“Did he, now?” said Rook, in his weariness almost but not quite leaning against Gladys’ face. She was purring now.
“Yes! Don’t you see what that means?”
“It probably means that the caller was somebody in show business, where everybody calls everybody else ‘Darling’ and it doesn't mean a thing.”
“But—”
“I wish you two girls would go over to the Y.W.C.A. and fight it out with six-ounce gloves,” said Rook earnestly. “And I also wish you’d tell me why you needed money so badly that you had a knock-down and drag-out public fight over it with your father.”
Vonny started to blow her top, as the saying goes. Then by some miracle she took hold of herself. “Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m supposed to be an heiress, and all I wanted was some of the money while I was young enough so it would do me some good. I love Benny Valentino, he’s the only man I’ll ever love if I live to be forty. And he’s got wonderful talent. I never wanted that damn annulment, but father was a lawyer and I was under age and we’d had one of those phony proxy marriages down in Tijuana, so what could I do?”
“About the money?” Rook prompted.
“Why—I needed it so Benny could start his own orchestra and open a little nightspot on the Strip somewhere! There’s a gold mine in that business, Benny says.”
“So now that you have actually inherited money, you’re going into the bebop café business?”
“No,” she said. “Oh, Mr. Rook, you’ve just got to find out what really happened to my father! If you can’t do that, couldn’t you just fix it so somebody—anybody—gets arrested on suspicion or something? Even if it didn’t stick, it might still make all the difference, and save my sanity!”
“And just what does your sanity, if any, have to do with all this?”
She almost whispered: “Because when father died, I thought for sure that Benny and I would remarry. And now he just won’t! He won’t even talk about it. He thinks, I just know he thinks, that I may have killed my own father! Because of our fights, and my fearful temper. And nobody wants to marry a murderess, even if he loves her.”
“Obviously,” said Rook cautiously, “your young man has very little faith in you—and very little desire for your money, I might add.”
“Oh, he’s never put any of it into words exactly,” she said quickly. “But I just know in my heart that suspicion is eating him. As for money—he’s no fortune hunter, in spite of what daddy thought!”
“I hardly think,” said Howie Rook judicially, “that you have correctly judged your young man. Or that the answer to the problem would be found in trying to frame the arrest of anybody. There’s such a thing as a suit for false arrest. And I have my pride; I wouldn’t be a party to that sort of thing. No, we have to get to the facts, whatever they are. There’s something you yourself can do to help. Did your father ever talk about his law cases at home? Did he ever appear in a case involving circus people, or in trials where he could have made enemies—disgruntled clients? Or send somebody up to prison when he was in the district attorney’s office? Somebody who might have been thirsting for revenge, as the old saying goes?”
“Gosh, no!” She smiled wanly. “His clients were all gruntled. He didn’t do criminal stuff; he was a corporation lawyer. Even in the D.A.’s office, father never appeared in an important case; he just worked behind the scenes on routine stuff like co-operation with the Department of Justice and the State Department in Washington and extradition matters with officials in other states—stuff like that. Office-boy work, he called it. That’s why he quit and went back to private practice.”
“But wasn’t there just one case that comes to your mind—anything?”
She shook her head.
“Would Mavis know, do you suppose?”
“You could ask her. But I don’t think daddy ever talked much to her about his work. You might ask Mr. Martin, his law partner—he’d know if anybody did.”
Howie Rook nodded thoughtfully. “It’s hard for any man to live fifty-odd years without making a few enemies,” he pronounced sagely. “I imagine even I have stepped on a few toes in my time…reporters I had to fire just when their wives were going to have a baby, things like that.”
“But people don't murder—”
“Most people don’t, no. But some unstable characters will, under stress. I could show you proof, in my collection of clippings, that most murders are committed for reasons that wouldn’t seem big enough to you and me or any normal person.”
“Maybe,” she said, looking at her wrist watch.
“One last thing more. Do you remember your father ever carrying a little black leather notebook?”
“No-no.” She shook her head.
