Catch a Falling Clown tp-7

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Nope,” I said, leaning back to rest. “He’s only half the tale.”

  “There is little poetry in the world,” sighed Jeremy, turning another corner.

  “We need what we can get,” I said with eyes closed.

  “I too thought that not long ago,” he said. “But I no longer think it. This is a world of steamy woe, Toby. Poetry is necessary, yes, but for the poet, not the public. It took me this half a century on earth to understand that basic truth.”

  We hit a bump, and Agnes squealed in the back seat. “I think the nights are too cold in California,” she whimpered, as the first chill of evening whistled through the bullet holes in the rear window.

  “Yes,” agreed Jeremy, “too cold for poetry.”

  “No,” she sighed, “too cold for Abdul.”

  “You have a sick Arab brother, husband?” Jeremy said in sympathy.

  “Snake,” I explained. “Abdul’s her snake. He got lost.”

  “We each fight our own wars,” he said. “I have a snake poem which might comfort you. It’s in the spring issue of Southern Thought Magazine.”

  Agnes didn’t pick up on the invitation. It was the least she could do for someone who had just saved her life, but then again, her life wouldn’t have needed saving if I hadn’t accused her of murder.

  “I’d like to hear it, Jeremy,” I said.

  Agnes came out of her grief for Abdul enough to pick up on the signal I was giving her. Jeremy probably picked it up too. He had known me longer than she had, but he wanted to do it, and as he said, it was more for the poet anyway.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. There was a calm smile on his face as he performed.

  What once were legs are no more

  in the cool perfection

  of form that seeks no complication

  and neither wishes to please nor score.

  It kills without abuse,

  consumes without excuse,

  craves no company

  and keeps its counsel close to the earth.

  Hated for its distance and distaste

  for the image of standing man,

  the snake in his indifference becomes

  the symbol of the beast who can

  tempt us from the garden of ignorance

  by his very example

  of independence.

  “Some snakes kill very violently, and a lot of them like company,” commented Agnes. “I mean, I like the poem …”

  “It is not about the reality of snakes,” explained Jeremy patiently. “It is about man’s image of the creature, my image of the creature. The total number of subscribers to Southern Thought Magazine is no more than two hundred, and I doubt if any of the dozen or so who will read my poem are herpetologists. I don’t care about snakes. It’s metaphor I’m after.”

  “Well,” said Agnes, “I don’t care about metaphors or Seventh-Day Adventists. I care about snakes.”

  “A realist critic,” sighed Jeremy, with a sudden turn down the road to the circus.

  12

  There wasn’t much doubt that Paul, Alex, and Nelson would either follow us to the circus, lose us and head for the circus, or just realize where we were going.

  The circus lights glowed yellow in the twilight over Aldreich Field, and we followed those lights like the North Star. Jeremy drove right to Emmett Kelly’s wagon and parked the car behind it. I told Agnes to stay with me, but she said she was going back to her snakes.

  “They’re hungry and scared,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I mean, I’m sorry I thought you had anything to do with the murders.”

  She kissed my nose and ran off. I asked Jeremy to stay with her just in case Paul or anyone showed up who might be a problem. He nodded and went off after her.

  Kelly, Gunther, and Shelly were inside the wagon, and all three leaped up when I stepped in.

  “Are you all right?” said Gunther.

  “Is Agnes all right?” said Kelly, dressed as Willie.

  “My car,” said Shelly. “Jeremy took my car.”

  “Agnes is fine. I’m fine. The car’s outside with one neat bullet hole in it.”

  Shelly ran for the door and out.

  “I’ve almost got it wrapped up,” I said, “but I need a little more time.”

  “The clown suit,” said Kelly, who was in his Willie costume. I winced and then agreed. Gunther hurried along at my side as we headed for clown alley, and I explained what I wanted him to do.

  “There is probably a much simpler way than such direct confrontation,” he said reasonably. He was always reasonable.

