Stuart Kaminsky - Catch a Falling Clown

“No,” shouted Shelly, leaping to his feet and pointing his cigar at me. “Movie directors can be killers.”

“Shelly,” I said in exasperation, “why would Alfred Hitchcock be killing people and elephants in the circus?”

“Material for movies,” he said triumphantly. He began to pace the small floor while presenting his theory. “Movie director goes crazy. Can’t think of stories for his movies. Maybe he was scared by a clown or a wombat when he was a kid.”

“What the hell is a wombat?” I said.

“Marsupial,” explained Gunther, “large, rodent appearance. Native, I believe, to Tasmania.”

“What the hell has a wombat got to do with this case?” I said.

“Hitchcock may have …”

“Hitchcock, hell. Shel, just stand still and let Gunther finish.”

Shelly went back to his chair, folded his arms, and pouted while Gunther continued. “Therefore, our most likely suspects are Henry, the animal keeper; Agnes Sudds, the serpent lady, and Thomas Paul, the curious double-faced man for whom you have no affection.”

It sounded reasonable to me.

“Therefore, if we also eliminate Emmett Kelly,” continued Gunther, “it would be best to use our resources in watching the three prime suspects rather than trying to anticipate potential victims.”

It sounded perfectly good to me, which made me wonder for a few seconds why I hadn’t thought of it, but only for a few seconds. I hadn’t thought of it for just that reason-it was reasonable. I was not used to operating from reason.

“It has problems,” said Jeremy Butler, “but it seems the most reasonable to me too.”

“I’m sorry to bring you down here,” I said. “Thanks for the help.”

“I welcome the chance to see the circus,” said Jeremy, standing and examining Peg’s posters. “I’ll get a sense of it, perhaps already have, for my life poem. The elephants’ ears like huge leaves. The burning smell of animal life.”

“That’s donkey piss,” explained Shelley.

“Thanks, Shel.”

Shelly looked satisfied.

I got up slowly. A debate then began over how to treat my once again sore back. Shelly had his pain pills and Jeremy his experience. The back wasn’t bad enough for both yet, so I went with Jeremy’s treatment. I got on my stomach and let him work with his powerful grip. A second of pain and then the relief, not perfect but much better.

I deployed the troops by assigning Shelly to Henry Brain-feeble Yew, assuming Henry was the only one Shelly could watch without being spotted unless Henry was putting on an act. Gunther I sent to Agnes Sudds and the slithering Abdul, and Jeremy to Thomas Paul, should the creature show up as he had promised. I would stay with Peg and try to keep an eye on Elder. It seemed reasonable. We called Elder in to help us find our suspects.

“Don’t I know you?” Elder said to Gunther as I explained our plan, at least all of it except the part about my watching him.

“Yes,” said Gunther with dignity and an accent. “I worked briefly in the circus when I came to this country. Our paths crossed. While I respect it, it is not the life with which I wish to be identified. Please do not take offense.”

Elder touched his mustache and nodded politely.

I wondered how painful the experience of coming back to the circus would be for Gunther. I hadn’t thought about it when I sent for him. I had sent for a friend and forgotten that he was a sensitive small human who was trying desperately to achieve some dignity and distance from the public view of midgets as curiosities and freaks. I didn’t think he could do it with people on the street. It takes knowing someone not to see him.

Elder led everyone out after we agreed to meet again at midnight or when we were sure the people we were watching were well tucked in for the night. It was the best we could do for the moment.

Peg came back with a pair of pants for me, a shirt, and my zipperless jacket.

“Coast is clear,” she said. “The sheriff has gone. I think he’s convinced you went back to Los Angeles.”

I started to dress, put one foot in my pants and tore some stitches. Peg sat down and watched me. The band struck a loud chord far off, and the crowd went, “Ahhhh.”

“Martin the Great,” she said. “Sways on a flexible bar fifty feet high. They think he’s going to fall. A good trick.”

“Dangerous?” I asked, buttoning my shirt.

“You’re one button off,” she said. “Not too dangerous. Emmett Kelly told me once the most dangerous act he ever saw was a guy named Fitzgerald at a small circus back in Missouri. Fitzgerald worked a high wire without a net, dangerous stuff, didn’t give a darn for the audience. Didn’t make easy things look hard. Tried to make everything look easy. Wouldn’t play for a bow, just walked off when his act was finished. Kelly says he was the greatest, but no one but the circus people ever knew it.”

“What happened to Fitzgerald?” I asked, getting the buttons right.

“Fell,” she said with a sad shrug. “Kelly says almost no one even noticed when he went down. They were all looking at a third-rate family act in center ring.”

“Tough,” I said, dressed and looking at her.

“Circus,” she said. “What now?”

“As they say on the radio, we wait.”

We talked for a while about my father, my brother, the war, the price of gas, her father, her mother, Elder, and snow. I don’t remember how we got to snow. I do remember how I moved over and sat next to her on the bed, and she didn’t complain. My arm went up to her shoulder while she talked about what she liked about the circus. I don’t think anything much would have happened even if Emmett Kelly hadn’t knocked at the wagon door. I don’t know. I’ll never know, but knock he did.

“Come in,” she called, looking in my eyes.

“Some grippers spotted Greta,” he said, still in his Willie costume.

“Greta?”

“The elephant Rennata took with her, the one on the beach,” he explained.

Peg got up. “Where is she?”

“Trucking her back,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Someone shot her, but she’ll probably be all right, according to Doc Ogle. It takes a big bullet and a good shot to bring down a bull.”

“That’s one saved,” I sighed.

“Yeah,” agreed Kelly, “but we’ve got a bigger problem. Now a lion is loose.”

I followed Kelly into the night with Peg behind us. I could see circus people running madly and as quietly as they could with chairs and sticks in their hands, poking into corners, into tents, behind wagons, dark figures. The band in the big top seemed to be playing a march just for them. Musical chairs. Maybe “The Stars and Stripes Forever” would stop, and so would they. It stopped, but they didn’t.

Peg was shivering beside me. The night was cold, but that wasn’t why she was shivering. “They don’t know in the top, do they?”

“No,” said Kelly. “I’ve seen a panic. We’ve got to try to find the cat before the show ends.”

Kelly, looking even more worried than in the center ring, hurried off to look for the lion with no weapon other than his prop broom. I didn’t even have my petrified lasso, and my gun had been confiscated by the Mirador police.

“So,” I said to Peg, taking her hand, “we look for a runaway lion. But first we find out what happened.”

We hurried back to Henry’s tent, but Henry wasn’t there. Gargantua was there, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. He just sat on the floor of his cage eating something that could have been a cabbage, a radio, or a human head. Some people were standing near a cage in the rear. A lion was in the cage.

“You found him,” I shouted to Elder, running forward. The blond, tan man at his side was dressed in white tights and jacket. From a distance he looked twenty. Up close he looked fifty. I recognized him.