The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  That explained everything — except one thing. I said,

  “Haskins was too far away to have rung my doorbell. Burke wasn't there. Who rang it?”

  “The cat,” said Lieutenant Becker simply.

  “Huh? How? The button was too high for it to—”

  The lieutenant grinned. He said, “I told you Lasky was crazy about that cat. It had a doorbell of its own, down low on one side of the door frame, so when he let it out it wouldn't have to yowl to get back in. It could just ring the bell with its paw. He'd taught it to do that when it wanted in.”

  “I'll be damned,” I said. “If I'd thought to look—”

  “Black cats look pretty much alike,” said the lieutenant, “but that was how Haskins knew this was Lasky's cat. From across the street he saw it ring that trick doorbell.”

  I looked at the cat and said, “Satan,” and he opened his eyes. “Why didn't you explain that, damn you?” He blinked once, and then went back to sleep. I said, “The laziest animal I ever saw. Say, Lieutenant, I take it nobody's going to claim him.”

  “Guess not. You and your wife can buy a license for him if you want to keep him.”

  I looked at Ruth to see how she liked being mistaken for my wife. There was a slight flush in her cheeks that wasn't rouge.

  But she smiled and said, “Lieutenant, I'm not—”

  I said, “Can't we get two licenses while we're at it?” I wasn't kidding at all; I meant it. And Ruth looked at me and I read something besides surprise in her face — and then remembered the lieutenant was still around.

  I turned to him. “Thanks for starting this, Lieutenant, but I don't need a policeman to help me the rest of the way — if you know what I mean.”

  He grinned, and left.

  TELL’EM, PAGLIACCIO!

  Pop Williams rolled them out and they came snake-eyes again. He spoke eloquently and bitterly about the matter while he watched Whitey Harper pick up the two quarters and the jig next to him pick up the two dimes.

  Pop reached for the dice, and then looked into his left hand to see how much of his capital remained. A dime and a quarter were there.

  He tossed down the two-bit piece and Whitey covered it.

  Pop rolled a five-three. “Eighter from Decatur,” he said.

  “Shoot the works.” He dropped the other coin in his hand, and the jig covered. Pop whispered softly to the cubes and let them travel.

  Four and a trey for seven.

  He grunted and stood up.

  Valenti, the daredevil, had been leaning against a quarter-pole, watching the crap game with bland amusement.

  He said, “Pop, you ought to know better than to buck those dice of Whitey's.”

  Whitey, the dice in his hand, looked up angrily, and his mouth opened, then went shut again at the sight of those shoulders on Valenti. Shoulders whose muscles bulged through the thin polo shirt he wore. Valenti would have made two of Whitey Harper, who ran the penny-pitch, and he'd have made three of Pop Williams.

  But Valenti said, “I was just kidding, Whitey.”

  “Don't like that kind of kidding,” said Whitey. He looked for a moment as though he were going to say something more, and then he turned back to the game.

  Pop Williams went on out of the tent and leaned against the freak-show picket fence, looking down the midway. Most of the fronts were dark, and all the rides had closed down. Up near the front gate, a few of the ball games and wheels were still running to a few late suckers.

  Valenti was standing beside him. “Drop much, Pop?”

  Pop shook his head. “A few bucks.”

  “That's a lot,” said Valenti, “if it's all you had. That's the only time it's fun to gamble. I used to be dice-nutty. Now I got a few G's ahead and a few tied up in that stuff—” he waved a hand toward the apparatus for the free show in the center of the midway — “and so there's no kick in shooting two bits.”

  Pop grunted. “You can't say you don't gamble, though, when you high-dive off a thing like that, into practically a goldfish bowl.”

  “Oh, that kind of gambling, sure. How's the old girl?”

  “Lil? Swell. Blast old man Tepperman—” He broke off into grumbling.

  “Boss been riding you again about her?”

  “Yeah,” said Pop. “Just because she's been cantankerous for a few days. Sure, she gets cantankerous once in a while.

  Elephants are only human, and when Tepperman gets seventy-five years old, he's not going to be as easygoing as old Lil is, drat him.”

  Valenti chuckled.