  “Maybe,” I said, winding my way through the crowds to keep an eye on Kelly, whom the people kept stopping to gawk at, “but I haven’t got any real proof, just someone caught in a lie and my word and Agnes’ against Paul’s. This is his town. I don’t even have a motive. I’ve got to turn over a killer before the killer turns me over.”

  “Us,” corrected Gunther, running at my side.

  “Us,” I agreed, looking down at him.

  “Be cautious, Toby,” he warned. “Some day your recklessness …”

  “… will save the world,” I finished with a wink. Gunther walked away, shaking his head, and I followed Kelly into the tent, where the clowns were putting the finishing touches on their costumes.

  “Help needed here,” Kelly said. Three clowns, one with a mop of orange hair and a huge painted grin, hurried over. He had a pipe between his teeth. Two other clowns, one a midget, leaped to our side.

  “We’ve got to get him back in paint and fast,” explained Kelly. “Town cops are after him, and he’s got the Tanucci killer coming down.”

  No one spoke. There were a few nods and some hands grabbed me, began to strip my clothes off. First the inner tube went around my waist. Then the costume went on over it. My face was covered with something sticky, and the little hat was on again with the rubber chin strap. Someone thrust the fake lasso in my hand, and hands stood me up. I looked in the mirror at my side and saw that Toby Peters was gone.

  “Just stay behind me,” said Kelly as Willie. “Spin the rope and I’ll do my act. I’ll look back at you every once in a while as if you’re following me. When I look at you, you look out at the audience, very slow, as if you want me to think you’re not following me, and keep twirling the rope. Got it?”

  I said I did, and I followed him into the night. The band was playing in the big top, and the stragglers were buying up their tickets for the final night of the Rose and Elder circus in Mirador. Kelly, two clowns, and I ran right past Alex and Nelson, who were at the entrance with their hands touching the steel of holstered guns. A few dozen yards behind them was Paul, who stopped still when we passed and looked directly in my eyes. I tried not to return the look as I passed, but that split face was irresistible. He recognized me as surely as I recognized him. I half expected him to yell for Nelson, but he didn’t, and as I ran into the big top, I knew he didn’t want to risk confronting me before witnesses. I had to be done away with before I could talk.

  The lights hit me, and I was aware of something I had never felt before: eyes, thousands of eyes looking at me from beyond the brightness. There was a cheer in my direction, our direction. I was a clown. I followed Kelly and watched as clowns drove around in little cars, carried pails of water which they threw at each other, hoisted ladders, and drew howls of laughter. Willie walked in front of me, doing his wood-sawing act and taking it right into the stands. The first time he looked back at me I twirled my lasso harder and looked up at the crowd the way he had told me to do, a Jack Benny look. The entire section of the stands, hundreds of them, laughed. They laughed at me. They laughed at me because I had done something funny. I knew Kelly had set up the laugh, but it was a feeling I had never had before, as good as anything I had ever felt except for sex, handball, and the moment of facing what you most fear.

  We were walking around doing a counterpoint to the music when I spotted Alex at the entrance on
one end of the tent. Nelson stood at the entrance to the other end, scanning the crowd. I didn’t see Paul or his partner, but I knew they couldn’t be too far away.

  “They’re waiting for me,” I whispered to Kelly. Willie turned slowly to look in both directions, took off his hat, rubbed his head to the delight of the crowd, and headed to the center ring while the other clowns exited.

  “And now,” said the ringmaster over a crackling loudspeaker, “we direct your attention to the center ring where the Flying Ibems of Peru will dazzle you with their death-defying feats of antigravity.”

  Kelly held the rope ladder at the bottom, and I dropped my lasso and held the other ladder. The Ibems came out, bowing to the crowd to the sound of music, and advanced on us.

  Their smiles never left their faces, but as they climbed the ladder each one in turn mumbled something about our not getting into their act.

  “Don’t worry,” Kelly said without moving his lips. “They’ll get more response because we’re here. They’ll probably ask me to do it again in the next town. Just pretend you’re afraid they’re going to fall. Hold your hat on your head with one hand and run around under them. Keep an eye out for your friends to leave.”

