William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

The half-man acrobat reached up and took him by the hand, gripping the fingers together and bending them so that the tattooed man quickly sank to his knees. “Hey, leggo, you bastard!”

Silently and with his face a blank, Plasky crossed his forearms. He let go of Martin’s hand and seized the collar of his robe in both fists. Then he levered his wrists together, forcing the backs of his hands into the Sailor’s throat. Martin was caught in a human vise. His mouth dropped. He clawed frantically at the crossed arms of the half-man but the more he tugged, the tighter they crushed him. His eyes began to bulge and his hair fell over them.

Major Mosquito was leaping up and down, making fighting motions and shadowboxing. “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Choke him till he’s dead! Kill the big ape!” He rushed in and began hammering the Sailor’s staring face with tiny fists. Bruno picked him up, wriggling, and held him at arm’s length by the collar of his jacket.

Joe began to shake the tattoo artist, gently at first and then harder. The calm deadliness of that ingenious and unbreakable hold filled Stan with terror and wild joy.

Clem Hoately came running up. “Okay, Joe. Guess he’s educated. Let’s break it up. We got a good tip waiting.”

Joe smiled his smile of one raised from the dead. He released Sailor, who sat up rubbing his throat and breathing hard. Plasky reached into the pocket of the robe and found a wad of bills, took out a five and put the rest back.

Hoately picked the Sailor up and stood him on his feet. “You knock off, Martin. I’ll pay you up to the end of the month. Pack up your stuff and leave whenever you want to.”

When Martin was able to speak his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Okay. I’m on my way. I can take my needles into any barber shop and make more dough than in this crummy layout. But watch out, all of you.”

Middle evening and a good crowd. Beyond the canvas and the gaudily painted banners Hoately’s voice was raspy.

“Hi, look! Hi, look! Hi, look! Right this way for the monster aggregation of nature’s mistakes, novelty entertainments, and the world-renowned museum of freaks, marvels, and curiosities. Featuring Mamzelle Electra, the little lady who defies the lightning.”

Stan looked across at Molly Cahill. When she held the sputtering arc points together she always flinched; the last day or two, whenever he saw it, a little thrill leaped up his spine. Now she bent over and placed her compact behind the electric chair. Bending stretched her sequinned trunks tight over her buttocks.

It’s funny how you can see a girl every day for months and yet not see her, Stan thought. Then something will happen-like the way Molly’s mouth presses together when she holds the arc points and the fire starts to fly. Then you see her all different.

He dragged his glance away from the girl. Across the tent the massive chest of Bruno Hertz shone pink with sweat as he flexed the muscles of his upper arms, rippling under the pink skin, and the crowd rubbered.

Molly was sitting demurely in a bentwood chair beside the heavy, square menace with its coiled wires, its straps and its chilling suggestion of death which was as phoney as everything else in the carny. She was studying a green racing form. Absorbed, she reached down and scratched one ankle and Stan felt the ripple go up his back again.

Molly’s eyes were on the racing sheet but she had stopped looking at it and was looking through it, her mind in the dream she always dreamed.

There was a man in it and his face was always in shadow. He was taller than she and his voice was low and intense and his hands were brown and powerful. They walked slowly, drinking in the summer reflected from every grass blade, shining from every pebble in fields singing with summer. An old rail fence and beyond it a field rising like a wave, a pasture where the eyes of daisies looked up at a sky so blue it made you ache.

His face was shadowy still, as his arms stole about her. She pressed her hands against the hardness of his chest, but his mouth found hers. She tried to turn her head away; but then his fingers were caressing her hair, his kisses falling upon the hollow of her throat while his other hand found her breast…

“Over here, folks, right over here. On this platform we have a little lady who is one of the marvels and mysteries of the age -Mamzelle Electra!”

Stan came up the steps behind Joe Plasky’s platform and sat on the edge of it. “How they going?”

Joe smiled and went on assembling the novelties in his joke books, slipping the free gifts between the pages. “Can’t complain. Good crowd tonight, ain’t it?”

Stan shifted his seat. “I wonder if the Sailor will try to do us any dirt?”

Joe swung himself closer on his calloused knuckles and said, “Can’t tell. But I don’t think so. After all, he is carny. He’s a louse, too. But we just want to keep our eyes open. I don’t think he’ll try to call me in spades-not after he’s felt the nami juji .”

Stan frowned. “Felt what?”

“ Nami juji . That’s the Jap name for it-that crosshanded choke I slipped on him. That takes some of the starch out of ’em.”

The blond head was alert. “Joe, that was terrific, what you did. How in hell did you ever learn that?”

“Jap showed me. We had a Jap juggler when I was with the Keyhoe Shows. It’s easy enough to do. He taught me a lot of ju-jit stuff only that’s one of the best.”

Stan moved closer. “Show me how you do it.”

Plasky reached over and slid his right hand up Stan’s right coat lapel until he was grasping the collar at the side of Stan’s throat. He crossed his left arm over his right and gripped the left side of the collar. Suddenly Stan felt his throat caught in an iron wedge. It loosened immediately; Plasky dropped his hands and smiled. Stan’s knees were trembling.

“Let me see if I can do it.” He gripped Plasky’s black turtle-neck sweater with one hand.

“Higher up, Stan. You got to grab it right opposite the big artery in the neck-here.” He shifted the younger man’s hand slightly. “Now cross your forearms and grab the other side. Right. Now then, bend your wrists and force the backs of your hands into my neck. That cuts off the blood from the brain.”

Stan felt a surge of power along his arms. He did not know that his lips had drawn back over his teeth. Plasky slapped his arm quickly and he let go.

“Christ a-mighty, kid, you want to be careful with that! If you leave it on just a mite too long you’ll have a corpse on your hands. And you got to practice getting it quick. It’s a little hard to slip on but once you’ve got it the other fella can’t break it- unless he knows the real Jap stuff.”

Both men looked up as Maguire, the ticket seller, hurried toward them.

“She-ess-oo flee-ess-eyes!” He ducked past them to where Hoately stood on the Electric Girl’s platform.

Plasky’s smile widened as it always did in the face of trouble. “Shoo flies, kid. Cops. Just take it easy and you’ll be all right. Here’s where Hoately will have to do some real talking. And the fixer will have to earn his pay. I been expecting they’d slough the whole joint one of these days.”

“What happens to us?” Stan’s mouth had gone dry.

“Nothing, kid, if everybody keeps his head. Never argue with a cop. That’s what you pay a mouthpiece for. Treat ’em polite and yes ’em to death and send for a mouthpiece. Hell, Stan, you got a lot to learn yet about the carny.”

A whistle sounded from the entrance. Stan’s head spun toward it.

A big, white-haired man with a badge pinned to his denim shirt stood there. His hat was pushed back and he had his thumbs hooked in his belt. A holster containing a heavy revolver hung from a looser belt on a slant. Hoately raised his voice, grinning down at the marks below Molly’s platform.