by David Daniel
“It’ll be nice. I’ll turn off my phone if you turn off yours.”
“Deal.”
“No interruptions, it’ll be just us and the corn moon.”
As if to seal a bargain, I kissed her. Her mouth tasted of coconut and chocolate. I tried to make the kiss linger awhile. She drew back first, her eyes finding mine. “Be patient with me, Alex. I’m trying.”
I squeezed her hand. “There isn’t any rush. You be patient with me. I’m trying, too.”
I walked her to her car and watched her drive off; then I went back on the clock.
13
There were about thirty people gathered by the gleam of a kerosene lantern outside Pop Sonders’s motor home. Some had set up folding lawn chairs and canvas camp stools, but most stood, their cigarettes glowing here and there in the mild dark. Nicole was perched on the step of a nearby trailer with a notebook and pencil. Seeing me, she waved hello. Pop introduced me to several of the nearer people, and I said hi again to Penny Bergfors, Red Fogarty, and Tito Alvarez, whom I had met that morning. Pop hadn’t heard anything more from the city, so he wasn’t optimistic that the show was going to be allowed to reopen anytime soon. He said he had sent home some of his people who lived in the area. The others would stay, on salary. Even so, the group seemed restless as he addressed them.
Most of the talk focused on practical issues that didn’t much concern me, but he gave them opportunity to weigh in, too, and the exercise increased my admiration of Sonders. They were a motley crew for sure, ranging in age from about eighteen on up to forty and more, with men far outnumbering women, but he gave everyone who cared to a chance to speak. Their language was a kind of American plain-speak, flavored with slang and profanity, and undercurrents of the shared knowledge that they were all part of a group that excluded me, an awareness I couldn’t miss in the occasional glances I got—not hostile, exactly, but curious and excluding. When the meeting had about run its course, someone said, “What’s the story on the dog?”
“Speedo’s just fine, Pete,” Nicole said.
“You think it was done on purpose?”
“Kind of hard to shoot a greyhound if you’re not aiming to,” Sonders said. “But let’s give it the benefit of the doubt and say it was bad aim. Kids are kids. But just so’s we’re clear, let’s keep our eyes peeled and our noses clean. I don’t want nobody hurt, or any incidents that put us in trouble with the law.”
“Seems like we’re already there, ain’t we?”
Sonders used it as his segue. He waved me over. “This here is Alex Rasmussen, the investigator who’s working with the attorney. You’ll see him around. Some of you already talked to him. If he’s got questions, give him what he needs.”
“What if we got questions?” The voice came from the shadows, and then the speaker stepped into the glow of the lantern.
“Well?” Pop said.
He was the large bald man whom I had seen watching me that morning. “What the hell do we need with some gumshoe? Aren’t the cops enough? Christ, the way they were clanking around here last night you’d think it was a goddamn brass band.”
“The cops have Troy Pepper in jail and are convinced he’s their man,” said Pop. “I don’t see any incentive for them to change that.”
“Well, goddammit, if Pepper did it, screw him. Let him rot there. As for this bird, I’d prefer our meetings be like usual, without no outsiders hanging around.”
I looked at Pop. “I can fade.”
He ignored it. “Anybody else?”
When no one spoke up, he said, “All right, we’re done here. Go on, then, and everyone get some shut-eye. I’ll let you all know soon as I hear anything.”
When the carnies had drifted off to their living quarters, Pop waved Nicole and me into his motor home and motioned me to have a seat. Nicole sat at the computer. He grabbed his corncob pipe and took the patched recliner. “It ain’t personal,” he said. “Or widespread. Every group’s got its resident grump.”
“Who is he?”
“Ray Embry. He’s our funnyman.”
“Rogo the Klown?”
“That’s him.”
“No wonder I was laughing so hard on the inside.”
“Really he can be very funny,” Nicole said earnestly. “When he’s in a good mood, he can have you in stitches.”
