The Dead Ringer

by Fredric Brown

  “Okay,” I said. “Give my love to Skeets.”

  He went out, and I looked among the dozen albums and picked out a Harry James album, early Harry James. “Memphis Blues” and “Sleepy Time Gal,” and stuff like that.

  I’d played only a few of them when I discovered that my glass was empty. I had a momentary impulse to fill it up again from the bottle in the kitchen and then I decided I’d better not—if I was going to be able to walk straight.

  I played a few more sides and found I was getting definitely woozy. Enough to make me wonder what it would feel like to be really drunk. I’d been on the border line a few times, but never all the way across.

  I wondered if I should or shouldn’t.

  I took the little red cube out of my pocket. I thought, I’ll throw it and if it comes low—a one, two or three—I won’t. If it comes high—a four, five or six—I will.

  I shook it back and forth in my fist, but it was so tiny that I hadn’t closed my hand tightly enough and it popped out of the end of my fist; it made an arc in the air and clicked on the linoleum in the middle of the floor. I saw it hit but I didn’t see where it bounced.

  I swore and shut off the phonograph. I got down on the floor and started looking under things. I finally spotted it way back under the table and had to lie almost flat on the floor to reach it. It wasn’t until I’d put it back in my pocket that I realized I hadn’t remembered to notice which number was up.

  The hell with it, I thought. I took my glass back to the kitchenette and poured myself another drink—but not such a big one this time. And, since there was nobody around, I got myself a glass of water for a chaser.

  I played a few more records and took my time about drinking that one. It didn’t make me feel any woozier. I felt ever so slightly more sober, I thought. Maybe, I decided, I can drink like a gentleman—but I’d better not crowd it.

  I wished Lee Carey would come back, but he didn’t. I wanted someone to talk to. I know now it was the liquor, but I felt that I had some pretty profound things to say. About women, for one thing.

  But Carey didn’t come, so I had one more short drink and then shut up the trailer and went back to the midway.

  Things were slackening off a bit, I noticed. The crowds were dwindling, except around the side-show bally platform—where they weren’t bothering to bally because they had more marks than they could handle anyway—it began to look like toward closing time of an ordinary night. In another hour, maybe less, it’d be over for the night.

  The mist was thicker. It still made things seem haloed and hallowed. It seemed so strange and wonderful I wanted to talk to somebody about it.

  The merry-go-round and the miniature railway had already quit running. They’re kid stuff, always the first things to close at night.

  I leaned against the ticket booth of the merry-go-round and tried to think things out. About Rita, I mean. I wanted to see her.

  And I thought, why shouldn’t I? Damn her, she’s just a bitch like the rest of them. Just because she happens to be honest about being on the make for money doesn’t make it any better, does it? And why—if she’s going out with a mooch—shouldn’t I see the show if I want to? That ought to make things different. I went around the midway, the long way around so I wouldn’t have to pass Uncle Am’s booth. The posing show was starting the last bally of the night.

  And Rita was up there, in a bathrobe, with the other girls. Below the bathrobe, her ankles were bare and slim and white. She didn’t notice me at the edge of the tip. Charlie Wheeler waved the girls in, and started his last-show-of-the-night spiel. It was on the level, too; they weren’t going to come out and bally again. I could tell that because he started to disconnect the mike, almost before he was through shouting into it.

  I waited until he’d gone inside, so he wouldn’t notice, and then I followed the last couple of marks up to the ticket window. I didn’t know the ticket taker and I hoped he didn’t know me. I put a half dollar on the ledge, got my ticket, and walked in.

  It was dim inside. There weren’t any seats; the marks—and I—just stood back of a rope stretched across six feet in front of a stage with a black drop that was supposed to be velvet.

  Somebody backstage started a phonograph hooked up to the inside P.A. system. The kind of sensuous, languorous music that goes with posing shows. After a minute of that for buildup, they ran up the curtain of the first tableau. Two of the other girls were in it, not Rita.

