Red Herrings Can't Swim (Nod Blake Mysteries Book 2)

by Doug Lamoreux

  Alfonso hopped onto the bed and sat dejected. Seeing that made me glad we'd waited until morning to do this rather than assaulting the dormitory for witnesses and information the night before. Alfonso was one sad sight. But at least he was wearing jeans and a shirt. The thought of him, depressed and defeated on Mickey's bed, wearing last night's clown costume, a frown beneath his painted smile, and shoes half the size of the rest of him, would have been too much too take. Norman Rockwell would have bawled his brains out.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Mickey?” the midget asked. “What do you want to know?”

  “You said the day of the circus geek was over. So what was he doing here?”

  “I hired him.” I looked the question. Alfonso nodded and said, “Remember, I told you. The Major hires the talent. I hire the slaves. The slaves aren't people, they don't have names, as far as The Major is concerned. To him they're all 'Hey You'.” The midget was thinking and, suddenly, he was smiling. “Mickey was big in the heyday of the circus. But that was a long time ago in a different world. His gig fell out of favor. The ballyhoo of the Sideshow faded. The big circuses got smaller. The small circuses disappeared.” The smile faded again. “The way I heard it told, Mickey crawled inside a bottle and disappeared too. No one heard from him. Then a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, he showed up here. Said he wanted a job.”

  “In the Sideshow?”

  “Nah. He knew better. Any job. He wasn't particular. I told him I had nothin' but undignified slave work and he jumped at it. So I hired him. He swept, picked up trash, shoveled elephant shit, did odd jobs, ran errands. As far as I could see, he mostly drank and stayed out of The Major's sight. I didn't give a damn. Like I said, I came into the circus when a lot of the acts were retirin' or dropping dead. I got a soft spot for old circus performers. To most everybody around here Michael was a burned out drunk but, to me, he'll always be Mickey the Geek.”

  “Anyone else feel strongly about him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he have enemies or, other than you, friends around here? See, Alfonso, when you're murdered, unless you're being robbed, that's who murders you, your enemies or your friends.”

  “He couldn't have been robbed. Mickey didn't have a pot to piss in. Look around. Doesn't look to me like he took a thing and still he left nothin' behind. As for enemies… He was an old man with a broom and a shovel. I can't imagine him having a real enemy; not someone wanted to kill him.”

  “What about friends?”

  “I was his friend.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “F— you! No, I didn't kill Mickey the Geek.”

  “Right, so let's skip you. What about other friends?”

  “Real friends?” He shrugged. “Sybil. The Bearded Lady. Sybil knows Mickey as well as anyone. She knew him in the old days; the real days of the circus.”

  “Where do we find Sybil?”

  “Right across the hall.” Alfonso led the way. He rapped on her door, waited a beat, rapped again and called out, “Sybil, you decent?” Then, either certain she was, or equally certain no amount of waiting would make her so, the midget reached up, grabbed the knob, and pushed into the room.

  Make that… the empty room.

  Chapter Nine

  Sybil's bed, really two decrepit twin beds jury-rigged into one with C-clamps binding the inside legs, was still made up. Alfonso took the sight in and, with a firm grasp of the obvious, proclaimed, “Don't look like she slept here last night.”

  “Any chance she got up early, made the bed, then went for a walk down the midway?”

  “No chance at all.”

  “How can you know?”

  “Because makin' the bed would constitute exercise. Exercise was against her religion. And walkin' the midway would involve walkin' which let's Sybil out.” The midget scanned the room. “Besides who takes everything they own for a walk?”

  He had a point. The bureau had been cleaned out, empty as a frat house keg, without anyone having bothered to push the drawers closed. Empty clothes hangers lay dropped on the floor in haste. The room was without a closet but the tiny alcove meant for hanging apparel was as empty as the drawers. There was no sign of a suitcase and a quick check of the john showed neither toothbrush nor any tools for taming a money-making beard. The Bearded Lady had taken a run out powder.