“Well, he did—and I’ve got to get my hands on it. Do you suppose you could look in the apartment when you get back to town? He may have hidden it somewhere, or the police may have missed it.”
“I could try,” she promised. “I’ll phone you—”
“You can’t, here. You’ll have to wire, and I’ll call you back.”
“Okay.” The girl seemed somewhat happier at the prospect of having something to do. “I’ve really got to go now,” she said, “or Benny will be furious at me.” She started off, and then suddenly turned back. “I just remembered something,” she said. “One case daddy was very interested in. It happened about ten years ago, when I was just a kid. Daddy used to tell me about it.”
“Go on!” pressed Howie Rook eagerly. “A murder case?”
“Sort of. There were some sailors off a Greek freighter docked in San Pedro harbor, and they came up to Los Santelos and got into a fight in a Skid Row bar—you know those awful dives with the B-girls and stuff?”
“From hearsay,” Rook lied.
“Well, in the fracas a man got stabbed. There were conflicting stories and nobody could be sure just who did what to who, but a couple of the sailors stood trial for manslaughter and did some time up at San Quentin. Then they got paroled and deported, because of course they were in the country illegally. But daddy didn’t handle the trial—he just handled the deportation stuff.”
“Aha! And one of them could have nourished a desire for revenge?”
“After all these years? They were only boys, and daddy didn’t persecute them or even prosecute them. He just handled the red tape of the deportation.”
“Hmmm,” said Rook. He knew that boys grow up to be men, and that sometimes foreigners carry in their hearts dreams of Old World vendettas and vengeance. Yet if vengeance was involved, it would seem more likely to be directed at the D.A., who actually had appeared in court against them, or the arresting officers…It was a slim lead, a very slim lead indeed, but at this point he was grateful for small favors. It was far-fetched—but oftener than not, as he knew full well, the motives for any murder were far-fetched.
“Thanks, young lady. I’ll sleep on it.”
She smiled, a pixy sort of smile that transformed her plumpish, prettyish face. “Please don’t sleep—not until you get this thing settled.” Vonny caught his lapels. “Mr. Rook, I do so want to put my wedding ring on again! And make it legal!”
“A praiseworthy objective,” said Howie Rook judicially as she waved at him and dashed breathlessly off in the direction of the public parking lot.
Rook stood looking after her; either there was a nice girl in desperate trouble or the most consummate little actress he had ever met. He sighed, and went back to Clown Alley.
Then he sank again into Hap Hammett’s chair, took off the Iron Maiden shoes, and rubbed his aching feet and ankles. After a while a little girl—the same little girl of the homemade trapeze—came skipping by. Then she turned and stopped.
“Legs hurt, mister?”
It was the first really kind word he had had all afternoon. “Among other places, yes,” confessed Rook. “You ever ride an elephant, sister?”
“A bull, you mean. Sure, lots of times. They’re okay if you remember to ask for a blanket or a howdah.
They got hair like steel wires.”
Rook nodded, and rubbed his weary ankles again. “You could soak them in hot water,” the girl said sympathetically in a soft Latin accent. “If only we had hot water on the lot. You better hurry up and change, though, if you’re going in to dinner. It’s at five sharp.”
“I could never make it, sister.” He had a sudden idea. “Do you suppose you could run over to the lunch counter and get me a ham sandwich and a Coke? And anything you’d like for yourself?” She took the money and was off like a flash, returning shortly with his order and a double-decker ice-cream cone for herself; then she politely squatted down beside him to eat it. She informed him that her name was Francesca Nondello, but that her friends called her Speedy. “I’ll call you Speedy too,” said Rook, introducing himself. “I hope we’ll be friends.”
“You’re going to stick with it,” the child asked incredulously, “in spite of the business they gave you today?” He looked blank, but she went on. “They always give the full works to guests who want to play circus—the heaviest flap shoes and the hottest costume and the roughest stunts like the clown fire and riding bareback on a bull with bristles. You’re not eating your sandwich.”
“I ate too many dog biscuits in the act, I guess,” he confessed.
She doubled up with laughter. “You ate ’em? You’re only supposed to palm ’em and drop ’em, or put ’em in your pocket. But I guess they won’t kill you.”