  It was supposed to represent something; I forget what. Not that anybody in the dim tent cared what it represented, anyway. The girls wore spangled G-strings and the transparent cheese-clothy brassieres the law required. They did have beautiful bodies.

  We got maybe fifteen seconds of it and then the black curtain ran down.

  The phonograph on the P.A. began to play “My Angel,” and the curtain ran up on the second pose. It was Rita, alone.

  She was supposed to be an angel, I guess. She stood full-face, her arms outstretched, and some shimmery stuff that was supposed to be wings fell from loops over her white bare arms and came down to points that tied to each side of her G-string waist cord.

  Her body was very white, and so beautiful that it made you catch your breath. Anyway, it made me catch mine, and hold it. Instead of a brassiere, she wore a piece of white gauze tied loosely back of her neck, hanging not quite to her waist. It was almost perfectly transparent; her breasts were the perfect hemispheres you sometimes see on classical statues in museums and don’t expect, or hope, to see elsewhere.

  Her head was tilted slightly back, her eyes seeming to stare right into mine. But, I thought, she can’t really see me, not in this dimness and across those bright footlights.

  Then the curtain went down. I found my hands were clenched so tight my fingers hurt.

  I backed through the few men behind me, turned around and went out of there fast.

  I stopped out on the midway, because I didn’t know which way to turn, or where I was going. I headed back for Carey’s trailer.

  I thought, I can still walk straight, without staggering.

  The trailer was still dark.

  I sat down on the step of it and waited awhile, hoping Carey would come. My head wasn’t spinning, but my mind was. And I knew now that I wasn’t sober at all, because I wanted to cry. Or else I wanted to knock somebody’s block off. Or both.

  Suddenly I wondered if Hoagy could possibly have lied to me. I didn’t know why he would have, but what if he had? What if Rita didn’t have a date with a mooch tonight, or at all? Why should I take his word for it?

  I’d been sitting there ten minutes or more—Rita must be dressed by now, ready to leave the posing show dressing tent. I got up and hurried back across the midway.

  When I got to the rear of the dressing tent, where the entrance was, I could hear girls’ voices inside. I recognized Rita’s. I stood outside and waited. Darlene came out first, and another girl, one I didn’t know. Then, after a minute, Rita came out. I took a step forward, started to speak to her. I got only as far as “Ri—” when her hand hit me full across the face, hard. It wasn’t a slap; it was a hell of a wallop. I was a little off balance and it actually staggered me. It hurt, too; it made my ears ring.

  And while I stood there, too surprised to move, she went on around the canvas to the midway.

  One of the other girls came out. She said, “Hi, Ed,” and I saw it was Estelle, a girl I’d seen around and knew slightly; she’d been with the carney most of the season. She was a small brunette with olive skin and a nice pocketsize figure. She was a nice-looking kid, a little hard, but likable, only a year or two older than I.

  I said, “Hi, ‘Stelle.”

  She said, “Eddie, was that a slap I heard?” And at what must have been the expression on my face, she laughed a little. But it was a friendly laugh, not a catty one. There was humor in it, not malice.

  She came a step closer. She said, “Don’t waste a torch, Eddie. She’s got a date with heavy sugar. An honest-
to-God banker.” So Hoagy hadn’t lied, I thought. I wondered why I’d ever suspected, or hoped, that he had.

  Estelle said, “Now me, I play the field. Will you buy me a drink, Eddie?”

  Why not, I thought; I’ve got thirty-five bucks on me. Why shouldn’t I take Estelle?

  I said, “Why not, honey?” I took her arm and we went out to the midway and toward the main gate. Everybody was streaming that way now, as the carney closed down. Uncle Am’s booth was already closed, I saw as we went by it.

  I was cold sober now, or thought I was. My ears still rang a little, and in some strange way that ringing seemed to be all fuzzy and muffled, like the other sounds.

  We went through the gate and reached the sidewalk. I looked around for a cab, but there wasn’t one. I looked down at Estelle and she said, “There’s a tavern a block down. Not a bad one. Let’s go there for a drink or two and we can phone a cab later, after the rush is over. Huh?”

