The Ninth Nightmare

‘You think, tin man?’ grinned the clown. He gave Walter a low bow, and then he suddenly whirled around and he was brandishing a long serrated kitchen knife.

‘Put the blade down!’ Walter told him. ‘You even scratch me with that, and you’re going to do so much time you’ll need a Zimmer frame when they let you out.’

‘Scratching you? I wouldn’t dream of scratching you,’ said the clown. He prodded at Walter with the point of his knife. Walter lifted his left elbow to shield himself, and retreated across the room.

‘You don’t want to do anything stupid,’ he warned the clown.

‘Oh, yes I do! Clowns are stupid by nature! Stupidity is our bread and butter! Throwing buckets of water all over each other! Stupid! Tripping over each other’s feet! Stupid! Cramming ten people into one car, so that the wheels fall off! Stupid!’

He kept on prodding at Walter, and Walter kept backing away. For God’s sake, where was Charlie? He must be missing him by now. But then he backed into the coffee table, and stumbled sideways, and lost his balance, and fell heavily on to the floor, hitting his head on the arm of one of the chairs.

As he fell, the clown leapt forward, and seized his right leg. Walter kicked at him, but the clown dragged up the cuff of his pants, pulled down his sock, and sliced through the Achilles tendon at the back of his heel.

Walter shouted out in pain, but the clown took hold of his left leg, twisted off his shoe, and did the same. Walter managed to heave himself up into a sitting position, but now he was completely unable to stand. Blood was running quickly out of the cuts on his heels and spattering the light blue rug.

‘You bastard!’ he gasped. ‘You bastard, what have you done to me?’

The clown leaned over him. Close up, Walter could see that he wasn’t smiling at all.

‘This is only the beginning, tin man. There’s far worse to come — you’ll see! But after what you did last night, you and your friends, what do you expect? Not mercy, surely!’

‘I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ Walter told him. He was breathing heavily and his face was ashen from shock.

‘Of course you know what I’m talking about, Dom Magator the Night Warrior.’

‘Who the what?’

‘Don’t deny it. You might have been wearing that helmet last night, but I’d know that fat gut anywhere! And who else would be looking for me, by day as well as by night?

He stood up straight. ‘Anyhow, you’ve solved a problem for me. I needed to bring nine sacrifices to Brother Albrecht, as you know — nine souls who would happily commit themselves forever to the most terrible show on earth. Maria Fortales was number eight, and I’m happy to say that you can have the honor of being number nine.

‘As soon as you take your place among your companion freaks, the papal sanction will be broken for ever. The circus will come rolling through to the world of reality! Drums beating! Trumpets blaring! Tarantara! Tarantara! And the world will collapse into wonderful, screaming chaos! Murder! Rape! Wanton vandalism! People set on fire for the fun of it! The human race is headed that way already, of course, but Brother Albrecht’s circus will make sure you arrive in hell so much sooner!’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Walter, weakly. ‘What circus are you talking about? You’re Mago Verde, aren’t you?’

‘Ah! You know who I am! A clever detective, as well as a formidable Night Warrior! Yes, tin man. I am Mago Verde, the Green Magician.’

‘You’re not Gordon Veitch, though, are you? You can’t be. Gordon Veitch must have died a long time ago.’

‘The real Gordon Veitch, yes. The human Gordon Veitch. The human Gordon Veitch was trapped when the cops set fire to Shantytown in nineteen thirty-eight. Smoke inhalation. But he was asleep when it happened, and dreaming, and his dreaming self survived, and his dreaming self is me. Get it?’

‘So Henry Marriott wasn’t shooting us a line after all.’

‘Henry Marriott? Jesus! Is that punk still above ground? He used to be my gofer! What an idiot. Thought he was a clown? He couldn’t make a hyena laugh.’

‘But Henry Marriott told us you were trying to get Gilbert Griffin’s dead wife back. He didn’t say anything about a circus. What circus?’

‘Oh… yes, that’s how it started, with Emily Griffin. I was visiting other people’s dreams, trying to find her. She was very elusive, to tell you the truth, young dead Emily Griffin. It was like trying to catch a shadow, or an echo, or the snatch of a song. I visited the dreams of most of her friends. I visited her parents’ dreams. Never quite caught her.’

He turned back to Walter with a real grin underneath his painted grin. ‘One night back in nineteen thirty-six I stepped into a dream that one of Gilbert Griffin’s stockholders was having; and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself at Brother Albrecht’s carnival and freak show. That was when I first realized what the power of true evil is all about. And, believe me, tin man, the power of true evil is the most intoxicating elixir that man ever drank!’

‘I need you to call nine-one-one for me,’ said Walter. ‘This bleeding isn’t going to stop.’

Mago Verde ignored him. ‘I was looking for Emily Griffin at the time, yes, with the aim of reuniting her with her grieving husband. He was paying me enough, I can assure you! Three thousand dollars in just six months! But when I met Brother Albrecht, everything changed. My whole life was turned upside down. I forgot about Emily Griffin. Who cared about one dim-witted young woman who crossed the street without looking left and right? Brother Albrecht and his circus, that was the future for me!’

Walter rested his head against the seat of the armchair. ‘Please. Call for a bus, would you?’

But Mago Verde came over and sat down cross-legged very close to him, so that Walter could smell vinegar and cigarettes and greasepaint. ‘Let me explain to you all about Brother Albrecht’s circus,’ he said. ‘You need to know this.’ And he told Walter how Brother Albrecht had been mutilated in 1147 by his lover’s vengeful husband; and how he had started his carnival; and how Pope Eugene III had sealed him in the world of dreams.

‘I made a deal with Brother Albrecht. I would dedicate the rest of my sacrifices to him, and not to Gilbert Griffin, so that he could bring his circus back to the real world, where it belonged. In return, he would make me the head of all his clowns.

‘He wanted freaks. He wanted women who had been sawn in half and men with six arms instead of legs. I’m sorry to say that quite a few of them went to meet their Maker while I was trying to oblige him. That’s when the cops began to hunt me down for serious, and that’s why I made myself anonymous and pretended to be a bum and hung out around Shantytown. Mistake, huh? I underestimated Eliot Ness, even worse than Al Capone did. But all’s well that ends well, and here we are, you and me.

He stroked Walter’s cheek, almost lovingly. ‘I’m going to get you ready for your journey to the freak show, and then I’m going to sleep for a while, and dream what I did to you. When I do that, there won’t be any evidence that you were ever here. No blood on the carpet, nothing. Nobody will ever know what happened to you, not your family, not your fellow detectives. Not unless they visit Brother Albrecht’s circus when it arrives in the waking world. Ha! Ha! Then they’ll see you! Dom Magator the Castrated Night Warrior!’

‘What? You’re making a big mistake here, pal. My name isn’t Dom anything and I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!’

‘Well, you would say that,’ Mago Verde replied, pretending to be petulant.

He stood up. Out of one of the pockets of his shabby black coat he pulled a grubby gray scarf and a length of tarry cord.

‘Very considerate of you, bringing your own handcuffs,’ he said. ‘Saves me tying your wrists together, and I was always crap at reef knots.’

He pushed Walter over on to his stomach. Walter thrashed and struggled, but Mago Verde was so bony and strong that he couldn’t prevent him from wrenching his arms behind his back and hooking them together with his handcuffs.

Once he had done that, he rolled Walter over on to his back.

Walter yelled out, ‘Help! Help! Somebody help me! Police! Help! Somebody help me, for Christ’s sake!’