hoping one of you gentlemen could help me.”
Little Pete glanced over his shoulder. “Gentlemen? Who walked in?”
“You’ll do,” Mabel told him.
The dwarf smiled and so did the bartender.
“Hey,” Yolanda said from the other side of the room.
Mabel turned from the bar. “What’s wrong, my dear?”
“This door to the ladies’ room isn’t a door.”
The room’s light was poor, and Mabel squinted at where Yolanda was pointing. There was a door to the men’s room, and beside it, a door to the women’s room with a brass plaque. Yolanda was pushing on the women’s room door, but it wasn’t budging.
The baby was crying, her mother losing her patience. Mabel crossed the room, assuming the door was locked. Only when she was a foot from it did the illusion stop. It was a painting. The shadowing and detail were so exact, it tricked the eye into believing it was a door.
“It’s around the corner,” Brownie called out.
“What a bunch of practical jokers,” Yolanda said under her breath, hurrying away.
Mabel saw the men at the bar smiling at her. Little Pete pointed at her head.
“Your hair,” he said. “It’s come undone.”
Mabel touched her hair. She liked to wear it up. She saw the dwarf pointing at the mirror on the far wall. She went to it and stared at her reflection. A startled sound escaped her lips. Her reflection wasn’t there. But everything else in the room was.
She reached out and touched the mirror. It was another illusion made from paint. The room’s furnishings were faithfully reflected in it, including the mop bucket on the floor and the silver napkin dispensers on the tables.
“I’m impressed,” she said, looking at the two men. Brownie’s smile said he was the culprit, his eyes laughing. She started to cross the room, and Little Pete pointed at the floor.
“Watch out!”
Mabel looked down at the open manhole, complete with toppled cover. She instinctively stopped and touched the cover with her foot. Another painting. She shook her head in amazement. It didn’t matter that she knew it was a fake. Her brain still told her to be careful, and she gingerly stepped over it to the delight of the two men.
Back at the bar, she slapped the water-stained counter. “I think that deserves a drink. How are you in the ginger ale department?”
Brownie found a ginger ale in the cooler and poured it into a tall glass filled with ice. “On the house,” he said.
“What do you call these paintings?” Mabel asked, taking a long drink. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Trompe l’oeil,” he replied. “That’s French for ‘trick of the eye.’ They keep things lively. Hope we didn’t offend you and your friend.”
“Not at all,” Mabel said. “I like to be fooled.”
Brownie and Little Pete were both retired sideshow performers, and they talked about their lives when Yolanda returned and joined Mabel at the bar, the baby sleeping in her arms.
Brownie called the sideshow a detour of shock and wonder. He and Little Pete had crisscrossed the country with circuses and carnivals for more than forty years. Brownie had started as a teenage clown, making himself up with shaving cream and lipstick. Little Pete informed them that he personally hadn’t needed any makeup.
“As I got older, I became a talker,” Brownie went on. “That’s the guy who stands outside the tent and prods the crowd, called the tip, to buy a ticket. We used to have a bally—that’s a small stage—where one or two acts would perform for free to get the crowd’s attention. I also acted as a gazoony. That’s the guy who put up and took down the show.”
“You must have been awfully busy,” Mabel said.
“When I was working, I slept five hours a night. I loved every minute of it.”
Mabel removed a piece of paper from her pocket. It had her notes from her phone conversation with Tony. She pretended to consult them. She had a feeling that Brownie would talk all day if she let him. “Did you ever run across a carnival out of the Panhandle?” she asked. “It was run by a family of gypsies. This was about twenty years ago.”
Little Pete said, “Could be the Schlitzie carnival. They were gypsies.”
“They were criminals,” Brownie said. “Ran crooked games and stole money from people left and right.” He looked at Mabel. “That who you looking for?”
Mabel glanced at her notes. Tony had said the gypsies had brought Ricky Smith into their fold when he was a teenager, and taught him the tricks of their trade. She couldn’t think of anything more harmful for a young man.
“Yes, I think so,” she said.
“They were bad eggs. If I remember correctly, the mother and father got deported, and the carnival disbanded. This was about—”
“Fifteen years ago,” Little Pete said, having captured the butterfly beneath a glass. Taking his cap off, he deftly picked the glass up off the bar and shook the butterfly out. It landed in his cap, which he immediately placed on his head.
“How long do they last?” Mabel asked.
“This one’s going on six weeks,” the dwarf said.
Mabel consulted her notes. Tony had been fooled by a lottery drawing and had decided that the method was something that Ricky Smith might have learned during his carnival days.
“Last question,” she said. “A friend of mine was fooled by a lottery he saw. He thinks the drawing was rigged. It used Ping-Pong balls.” She looked up at Brownie and Little Pete. “Does this ring any bells?”
“Ping-Pong balls?” Little Pete said. “Did she say Ping-Pong balls?”
“I believe she did,” the bartender replied.
Little Pete jumped out of his chair and onto the bar. His balance was off, and he nearly fell, then instantly righted himself. Mabel guessed there was more than tomato juice in his glass. She watched him run down the bar to the end. He grabbed a brown paper bag sitting on the top of a refrigerator. He kept his back to her, hiding his actions. When he returned, he was holding the bag in his outstretched hands.
