Carnival Page 4

She knows something, Martin thought. But do I want to know? “I say so.”

  “Right.” She turned and was gone.

  Martin went back to bed.

  * * *

  He didn’t tell Gary about Alicia’s disappearing act either. His wife had been asleep when Martin left the house that morning. But he did level with his best friend about everything else.

  “Well, I’ll just be damned! After all these years, and it just pops back into your consciousness. It happens that way sometimes. But I wonder what triggered the memory response?”

  “Probably the sight of those carnival trucks. That’s all I can think of. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yeah,” he replied absently.

  The men were at the Holland Country Club, talking in the club house before teeing off for their regular Saturday morning eighteen holes.

  “How’s the Harold boy?”

  “As far as I can tell, fine. We’re sending him down to Scottsbluff for some tests.” He looked at his watch. “Should be pulling out about now. Martin? How come those carnival people pulled in almost a week before they’re due to open the show?”

  The sudden shift in conversation caught Martin totally off guard. “Why . . . I don’t know. Haven’t given it any thought. Why do you ask?”

  Gary sighed heavily. “Martin, I like to think of myself as a reasonable man. A logical person. But . . . well, my fourteen-year-old was over at the teen center last night with some friends. He finally wanders in about two hours overdue. He tells me some bullshit about being drawn over to the fairgrounds. Naturally, Janet gives me the, ‘See, I told you so,’ bit. But I wasn’t buying any of it. I came down pretty hard on the kid. Then I got to listening to some of the guys talk—before you got here this morning. Martin, every one of them said their kids came in late last night. One or two or three hours late. And they all had the same story to tell.”

  Martin was conscious of his pulse rate going up just a tad. “That something drew or pulled them all over to the fairgrounds?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Martin, let me run it down for you. First of all, you have two hideous hallucinations: your daughter turning into an old hag, and then Joyce’s face becomes a pig, or something. The two hallucinations are about eight hours apart. Jimmy Harold goes into some sort of convulsions, seeing monsters coming out of a fire—they’re after him—and then he starts speaking in tongues while the odor of smoke and charred wood lingers around him. Joyce and Alicia and Janet felt some sort of overpowering urge to go to the fairgrounds. You have a dream—a true nightmare—that unlocks some bad memories, all of them associated with and centered around the fairgrounds and a carnival. And the young people of this town, many of them, come in late telling their parents some tale about being drawn or pulled to the fairgrounds. Martin, do you really want to play golf this morning?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “The same thing you want to do, Gary: go over to the fairgrounds.”

  * * *

  The fairgrounds hummed with activity, most of it coming from the townspeople working on their booths. Many of the carnival people were still inside their trailers and campers and vans.

  “Do you remember what pavilion you were in when the rapes occurred?” Gary asked.

  Martin waved his hand. “Over there, somewhere. But it doesn’t make any difference now. All the original buildings are gone.”

  “I keep forgetting about that fire.”

  “Didn’t your folks ever tell you anything about it?”

  “No. And I asked several times. Last time when I was about fourteen, or so. My dad busted me up side my head. I called dad this morning and asked him point blank about it. He said he didn’t remember and then hung up the phone.”

  Martin glanced at him. “Odd behavior. Do you remember anything at all about it?”

  “Not really. You were seven and I was six. The memory is pretty damned vague. And it hasn’t helped that no one ever talked about it.”

  “Have you considered that we may be trying to open a can of squirmy worms, Gary?”

  “You mean about the men who really raped those girls?”

  “Yes. If we say anything about it at all.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll first talk to Eddie about any statute of limitations.” He pointed to a row of newly constructed booths. “Look over there.” The smell of fresh cut pine was in the air. “Those folks are from Alliance and Chadron. We’re really pulling in some people for this thing.”

  Gary agreed. “I didn’t think they would come from so far away.”

  “I didn’t either.” He looked around him. “I wonder when they’re going to start putting up all the rides?”

