by Gord Rollo
“Mister Chollo?” Abby asked, raising her voice outside his trailer but not loud enough for it to be considered a shout. Her own home, virtually identical to this one, was only two trailers away. She waited a few seconds for a response but when none came, Abby started banging on the trailer’s outer screen door. “I know you’re in there, little man. Get out here and talk to me. It’s important.”
A single light came on inside that Abby’s sixth sense just barely picked up on and ten seconds later the door pushed open. Standing at the threshold was the self-proclaimed World’s Shortest Man. It might or might not be true, but even if it wasn’t no one ever seemed to question the tiny man’s claim. In the end it really didn’t matter—the crowds loved to stare at him and have their pictures taken with him regardless. According to Guinness, the shortest man who’d ever lived had been Gul Mohammed from New Delhi, India. At only 22.5 inches tall and only 37 pounds, he’d reigned supreme until his death in 1997. Chollo Markov was practically a giant by those standards, measuring just shy of 30 inches tall, and tipping the scales at a whopping 52 pounds. During his shows, the little Russian man was impeccably groomed with his hair slicked back and always wearing a custom made suit and tie, but at the moment, having just crawled out of bed he wore only a faded blue t-shirt hanging past his knees and his hair was a spiky mess.
“Jesus, Abby. Can’t vait ‘til morning? It’s been ‘ell of a day.”
“No, it can’t. Where were you tonight when that little girl went missing?”
“Vat? I don’ know. I vas probably doing my—”
“Proper English, Chollo. You have to practice more. Especially those W’s. And no you weren’t doing your show. I saw you there.”
“Vere? Er..sorry. Wh…ere?”
“Much better. Outside the main entrance. In the long grass near the parking lot. I didn’t tell the police; and I don’t plan on it but I saw you in my vision. You were crouched beside the tree stump watching the man with the knife take that little girl toward the cars. You’re easy to miss, my friend, but I know it was you. Your hand was bleeding. Let me see it.”
Mister Chollo considered lying to her but they’d been close friends for years. In the end he just sighed and held out his right hand. Abby barely even had to try opening up her mind’s eye to see that it was bandaged up.
“What happened?”
“Nothin’ Abby, honest. I vas out putting some coupons on cars in the parking lot and I cut my hand on vindshield viper. I mean, windshield wiper. It didn’t hurt much but it was bleeding like bugger. I stopped near main entrance to wrap my sock around cut ‘cause I vas getting worried about it. I did see tall guy with knife on belt but didn’t think much of it. I just thought it vas some guy taking his kid home, you know? I didn’t know he vasn’t…wasn’t her father. How could I?”
“You couldn’t, little man. It’s okay. I wasn’t trying to put any blame on you, I was just a little shocked to see you in my vision and had to ask. I’m sorry I woke you. Go on back to bed. That’s where I’m headed too.”
“No problem, beautiful. Get sleep and we’ll talk again at breakfast.”
Abby started to turn away but then she remembered something else she wanted to ask her old friend. “Oh wait. Do you know anyone named Crowley?”
“Crovey? Ahh…No. Not me. Who is this Crow…ley?”
“No idea. Maybe nobody. It’s strange though. In my vision I clearly saw their name on the banner above the entrance where Townsend should have been.”
“Sorry, Angel. Mister Chollo not know everyone. Have good sleep, yes?”
“You too. See you tomorrow.”
* * *
By 3:00 a.m. nearly everyone in Westchester was asleep in their beds, but not Ray Jensen. No, Ray was still wide awake and not in a particularly good mood. He was cold, drunk, and murderously pissed off at Aurora, the blind fortune teller who’d made a first class fool of him in front of his brother. Since then, he’d dumped Charlie at home, scored another six pack of Bud, and sat drinking them trying to come up with a way of getting back at the women who’d said such vile things about him spying on his mother as she undressed. The fact everything she’d said was bang on only pissed Ray off more.
“How did she know that?” he fumed. “It’s impossible.” Someone had to have told her, he guessed, but that only lead to the conclusion other people knew what he’d been doing. Charlie? Doubtful. His mom? No way; no one knew his secret.