“Take a look inside,” he said, “and tell me what you see.”
Mabel peeked inside the bag. Yolanda looked as well. The baby hadn’t made a sound, God bless her. The bag was filled with white Ping-Pong balls. Each one had a number printed on it in block lettering. Little Pete shook the bag for effect.
“All right, ladies and little girl, I want you to watch close. My dear friend Brownie is going to pull five balls out with his eyes closed. And I, the all-knowing, all-seeing Little Pete, am going to tell you which ones before he does. Ready?”
Mabel looked at Yolanda. “You watch his left hand, I’ll watch his right.”
“Got it,” the younger woman said.
“The numbers nine, fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-five, and forty-seven. Those are the numbers which Brownie will pull from the bag. Nine, fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-five, and forty-seven.”
Brownie unbuttoned his shirtsleeve and tugged it back to his elbow. His arm was covered in blue-black tattoos of mermaids and battleships. A navy man, Mabel guessed.
Closing his eyes, Brownie stuck his arm into the paper bag and removed a ball. It had the number twenty-three written on it.
“Twenty-three! Call me a genius. Everyone else does!” Little Pete said.
Brownie pulled out two balls at once. Numbers nine and fourteen.
“The daily double! How does he do it? Nobody knows!”
Grinning, Brownie pulled out a fourth ball. Number thirty-five
.
“Someone start a religion after this man,” the dwarf said. He stared at Yolanda with a devilish grin on his face. Then he offered her the bag.
“Go ahead, take out the last one. Number forty-seven.”
“But I don’t understand how the trick works,” Yolanda protested.
“That doesn’t matter,” Little Pete said.
Clearly perplexed, Yolanda handed Mabel her sleeping baby, then rose a few inches off her seat and stuck her arm into the paper bag. Suddenly her facial expression changed, and it took a moment before Mabel recognized the look. Yolanda was in the know.
She withdrew her hand and handed Mabel ball number forty-seven.
“How did you do that?” Mabel exclaimed.
26
It was noon when Valentine heard the doorbell ring. He’d decided that renting the house in Slippery Rock was one of the stupidest things he’d ever done. Everyone knew exactly where to find him. The front door had warped from all the rain, and he had to jerk it open. On the stoop stood Sergeant Gaylord. He was in his uniform, hat in hand.
“Sergeant Gaylord. What a pleasant surprise.”
Gaylord shot him an unfriendly look. “I normally don’t work Sundays, but seeing as I’ve got three dead men lying in my morgue, I’m clocking extra hours. Mind if I come in?”
“What’s this about?”
“You, my friend.”
Valentine ushered him into the kitchen and offered him a chair. Then he brewed a fresh pot of coffee with the coffee-maker he’d found in the pantry. He’d never known a cop to refuse a cup of joe, and Gaylord did not let him down. Tempering the drink with several teaspoons of sugar, the sergeant took a sip and winced.
“That’s mighty strong. You a caffeine junkie?”
“Afraid so.”
“Everyone’s got an addiction. Be happy yours is legal.” The sergeant took a bigger sip this time, and it made his eyes widen. “Here’s the deal, Tony. I called around and checked you out. You’re not in Slippery Rock writing your memoirs.”
Valentine guessed Gaylord was the last person in town to figure that out. He said, “Kind of obvious, huh?”
“Just a little.” Gaylord loosened the knot in his necktie. “So here’s the deal. I want you to come clean with me. I need to know why you were in that bank with Ricky Smith. Now, understand, I’m not accusing you of anything. But I need to know the truth. And if I think you’re lying, I’m going to haul you in under suspicion. Understand?”
Valentine nodded. He’d put Gaylord in a bad position by not coming clean with him yesterday. It was disrespectful, and they both knew it. He took a gulp of coffee and told the sergeant the real reason he was in Slippery Rock.
At first, Gaylord didn’t say much. There didn’t appear to be much going on behind his dull green eyes. Small-town cops were notoriously dumb; below-average IQs were a requirement among many police departments, the belief being that someone with brains wouldn’t be interested in sitting in a patrol car all day. Ripping open a pack of gum, the sergeant stuck three sticks into his mouth and began to vigorously chew. When Valentine was finished talking, Gaylord said, “Want a piece?”
“No thanks.”
He put the gum away. “So you think Ricky may be staging all this stuff, making himself look like he’s the world’s luckiest man?”
“That’s my theory,” Valentine said.
“But you don’t have any proof.”
“No, sir.”
“But you have a motive,” he said, working his gum hard.
Valentine shook his head.
“Sure you do. Ricky’s trying to be something that he’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
Gaylord put his cup in the sink, then returned to his chair. “That’s the motivation behind most robberies. The robber wants the money because he thinks it’s going to change him in some life-altering way. It’s his ticket to the big time.”
The coffeepot was still on. Valentine refilled his cup, thinking back to the robbery at the bank. “Sort of like Beasley and the scarecrow.”