  “ 'Tain't funny,” said Pop. “Not this time. He's talking about selling her off.”

  “He's talked like that before, Pop. I can see his point of view. A tractor—”

  “He's got tractors,” said Pop bitterly. “And none of 'em can shove a wagon outta mud like Lil can. And a tractor can't draw crowds like a bull can, neither. You don't see people standing around watching a tractor. And a tractor ain't got flash for parades, not like a bull has.”

  To circus and carney, all elephants are bulls, regardless of sex.

  Valenti nodded. “There's that. But look what happened in the last parade. She gets out of line, and goes up on a parking lot and—”

  “That damn Shorty Martin. He don't know how to handle a bull, but just because he's dark and you put a turban on him and he looks like a mahout, the boss puts him on Lil for the parade. Lil can't stand him. She told me— Aw, nuts.”

  “You need a drink,” said Valenti. “Here.” He held out a silver-plated flask. Pop drank. “Smooth,” he said. “But kind of weak, ain't it?”

  Valenti laughed. “Hundred-proof Scotch. You must be drinking that stuff they sell two bits a pint at the jig show.”

  Pop nodded. “This ain't got enough fusel oil, or something.

  But thanks. Guess I'll go see if Lil's okay.”

  He went around back of the Dip-a-Whirl to where he'd staked the bull. Lil was there, and she was peacefully asleep.

  She opened little piggy eyes, though, as Pop walked up to her.

  He said, “Hiya, girlie. G'wan back to shuteye. We got to tear-down tomorra night. You won't get much then.” His hand groped in his pocket and came out with the two lumps of sugar he'd swiped from the cookhouse.

  The soft, questing tip of her trunk nuzzled his palm and took the sugar.

  “Damn ya,” Pop said affectionately.

  He stared at the huge dim bulk of the bull. Her eyes had closed again.

  “Trouble with you,” he said, “you got temperament. But listen, old girl, you can't have temperament no more. That's for prima donnas, that is, and you're a working bull.”

  He pretended she'd said something. “Yeah, I know. You didn't used to be— But then me, I wasn't always a bull man, either. Me, I was a clown once. Remember, baby?

  “And now you're just an ol' hay-burner for shoving wagons; and me, I ain't so young myself. I'm fifty-eight, Lil.

  Yeah, I know you got fifteen years on me, and maybe more'n that if the truth was known, but you don't get drunk like I do, and that makes us even.”

  He patted her trunk and the big ears flapped once, in lazy appreciation.

  “That there Shorty Martin,” said Pop. “Baby, does he tease you, or anything? Wish I could ride you in the parade, drat it. You'd be all right then, wouldn't you, baby?”

  He grinned. “Then that there Shorty would be mahout of a job!”

  But Lil didn't appreciate puns, he realized. And jokes didn't change the fact that pretty soon he was going to be out of a job because Tepperman Shows was going to sell Lil. If they could find a place to sell her. If they couldn't— Well, he didn't want to think about that.

  Disconsolately, he walked over to the jig village back of the Harlem Casino.

  “Hi, Mista' Pop,” said Jabez, the geek. “Lookin' kinda low.”

  “Jabe,” said Pop, “I'm so low I could wear stilts and walk under a sidewall 'thout lifting it.”

  Jabez laughed, and Pop got a pint on t
he cuff.

  He took a swig and felt a little better. That stuff had authority to it. More you paid for liquor, the weaker it was.

  He'd tasted champagne once, even, and it had tasted like soda pop. This stuff—

  “Thanks, Jabe,” he said. “Be seeing you.”

  He strolled back to the crap game. Whitey Harper stood up as Pop came under the sidewall.

  “Bust,” Whitey said. “Keep track of those dice for me, Bill. I'll get 'em later. Hi, Pop. Stake me to Java?”

  Pop shook his head. “But have a slug of what's good for what ails you. Here.”

  Whitey took the offered drink and headed for the cookhouse. Pop borrowed a quarter from Bill Rendelman, the merry-go-round man, who was now winner in the crap game.

  He took two come-bets, one for fifteen and one for ten, and lost both.

  Nope, tonight wasn't his night.