  Everything worked the way Kelly wanted. The crowd went wild, and the Ibems were sent out with a wild ovation.

  “Now the crowd thinks the Ibems are good sports,” said Kelly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Willie moped ahead of me, and I followed, picking up my lasso and twirling it slowly. The crowd applauded us to the entrance, and Kelly exited with his head bent over.

  A figure barred my way, appearing between Kelly and me, a big figure in a costume that looked like a clown’s version of a ringmaster. He was dressed entirely in green, including a high green hat with a white feather. His face was painted with yellow greasepaint, and he held something long and metallic in his hand. Even behind the paint there was no problem recognizing the split-faced Paul, who pushed me back with his belly into the tent.

  Another set of acts was coming in, but I couldn’t see them. The lights had gone down and the music was softer. I was aware of twirling human figures and shadows above us as I backed into the tent.

  “This,” said Paul softly, holding the shaft in the air, “is an elephant prod. A good jolt from this can make any, even the largest elephant, rethink his rebellion. An extra-good jolt can be a definite danger to an elephant and can easily kill a human.”

  He thrust the metal rod at me, and I tumbled backward. My eyes met those of a thin woman in the front row.

  “He’s trying to kill me,” I said.

  The woman’s cheeks puffed out, and she put a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter.

  Paul played his part perfectly, thrusting out his stomach and walking as he pursued me. I scrambled to my feet and tried to run, but the damn inner tube kept me off balance. Paul advanced, holding the prod over his head and whirling it.

  I tried to convince four or five men, women, and children that this was no act. I looked up at the glittering women swinging on ropes for help, but they were too far away. The prod hissed through the air and missed my face by inches.

  “The circus did this to me,” Paul said, pointing a thumb at his grotesque face.

  “Let’s talk,” I tried.

  He shook his head to let me know that he had no more to say on that subject. “I had forgotten what it sounded like to have the crowd,” he said angrily. “You hear them? That murmur, attention. We’ll give them something to murmur about.”

  The steel rod thrust at me like a sword, and a spit seared through my purple costume and singed the white puff of a button. Paul lunged forward, and the crackling rod punctured my inner tube, which popped and sent a little girl near me into tears.

  Released from the tube, I turned and ran for the far exit. Paul was behind me, but I had less weight and more to lose. The crowd went wild as I passed, and high above, I could hear one of the swinging girls shout that I was ruining her act.

  I darted through the tent flap, looking for Nelson now instead of trying to avoid him. Things weren’t going quite the way I wanted them to.

  I looked around for help, saw none, and headed for Elder’s wagon or where I thought Elder’s wagon was. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was going in the wrong direction. The hulking form of Thomas Paul was outlined behind me, elephant prod in hand, coming steadily. I ducked behind a tent, unsure of whether or not he had seen me, tried to get my bearings, and wondered how I could lure him back to Elder’s office without getting killed. There seemed to be no sound of footsteps, so I decided to peek around the tent. The prod sizzled through the canvas and missed my nose by the thickness of a defense stamp. I could smell the heat.

  I bounced off the tent, and a second thrust burned through the canvas where my head had been. The tent ripped, and Paul stepped through. Then the chase went on, and I lost track of where I was and wondered where Paul had picked up all that speed with all that weight. There was a wagon at my back and a dozen places Paul could leap out of. The wagon had a rung ladder. I climbed, trying to keep my baggy clown pants from getting in my way, and stood on top of the wagon. I spotted Paul, and he spotted me. He was on the ground a few dozen feet away. We looked at each other for a second or two, and I yelled for help as he came toward the wagon and up the ladder. The big top was only six or so feet away, and the band was playing a loud wild march that helped drown out my scream. Paul came up, with prod ahead of him, swinging. I leaped to the tent and turned to face him. He followed to the end of the wagon and came after me with an enormous leap that shook the huge tent. Below us, I could hear a few cries of surprise where he had landed.

