get together one of these days-or nights. And we’ll have fun. That’s a promise. I’ll lay it on the line just as soon as ever we can.”
“I wish I could believe it.”
She slid her cool arms around his neck and gave him the promise between his lips, warm, sweet, and searching. His heart began to pound.
“Tonight?”
“We’ll see.”
“Make it tonight.”
She shook her head. “I got to make Pete write some letters. He can’t if he gets too loaded and he’s got some that need answering. You can’t let your friends down in show business. You find that out when you get on your uppers and have to hit ’em for a loan. Maybe tomorrow night.”
Stan turned away, rebellious and savage, feeling as if the whole surface of his mind had been rubbed the wrong way. He hated Zeena and her Pete.
On his way over to the cookhouse for his supper he passed Pete. Pete was sober and shaky and profane. Zeena would have hidden his bottle in view of the letter-writing session. His eyes had begun to pop.
“Got a spare dollar on you, kid?” Pete whispered.
Zeena came up behind them. “You two boys stay right here and have your supper,” she said, pushing them toward the cookhouse. “I’ve got to find a drugstore in this burg that keeps open late. Nothing like a girl’s being careful of her beauty, huh? I’ll be right back, honey,” she said to Pete, fastening a loose button of his shirt. “We got to catch up on our correspondence.”
Stan ate quickly, but Pete pushed the food around, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and wiped his hand carefully with his napkin.
He crushed the napkin into a hard, paper wad and aimed it at the cook’s back with a curse.
“You got a spare fin, kid?”
“No. Let’s get on back to the tent. You got the new Billboard to read. Zeena left it under the stage.”
They walked back in silence.
Stan put up his cot and watched the Ten-in-One settle down for the night. Under the astrology stage a single light burned, winking through the cracks of the boards. Inside Pete was sitting at the table, trying to read the Billboard and going over and over the same paragraph.
Why couldn’t Zeena have let him accompany her to the store, Stan asked himself. Then, on the way, maybe they could have warmed up and she would have forgotten about Pete and writing letters.
Zeena had slipped the bottle under the seat of Major Mosquito’s chair. Stan jumped down from his own platform and crossed the tent softly. The Major’s tiny cot was just above his head; he could hear above him the quick breathing which sounded soprano. His hand found the bottle, drew it out.
There was only an inch or two left in it. Stan turned back and crept up the steps of Zeena’s theater. A few moments later he came down and squeezed into the understage compartment. The bottle, more than half full now, was in his hand.
“How about a drink, Pete?”
“Glory be to God!” The flask was nearly snatched from his hand. Pete jerked the cork, holding it out to Stan automatically. The next instant he had it in his mouth and his Adam’s apple was working. He drained it and handed it back. “God almighty. A friend in need as the saying goes. I’m afraid I didn’t leave much for you, Stan.”
“That’s all right. I don’t care for any right now.”
Pete shook his head and seemed to pull himself together. “You’re a good kid, Stan. You got a fine act. Don’t let anything ever keep you out of the big time. You can go places, Stan, if you don’t get bogged down. You should have seen us when we were on top. Used to pack ’em in. They’d sit through four other acts just to see us. Boy, I can remember all the times we had our names on the marquee in letters a foot high-top billing -everywhere we went. We had plenty fun, too.
“But you- Why, kid, the greatest names in the business started right where you are now. You’re the luckiest kid in the world. You got a good front-you’re a damn good-looking kid and I wouldn’t crap you up. You can talk. You can do sleights. You got everything. Great magician someday. Only don’t let the carny…” His eyes were glazing over. He stopped speaking and sat rigid.
“Why don’t you turn out the light and take it easy until Zeena gets back?” Stan suggested.
A grunt was his only answer. Then the man stood up and threw back his shoulders. “Kid, you should have seen us when we played the Keith time!”
Good God, is this idiot never going to pass out, Stan thought. Beyond the wooden walls of the understage compartment and the canvas of the tent was the sound of a car’s engine starting, the whirr of the starter rising through the night as the nameless driver pressed it. The motor caught and Stan heard the gears.
“You know, kid-” Pete drew himself up until his head nearly touched the boards of the ceiling. The alcohol seemed to stiffen his back. His chin came up commandingly. “Stan, lad like you could be a great mentalist. Study human nature!” He took a long, last pull at the bottle and finished it. Barely swaying, he opened his eyes wide and swallowed.
“Here-chord from the orchestra, amber spot-and I’m on. Make my spiel, give ’em one laugh, plenty mystery. Then I jump right into the reading. Here’s m’crystal.” He focused his eyes on the empty whisky bottle and Stan watched him with an uneasy twinge. Pete seemed to be coming alive. His eyes became hot and intent.
Then his voice altered and took on depth and power. He passed his left hand slowly over the bottle’s surface. “Since the dawn of history,” he began, his words booming in the wooden box-room, “mankind has sought to see behind the veil which hides him from tomorrow. And through the ages certain men have gazed into the polished crystal and seen. Is it some property of the crystal itself? Or does the gazer use it merely to turn his eyes inward? Who can tell? But visions come. Slowly, shifting their form, visions come…”
Stan found himself watching the empty bottle in which a single pale drop slanted across the bottom. He could not take his eyes away, so contagious was the other’s absorption.
“Wait! The shifting shapes begin to clear. I see fields of grass and rolling hills. And a boy-a boy is running on bare feet through the fields. A dog is with him.”
Too swiftly for his wary mind to check him, Stan whispered the words, “Yes. Gyp.”
Pete’s eyes burned down into the glass. “Happiness then… but for a little while. Now dark mists… sorrow. I see people moving… one man stands out… evil… the boy hates him. Death and the wish of death…”
Stan moved like an explosion. He snatched for the bottle; it slipped and fell to the ground. He kicked it into a corner, his breath coming quick and rapid.
Pete stood for a moment, gazing at his empty hand, then dropped his arm. His shoulders sagged. He crumpled into the folding chair, resting his elbows on the card table. When he raised his face to Stan the eyes were glazed, the mouth slack. “I didn’t mean nothing, boy. You ain’t mad at me, are ya? Just fooling around. Stock reading-fits everybody. Only you got to dress it up.” His tongue had thickened and he paused, his head drooping, then snapping up again. “Everybody had some trouble. Somebody they wanted to kill. Usually for a boy it’s the old man. What’s childhood? Happy one minute, heartbroke the next. Every boy had a dog. Or neighbor’s dog-”
His head fell forward on his forearms. “Just old drunk. Just lush. Lord… Zeena be mad. Don’t you let on, son, you gimme that little drink. She be mad at you, too.” He began to cry softly.
Stan felt his stomach heave with disgust. He turned without a word and left the steaming compartment. In comparison, the air of the Ten-in-One tent, darkened now and still, felt cool.
It seemed as if half the night had worn away before Zeena did come back. Stan met her, talking in whispers so as not to disturb the others in the tent, now snoring heavily in their bunks.
“Where’s Pete?”
“Passed out.”
“Where’d he get it?”
“I-I don’t know. He was over by the geek’s layout.”
“God damn it, Stan, I told you to watch him. Oh, well, I’m tuckered out myself. Might as well let him sleep it off. Tomorrow’s another day.”
“Zeena.”
“What is it, honey?”
“Let me walk you home.”