“Thanks,” said Rook.
“They’ll be a little rougher on you too, because of what happened last week.” There it went again, and Rook perked up his ears.
“And just what did happen?”
“Oh, a lot of things went wrong. Some of the people with the show, the old-timers, think it’s always bad luck to have amateurs muscling in, even for fun. Some of them blamed it on the gentleman we had with us last week playing clown.” She grinned. “They called him the ‘Jinx Man’ behind his back.”
“You mean Mr. McFarley!” Rook pressed hopefully.
“Yeah. But it wasn’t his fault, he was a nice man, just real gone on the circus. He went everywhere and did everything; I bet he’d have gone up in the air with my mama and papa if they’d of let him.” Speedy finished her cone and licked her fingers. “They gave him the works, too—until he began to learn his way around and went and got some tennis shoes. You want I should borrow you a pair of my papa’s tennis shoes until you can get some?”
Rook hesitated. “Thanks, Speedy. But Mr. Hammett said wear these, and I’ll wear them if they kill me. He wears a bigger pair than these.”
She gave him a surprised but rather approving smile. “Yes, and he’s had thirty years of practice, don’t forget. Oops, there’s mama calling—I gotta scram.” Speedy sped away, pausing only to do several polished handsprings on the way.
“The ‘Jinx Man,’” Howie Rook said softly to himself, and made more notes. “‘Out of the mouths of babes—’”
5
In the circus parade there is glory clean down
From the first spangled horse to the mule of the clown.
—James Whitcomb Riley
AROUND SEVEN O’CLOCK THAT evening the clowns and other troupers began to trickle back, among them Maxie the midget. The little man gave Rook a not unfriendly nod in passing, and then stopped short. “Come on in here, mister,” said the midget. “Your face is all sawdust. Next time try to take the falls on your hands and belly, see?” He took out his tools and began to work deftly on the repair job.
“This is very good of you, Max. Or do I call you Mr.—?”
“Kelso is the name, but you can call me Max.” It seemed to be a concession. “That joker we had with us last week called me Maxie-boy.” The name was almost spat out. “You see, mister, even if we’re built a little lower to the ground than some, we can’t stand being treated as kids.”
“You little people rather stand on your dignity, huh?”
“Sure, it’s about all we got to stand on. You know what that McFarley guy did to Olaf Klipp who’s smaller than I am? He found out somehow that last Tuesday was Olaf’s birthday—it happened to be his fifty-seventh—and McFarley went out and bought a space helmet and a Planet Ranger’s suit and a ray gun, and gave them to Olaf in front of everybody. Boy, was Olaf mad! He cursed him out in English and Hungarian for ten minutes without repeating himself once. McFarley made like he was going to take Olaf over his knee and spank him, and Olaf kicked him hard in the shins and then ran like hell. Say, that was a thing! Okay, you look good as new now.”
Rook thanked him and went back to the borrowed chair, a little later rising hastily from it as Hap Hammett came hurrying in. “You can stay there,” conceded Hap, who seemed in a somewhat more relaxed mood; perhaps the thick steak or the tall drink had had something to do with it. “I just have time to get into what we laughingly call the motley. You have a good rest, mister?”
“A lady friend has been around, wising me up on some things. Such as not eating the dog biscuits.”
Hap Hammett guffawed. “Don’t tell me Mademoiselle du Mond is after you already! Look out, they say she bites.”
“It was a much younger lady friend, Miss Speedy Nondello. She was very helpful. It seems that my predecessor was known as the Jinx Man. I would like to avoid his mistakes, if possible.”
Hammett, stripped to his underwear, looked down from the dressing room. “Oh, just don’t crowd the performers, and don’t kid the midgets or dwarfs; most of them are touchy, poisonous little bastards. Maxie is an exception. But they all have what we call Little Man’s Trouble—”
“That was what made Napoleon, a slightly larger little man, want to run the world,” Rook said.