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  At the tavern we took a booth, side by side, and ordered highballs. Estelle did most of the talking, but she talked enough for both of us. My highball tasted weak, after all the straight whisky I’d drunk—which seemed an awful long time ago, now.

  I phoned for a cab and, on my way back from the phone, dropped a nickel in the juke box. I asked Estelle if she wanted another drink while we were waiting. She shook her head.

  “Let’s have it downtown, Eddie. There’s a nice bar in my hotel; we’ll have a drink there.” She didn’t add “— first,” but she cuddled a little closer against me in the booth.

  She’s a nice kid, I thought; it’s going to be nice.

  I sipped the highball slowly, and kept getting soberer. I was watching the door and when the cab driver came, we gave him the nod and followed him out. Outside, things were still misty and mysterious.

  At the cab, I took Estelle’s arm before she got in. I said, “Listen, Estelle, I think I better just send you home in the cab. I—I did a lot of drinking with Hoagy and Carey, and that last highball—well, I’m afraid I might be sick. I’m sorry as hell, but—”

  She said, “That’s all right, Eddie. You don’t need to lie to mamma. You’re too wound up with that blonde.” She laughed a little. “Maybe I should get my feelings hurt and slap you. Maybe I should—oh, skip it.”

  “I’m sorry as hell,” I said. “I guess I’m a little nuts.”

  “Sure,” she said. “That’s all right. Thanks for the drink, and I’m not even mad enough to pay my own cab-fare. You phoned for it, and you’re stuck with it. Pay the man.”

  I grinned at her and pushed her into the cab. I paid the driver and stood watching until the tail light of the cab lost itself in the mist.

  I knew I was being a damn fool.

  I thought about going back into the tavern for another drink. But it wouldn’t have made me drunk, as I wouldn’t have minded being. I was past that stage, and I had the hunch any more would just make me sick. And that would be all I’d need, I thought, for a perfect evening.

  Uncle Am wasn’t in the sleeping tent when I got there, so I knew he’d be in a card game in the G-top. I was glad; I got into bed quick.

  I was still awake when he came in, but I pretended to be asleep. For once—almost the first time—I didn’t want to talk to him.

  CHAPTER V

  It was almost noon when I woke up the next morning. It was raining again. Uncle Am was gone.

  The inside of my mouth tasted pretty bad. I took a drink of water from the thermos jug, and that diluted the taste a little.

  Uncle Am came back in while I was getting dressed. He sat on the edge of the cot and watched me. He asked, “How do you feel, kid?”

  “Okay,” I told him.

  “What happened to the other guy?”

  “What other guy?” I asked.

  “The one that poked you in the puss. It’s a little puffed up on the left side. I think bacon is indicated.”

  “Huh?”

  “Applied internally, with eggs, and potatoes. You’ll feel better then and I can bawl hell out of you. Ready?”

  We went over to the chow top and ate, and I did feel a lot better. I sat back and waited for Uncle Am to start asking questions, but he didn’t ask any. So I did.

  I asked, “How did you know? Hoagy or Carey?”

  “I haven’t seen either of them. But when I came in last night, the tent smelled like a distillery. But you look okay, Ed; one side of your puss is a trifle swollen but it’s hardly noticeable. Who plied you with liquor?”

  “It was my own fault,” I said. “Hoagy gave me a few, and then Carey did without knowing I already had a foundation to work on. And then a guy named Ed Hunter gave me the last ones.”

  I waited to see if he was going to bawl me out, but he didn’t, so I asked, “Anything new this morning?”

  “About what?”

  “About—anything.”

  “That’s a lot of territory,” Uncle Am said. “Well—we’re moving camp tonight instead of tomorrow night.”

  “On a Saturday night? We won’t get set up in South Bend in time for Sunday business, will we?”

  “We won’t get any more here, anyway. Weather bureau says this rain’s good for three more days at least. So we’re jumping a day early with nothing to lose. South Bend’s dry. And if the rain’s still bad tonight, we’ll pack up early and we can be set up in South Bend by noon.”