  “Makes no sense,” Alfonso said. He pointed to the bed. “She ought to be right there, watchin' the boob tube and scarfing chocolates.” The midget opened the drawer on the bedside lamp table and scanned inside. It was a sign of his desperation. I'd seen a poster of Sybil outside of the Sideshow tent and, at well over three hundred pounds, she couldn't possibly have fit. “She even took the Bible,” Alfonso shouted. “Who leaves the towels and steals the Bible?” He slammed the drawer. “She'll need it, and all the prayers she can muster, if she ran out on us. I'll kill her.”

  “Any idea where she went?”

  “Not the least in the world.”

  “Wherever it was,” I said, feeling a little desperation myself. “It looks like she went fast and for good. Any idea why Sybil would take off in the middle of the night?”

  Alfonso hesitated, enough that it made me suspicious, then crossed his arms and answered with absolute certainty. “No. I got nothin'.”

  I didn't believe him. But I could see he'd said all he intended to say. Pushing him, I was sure, would only create an angrier midget. I left that go for the moment. “When did you see Sybil last?”

  “Last night,” he said. He considered it. “Come to think… That was kind of hinky.”

  “What?”

  “After I left you on the Pier and come up here, Sybil came to my room. She was all nervous and fidgety. I knew something was up 'cause she wouldn't have climbed them stairs for money. She'd seen me with you earlier, after we'd come off the submarine. She wanted to know who you were and what you wanted. I've known Sybil a long time and didn't see the harm, so I told her. Said you were a private dick lookin' for a name to stick on a body.”

  “What else did you tell her?”

  “What else did I know? Nothin'. Besides, I didn't have time. That's when she cut our talk short. Said she had to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “I assumed she meant to bed. But I guess that wasn't it.”

  “It didn't strike you as weird?”

  “It was weird. That's what I said. But it wasn't weird enough to keep me from hitting the sack. Like I said before, everybody's weird around here, so what?”

  “Do you think she knew something?”

  He cocked his head at me. “Everybody knows somethin', don't they Blake?”

  “Not in my experience,” I told him. “I know plenty of people don't know a thing.”

  We started for the door but, before we made our exit, Alfonso stopped and studied the empty room shaking his head. “How're we goin' to replace that fat bitch?”

  We stepped from Sybil's room. That was it, one step, then Alfonso grabbed the side of my shirt and tugged me back in the doorway. “Shit!” he said in a whisper. “We're nabbed.”

  He jerked his head to the stairs and, in specific, to a man and woman talking as they descended. He was right, we were caught. The man was heavy-set, middle-aged, mean-looking, and German-sounding. I recognized him as the ringmaster and knew that made him The Major. The woman, therefore, had to be the circus owner. She was lovely and moved like a cat – and I couldn't believe my eyes. I recognized her as well. I'd not only seen her before, but had touched her. One of the more memorable, if painful, moments in my life.

  Just like that, sisters and brothers, I'd found a connection. A connection to what exactly, I had no idea, but an undeniable connection. The circus owner descending the stairs was the lovely daughter-in-law from Master Criswell's lunatic séance (to which Lisa had dragged me). The woman whose warm hand had sent me tumbling into cold water. She'd seemed familiar that night but I'd been unable to come up with a name. Now, surrou
nded by her circus, her name and situation flooded back to me.

  Private dicks, being the bad men they were, doing the filthy job they did, needed all the information they could get. That meant they read newspapers. I'd read a few myself. The cougar on the stairs had made an appearance or two in the daily rags, usually in the Society section. But about six months ago, May, if I had to guess, she'd crashed onto the Front page. Actually, her husband had done the crashing. She was Danita Callicoat. Her multimillionaire hubby, Reginald Callicoat III, had gone out in a blaze of glory – with 297 other passengers and crew – in the deadliest air disaster in the history of American aviation. He'd done it before a home town crowd at Chicago's own O'Hare International Airport.

  If I remembered correctly, Mrs. Callicoat had been safe at home at the time. Good on her, as the airliner's take-off had gone pear-shaped and, in under a minute, the plane returned unexpectedly and violently to earth. The crash, in an open field at the end of the runway (by a trailer park in the next-door suburb), left no survivors and even killed two on the ground.