  That got him a grin from his friend. “Going to ride the Loop-the-Loop, Martin?”

  “Not unless somebody holds a gun to my head and makes me get on it. I’ve never been much of a thrill-seeker, Gary. I did enough of that in ’Nam. A shrink might say that stems back to my getting sick on that ride years ago.”

  “Maybe. Maybe it just shows you have uncommon good sense. Why did you volunteer for that special outfit in Vietnam, Martin?”

  “Good question.” His smile was rather sad. “Maybe I just liked the funky-looking berets we wore.”

  “Damn, were you a green beret, too!”

  “Oh, no. We wore tan berets. Some LRRP units just wore conventional headgear.”

  And as Gary knew he would, Martin changed the subject. His friend had been quite a hero in Vietnam, winning a lot of medals and being put in twice for the Congressional. But he never talked about the war. There was nothing in his house to even hint that he had served. He wasn’t ashamed of going; Gary knew that. He just never talked about it.

  “You like the rides, Gary?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had any overwhelming urge to get on one. I can’t consciously remember ever going to a carnival. As you know, we never had another carnival in town after ’54, and I never had the time in college. After my residency, it was straight back here and, we are sort of isolated here in Holland.”

  “A good and bad thing.”

  “Yes.”

  They rounded a corner of a long tent and came face to face with something out of a horror movie. Both of them pulled up short and startled.

  “Jesus Christ!” Gary blurted.

  Martin was too shocked to speak.

  The men were face to snout with a human man with a dog’s head: pointy, furry ears, long snout, human eyes, furry, clawed hands—paws really. The man-beast snarled in fright, jerked back, and quickly slipped into the shadowy interior of the big tent, closing the flap.

  “What in God’s name? . . .” Martin finally found his voice.

  “Ralph Stanley McVee,” the heavy voice came from behind them.

  Both men turned.

  “Known world-wide as the Dog Man,” the stranger finished it. The tall man was dressed in dark clothing: dark suit, dark shoes, and dark turtleneck sweater. He wore extremely dark glasses. Martin wondered how he could see out of the things.

  Martin cleared his throat. “I’m Martin Holland. This is Gary Tressalt. And you are? ...”

  “I am Nabo. I own this carnival; run this establishment.” He pointed with a thick blunt finger to the long tent. “It is known as a Ten-in-One.”

  “I saw the trucks come in yesterday,” Martin said. And then another thought flashed through his mind: I’ve seen this man before. I’ve seen all of this before. But that is impossible.

  Then the thought was gone, as if neatly and quickly and deliberately excised from his mind.

  His eyes touched the dark lenses of Nabo’s glasses. The man’s lips moved in some semblance of a smile. Martin didn’t know if it was pleasant, or not. He thought the latter.

  Gary looked at the closed flap of the tent, then back to Nabo. “He wears his make-up all the time?”

  “It isn�
�t make-up, friend. He was born that way. A cruel, vicious trick of nature. Ralph is actually quite intelligent and well-read. But due to the shape of his jaw, he finds speaking quite difficult—so he elects not to speak. To strangers, that is.”

  Gary thought about that for a few seconds. “His condition could have been corrected by surgery.”

  Again, Nabo’s lips moved in what might have been a smile. Neither man could tell if the smile—if that’s what it was—reached the man’s eyes. Nabo shrugged his heavy shoulders. “He’s approximately fifty years old. That type of corrective surgery was not performed back then.”

  “What do you mean by that? That he is approximately fifty years old?”

  “He was found in a trash bin in New York City as a baby. The authorities first took him to the dog pound.”

  “That’s hideous!” Martin said.

  “That’s the way it is outside these canvas walls, friend.”

  “Who named him?”

  Again, Nabo shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? A nurse, a cop, a doctor, a janitor. The important thing is that he has a home, here, with us. And here, with us, no one ridicules him.”

  “No one except the people who pay to see him,” Gary contradicted.