  I backed up, grabbing at canvas, and Paul came resolutely after me.

  “Let’s talk,” I said, going higher and higher, feeling the night wind through my greasepaint. Yeah, I thought, let’s talk, one crazy clown to another on the night of a full moon, thirty or forty feet up in the air on a piece of canvas.

  “My sister died in the circus,” he said, coming after me.

  The people under the big top must have seen the billowing and wondered what hell demon or animal was leaping over them.

  “My father, my brother, and my wife died in the circus. Only the two of us survived, and look what it did to me. My face and my brain. We fell. We fell. I remember my father dropping the balance pole and floating past me.”

  We were moving steadily upward to the top of the tent, and he obviously had a better sense of balance than I did.

  “And,” he said, “the circus just went on. That very next day, as if we had never existed. The show must go on. Why must the show go on? Why do those people have to watch near-death to enjoy their own lives? That world below us is a corrupt world.”

  He stood holding the canvas with one hand and pointing downward with his other. The prod was his pointer, and he was God, and there was no reasoning with God.

  “I tried to forget,” he said. “I didn’t want any part of it. I knew what he had done to the elephants, but I wanted to forget. Then this circus had to come here, to Mirador, the first circus to come here. They followed me, brought their corruption right to the place where I had retreated. They declared war. He was right. He told me and I tried to hide, but they followed me.”

  He took a lunge toward me, and I moved up higher, but there wasn’t much higher to move, and his confession was doing me no good up here with no one but me to hear it and no one to save me.

  “So it was his idea,” I said into the wind. A flag was flapping at the top of the tent, and I reached it and clung to it. A strong wind had come up. If I let go, I would probably slide down the tent and into the darkness below to hit the ground or something worse. The best act in the circus was going on where no one could see it.

  Paul came puffing up after me. His green hat went flying with a gust of wind.

  “Why kill me?” I said.

  “Because you know who we are,” he shouted into the wind. “Because someone
must be labeled killer if we are not to be.”

  “They’ll catch you,” I said.

  Paul laughed, a sincere Santa Claus laugh. “You don’t understand. We don’t care if they catch us as long as we destroy all this, make people realize what a sham this is, this thing that kills families for entertainment.”

  It was not the time to reason with him. I could have compared the circus to boxing, which I liked, or the war going on in all directions, which I didn’t like.

  “Let’s …” I started, and he made a wild lunge toward me, prod out. It went past my neck, and I swung my right arm at Paul’s face. My fist was weak and backhanded, but I had forgotten the severed handcuff that was still on my wrist. It hit him in the face. The prod dropped from his hand, seared through the top of the tent, and plunged down into the sudden light. I looked down to watch it bounce off the side of the ring and send a prancing white horse leaping in fear. I could see crowd faces looking up in our direction.

  Paul wasn’t ready to give up. It was clear to me that he planned never to give up. He dug his fingers into the canvas and came back at me. I kept one hand on the flag, which flapped in my face, and tried to ward him off with my manacled hand.

  “You’ll kill both of us,” I said reasonably.

  Paul was still not listening. He lumbered forward and clamped his arms around my waist. I pounded at his head with my handcuff. He squeezed and tried to pry me loose from my perch. His arms were powerful, and I could feel my head going light. It was no time to meet Koko, plunging into unconsciousness. I’d never come out of the inkwell this time. I pounded at Paul’s head and yellow face as if at a bent nail refusing to go into hard wood.

  I was getting nowhere one-handed. It was time to do something. I let go of the flag and threw a left into Paul’s neck. He groaned and let go for an instant. When he did, I kicked him in the chest and he tumbled backward, clutching at canvas. I grabbed the flagpole again as I felt myself starting to slide away.

  Paul’s right leg was through the hole he had burned in the top of the tent. He was dangling, grabbing for the tearing canvas. We locked wrists and hands, and I held on, feeling the tear in the tent widen with Paul’s weight against it.