  “How about the murder? Will the police let us move early?”

  “What’s a day’s difference? They can’t hold the whole carney anyhow. Oh, by the way, I saw your pal Cap Weiss this morning. He was talking to Maury about the jump. He says there’s nothing new and he hasn’t got an identification yet. But he says you play nice trombone. I gather you made a hit with the Weisses.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” I said, “for a copper.”

  “Yeah. Oh, one other thing. Marge tells me Rita’s gone to Indianapolis.”

  I must have looked blank.

  “She got a telegram last night, just before closing,” Uncle Am said. “Her father got hit by a truck and hurt pretty bad, might even be dying. He wanted to see her.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Just before closing, I thought; she’d had that on her mind when she was up there on the stage, posing, and had seen me gawking at her like a drunken hayseed.

  And she hadn’t, then, had a date with a banker; she’d have called it off. I don’t know why I was glad about that. I’d sure cooked my own goose with her.

  It wasn’t logical to feel glad about something that couldn’t be good news for me, but I felt that way. It kept on raining.

  Nothing else much happened Saturday. Early in the evening, when it was raining so hard that nobody was coming out to the lot even to see the spot where the body was found and the knife that the body wasn’t killed with, we tore down and packed the vans.

  South Bend was a fairly long jump so we decided not to ride the trucks. Uncle Am got us Pullman reservations on a late train. We saw a movie till it closed at midnight, then had a couple of beers to kill the rest of the time, and caught our train. I had plenty of trouble getting to sleep in my berth. I kept thinking about Rita. I kept being glad she’d missed her date with the mooch. It was silly; I mean, if she was on the make for money, she’d have plenty of other chances and it didn’t make any difference that she’d missed that one.

  But what if she hadn’t missed it? What if she’d told a story about a telegram for a stall? What if she was week-ending with the mooch? Had anybody really seen that telegram? The noise of the wheels kept me awake. I tried to tell myself it didn’t make any difference to me whether she was with a dying father or sleeping with a God damn banker. Even if I’d ever had a chance with her, she hated me now.

  But logic couldn’t put me to sleep, if that was logic.

  I guess I finally must have slept, though, because the quiet of the train standing still woke me up. I looked at the luminous dial on my wrist watch and saw it was five in
the morning, a couple of hours before we were due in South Bend. I wondered where we were and looked out of the window. It was a pretty big station, a city.

  Suddenly I realized what station it had to be—Indianapolis. I’d completely forgotten that we’d be going through Indianapolis between Evansville, down on the Ohio, and South Bend, in the northern part of the state.

  Indianapolis! I had a wild, screwy idea of grabbing my clothes and getting off the train. I could explain things to Uncle Am later. I had enough money, and I could join him later and he wouldn’t mind.

  I grabbed my pants out of the clothes hammock and started to pull them on. Then the train jerked and began to move.

  I realized what a silly idea it had been.

  But the idea had waked me up so thoroughly I didn’t even try to go back to sleep. I went ahead and finished dressing, and went through the train to the back platform. I sat there watching the track stream away from the present into the past. We were heading away from Indianapolis now; I’d probably never see Rita again.

  It was cloudy in South Bend, but it wasn’t raining. We got to the lot ahead of the road caravan and waited for it. The lot was dry, and it was already staked out as to what went where.

  The trucks came about ten o’clock and we got our stuff and put it up. While we were pitching the living top, Maury strolled by and stopped to talk.

  He said, “We’re a day early, but we ought to get some play this afternoon and evening anyway. I bought spot announcements on the local radio and I phoned an ad ahead of us in time for the Sunday morning paper. So people will know we’re here. Only, hell, it looks like rain here too.”

  I asked him if there’d been any word from Rita, realizing afterward it was a silly thing to ask. She wouldn’t have written or wired so quick.

  He said, “Who? Oh, the dizzy blonde. No, not yet.”

  I knew I was making a fool out of myself, but I wanted to know, so I asked him, “That telegram she got—Was it delivered, or—or what?”