Robert Alter - Carny kill

"Um. It sounds like you. Won't you ever grow up, Thax?"

"Well," I said, "I still have hopes."

Billie made a wry face.

"Well, at least you didn't say it doesn't really matter. Where do you want to go?"

I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

"Let's go back to Dracula's Chamber of the Horny Vampires."

"Thax! Honestly. Someone might hear you."

"Do I care? Haven't they already guessed I love you?"

Her chin came up firmly and she gave a one bob nod.

"Yes, there's a rumor to that effect," she said. "In fact, Mrs. Cochrane asked me today what was up between you and I."

"So what did you tell her, the nosy bitch?"

"Simply that whatever it was it was my business, not hers."

"Atta girl."

But I was puzzled. Why should May care about what Billie and I had going? It damn sure couldn't be jealousy. So…

We entered Dracula's Castle and went up the breakneck stains to the room with the archer's cross. It was a small room but it seemed indefinite and larger in the dark, as if the walls were no longer there. I headed for the bed. "You're always in such an impetuous hurry, Thax." I could hear the smile in her voice.

"No, that's been my whole trouble," I said. "Only at moments like this."

That was the sad truth, too.

There was no mist that night and the stars were brightly framed in the crucifixlike window. I got up after a while and went over to the window and looked down at Neverland.

The night was growing. Most of the lights were already out and the escape-searching marks had taken themselves somewhere to rest. A half moon mutilated Neverland- long stripes of palms, shadow-scars of paths, mottles of buildings. It was like watching a dark tellurian carnival quietly thronging through a ruined and dead city. Or it was like a sleeping animal, a tiger of deep blue and blue-white, an enormous leopard.

"De Saint-Exupery says the stars are like lights at the issue of a dark pit," I told Billie. "A man climbs toward them, and then, once he reaches them, he can never come down again but stays up there forever chewing the stars."

"Who on earth is Exupery?" Her voice seemed hollow and disembodied, speaking from the shadow pool of the bed.

"He's not on earth. He was a French aviator and writer. They used to call him the Conrad of the air. The Krauts shot him down over the English Channel in 'Fortyf our. You remember Gable's old picture _Night Flight?_ Exupery wrote that."

"Please, lover," Billie said, and the smile was in her voice again, "I can barely remember Gable. I'm only a child, you know." Then she dropped the bantering tone and said:

"But I like what your Frenchman said about the stars. I understand him. We see the goal and we want it and we scratch and claw our way up to it. Once we get there we can't let go. We can't ever again go back to the bottom rung."

I left the window and went back to the bed and sat down and looked at her in the dark.

"I wouldn't know. I'm still on the bottom rung."

"You won't be for long, darling. In another ten days we'll walk out of here and all places like it, forever. Um-that's what I wanted to talk to you about, before you made me lose my train of thought. Should we marry, Thax?"

"I don't know, Billie. That's up to you, isn't it?"

"What do you mean up to me? Why isn't it up to both of us?"

"Because I don't have much say in it, do I? After all, it's your money we're using."

"Thax. Don't say that, Thax'

"It's the truth, isn't it? I'm just a tap-city spieler going along for the free ride."

"Thax. Stop it. I won't have you talking or feeling like a kept man. It sounds dirty and it-it isn't healthy."

"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it?"

"Thax, I wish to God you'd stop saying that. Because it does matter. Everything that touches you and me matters because you and I are all that matters."

"That sounds a little tangled but I suppose you're saying that all that really matters is that you get to the top of the ladder and you take me with you."

"That's right. That's it exactly."

"Well, that's what bothers me about it. You're taking me. I'm not going on my own steam. That's why I'm starting to feel like a kept man."

Billie put a hand on my bare leg.

"But there isn't any other way, Thax. Don't you see? You're smart, you have brains, you know things, but you won't help yourself. You just coast. You always have- because you go around telling yourself nothing really matters. That's why we have to do it my way. If we don't we'll never do it at all. Not together."

"You can't arrange things that easily in life," I said, "no matter how strong your will is. It just doesn't pan out."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's fatality. Like us right now. We're caught in a current of murder, and when you're caught in a current you can't help it. Will has very little to do with anything. There's something inside us that makes the will play tricks."

"Thax, will you please forget about those stupid murders? They don't concern us."

"Yes they do, Billie," I said. "I've already explained to you how they concern me. And if you and I are in love, then what concerns me has to concern you."

"Well, what do you intend to do about it? You're not a detective, you know." She sat up in the bed. She was getting peeved. "Find me a cigarette, please."

I found us both one and lit them the way Paul Henreid did in _Now, Voyager_.

"No," I said, "I'm not a dick, but things are finally starting to make a little sense to me."

"What do you mean? You don't know who killed Rob Cochrane, do you?"

"Well, I'm not ready to jump up on a bally stand and shout 'I know who done it!' But I've got a theory working."

"Well, tell me."

"Not yet. I want to kick it around some more first. Maybe in a couple of days I'll throw it in the water and see if it floats."

That was the whole trouble with my theory right then. I was sure it would make a splash, but without more evidence to give it buoyancy I was just as sure it would sink like a rock.

The next day was like the day before. No problems, smooth as oil. That was the day. The night was something else.

I was working my stand and getting a good Saturday night play and my mind was as innocently blank as a two-year-old's. Then an arrow-paced whistle went by me and I glanced over at Gabby. When he saw me look he gave a slight nod with his head and I looked around and saw a couple of bad news birds coming my way.

I swept up my walnut shells and said, "That's all for now, folks. The hawks are about."

The two hard characters waited till my marks drifted off- which was considerate of them, I thought-and then one of them stepped up and drew his wallet and flashed a badge at me.

"Mr. Thaxton? Lieutenant Ferris wants to see you."

"Only two of you this time?" I said. "The rest of the storm troop on holiday?"

The man with the badge put his wallet away and said, "Let's make a deal, Mr. Thaxton. You don't make with the tired funnies and we won't tell you to keep your big mouth shut."

They were somewhat on the new breed pattern but not quite. The one who had flashed the buzzer was of medium height, spare built-a thin-faced dark man giving the impression of a steel hardness not wholly physical. I classified him as a tough baby.

The other one was maybe twenty-three. He had fair wavy hair like a halo over a youthful, almost girlish face. There was something a little wrong with his baby blue eyes and with the tense way he grinned at me.

"Has another body been found?" I asked, smiling.

"Ask me no questions, Mr. Thaxton, and I'll tell you no lies," the thin-faced man said. "Shall we go?"

It wasn't really a question. I shrugged at Gabby and the three of us walked out of the sideshow.