Just then there was a soft knock and the door opened and a thin old black man wearing a gray suit coat and a porkpie hat came in. He handed Pop a brown envelope, then turned and saw me. He looked to be about Pop’s age, or even more, but he had an erect, dignified bearing. He lifted off his hat. “Sorry, I didn’t know they was company”
“Alex Rasmussen,” Pop said, “this piece of work here is my spiritual advisor, Moses Maxwell.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Rasmussen.” The old man’s fingers had a brittle, bony feel when we shook hands, but his smile put warm creases in the freckled skin around his eyes. Under the suit coat he had on a maroon V-neck sweater over a pale blue shirt and a tie, clothes that appeared well worn but neat. A little soul patch of whiskers sprouted beneath his lower lip.
Nicole said, “Pop, I just wanted to say something else about Ray, so Mr. Rasmussen knows. He really is a good clown. Or anyway he was. He used to work in a big circus.”
Pop rolled his head toward her. “She’s sensitive. Overly. When the little paper clip icon comes up on the computer screen with suggestions, she feels bad ignoring him:”
“He’s got those expressive eyes,” Nicole said in her own defense.
“Nicky he’s a paper clip, for God’s sake. And not even a real one.”
“I know that.”
“But thanks for your input. Your testimonial for Rogo the Klown is noted.”
She blushed, smiling. “You’re welcome.”
She printed the page she’d been working on and put the sheet into a manila folder. “There’s the notes, Pop. I’ll be on my way now G‘night, Mr. Maxwell. G’night, Mr. Rasmussen. See you in the morning, Pop.”
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Pop tapped her lightly on the arm with the folder, and she went out.
Maxwell took the vacated seat to form the third point of a triangle. Pop said he wasn’t kidding about Maxwell being his advisor and that we could talk candidly. I caught them up to date on my doings, including speaking with the murder victim’s friend and attending the bail hearing. “The court sees Pepper as a risk to skip. Do either of you see that?”
Pop Sonders shook his head. “His life belongings are in that trailer parked back there, and there’s no way he’d get that out of here. Anyway, no, I don’t think he’d even try.” He explained again the close-knit community, and having seen tonight’s meeting, I was inclined to agree.
I said, “The police detail last night—what time did it start?”
“Started at five for a six-hour detail.”
“You paid for it?”
“Yep, my dime. City requires it, but I’d do it even if they didn’t.”
“I understand you got Fred Meecham’s name from one of the detail cops. Do you remember which one?”
“The one who was in on the bust with those dicks from homicide.”
“Officer Duross was his name,” the black man said quietly, emphasizing the first syllable. “Paul Duross.”
“Moses does the New York Times crossword puzzle every day” said Sonders, as if it explained everything.
I looked at him, recalling something. “The Moses Maxwell?”
“Well now, that all depends.”
“You played with the Count Basie band.”
The old man looked impressed. “Shoot, you got you some ears on you, Mr. Rasmussen.”
“If they were a few years longer, I’d tell you I filled them with your sound at the old Commodore Ballroom, but that’d be more wishful than truthful. I do have you on a record somewhere at home. But not with Basie.”
“My quintet, prob‘ly. Count needed another piano player like Valentino needed lady friends.
’Sides, he had that smooth sound. When I played, I had this left hand that liked to sneak away and boogie-woogie. The record must be a seventy-eight—it feels that long ago.”
“It’s an LP, and you’ve got Oscar Santos on tenor and Stanley Reade on bass,” I said, hauling out the lineup from memory the way you could name the infield of a ball team from twenty years ago if you didn’t stop to try. Which I did with the other musicians and couldn’t grab handles.
“Kenny James on skins and Scott Kendall, vocals,” said the old man. He looked at Sonders. “Gen’leman’s definitely got him some memory.”
“Of course, I could never remember my wedding anniversary” I said. “You still play?”
“You still married?”
I grinned. “Got it.”
He raised his hands and twiddled long fingers that were bent like crabapple twigs. “Arthritis. I push a pencil now”
“And remembers stuff,” said Pop.