“Exactly.”
Gaylord removed a spiral notebook from his back pocket and stared at his notes. “Just before you shot them, Beasley told his partner they were going to be eating cheeseburgers in paradise. That’s a line from a Jimmy Buffet song. My wife is a Parrot Head, has all his CDs.”
“Is that what they call his fans?”
Gaylord nodded. “I listened to the song last night. You know what it’s really about?”
“No.”
“The song is about dreams.”
Valentine sipped his coffee. Mary Alice Stoker had told him that she thought Ricky’s lucky streak and the bank robbery were somehow connected. Now Gaylord was inferring the same thing. He wasn’t seeing the connection and put his cup on the table. “Maybe I’m missing something, but what does that have to do with Ricky Smith winning everything in sight? The bank robbers didn’t act like they knew him.”
Gaylord flipped his notebook shut and slapped it on the table. There was a spark behind his eyes now. “I honestly don’t know. But my gut tells me they’re connected. Beasley and the scarecrow didn’t have arrest records. Something drove them to do what they did.” Glancing at his watch, he said, “My wife is going to kill me,” and pushed himself out of his chair.
“She making you lunch?”
“We’re going out. It’s our anniversary.”
Valentine followed the sergeant outside to his car. Gaylord had his keys out. As he started to get in, an SUV passed on the road. The sergeant watched it like a hawk, then said, “See that car? Brand-new Lexus SUV. Owner is a housepainter. Set him back forty-five thousand bucks.”
“I hear they’re nice cars,” Valentine said.
Gaylord shot him a funny look. “Know how many new cars I’ve seen in the past week? An even dozen. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, even one of those crazy-looking Hummers. I’ve worked here sixteen years and never seen that many new cars.”
“Are the people who’re buying them connected?”
“Nope. Just a bunch of locals. They’re going to the bank and taking out loans.”
Valentine felt himself stiffen. They were buying on credit, just like Ricky Smith.
“Not just for cars, either,” the sergeant went on. “People borrowing money to buy plasma-screen TVs and motorcycles and putting additions on their houses. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Slippery Rock was single-handedly trying to jump-start the economy.”
Valentine’s cell phone rang. He took it out and flipped it open. It was Gerry.
“My son,” he told the sergeant.
Gaylord climbed into his car, then lowered his window. He held out a paper bag, which Valentine took from him and looked inside. It contained his Glock.
“Thanks.”
He watched Gaylord drive away and felt himself shiver. He’d come outside without his overcoat and was already regretting it. The old adage was true: People from the north were always cold, people from the south always warm.
“How’s it going?” he said to his son.
“Not so great,” Gerry replied. “I’m still in Gulfport.”
Valentine went into the house and slammed the door behind him. The reception on his cell phone instantly got better. “How much did you lose?”
“What do you mean?” his son said, sounding hurt.
His ass hit the chair hard. Gerry had come into this world kicking and screaming and had been causing headaches ever since. “How much did you lose in the casino? That’s what you’re calling about, isn’t it?”
“No, Pop, it’s not. Three brothers tried to execute me outside Gulfport last night. They’re in the Dixie Mafia. I dumped some logs on them and killed them. I’m staying in Gulfport until the police arrest their father. He’s in the Dixie Mafia, too.”
Valentine felt his heart racing out of control. He could hear real fear in his son’s voice. When he opened his mouth, he heard the same fear in his own.
�
��Why did they try to kill you?”
“Tex Snyder asked me to help him cheat a sucker. I turned him down. Turns out Tex was working with these guys.”
“You doing okay?”
His son took a deep breath. His voice sounded like it was going to crack. Valentine wished they were in the same room so he could throw his arms around his son’s shoulders and comfort him.
“No,” Gerry said.
27
Huck Dubb felt an invisible knife stab him in the heart. He stood in the basement of the Harrison County morgue, staring at his three sons lying side by side on slabs. Their naked bodies were covered in purple bruises, their heads twisted unnaturally to the side. He’d heard the news and rushed over. He had to see it with his own eyes.
He touched each of his boys. Their skin had turned cold and clammy. He’d never believed in God and believed in him less now. God wouldn’t rob a man of his three sons all at once. Not even a man as bad as him. He looked at the walleyed orderly who’d let him into the morgue. His name was Cur. Huck had run moonshine with his daddy years ago.
“Cover them,” Huck said.
Cur draped black sheets over the three boys. Huck reached out and touched each of them again. Last Sunday, they’d gotten together and drunk whiskey on the front porch of his house. Their combined weight had caved the porch in and killed his best hunting dog. His sons had laughed like hell. He withdrew his hand.
It wasn’t fair. One of his boys dying he might be able to live with; not all three. He looked at Cur. “What you hearing?”
“I’m hearing it was an Eye-talian that killed ’em,” Cur said, shuffling his feet as he spoke. “Named Valentino or something.”
Huck felt the knife give his heart another stab. Valentine was who he’d sent his boys to kill. “Where’s Valentine, in the county jail?” he asked.
“Nuh-uh,” Cur said, still doing his little dance. “Lamar Biggs sprung him.”