  The death of a spouse couldn't have been any fun. But facts are facts and, when the grieving ended, there was a bright spot for Mrs. Callicoat. She came out of the affair with bundles and, if she wasn't now Chicago's richest widow, she was certainly a member of the club. Maybe that's why she'd joined her former mother-in-law at the séance; to cross over and thank Reggie for the loot. Now here she was. It appeared that, along with dozens of other businesses, factories, warehouses, and apartments, the Widow Callicoat was now the majority owner of the Callicoat and Major Combined Circus.

  The drowned man, if he was Mickey the Geek, and that looked more and more the case, was Danita Callicoat's employee. Without meaning to she'd shown me his murder. Without meaning to she'd led me to her circus. But what had it to do with her? And what had it to do with me? How could the fates have known Lisa was going to stick in her thumb and pull out a corpse? Questions. I had nothing but questions. But would I get the chance to ask them?

  The pair descending the stairs had reached the first floor. Mrs. Callicoat was staring at The Major because her circus manager was staring at us. “Alfonso!” The Major, forgetting the owner, barged our direction. “Who is that?”

  “His name is Blake,” the midget said. “He's a… freelance writer. Doing a story on me for 'Little Folks' Magazine.” I had to admit, for a lie cooked up on the spot, it wasn't bad.

  Whether or not The Major was buying it, I wasn't sure. He ogled Alfonso like he was a piece of rotted meat. But that may have been the way he always looked at him. “A story on you? Who wants to read about you?”

  Alfonso beamed. “Little folks. That's why 'Little Folks' Magazine is asking.”

  The Major's sneer remained unreadable and I remained unsure he was buying it. To sweeten the pot, I pulled out a card case, without showing the holster under my jacket, passed by my detective's ID and driver's license, dug into a clutch of calling cards – each bearing a different name and claiming I was a plumber, an electrician, a broker, a real estate agent, a green grocer, an employee of the Illinois State Lottery, and others – and selected one that insisted I was a Freelance Writer. I handed it to The Major.

  “Blake?” he asked, more convinced, but not any more impressed. “Just Blake?”

  “Professionally, yes.”

  “No first name?”

  “Not that I confess to in public.”

  He turned to look down at (and on) Alfonso. “What's a story about you got to do with Sybil?”

  He hadn't missed our coming out of the Bearded Lady's room.

  “Blake wants to talk to the people I work with. I suggested Sybil since our booths are next door to each other in the show. But she ain't here.”

  “She's… probably rehearsing,” The Major said without conviction. Then he repeated the insult. “Who wants to read about you?”

  “I think it's marvelous,” Mrs. Callicoat said stepping up. She glowed in Alfonso's direction. Then she turned staring at me at least as hard as I had earlier stared at her. “Publicity is always welcome. As long as the investigative reporting isn't too hard-hitting. We are, after all, a fun family entertainment.” The comment had me wondering. But she said it with a smile and no indication she knew who I was or that she recognized me from my humiliating performance in the medium's salon.

  Changing the subject, Mrs. Callicoat told The Major, “I'd like to see those invoices” and, without waiting for an answer, disappeared into a room on the other side of the first floor stairs.

  The Major ignored Alfonso to lock his mean eyes on me. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  I shook my head. “We've never met.”

  He nodded. “Do your story on the dwarf. But don't get in the way.” He turned on Alfonso. “The minute he's in the way, he's out on his ear. Understand?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied. He hadn't been talking to me, but he'd been talking about me which made it more imperative I butt in. I could've added that I was used to landing on my ear. I did add an offer for him. “Perhaps you and I might get a chance to talk, Major? Maybe there's a feature article in you, eh for a different publication, of course.”

  The manager sneered. “That will not happen. I have work to do. I do not like people in the way. I do not like people in my business.” He started away, then turned back. “The others have their work also. Talk to them in the car park when they are finished. Alfonso has work now.”

  I took the hint and headed for the front door. Behind me, The Major told Alfonso, “Get Alida's breakfast. Take it to her.”