  “But that, friend, is a very small price to have to pay for enjoying a feeling of belonging that he could find no place else on earth. And, do not think the ridicule is all one-sided. Don’t think that we—and I am as much a freak as anyone else here—don’t find some enjoyment in watching the faces of those who ridicule us. Perverse is not something enjoyed only by those who think of themselves as normal.”

  Gary frowned at that. But he had to admit there was truth in what the man said.

  “A Ten-in-One means that there are ten acts, or shows, under one tent?” Martin asked.

  “How quick we are.” Martin couldn’t tell if the man was being sarcastic or merely condescending. “Yes. You are correct on all three counts.”

  That jarred Martin right down to his shoes. Was the man a mind reader? He was conscious of Gary looking at him strangely.

  “Are you gentlemen officers of the law or some other officials of this town?” Nabo asked.

  “I’m the mayor and Gary is one of the town’s doctors.”

  “Ah! Well, then. A tour—grand is in the eyes of the beholder—” Nabo thought that amusing and chuckled for a few seconds “—Is certainly in order.” He stepped to the canvas flap and pulled it open, toward him. A quiet dimness beckoned them from within. “Enter then. And welcome to Nabo’s Ten-in-One, Mister Mayor and Mister Healer.”

  The men hesitated for a moment, then stepped inside.

  A huge shadow fell across their path.

  * * *

  Alicia puttered around the house for a time, but a restlessness within her made the routine work irritating. She changed clothes and called Janet. Her friend was also experiencing the same type of restlessness.

  “I was just about to call you, Alicia. I just hung up from a call from Joyce. I’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes. We’ll do something.”

  It remained unspoken, but two of them knew what that something would turn out to be.

  Janet picked her up in her Mercedes and together they drove over to Joyce’s.

  From there they went to the fairgrounds.

  * * *

  Linda and Susan and Jeanne got up very early, for them, and took their baths, then sat down on the bed to make plans for the day.

  But no one had any ideas. And no one really wanted to go to the fairgrounds, either.

  “Well, hell!” Susan said. “We can go over there just to see who’s there, I guess. But I’m gonna tell you something: that place spooks me.”

  * * *

  Mark leaned against the counter in his father’s hardware store: Business was off—way off. Hadn’t been but a handful of people come in all morning. And that was unusual for a Saturday. Place was always jumping on a Saturday. People buying things for home fix-up and stuff like that.

  But not today.

  Something weird going on in town, he thought.

  “Hope it’s just my imagination,” he muttered, and turned to straighten up a display rack.

  * * *

  And Jimmy Harold broke his restraints in the back of the ambulance, screamed once, and then died.

  FOUR

  A giant of a man blocked their way. To their eyes, the man looked to be about ten feet tall, with the weight to go with it. He was anything but skinny.

  “Tiny,” Nabo said gently. “These gentlemen are my guests. Doctor, Mayor, this is Tiny the Giant.”

  Both men noticed that Nabo did not remove his dark glasses. And both men wondered how he could see in the gloom of the tent.

  Martin and Gary held out their hands. The giant of a man ignored the offering of friendship. He glared down at the men for a moment, his eyes burning with what both men accurately perceived as loathing and hatred. Tiny turned his back to them and stalked away, up the long tent, and into the darkness. For a man his size, both men noted, Tiny moved very gracefully.

  “Tiny has never been known for his social graces,” Nabo said, by way of explanation.

  “Man like that could be very dangerous,” Gary remarked. He was wondering what lay in the darkness at the end of the long tent.

  “All men are dangerous, Doctor,” Nabo replied. “But some of the most gentle men are big men. Tiny has never harmed a soul in any of his lives. He’s a strick vegetarian; won’t even hurt any type of animal. Can either of you say that?”

  “What does he wear on his feet and how does he hold his pants up?” Gary asked, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

  “With a cloth belt and his sandals are not made from the skins of beasts.”

  “Admirable, I suppose,” Gary muttered.