Maxwell admitted that he was an unofficial historian for the show “Emphasis on ‘unofficial.’ And that ‘spiritual advisor’ riff you got to take loosely.” He drew a pewter flask from his coat pocket and held it up. “I brought the spirits. You, sir? Brandy?” He didn’t offer it to Pop. I figured it would keep the Black Forest cake company in my stomach. He filled the pewter cap, and I took it. He lifted the flask. “To the Count.”
It wasn’t five-star, or French, but the heat warmed all the way down.
“I’ll leave you two to bullyrag awhile,” Pop said. “I want to walk a quick rounds, make sure there’s no lingering grudges among the crew”
“He works hard,” I said when Sonders had gone.
“Basie used to say, ‘They don’t pay me for playing.’ The bread was for the travelin’, sittin’ on the bus for long miles, the hotels and lost suitcases and bad food. He always said the playing was a gas, he did that for free. Pop’s like that with the show. Shoot, he’d give that part away But the hassles, the cash worries … and this shuckin’ and jivin’ with city hall? Nuh-uh.”
“That envelope you slipped him—cash?”
“He asked me to go withdraw some from the bank. He’s got expenses mountin’ up. Pop’s drink these days is ant-acid, case you noticed. And this here, too.” He leaned and slid open the top drawer of the desk and took out a small plastic pharmacy bottle, which he handed me. It was Prilosec, prescribed for peptic ulcers. He put the bottle back and shut the drawer. “And now this poor dead girl being found here … that sure ain’t any too cool.”
“You say ‘found’ here—not killed here?”
“Did I?”
“What’s your take on that?”
“Well, I’ve never had much truck with Mr. Pepper, one way or another. He tends to blow solo. But he always did his job. I hope he didn’t do it, for his sake and Pop’s, but I’m gonna reserve judgment till I know more.”
It seemed like good policy. After a pause, he said, “This your hometown, Mr. Rasmussen?”
“It’s home, though I’ve gotten away once or twice. Compliments of Uncle Sam.”
“Touring with the band is how I come to see this city for the first time. We had a gig in a hotel downtown, but we couldn’t flop there on account of … you know. We ended up at a place called the Venice.”
“Jim Crow died hard,” I said.
“Didn’t he though? Some white folks didn’t like it much, either, but it took a lot of people of both colors to do something about it. Still does, just more colors now Anyway in spite of that, this town’s always had a certain vibe to it that I like. There were some good rooms to play too. The Hi-Hat was one, the Moulin Rouge, the Laurier Club. I heard Billie Holiday played her last date here ’fore she got sick and passed. I remember I got me a pearl gray Borsalino here one time. Used to be a good hatter’s over on Middlesex Street.”
“There used to be a dozen of them. And millinery shops, too.”
“Ha, there’s a word no one knows anymore. A crossword puzzle word. In a way, a carnival is in tune with this kind of town. Like you seem to be, too. A private op who actually drives out and asks questions and doesn’t just set poking keys?”
It had taken me a while, but I realized that in his oblique, courteous way Maxwell was checking me out. I smiled. “You’ve got me confused with a ‘security consultant.’ No, I’m old enough to take that the way you mean it. I’ve got two fedoras sitting on cedar blocks in my coat closet, waiting for the season. And I’m going to give this job the best I’ve got.”
When he’d poured me another little nip, I asked him how long he’d known Pop Sonders.
“I knew his daddy so we go back. But traveling with the show? Six, seven years. When my wife died, and it got boring sitting around an apartment in St. Pete watching Wheel of Fortune, I decided. So when the show came south one winter, I asked could I tag along. That spiritual advisor line’s a good one, but truth is, Pop can’t drink anymore, account of his stomach. What I do to earn my keep is to have an eye on small expenses, things like that.”
Pop returned and declared things were quiet. Moses Maxwell said he reckoned he would turn in. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Rasmussen.”
I said the pleasure was mine. “He’s pretty circumspect,” I said to Sonders when the old jazzman had left to navigate back to his digs.
“A true gentleman,” Pop said.
“Are all your people?”
His gaze sharpened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “I came over here tonight to learn things. I’m trying to do the job.”