  I heard Alfonso shuffle away. I heard The Major shout after him, “Knock! Then leave it by her door. You hear me!”

  Outside sat a white Dodge Tradesman van wildly splashed with the name and colors of the circus, parked against the grain, before the dorm entrance. Behind it, as out of place for its classiness as the other was for its garishness, sat a new shiny black Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine.

  Waiting with the limo, leaning heavily against the rear passenger's door was a character right out of fiction. Which fiction I couldn't quite decide; perhaps he'd stepped from The Great Gatsby or, just as likely, the Arthurian legend. Like the evil knight of old, this guy was decked in solid black; knee high riding boots, jodhpurs, uniform jacket (fronted by a gauntlet of silver buttons), and driving cap. He even wore embossed Gucci leather gloves that, by themselves, had to have set somebody back a couple of C's. He was the most crisp, clean, and serious looking chauffeur I'd ever laid eyes on. I didn't like him on sight. Nobody with a service job that cushy, wallowing in that level of luxury, had any business looking as above it all and as ridiculously bored as he did.

  I was thinking of a question to ask him when Mrs. Callicoat exited the dormitory alone. The chauffeur ushered her into the limo with too big a smile. He gave me a fleeting glance, with too big a scowl, then climbed behind the wheel. He drove his lovely employer away.

  I watched them go. Then my mind started doing pushups. Questions. Questions. Minutes later, I don't know how many, my calisthenics were interrupted by a familiar gravelly voice. “Blake! Hey, Blake, you deaf? I been standing here talkin' to you.”

  I followed the voice down to Alfonso beside me. “I'm sorry. I had something on my mind.”

  “What'd you think of The Major?”

  “It wasn't him on my mind. I told you, Alfonso, I'll look into The Major and your acrobat when I've got a handle on the drowned man.”

  “God, you're a one-way prick.”

  “My mind is on Mickey and the circus. And, until I find out why she ran, on the elusive Sybil. I need to find the Bearded Lady. I need to be sure our corpse is Mickey the Geek. And, if it is, I need to find out why somebody wanted him turned off.”

  “Why do you think I came out here?” Alfonso asked. “Because it dawned on me, assuming you're right and Sybil boogied for reasons other than she was fed up like all of us, then I think I know where she went.”

  Chapter Ten

 
; My plans changed in an instant. Instead of going on a dull document search, digging into the lives and loves of a good many of the fun souls I'd met that morning, I went to the circus. Meaning, I stayed for the noon performance of the circus already at the center of my universe. I needed Alfonso's idea concerning Sybil's whereabouts. He wouldn't cough it up until I promised he could go with me in search of the Bearded Lady. He couldn't go until, you guessed it, after the noon show.

  You've been to a circus. There's little to be gained from a moment by moment description of this one. Ballyhoo was the word. And music, laughter, thrills, and lots of noise. Oh, and clowns, all sorts of clowns, girl, boy, tall, fat, crazy, and crying clowns. And, let us not forget Binky, the shortest clown with the foulest mouth this side of the Ringling Clown College. Clowns running randomly in from entrances on all side of the bleachers, or piling out of a little car, or racing through the crowd, throwing confetti, spritzing water, shouting and causing hilarious havoc. The Major, as the ringmaster, played straight man and chased them off. Then, to trumpets and drums, he brought the acts on in their turn, the jugglers, the dancers, the trick riders, the human cannon ball. With animal acts interspersed throughout, the orangutans, looking like a troupe of hairy orange Frank Wenders as they danced, pulled their lips over their own heads, and made lewd gestures. A pack of poodles yipping and chasing their own tails that reminded me of Wenders' mutt, Dave Mason. Horses, camels, ostriches, and the huge but graceful elephants that put me in mind of my friend and snitch, Large.

  Finally came the dangerous, the heart-stopping, the death defying.

  Cedric, the courageous tamer, entered his cage with whip, and chair, and pistol commanding the lions and tigers to do his bidding. The act had me, if only for a moment, thinking again of the sleek feline circus owner. (Could a cat really be tamed?) The performer escaped the cage triumphant and alive. That's more than most of us accomplish.