“But that freak sure did! Fuck!”
Drunk or not, Ray was starting to warm to the idea that maybe she wasn’t just putting on a show for the customers.
“Maybe the little bitch really is psychic!”
As crazy as it sounded, the booze and his frazzled nerves had him convinced that might be the only possibility. It also potentially meant big trouble on the horizon, because if the blind girl had really seen what he did at home in his closet, what if she knew about all the other things he’d done?
Like poisoning the neighbor’s two Siamese cats last month just because he was bored and looking for something to do. Or secretly slipping Mary Beth Sutton a hit of acid in her Pepsi at the movies then forcing her to give him a blow job by threatening to make her walk home if she didn’t. Worse still, what if the fortune teller knew about old man Foster, and how Ray had broken into his house one night to steal his stereo and CD collection, but had clumsily woken the owner up and had been forced to beat the old man half to death in order to make his escape. Ray had shit his pants for days after that one, waiting for the cops to come drag him away, but they never came. Obviously old man Foster hadn’t been able to identify him, or more likely he’d been too scared to do so.
Maybe that was the answer. Pay the little princess a late night visit and explain to her just who the fuck she was dealing with. Send her a message she’d hear loud and clear, just like the old man had. Ray didn’t know for sure the fortune teller was psychic or whether or not she knew other things about him that might lead to trouble, but why take the chance? Why risk the humiliation and all that grief when he could nip the problem in the butt tonight and be done with it?
In Ray’s shallow little inebriated mind, there really wasn’t much of a choice. There was no way he was going down just for beating a worthless old fuck and killing a few animals. No way.
“Besides, who does that little slut think she is, anyway? She dresses like a two dollar whore, takes my money for nothin’ then thinks she can make me her whipping boy. Fuck that! I’ll show her who’s gonna be who’s bitch!”
The more he thought about it, the better the idea sounded. It was an awfully stupid thing to do, but he was far too drunk and stubborn to consider the consequences. For now, all he could think about was revenge, and pounding some respect into that sweet psychic ass Aurora had put on display earlier.
“Skank will probably enjoy it. Probably beg me for more than just a beating. Yeah… give her a lesson she’ll never forget!”
With his bravado fully pumped up, he headed back to the woods on the edge of town, where the carnival always set up shop. He knew from years of going there that the carnies always parked their trailers close to the tree line, hidden from view behind the big circus tent. Ray wasn’t sure which trailer was the fortune teller’s, but was reasonable sure he could find her if he tried.
Ray stumbled his way to the woods and found the line of stainless steel trailers easy enough, but being intoxicated they all looked the bloody same to him. Fate favored the bold so he decided to sneak up close to risk peeking in a few windows, but it was dark as a buried coffin in the shadow of the trees and he had trouble making anything out inside the unlit trailers. Ray was starting to think nothing short of knocking on the front doors was going to tell him where Aurora was sleeping but just as his anger reached volcanic levels and his patience grew paper thin, he noticed a tiny glow shining out of one of the windows. Like a mindless moth, Ray staggered toward the light and pressed his face against the glass to see a small teddy bear night light plugged
in a wall socket beside a bed. On the bed; laying half in and half out of the covers, was a shapely young woman with dark curly hair. She wore only a tight white t-shirt and panties, but as much as Ray could have stared at sleeping beauty’s body for hours, his eyes were drawn to her hands. The woman’s right hand lay palm up in the pool of light and Ray’s heart started to race even faster when he saw the eye tattoo that told him he was in the right place.
Son of a bitch! It’s her. Can’t believe I actually found her.
Not for a moment did Ray pause to consider why a blind woman would sleep with a nightlight. He had other thoughts on his mind. Ray moved as quietly as he could toward the front door of the sleeping fortune teller’s trailer. In his head, he was already fantasizing about crawling on top of that firm, luscious body and having his way with her, and the best part was that since she was blind she’d never be able to identify who’d done it. Ray’s hand had just started to reach for the door handle to see if he was lucky enough that it would be unlocked, when out of nowhere a male voice spoke n the darkness behind him.
