“Most carnival people are,” I said, and told him about some of the bulletin boards I’d surfed that morning with their colorful language and blunt candor. “Their way of life almost demands it. They have from April till October to make enough to carry them through the rest of the year. Every day it rains, every day the thermometer goes much over ninety, every time the equipment breaks down, they’re losing income. All they’ve got is a smile and a fast line of talk—”
“And a gaffed game,” Dwight interjected cynically, referring to the dozens of ways a carny agent can keep you from winning if he wants to, despite the law’s best efforts.
“—and a gaffed game, maybe,” I conceded. “But you can’t cheat an honest man, and anybody who expects to get something for nothing ought not to be allowed on a midway. It’s a hard life out on the road for months—having to tear down all that gear and move it every few days, then set it up all over again. The real game, of course, must be dreaming up new ways to separate the marks from their money. Probably what keeps it from being a total grind.”
I thought of how Tally’s eyes had sparkled when she was stringing Reese along, keeping him in the game. “But it sounds like Braz Hartley took it a step further.”
Dwight nodded. “He did try a little blackmail this spring on the woman who runs the plate game.”
“The same woman who saw this Lamarr Wrenn bloody his nose? Polly somebody?”
“Polly Viscardi. She says this is the first time she’s hooked up with the Ameses, so Braz didn’t have a clue about her. She looks sweet and proper, doesn’t she?”
“I suppose.” I had a memory of bright red hair, a money apron tied around a thick waist, a smile for all who passed, and calculating eyes. And yes, she’d been one of those who offered support to Tally Friday night, but with her androgynous oil-stained leather work shoes, tight black slacks, and belligerent glares at all the gawkers, sweet and proper wouldn’t have been my description. Unless it was the pretty-in-pink ruffled blouse she wore? Or the little bells on the tips of her pink shoelaces? I’ve noticed that ruffles and pink can cloud men’s judgment at times.
“Sweet like a buzz saw,” Dwight said. “He found her getting it on with one of the roughies in their haunted house back in May and threatened to tell her husband if she didn’t pay him. Only he wasn’t her husband. She had the roughie bust Braz’s balls, then kicked the not-husband out and moved the roughie in.”
Dwight’s plate was empty and the waiter removed it. “Another drink?” he asked us.
We both shook our heads, and I gestured that he could take my plate, too.
“Coffee?” asked Dwight.
I still had some of my margarita left. “But you get a cup if you want it.”
“No, we’ll just have our check,” Dwight told the waiter, who nodded and went away to fetch it.
“So if Polly Viscardi actually saw who came along and finished the job Eric’s friend started, she doesn’t have a real strong motive to tell, does she?” I said. “For her, it could be good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Your guess is good as mine, shug.”
“A woman could have stomped Braz hard enough to kill him,” I mused.
“Well, it’s downward force,” he conceded. “Enough momentum and determination, why not?”
“Might be why the Viscardi woman says she didn’t see anything.”
He wasn’t convinced. “And her motive would be?”
“Oh, I’m not doing motive tonight,” I said with an airy wave of my hand. “I’m just doing opportunity.”
“Yeah? Well, let me know when you get around to motive,” he said dryly.
“Did Tally hear about that blackmail attempt?”
“Not from Viscardi. She says she handled it herself. Didn’t feel a need to involve the Ameses.”
“What
“The husband,” Dwight said. “Just minor stuff. Traffic violations, license irregularities. And any juvvie records for the boy would be sealed.”
Thinking of all we’d learned about Braz, I found myself hoping that Val was a decent son. I liked Tally, and on a purely selfish basis, I hoped she wouldn’t have her heart broken again by her second child.
The check arrived in a black plastic folder, and Dwight tucked a couple of bills inside the cover as I finished my drink.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
Out in the parking lot, he jingled his keys and asked if I wanted to drive.
“It’s still early and I’m not in any hurry now,” I said.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, the radio was tuned to a country station, or what passes for country these days, and Dwight flipped up and down the dial before turning it off with an impatient growl. “Hell of a note when you can’t find real country on the radio anymore.”
My stabs at conversation went nowhere, and we drove south on Old Forty-Eight in deepening silence till the lights of Garner faded behind us. The moon kept slipping in and out of hazy clouds, and the comfortable easiness that had been present between us during dinner seemed to be evaporating with each mile we traveled. He had sounded okay about Sylvia and Reid, but I wondered if maybe he was more down about it than he wanted to admit. It’s one thing to think a relationship’s going nowhere, quite another to have a friend cut you out so abruptly.
“Deb’rah?”