  Somewhere toward town, a clock boomed midnight. Pop decided he might as well turn in and call it a night. He could finish what was left of the pint in his bunk.

  He was feeling swell now. And, as always, when he was in that first cheerful, happy stage of inebriation, he sang, as he crossed the deserted midway, the most lugubrious song he knew. The one and only grand opera song he knew.

  The aria from Pagliaccio.

  Come — smile, then, Pagliaccio, at the heart that is broken;

  Smile at the grief that has haunted your years!”

  Yeah, that guy Pagliaccio was a clown, too, and he knew what it was all about. Life was beautifully sad for a clown; it was more beautifully sad for an ex-clown, and most sadly beautiful of all for a drunken ex-clown.

  “I must clown to get ri-i-d of my unhappiness—”

  He'd finished the third full rendition by the time, still fully dressed except for his shoes, he'd crawled into his bunk under the No. 6 wagon back of the Hawaiian show. He forgot all about finishing what was left of the liquor.

  Overhead the dim, gibbous moon slid out of sight behind skittering clouds, and the outside ring of the lot, shielded by tents from the few arcs left burning on the midway, became black mystery. Blackness out of which the tents rose like dim gray monsters in the still, breathless night. The murderous night—

  Someone was shaking him. Pop Williams opened one eye sleepily. He said, “Aw, ri'. Wha' time zit?” And closed the eye again.

  But the shaking went on. “Pop! Wake up! Lil killed—”

  He was sitting bolt upright then. His eyes were wide, but they wouldn't focus. The face in front of them was a blur, but the voice was Whitey Harper's voice.

  He grabbed at Whitey's shoulder to steady himself.

  “Huh? You said—”

  “Your bull killed Shorty Martin. Pop! Wake up!”

  Wake up? Hell, he was wider awake than he'd ever been in his life. He was out of bed, almost falling on Whitey as he clambered down from the upper bunk. He jammed his feet into his shoes so that their tongues doubled back over the instep; he didn't stop to pull or tie the laces. And he was off, running.

  There were other people running, too. Quite a few of them. Some of them from the sleeping cars, some of them from tents along the midway where a good many slept in hot weather. Some running from the brightly lighted cookhouse up at the front of the midway.

  When he got to the Hawaiian show, Pop stole a glance around behind him to see if Whitey Harper were in sight. He wasn't.

  So Pop ducked under the Hawaiian show sidewall, and came out at the side of the tent instead of the front of it, and doubled back to Tepperman's private trailer. Of course, Tepperman's wife might still be there, but there was something Pop had to do and had to do quick, before he went to the bull. And in order to do it, he had to gamble that the boss's trailer would be empty.

  It was. And it took him only a minute to find the high-powered rifle he was after. Holding it tight against his body, he got it under the Hawaiian show top without being seen.

  And hid it under the bally cloth of the platform.

  It wasn't a very good hiding place. Someone would find it by tomorrow noon, but then again by tomorrow noon it wouldn't matter. They'd be able to get another gun by then.

  But this one was the only one available tonight that was big enough.

  And then a minute later, Pop was pushing his way through the ring of people around old Lil. A ring that held a very respectful distance from the elephant.

  Pop's first glance was for Lil, and she was all right.

  Whatever flare of temper or cantankerousness she'd had, it was gone now. Her red eyes were unconcerned and her trunk swung gently.

  Doc Berg was bending over something that lay on the ground a dozen feet from the bull. Tepperman was standing looking on. Someone called out something to Pop, and Tepperman whirled.

  His voice was shrill, almost hysterical. “I told you that damn bull—” He broke off and stood there glaring.

  “What happened?” Pop asked mildly.

  “Can't you see what happened?” He looked back down at Doc Berg, and Berg's glasses caught and reflected the beam of somebody's flashlight as he nodded.

  “Three ribs,” he said. “Neck dislocated, and the skull crushed where it hit against that stake. Any one of those things could've killed him.”

  Pop shook his head, whether in grief or negation he didn't know himself.

  He asked again, “What happened? Was Shorty tormentin' her?”

  “Nobody saw it,” Tepperman snapped.

  “Hm-m-m,” said Pop. “That where you found him? Don't seem likely Lil'd have throwed him that far if she did it.”

