“Your hair,” he said. “It’s come undone.”
Mabel touched her hair. She liked to wear it up. She saw the dwarf pointing at the mirror on the far wall. She went to it and stared at her reflection. A startled sound escaped her lips. Her reflection wasn’t there. But everything else in the room was.
She reached out and touched the mirror. It was another illusion made from paint. The room’s furnishings were faithfully reflected in it, including the mop bucket on the floor and the silver napkin dispensers on the tables.
“I’m impressed,” she said, looking at the two men. Brownie’s smile said he was the culprit, his eyes laughing. She started to cross the room, and Little Pete pointed at the floor.
“Watch out!”
Mabel looked down at the open manhole, complete with toppled cover. She instinctively stopped and touched the cover with her foot. Another painting. She shook her head in amazement. It didn’t matter that she knew it was a fake. Her brain still told her to be careful, and she gingerly stepped over it to the delight of the two men.
Back at the bar, she slapped the water-stained counter. “I think that deserves a drink. How are you in the ginger ale department?”
Brownie found a ginger ale in the cooler and poured it into a tall glass filled with ice. “On the house,” he said.
“What do you call these paintings?” Mabel asked, taking a long drink. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Trompe l’oeil,” he replied. “That’s French for ‘trick of the eye.’ They keep things lively. Hope we didn’t offend you and your friend.”
“Not at all,” Mabel said. “I like to be fooled.”
Brownie and Little Pete were both retired sideshow performers, and they talked about their lives when Yolanda returned and joined Mabel at the bar, the baby sleeping in her arms.
Brownie called the sideshow a detour of shock and wonder. He and Little Pete had crisscrossed the country with circuses and carnivals for more than forty years. Brownie had started as a teenage clown, making himself up with shaving cream and lipstick. Little Pete informed them that he personally hadn’t needed any makeup.
“As I got older, I became a talker,” Brownie went on. “That’s the guy who stands outside the tent and prods the crowd, called the tip, to buy a ticket. We used to have a bally—that’s a small stage—where one or two acts would perform for free to get the crowd’s attention. I also acted as a gazoony. That’s the guy who put up and took down the show.”
“You must have been awfully busy,” Mabel said.
“When I was working, I slept five hours a night. I loved every minute of it.”
Mabel removed a piece of paper from her pocket. It had her notes from her phone conversation with Tony. She pretended to consult them. She had a feeling that Brownie would talk all day if she let him. “Did you ever run across a carnival out of the Panhandle?” she asked. “It was run by a family of gypsies. This was about twenty years ago.”
Little Pete said, “Could be the Schlitzie carnival. They were gypsies.”
“They were criminals,” Brownie said. “Ran crooked games and stole money from people left and right.” He looked at Mabel. “That who you looking for?”
Mabel glanced at her notes. Tony had said the gypsies had brought Ricky Smith into their fold when he was a teenager, and taught him the tricks of their trade. She couldn’t think of anything more harmful for a young man.
“Yes, I think so,” she said.
“They were bad eggs. If I remember correctly, the mother and father got deported, and the carnival disbanded. This was about—”
“Fifteen years ago,” Little Pete said, having captured the butterfly beneath a glass. Taking his cap off, he deftly picked the glass up off the bar and shook the butterfly out. It landed in his cap, which he immediately placed on his head.
“How long do they last?” Mabel asked.
“This one’s going on six weeks,” the dwarf said.
Mabel consulted her notes. Tony had been fooled by a lottery drawing and had decided that the method was something that Ricky Smith might have learned during his carnival days.
“Last question,” she said. “A friend of mine was fooled by a lottery he saw. He thinks the drawing was rigged. It used Ping-Pong balls.” She looked up at Brownie and Little Pete. “Does this ring any bells?”
“Ping-Pong balls?” Little Pete said. “Did she say Ping-Pong balls?”
“I believe she did,” the bartender replied.
Little Pete jumped out of his chair and onto the bar. His balance was off, and he nearly fell, then instantly righted himself. Mabel guessed there was more than tomato juice in his glass. She watched him run down the bar to the end. He grabbed a brown paper bag sitting on the top of a refrigerator. He kept his back to her, hiding his actions. When he returned, he was holding the bag in his outstretched hands.
“Take a look inside,” he said, “and tell me what you see.”
Mabel peeked inside the bag. Yolanda looked as well. The baby hadn’t made a sound, God bless her. The bag was filled with white Ping-Pong balls. Each one had a number printed on it in block lettering. Little Pete shook the bag for effect.
“All right, ladies and little girl, I want you to watch close. My dear friend Brownie is going to pull five balls out
Mabel looked at Yolanda. “You watch his left hand, I’ll watch his right.”
“Got it,” the younger woman said.
“The numbers nine, fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-five, and forty-seven. Those are the numbers which Brownie will pull from the bag. Nine, fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-five, and forty-seven.”
Brownie unbuttoned his shirtsleeve and tugged it back to his elbow. His arm was covered in blue-black tattoos of mermaids and battleships. A navy man, Mabel guessed.
Closing his eyes, Brownie stuck his arm into the paper bag and removed a ball. It had the number twenty- three written on it.
“Twenty-three! Call me a genius. Everyone else does!” Little Pete said.
Brownie pulled out two balls at once. Numbers nine and fourteen.
“The daily double! How does he do it? Nobody knows!”
Grinning, Brownie pulled out a fourth ball. Number thirty-five.
“Someone start a religion after this man,” the dwarf said. He stared at Yolanda with a devilish grin on his face. Then he offered her the bag.
“Go ahead, take out the last one. Number forty-seven.”
“But I don’t understand how the trick works,” Yolanda protested.
“That doesn’t matter,” Little Pete said.
Clearly perplexed, Yolanda handed Mabel her sleeping baby, then rose a few inches off her seat and stuck her arm into the paper bag. Suddenly her facial expression changed, and it took a moment before Mabel recognized the look. Yolanda was in the know.
She withdrew her hand and handed Mabel ball number forty-seven.
“How did you do that?” Mabel exclaimed.
26
It was noon when Valentine heard the doorbell ring. He’d decided that renting the house in Slippery Rock was one of the stupidest things he’d ever done. Everyone knew exactly where to find him. The front door had warped from all the rain, and he had to jerk it open. On the stoop stood Sergeant Gaylord. He was in his uniform, hat in hand.
“Sergeant Gaylord. What a pleasant surprise.”
Gaylord shot him an unfriendly look. “I normally don’t work Sundays, but seeing as I’ve got three dead men
