Carny kill

9

A fog-mist rolled in from the sea that night. It was damp but not cold. It felt good on your skin, tingly and clean. It looked nice on the young girls' hair and on their outthrust sweaters. It put a spectacular halo around the high arc lights and made them a bluewhite. It was ghostly. It seemed to make the voices of the children more shrill. People moved through it like stalking specters desperately trying to seek entertainment, excitement, escape.

It was a good night for it. A good night, in fact, for a couple of ideas I had in mind.

The Viking horn went hooo like a dismal foghorn and I gave away my last three orchids to three sad spinster looking females who had librarian or schoolteacher stamped on their tragically plain faces. They were very embarrassed and delighted and childlike about it. Then I felt sad.

I wondered why everybody couldn't be beautiful. If everybody was beautiful, then we would all be so busy making love to one another we wouldn't have time to be frustrated. Then we wouldn't jack-roll or riot or declare war. Maybe we wouldn't even drink ourselves to death.

Nut, I told myself. I closed up my stand and went over to have a smoke with Gabby. He said, 'Hop in and have a drink.'

I climbed over the counter and helped him close up. A single, naked 200-watt bulb made the place look like an interrogation room. The little white rabbits at the far end appeared to be frozen in their tracks with terror.

At least there were no effigies of Mao or Castro to shoot at. It used to bore me to hell to have to shoot at Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito all the time when I was a kid and would go to a shooting gallery during the war.

Gabby drew a pint from under the counter and passed it to me. It was Scotch and it was good. I passed it back and said, 'Coincidence. I was just wondering if beautiful people ever drink themselves to death, and now you tempt me.'

'Don't sweat it. You ain't beautiful.'

'My mother thought so.'

'Mothers are nuts. There ain't any beautiful people.'

I think he had something there, as far as the outer flesh goes. Usually the people the world considers as beautiful are sin ugly inside. Like May. But I don't know; I've seen some nuns who looked beautiful and I have an idea they were the same inside. Maybe not. Maybe they were frustrated like any spinster.

'Jesus,' I said.

'What?'

'People,' I said. 'Life. Crazy. All crazy.'

'Bet your ass.'

'Well,' I said, 'it doesn't really matter.'

Gabby took a good one and wiped his mouth and looked at me.

'Got any ideas?' he asked.

'Um-hm. I'm gonna go look her up in a minute.'

'I mean about Rob Cochrane.'

'Why should I have ideas about that?'

'Because I understand The Man has started to switch his sights from Mrs. Big to you.'

I looked at him. He passed the bottle but I didn't take one.

'Where'd you hear that?'

Gabby shrugged. 'Word gets-'

'Yeah, yeah. It gets around. I know. But who gave it to you?'

'Duff. Said it was from the horse's mouth.'

I didn't much like the idea that other people besides Ferris were starting to look at me askance, or that Bill Duff was going around saying so.

'I just might decide to send Bill to the dentist again,' I said.

'Somebody did that a couple of months ago.'

'Yeah? Who?'

'Mike Ransome. They were over at the gambling room and Duff was on the sauce and he started to tell the boys an off-color story about him and May Cochrane. Nobody wanted to hear it because they all liked Rob, but Duff wouldn't knock it off. So Ransome put a fist in his big mouth.'

'Huh. Ransome doesn't look like he could whip a Girl Scout.'

'You ain't seen him in action. He's fast. Duff has the muscle and meanness but he had no more chance of landing one on Mike than I have of crawling in bed with Sophia Loren.'

I said huh again. Then I switched the subject.

'Where is the gambling den? I'd like to look in some night.'

'In the basement of Dracula's Castle. But they won't let you within ten foot of a cardtable. Not with your educated mitts.'

'I know it. I just like to watch.'

A legerdemain artist can never play cards with his friends. Not if he wants to go on having friends. Even if he plays square, the doubt is always there. Did he stack the deck? Did he deal from the bottom? Is he using sleight of hand? It makes everyone too damn uncomfortable.

'Well,' I said, 'thanks for the Scotch. I gotta get.'

'Thax.' Gabby stopped me before I could get out the side door. 'You ain't kidding me, you know.'

I looked back at him.

'What do you mean, I ain't kidding you?'

'You've got something going in brainsvile, and I don't mean just laying Billie. I used to work for Madame Esmerelda. She made with the madball. I read you like newspaper headline.'

'Don't give me that crystal gazing crap,' I told him. 'We both know it's as phony as a queer bill.'

'Uh-huh, but there's tricks to it. You either learn how to read people or you fold up your stand. All I'm saying is, if you get in too deep, gimme the highsign. Maybe I can help you out.' He paused and when he spoke again I barely caught it.

'Maybe you'll even need a gun.'

I started to say my God why would I need a gun, but I didn't. I nodded and said, 'Thanks, Gabby. See you.'

Maybe he was right. Maybe I would.

I went around to the rear of the nautch show. My friend Jerry was there. He was walking a quarter up and down the knuckles of his right hand and he was talking to one of the nautch girls-a peroxided, overbuilt piece with a mean eye.

It wasn't any of my business. The luckboy was old enough to look out for himself. He had probably played with fire before and wore the scars to prove it. He winked at me.

'Show Bev how a real pro works, Thax. Let's see you take her bra.'

'Is she wearing one?'

'I vouch for it,' he said with a lazy smile. 'I just felt.'

'You dirty bastard,' the sexpot said. She smiled at both of us-a real earthy we-know-what-god-put-it-there- for-don't-we-boys smile. She was about as tasty as they come.

Moving up next to them, I leaned myself against the board-siding on my left arm. At the same time I took her left earring with my right hand. She gave a little shriek of delight when I showed it to her, and when I handed it back I straightened up and took Jerry's belt.

They both laughed when I said, 'Don't be too surprised when you let down your pants tonight, Jerry. I just lifted your shorts.'

But he fell for it-his own game. I saw him feel his thigh, automatically, to be certain they were still on him.

'Ain't he the nuts?' he said to the peroxide bitch.

'Yeah,' she said in a breathy voice and her mascara-blued eyes burned deep voracious holes in me.