“That’s far enough,” the unseen man whispered. “The girl is spoken for, boy, and you’ve just made a bad mistake.”
Ray spun around to face whoever it was, hands already forming into fists, ready to fight but there was no one in view. He looked wildly left and right, expecting the man to rush him from out of the dark, but it wasn’t until he felt the impact on his chest and looked down to see a knife blade sticking between his ribs that he realized how wrong he’d been. The fight was already over before he’d even thrown a punch.
The pain drove Ray to lurch away from the door and fall to his knees in the damp grass. He pulled the blade from his chest, gasping as the six inch piece of steel set his chest on fire. There wasn’t a lot of blood from the wound, but he was having trouble breathing and suspected his left lung had been punctured.
“Help!” Ray pleaded, gasping for breath now, every precious mouthful of the cool night air as thick as corn syrup, and getting harder to swallow. “I need an ambulance.”
The man in the shadows only laughed. Ray tried to scream louder, hoping to wake some of the carnies up inside the trailers, but he had no wind left inside him to make noise. Hardly believing this was actually happening, he struggled to his feet and tried to make a run for it. Maybe if he made it into the woods, he could…
A leg stretched out and tripped Ray onto his face as he reached the tree line. He landed on a bed of pine needles and immediately tried to get back on his feet. He’d only made it as far as his knees when an unseen hand slashed something cold and hard under his chin from behind and Ray felt a torrent of hot liquid pour down the front of his chest. He tried to scream again but only a gurgle of frothy blood shot from his ravaged throat. Ray tried to stem the flow of blood with his hands but it was an impossible task and his strength was fading fast. His hands fell uselessly to his sides and the tough talking, big-mouthed Ray Jensen toppled forward into the dirt, dead before he hit the ground.
* * *
Abby Hawkins was dragged from a peaceful sleep by the high pitched wail of an approaching police car. For a split-second she was caught between two worlds—the real one, where the shrill blare of the siren surely had all the carnies jumping out of their beds, and the dream world, which ironically also involved the Westchester Police Department, or at least a certain tall young officer on their force. Dreaming about Officer Beck was more than a bit silly, of course. After all, she didn’t even like the damn guy and what would it matter if she did? He was a married man who obviously couldn’t be trusted. Still, there was no doubt which world was more pleasant at the moment, and Abby would have enjoyed exploring her fantasy a little further if given a choice, but with all the noise and chaos suddenly descending on the carnival, going back to sleep was impossible.
Abby climbed out of bed to get dressed as fast as she could.
Outside, the air was chilly but not cold, and Abby used her heightened senses to see that the sun in the East was just beginning to chase away the darkness for another day but it was still too dark for her to trust her mind’s eye and risk moving too quickly. Like the blind woman the majority of the world perceived her to be, Abby began tentatively walking toward the woods and the irritating sirens, hands held out in front of her in case she smacked into a tree, steadfastly determined to see what all the commotion was about and not give in to her disabilities.
Fortunately, her friend Chollo suddenly appeared next to her and took Abby by the hand, walking beside her rather than leading, which he knew she hated.
“Let’s go see vat all the noise is about, princess. Will you walk with me? My legs are hurting today and I could use friend to lean on.”
Bless his little heart, Abby thought. “Of course. What time is it, anyway?”
“Nearly 6:00 a.m.”
“So much for sleeping in. What’s happening? It’s still too dark for me to see. Any idea what the heck’s going on?”
“I’m afraid so. Miranda from the Ticket Booth tell me she heard someone has been found dead in the voods…ah, woods. The police are already putting up that fancy yellow tape around the tree trucks.”
“Dead? Oh my God! Is it the little girl who was abducted last night?”
“No. Miranda say it some young man. From town; not one of us.”