  “What do you mean, if she did it?” Tepperman asked coldly. “No, he was lying with his head against the stake, if you got to know.”

  “He must've been teasin' her,” Pop insisted. “Lil ain't no killer. Maybe he give her some pepper to eat, or—”

  He walked up to Lil and patted her trunk. “You shouldn'ta done it, old girl. But— Damn, I wisht you could talk.”

  The carney proprietor snorted. “Better stay away from that bull till we shoot her.”

  Pop winced. That had been the word he'd been waiting for, and it had come.

  But he didn't argue it; he knew there wasn't any use, now. Maybe later, when Tepperman's anger had cooled, there'd be a chance. An outside chance.

  Pop said, “Lil's all right, Mr. Tepperman. She wouldn't hurt a fly. If she did ... uh ... do that, she sure had some reason. Some good reason. There was something wrong about that there Shorty. You should've never let him ride her in the parade, even. She never did like—” And realizing that, by emphasizing Lil's dislike of Shorty, he was damaging his own case, Pop let it die there.

  There was, blocks away, the clang of an ambulance bell.

  Tepperman had turned back to the doc. He asked, “Had Shorty been drinking, Doc?”

  But Berg shook his head. “Don't seem to be any smell of liquor on him.”

  Pop's hopes went lower. If Shorty'd been drunk, it would have made it more likely he'd been teasing the bull deliberately. Still, if he hadn't, why'd he gone by there at all?

  Especially, at that time of—

  “What time is it?” Pop asked.

  “Almost one.” It was the doctor who answered. Earlier than Pop thought; he must have barely gone to sleep when it happened. No wonder so many of the carneys were still awake.

  The ambulance drove up, collected the thing on the ground, and drove off again. Some of the crowd was drifting away already

  Pop tried again. “That Shorty was a crook anyway, Mr. Tepperman. Didn't he get hisself arrested when we was playin' Brondale a few days ago?”

  “What are you driving at, Pop?”

  Pop Williams scratched his head. He didn't know. But he said, “Only that if Lil did anything to him, she musta sure had a reason. I don't know what, but—”

  The carney owner glowered him to silence.

  “Wait here,” he said, “and keep an eye on that bull. I'm going to shoot her before she kills anybody else.”


  He strode off.

  Pop patted the rough hide of Lil's shoulder. “Don't worry, old girl. He won't find it.” He said it softly, so none of the other carneys would hear. He tried to make his voice cheerful, but he knew he'd given Lil only a stay of execution.

  If Tepperman hadn't found that gun by daylight, he could easily get another at one of the local stores.

  Somebody called out, “Better stay away from that bull, Pop.”

  It was Whitey Harper's voice.

  Pop said, “Nuts. Lil wouldn't hurt a fly.” Then, so he wouldn't have to yell, he walked over to where Whitey was standing at a safe distance from the bull. He said, “Whitey, what was it Shorty Martin was pinched for back in Brondale early this week?”

  “Nothing. Suspicion, that's all. They let him go right away.”

  “Suspicion of what?”

  “There was a snatch that the coppers were all excited about. They were picking up every stranger wandering down the stem. Lot of carneys got questioned.”

  “They find the guy who got snatched?”

  “It was a kid — the banker's kid. Haven't found him yet that I heard about. Why?”

  “I dunno,” said Pop. He was trying to find a straw to grasp at, but he didn't know how to explain that to Whitey. He asked, “Did Shorty have any enemies? On the lot, I mean.”

  “Not that I know of, Pop. Unless it was Lil. And you.”

  Pop grunted disgustedly, and went back to Lil. He said,

  “Don't worry, old girl,” quite unnecessarily. Lil didn't seem to be worrying at all. But Pop Williams was.

  Tepperman came back. Without the rifle.

  He said, “Some blankety-blank stole my gun, Pop. Won't be able to do anything till morning. Can you stay here and keep an eye on the bull?”

  “Sure, Mr. Tepperman. But listen, do you got to—?”

  “Yes, Pop, we got to. When a bull once kills it doesn't pay to take any more chances. It wasn't your fault though, Pop; you can stay on and help with canvas or—”