“You’ve got it. McFarley had a run-in with some of them, and they naturally hated his guts. But on the whole he was a nice enough guy—he seemed to love being with it, and I can’t understand why he didn’t come back Thursday as he’d planned. That was the day we were going to have the photographers in, so he could be photographed in make-up with me and Emmett Kelly and Otto Greibling and the rest. Funny thing, his not showing.” Hap was smearing make-up on his face.
Howie Rook rose and came close. And it was an increasing mystery to him why everybody pretended not to know what had happened to McFarley—it had been in all the papers. And two cops from Headquarters had been sniffing around…
“But it seems,” Rook said, “that a lot of things happened last week. What things, Hap?”
The veteran clown drew his mouth and put tiny blue crosses under his eyes. “Oh, more than usual things. What didn’t? Gina Nondello fell for the first time this year.” The clown adjusted his wig and his absurd flower-pot hat. “Some fool kid in the blues, the bleacher section, smuggled a tame rabbit into the top, and let it loose on the Hippodrome just when I was doing my first walkaround, the act with the hoops. Cordelia snapped out of character and remembered that she was a dog and took the hell off after it; the crowd luckily thought it was only part of the act. It wouldn’t have been so funny if the rabbit had been torn to pieces before the eyes of the kiddies, but Cordelia was rusty and missed her first grab and the rabbit got away by wriggling under the canvas.
“Then we nearly had a stampede of the bulls, which is something circus people dread about as much as a fire. And Leo Dawes popped his music cues for the first time in years and, as I said, Gina Nondello missed her grip and fell into the net, spraining her shoulder. You can get killed, taking a fall into the net when you’re not ready.”
“I’ll never be ready,” admitted Howie Rook. He was busily writing down notes on all this.
Hap Hammett stared at him curiously as he adjusted the final touches of his costume. “Are you really one of those too?” he wanted to know. “Writing a book on us odd circus people? McFarley was writing a book, or so he said. I never read books, or anything else except my fan mail and Billboard, so I wouldn’t know. He was—” And then suddenly the veteran clown broke off, cocking his head. “There’s Leo Dawes, goi
ng into the cat act’s finale. Let’s get with it, clown!”
The bandmaster was seguing into “High Riding” just as they raced through the entrance, Cordelia as usual appearing out of nowhere and happily running ahead. The evening show was just a repeat of the afternoon performance, except that Howie Rook found himself getting the complicated knack of the duck walk, and of slipping the dog biscuits surreptitiously into his pocket instead of having to eat them. “Blessing on Speedy,” he said silently. They came off after the turn, just as Mademoiselle du Mond’s act was announced. “I don’t think I’ll watch,” said Rook in the wings.
“Afraid she’ll fall, or afraid she won’t?” demanded Hap Hammett slyly. Once in clown costume he seemed a different person, a carefree and exaggerated person. “You watch out for that Jane,” he said. “She has a watch dog. And she’s hell-bent to get married. If she ever sees you in that Sunday suit, smoking those dollar cigars, she’ll try to crawl in your pocket.”
Olaf, the little midget—the one in clown-cop costume—spoke up suddenly behind them. He was waiting to make his entrance, a trained baby piglet in his arms. “She ought to marry me!” he said. “What a match! It balances; her brains and my body. We could make beautiful music together, hey, Hap?” Then at the music cue he scampered on, pinching the pig to make it squeal.
“That schmuck!” said Hap Hammett. “Someday somebody will squeeze him, like a pimple. Come on back, mister. I got a new idea for you in the act. Tell you while I change.”
“I want to make a phone call first,” said Rook. “Where can I?”
“Only in the silver wagon. Or out on the Midway. They’ve set up some temporary booths there—”
Rook unwisely chose the Midway. He thought it would be deserted at this hour as he made his way thence—and found himself at once surrounded by a coterie of worshiping children who hadn’t had the admission price for the circus but who were hanging around anyway, and who dogged his footsteps and sought only to touch the hem of his disreputable garments. He discovered that he wasn’t a middle-aged retired newspaperman, he wasn’t a self-appointed amateur detective working on a crime, he was a clown—and had to act like a clown.
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