Someone thankfully shut off the police siren as Abby and Chollo joined the rest of the carnies trying to get a look at the body lying just inside the woods. The Sun was slowly climbing over the trees and Abby was just able to pick up a glimpse of a young man lying on his belly in the pine needles with two Westchester Police Officers bending over him. His face was turned toward them, but it was only a smudged blur to her from this distance. She did however, notice that neither of the cops on the scene were David. Abby surprised herself by feeling slightly upset when she learned Officer Beck wasn’t on duty. Idiot! She scolded herself. Did you think he worked 24 hours a day? He’s probably at home…in bed with his wife. Or his girlfriend.
“Can we go a little closer, Chollo? It’s still a bit dark here for me to get a clear mental image.”
“Certainly, princess. Take my hand.”
Mister Chollo dodged around a few of the gawkers and skillfully maneuvered Abby under the police tape right to the front of the pack. They were within ten feet of the dead man’s body now and their close proximity had caught the attention of one of the policemen on duty. He rose to his feet; all six feet six of him, and began walking toward the carnies with his huge hands held at chest level making a pushing motion.
“Okay folks,” the officer said; his voice quite high-pitched and somewhat unexpected from such a large man. “Move it back a few steps. We have a crime scene here and we need you to stay back behind the yellow tape, got it?”
Abby would have normally agreed and immediately ducked back under the tape to not cause any problems, but her sixth sense was slipping into overdrive and sending her snapshots of the dead man’s body and more importantly, the gaping raw wound in his neck and his terror filled face. Mother of God! It’s him! The teenager from last night. The one who was with me while I had my vision of Trisha’s abduction. What was his name again? Charlie. That’s it. No wait…that was his brother. The nice one. This guy had been the prick. The one who’d demanded a reading.
For the life of her, Abby couldn’t remember his name. Not that it mattered. If she touched him she’d know, but damned if she wanted to put her hands on a dead man. Still, gruesome or not, it might be a good idea. She might be able to tell the police what had happened, and more importantly, who the killer was.
“I said, back it up lady!” The large officer was in her face now, trying to calmly direct her back under the yellow tape, but she resisted his efforts, wanting to get closer to the body, not farther away.
“Wait! I can help. Let me go over to him. If you’ll just let me touch his body I think I might be able—”
“You ain’t touching squat, lady. You kidding me? I told you, t
his is a crime scene and no one’s touching nothin’ until the chief and the coroner show up. Now get back behind the tape…before I have you arrested.”
“Arrested?” Mister Chollo said, coming to his friend’s defense. “She’s only trying to help you. There’s no need to—”
“Am I not talking loud enough for you people? The carnival music damaged all your ears? I told everyone to step back and I meant it. MOVE!” The angry policeman stood his ground until everyone in the crowd had backed away several feet. “This is serious shit, folks. Pardon my French, but someone’s been murdered here. Add that to the missing little girl last night and we have a whole heap of trouble on our hands; all of it centered on this damn freak show. Effective immediately, the carnival is shut down. No one’s going anywhere until my partner and I get a sworn statement from each and every one of you.”
* * *
By noon, the mood around the carnival had gone from bad to worse. The Westchester Police had shut down the ticket booths and roped off the parking lot to keep customers away and the carnies had been rather rudely informed that not only were they not opening for business until further investigation, but that each and every one of them was being considered as a possible suspect in both the murder of Raymond Jensen and the previous disappearance of young Trisha Martin. The carnies were a close family—most of them having no real family outside of the Townsend Traveling Show—and this carnival, as ragtag an outfit and it may very well be, was all any of them had. Collectively, they were shocked and more than a little offended anyone might suspect them having anything to do with effectively closing the show and cutting off their only means of making a respectably living. They were entertainers, not criminals, and certainly not kidnappers and killers. It would have been laughable if the situation wasn’t so deadly serious.
Abby fully expected to be grilled numerous times by the police trying to ascertain the extent of her unusual knowledge of last night’s abduction and she was smart enough to know they’d find out the teenage boy had been the last person to visit Abby before all the chaos had broken loose, so it was no surprise when she was told another police officer wanted to speak with her in private back in her tent. What did surprise her, even shock her a little, was that the policeman turned out to be Officer Beck, the cop she’d developed a silly crush on yesterday.