He let the bold eye linger a moment, then sat down. “What’s to tell? I’ve got a lot of people work for me, okay? Are you asking if any of them could’ve killed that girl?”
“Or been accomplices before or after the fact? If the girl was killed back there in Pepper’s trailer, as the police say she had to be carried out to the field. Maybe someone heard or saw something.”
“Look, everyone here’s got a story. Police, lawyers—even you being here—it’s got people jumpy. But I’ll tell you this: I know these folks. I’ll vouch for ’em.”
“Let’s concentrate on Troy Pepper, then. He hasn’t been with the show long. He doesn’t say much, isn’t especially close to anyone. Is that about right?”
“It don’t make him a criminal.”
“It makes him more of an unknown, though. I’m going to be asking questions, digging into his past, his habits. It’ll be helpful if you can keep your eyes and ears open, too.”
“I intend to.”
“Okay The outspoken one tonight, the clown. What’s his scene?”
“Embry’s generally burned about something or other. He’s been in the business as long as I have, though not with me all that time. He knows all the old tricks of the trade. Like he does a walkaround, the way he used to do with the circus—stroll the crowd, interacting with folks. He’s good at working a slow crowd. Gets them loosened up and spending money”
I didn’t mention that he’d pinched Phoebe’s butt, or that I’d caught him watching me earlier; if curiosity were a crime, I’d be on death row “A cop I know says you’ve got some people here who might raise suspicion.”
“Seems you got cops on your mind.”
“I know a lot of them. Cops who’ll give me the time of day, that’s a different story This one is to be trusted.”
“Who the hell you working for, anyway?”
“You want to tell me categorically that none of your people have ever been collared, so we can put that to rest?”
He frowned. “Okay sure. Moses had a couple pops, way back in his music days, when whiffing weed was common as chewing gum, but the public protectors of everyone else’s morals put the rap on it like it was the devil’s work. Big deal.”
“I didn’t mean him. And I’m hip about reefer. When Robert Mitchum got set up in the late forties, the tabloids made him out to be a wild-eyed dope fiend.”
He nodded, obviously remembering. “Mitchum was cool. Okay some have got rap sheets—an
d jailhouse body art, and three-pack-a-day smoke joneses. So what? In my book, I trust most of them a lot farther than I do these clucks running Fortune Five Hundred companies. Besides, where the hell you think I get my people? At job recruiting fairs? We travel ten months a year—hard travel. You see any first class accommodations out there? This is the best it gets,” he said, nodding around at the flimsy paneling with its good-citizen awards and city keys and the rumpled cot beyond the folding partition. “I need people with few attachments and lots of loyalty, who can take the pay, which, frankly, stinks. Who can work outdoors, and survive on food that’ll give you indigestion now and probably heart disease later. I need someone who can deal with tedium and disrespect, with bum weather and cop suspicion and equipment that busts down just before showtime and sometimes breaks a jack’s leg in the bargain. You know what it costs for insurance premiums? Am I getting through? Oh yeah, and private dicks who expect there to be problems and damn sure look hard to find ’em.” His face blazed so red I thought the tufts of white hair would ignite. “Let’s see, am I leaving any of the perks out?”
I grinned. “I get the idea.”
“A crack like you made, I’m not sure you do. We’re the only ones we got, so we depend on each other. We’re each other’s family.”
“I apologize.”
“I’ll put my jacks alongside any state or city workers you want, and I’ll bet mine can outwork ’em two to one. Hell, a lot of these people have been with me for years—and you been here for about ten minutes. I hope I’ve hurt your feelings.”
“If my hide was that thin I’d have lasted in this racket ten minutes.”
He harrumphed. “All right, we understand each other.”
“Yup, so back to my questions. You said that you’ve got people with you who have some history. Not Pepper, though.”
“Is that a question?”
“Poorly worded.”
He glanced at the low curved ceiling of the motor home, then sighed. “One time. In Jersey, when he was young. Long before he came to work for me. But he wrote it right on the application form the first day. He paid for it. It was in the past, he said. And I said all right, keep it there.”
