Stuart Kaminsky - Catch a Falling Clown

“Problem, Peters,” he said.

We had gone almost two hours without an attack on a clown, elephant, or trapeze artist.

“Rennata Tanucci is missing,” said Elder.

“So,” I said. “This is a big circus. Maybe she’s just getting some sympathy from someone, or she went for a walk.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, “but why did she take an elephant with her?”

The Tanucci clan shared a train wagon. It was divided into three compartments, each a tiny room. We-Elder, I, and the three Tanuccis-crowded into one of the compartments, sitting on the lower of two bunk beds and standing in the corners. The family had changed into costume for the afternoon performance. Each was dressed in blue tights with white fluffy trimming and a white cape. I had the feeling I was questioning the Marvel family. I wanted to know what they thought had happened to Rennata, to the elephant, to Marco. I wanted to let them know I was sorry and that I wanted to help. It would have been easier if they spoke some English or I knew some Italian. Elder was no help.

“Why did she go?” I shouted. Shouting always stimulates those who cannot understand to grope through a foreign language. It forces the words to the center of the being and translates them. Only this time it didn’t work. Actually, it never works.

The older man, Carlo, tilted his chin up and looked at me. His head was heavy with moist, thick black hair that suggested a dye job. His face was thick and brown and lined, a worn face that belonged in a Camel ad in Look magazine. He turned to the other members of his family and said, “ Qui? ”

They gave him some advice. He agreed and shook his head. “No,” he said with great dignity and no relation to my question.

“Rennata or the kid did all the translating,” said Elder. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“You mean no one else in this circus speaks Italian?” I asked.

“Sure, but these people aren’t exactly full of trust,” he explained. “They’ve been getting some hard talk in some of the towns we’ve hit. A couple of times people have even called Carlo Mussolini during the act. He damned near dropped Tino one time. The way Rennata told it, they had to run from Italy with a small carnival. Carlo’s brother was a secretary or something in the Italian Communist party. The brother was bumped off, and Carlo was afraid for his family and got out. He has more reason to hate the Fascists than the audience does, but go figure out towners.”

Elder and Carlo had been looking at each other in understanding through the explanation, and Carlo had clearly picked up enough words like “Mussolini” and “Communist” to figure out what was happening.

“Does he know that the kid might have been murdered?” I asked Elder.

“He knows,” came a voice, but it wasn’t Elder’s. It was the now youngest Tanucci, Tino.

Carlo said something quickly and earnestly to the boy. The mother put a hand on his arm, and Tino touched her reassuringly.

“My English,” he said, “is not so very good, but is enough. Rennata told us that Marco was maybe morted, murdered.”

He was a short figure, the darkest of the clan, with straight black hair down his neck. He was somewhere in his late teens, but I couldn’t tell where. His forehead was creased with the strain of publicly speaking English, a task he had probably not planned to take on for some time.

“What did she say?”

“She say she saw something, someone, and someone saw her seeing this,” he said. “It was not so clear to me, something to do with our equip … I don’t know how you say this word.”

“Equipment,” I supplied. “She saw someone messing with your equipment before your brother fell. Is that it?”

“ Si ,” he agreed. “She saw.”

“Who was it?” I pushed.

The young man shook his head. “I no know. She say she would take care. She was a very mad.” He showed mad by shaking his head furiously. “She say she … That’s all.”

One simple conclusion was that Rennata Tanucci had seen whoever cut the harness or whoever had taken it down after the murder. She was now going to find that person and do something to him or her involving an elephant. The number of unpleasant things someone could do with a two-ton elephant did not elude me or Elder.

“She’s crazy enough,” Elder confirmed, touching his lower lip.

“It can’t be that easy to hide an elephant,” I said.

The Tanuccis listened to what they couldn’t understand, and the young man tried to translate for them.

“Did anyone hate your brother, have a fight with your brother before this morning?” I asked. “Was anything on his mind?”

“Yes,” said the young man. “Marco say, said, he saw someone in the elephant tent. Saw him when circus up go do something. Then elephant go fried. Marco said maybe it not accident. Now, maybe …”

“Maybe,” I finished, “someone killed Marco because he saw them setting up the rigging to kill the elephant. Then Rennata saw the same person fooling with your equipment and figured she had a murderer. It makes sense.”

“The elephant,” sighed Elder.

“Thanks,” I said to the Tanuccis, taking each of their hands. “We’ll find Rennata and bring her back.”

“ Grazie, ” said the mother, a firm blonde with enough makeup to show she was hiding her face and feelings. Elder and I backed out of the wagon, and the trio didn’t move.

Outside the wagon, we looked beyond the circus grounds for a two-ton elephant and saw nothing.

“As Charlie Chan would say, ‘Two-ton elephant must leave deep tracks in mud.’”

Elder nodded in agreement. “Right to the road down there, but two tons isn’t enough to make holes in asphalt and rock.”

The road was the one I had come down to find the circus. It led down to the highway going one way and off into the farmlands in the other.

“I’ll head for town,” I said. “You take some people the other way.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” said Elder sensibly. “Nelson finds you in Mirador and you might not come out.”

“Right, but I know the town better than you and how to stay away from him.”

“That’s a lousy argument,” said Elder, pulling his jacket over his neck. The afternoon was cool, but not cold. The sky had clouded over and promised something damp. My back twinged, and I looked at my watch. I hadn’t any reason to know the time before this, and my watch didn’t help much. It was my one inheritance from my father, if you don’t count the debts on his Glendale grocery store. The watch stopped when it wanted to, started when it wanted to, and showed a hell of a lot more independence than my old man ever did, which may have been why I kept it. My old man’s indecision was probably a major contribution to my brother Phil’s becoming an angry cop and my seeking out violence.

Whatever the reason, my watch said it was two o’clock.

“What time is it?” I asked Elder. We stepped out of the mud rut to let some bears walk by, led by a man who looked almost as much like a bear as the bears. The bears, in fact, were dressed better than the man, in blue tutus. They would be cute from the audience. The audience wouldn’t have found them so cute this close up. Bears definitely do not brush their teeth.

“Lotze,” grunted the man who looked like a bear, when one of the bears hesitated and decided to growl in my face. Elder ignored the whole thing and bit his lower lip.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“I don’t either, but we have no choice,” I answered.

“You, Peters, are a liar,” grinned Elder, a wise grin I didn’t care for. My ex-wife had a grin like that. “You do like it. You’re as happy as a seal in a fish house.”