Robert Lopresti: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 56, No. 5, May 2011

“You’re going to be all right,” he kept saying, but Wallace, even semiconscious, seemed distraught. He kept mumbling about a tarpaulin and trying to throw off the blanket and to strike the medical personnel.

The dean, who had seen the commotion, who had, in fact, been watching from his window, came down from the office. “A stroke, do you think?” he asked the EMT chief.

“Possibly a stroke or a seizure, even a tumor. We can’t tell without a scan. There are so many possibilities with the brain.”

“Or the mind? Professor Ivery’s not been himself for several months.”

“Who knows,” the EMT said, as he shut the ambulance door and vaulted into the driver’s seat. “The mind’s such a tricky thing.”

The dean, who prided himself on his dexterity in human relations as well as his knowledge of all things automotive, nodded and smiled. He’d certainly been lucky, but the combination of electronics and psychology had proved unstoppable, and he thought that he could now count on several years of tranquility from the English department.

Copyright © 2011 Janice Law

Willie shifted the bag of bones from one shoulder to the other and stepped across the threshold of the Out Back Bar. The tavern, empty of all but thin slants of afternoon light, yawned at him, indifferent to his need. Flush with anger at the sting of Dixon’s last words, Willie flexed his free hand and thought about smashing it into Dix’s pale, crafty face.

“You’re fired!” Dix’s words rattled like nails in a can. Even if he had cause, and Willie admitted that there might be cause, Dix shouldn’t have called him out in front of the carny crew. In front of Queenie.

Rubbing his thumb over his lips, Willie scanned the booths and small, square tables crowding the faded green linoleum flooring. He stretched one arm, changed his grip on the bones, and straightened the other, considering the game his theft had set in play. Then he shuffled forward, the bag balanced like a giant fist on his back. He clambered up the barstool farthest from the street entrance, heaved his burden forward, and settled it on the ring-stained bar. Splaying his thick hands upon the counter, he leaned toward the row of bottles lining the shelf and sniffed the boozy air. Inside the sack, the bones sighed.

“Bartender!”

Beyond a row of hanging beads that served as a partition, a door creaked. Willie saw the man’s back first, then the bald spot on top of his head, and finally his pockmarked face. The man staggered to the right a few steps, then to the left. Muscles straining, he grunted, hefted a small keg onto the counter, and wiped his hands on a towel.

“What’ll it be then, little man?” he said.

“Watch your mouth, Gargantua.” Willie knelt on the stool. Balancing his weight on his elbows, he eyed the array of taps behind the bar. Bud. Bud Lite. Some damn microbrew. Harp.

The bartender balled his hands on his hips and nodded at the bag. “Got a pot of gold in there?”

“I’m not a leprechaun, you dope.” Willie jingled the coins in his pocket against the cell phone nesting there. He wondered if Queenie had read his text message yet.

“Could have fooled me.” The man stared at Willie’s gold- and green-striped vest, the green knee pants, the square black felt hat. He’d left without changing his costume. One more thing Dix wouldn’t be happy about. Willie took off the hat and set it on the bag.

“Just bring me a friggin’ beer,” he said.

“Cops’ll be around about seven.” The bartender slapped at the bones with his towel. “What’s in the bag, mate?”

Willie sighed. He had an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before he’d have to find a place to spend the night. Some spot where no one would ask him about the pygmy skeleton, the carnival’s best drawing card, a genuine archeological specimen from the land down under. Willie patted the heavy blue denim laundry bag and thought about leverage. He smiled. “Let’s just say this bag is my get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Well, may the luck of the Irish be with you.” Hiccuping with laughter, the bartender polished a shot glass and held it up to the light.

“Screw you,” Willie replied, draining his mug and fingering the rest of the change stacked in front of him. “Set me up again.”

Dixon Stout topped off the tank of his truck, hung up the nozzle, and counted the vehicles in the caravan, each one bearing the red-and-white-checked name AJEDREZ. He nodded at the carnies gathered in small knots, smoking and joking as they threw furtive glances his way. Everyone accounted for minus one. Good riddance to that big-headed, flat-faced, lying, thieving dwarf, Willie Stamford Connelly. “He’s run his last con in my show,” Dix muttered, shaking off the squeegee and scraping it over the windshield as he side-stepped around the truck hood. “Passing himself off as a professional actor when anyone could see he was only a dwarf and no Hervé Villechaize shouting “De plane, de plane” to Mr. Roark on Fantasy Island.”

“What’d you say, honey?” Dix’s wife leaned out the driver’s side window.

“Nothing, Queenie. Get me some money, will you?” Dix said. “And make sure King Kardu’s resting comfortable. They’re expecting a genuine unblemished skeleton for the Aboriginal exhibit at that church camp in Nashville.”

Queenie swung her long legs free and slid out of the driver’s seat. Freeing a key from the chain around her neck, she marched to the camper coupled behind the truck and unlocked the door. Inside, a small fan running on generator power whirred as it sprayed cool air across the crowded interior. Using the key, she tapped on the cages holding her collection of exotic snakes. The Burmese python ignored her, but the hooded cobra rose up hissing. Queenie made soothing noises. She paused at the largest box to lift out Verde, her favorite boa constrictor, and ran her hands over his skin. Verde stopped the show every night. She couldn’t afford to lose him. Satisfied that her precious reptiles were safe, Queenie bent over and rustled among the storage boxes, searching for the laundry bag. Then she noticed the door of the safe slightly ajar. When her phone jingled, she sat down next to the box holding the Aussie taipan, Matey, and punched up the incoming message.

Dixon had almost reached the Gas Mart when he heard her shout his name.

“Hey, Dix! Hold up, Dixon, stop!” Queenie caught up to him, one tattooed hand clutching at her breasts to keep them from bouncing, the other covering her mouth, trying to take back the truth. “They’re gone!”

Dixon put out his hands to stop her from falling. “You lost your snakes?” he said.

“Not the snakes, you numbskull,” Queenie said, recovering her balance and her superiority in one breath. “The money. The bones. King Kardu’s bones are gone!”

“Damn that Willie Connelly!” Dixon said, pushing Queenie aside. He headed for the crowd of roustabouts, his right hand curling into a fist. “I’ll wring his felonious neck.”

The wind tossed up grit from the road construction zone along Salem Avenue, scouring Willie’s face and neck when he stepped out of the bar. He blinked and shielded his eyes with his hand. Darting between passing cars, the bag bouncing and swaying in their backwash, Willie scanned the sidewalk for familiar faces. He didn’t see anyone he knew.

“Hey, leprechaun!” The bartender’s shout arrested his steps. A silver Cadillac pealed around Willie’s frozen form, the driver showing him the finger as he sped on. Willie jumped to safety in the gutter and looked over his shoulder.