  Personally, Martin had always admired those types of people, but he kept his mouth shut on that subject and spoke on something else he had picked up from Nabo. “You said lives? Plural?”

  Nabo’s lips again curved in that strange smile, creasing the dark face. East Indian ancestry, Martin thought. “Tiny believes in reincarnation. As I do. Don’t you?”

  “No,” Martin told him.

  “Ummm. Well, we may get the chance to debate that subject at some later date. One never knows what the morrow will bring, does one? Are you gentlemen ready to view the men and women who offer themselves to the public’s adoring eyes via this humble establishment?”

  The front flap was suddenly jerked back. Bright sunlight flooded into the semi-gloom of the tent, the floor covered with fresh sawdust. Chief of Police Paul Kelson stood in the brightness.

  “Mayor. Doc.” His eyes touched Nabo. “Whoever you are. The station just got a call from the ambulance. That Harold boy just kicked the bucket.”

  Martin inwardly winced at the chief’s casual expression of death.

  “Damn!” the word exploded out of Gary’s mouth. He started to ask “how?” but knew better than to ask Chief Kelson anything that might strain his brain. The man was a dope. “The boy will have to be taken to Harrisville for autopsy.”

  Kelson shook his head. “Got a rub there, Doc. The county coroner is on vacation. Out of town. You’re the assistant coroner.”

  Gary came very close to telling the chief that he didn’t need to be reminded of that. He didn’t like Chief Kelson and almost always had to struggle to contain his dislike. And he knew that Martin did not care for the man, either. They had all gone to school together. Knew each other well. Kelson had been a bully in the first grade; a bully when he dropped out of school in the eleventh. And while Kelson was careful not to step across that invisible line, both men knew the chief resented them, resented and was envious of their success and their station in life.

  The only reason he was chief of police in Holland was because there was seldom any serious trouble. It was a small and isolated community. Strangers were spotted immediately. The only trouble came from the ranchhands who could be counted on to have their weekend
brawls at one of the local honky-tonks. Kelson and his people would break it up. A brutal boy had grown into a brutal man. Kelson liked to hurt people. Most bullies do. And like most bullies, Kelson shared something else with his counterparts around the globe: he was cruel to animals, he was a very insecure man, and he was a coward at heart.

  “So you told the driver to return to Holland?” Gary asked.

  Kelson shook his head. “Oh, no, Doc. I wouldn’t never do nothin’ like that without askin’ you first. I’d be steppin’ out of my place. And I sure wouldn’t want to do that.”

  Nabo smiled at the exchange.

  Martin had to turn his head to hide his own smile. Kelson was no mental giant, but he sure knew how to stick the needle to people.

  But Gary was better at it. He expelled breath and said, “Fine, Chief. That’s good. A man should always know his place in the overall scheme of things.”

  Nabo ducked his head as his smile widened.

  Kelson’s eyes narrowed. He kept his mouth shut.

  Gary said, “Tell the driver to bring the body back here. Take it to Miller’s. I’ll meet them there.”

  “Right, Doc. See you people.” Kelson walked out of the tent, his back stiff with anger.

  “A very angry and dangerous man,” Nabo observed. “In this business, we see far too many of them and learn to recognize them quickly.”

  “I’m sure that’s right, Mr. Nabo,” Martin said. “If Kelson gives you any trouble, let me know.”

  Again, that slight smile. “I certainly shall.”

  Martin and Gary had not noticed as Tiny and the Dog Man and Samson had gathered at the far end of the tent, standing in the dimness, watching and listening.

  “We’ll finish the tour later,” Martin told him. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “You’re quite welcome, your honor. Doctor. You both know your way out.”

  Nabo turned and walked away, into the dimness of the other end of the tent.

  As the men reentered the sunlight, neither said it aloud, but both knew the other was glad to be outside of that tent. There had been, was still, something odd about that place. And not just the poor misshapen and grotesque souls who earned their living displaying their deformities and other physical and mental uniquenesses.