William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Bruno, bold and desperate, stumbled on. “You and Stan been together! You going to get married?”

Stan looked up and met the strongman’s gaze levelly. “As a matter of fact, Molly and I are going to head for vaudeville. We’ve got it all figured out. In the two-a-day nobody’s going to run her in for wearing skimpies.”

Zeena set down her glass. “Why-why, I think that’s just splendid. Clem, did you hear? They’re going to try the two-a-day. I think it’s perfectly fine. I think it’s great.” She crushed Molly in another hug. Then she reached out and rumpled Stan’s hair. “Stan,-ain’t-ain’t you the foxy one! And you all the time -making out like you never-never knew the child was on the face of the earth.” She dumped more whisky in her glass and said, “All right, folks, here’s a toast to the bride and groom. Long life and may all your troubles be little ones-eh, Molly?”

Hoately lifted his coffee cup. Major Mosquito said, “Hooray! Let me hide under the bed, the first night. I’ll be quiet. Just let me-”

Bruno Hertz poured a small drink for himself and gazed at Molly over the glass. “ Prosit, Liebchen .” Under his breath he muttered, “Better wish luck. You going to need luck. Maybe some day you going to need-”

Joe Plasky’s Lazarus smile was like a lamp. “All the best, kids. Glad to see it. I’ll give you a letter to a couple of booking agents in New York.”

Zeena cleared the plates and glasses from before her with an unsteady sweep. She reached into her purse and drew out a pack of cards. “Here you are, kids. Now’s a good time to see what the Tarot has for you. The Tarot’s always got an answer.” She shuffled. “Go ahead, honey. Cut ’em. Let’s see what you cut.”

Molly cut the cards and Zeena grabbed them and turned them over. “Well, what d’you know-The Empress! That’s her, honey. See, she’s sitting on a couch and it’s got the sign of Venus on it. That’s for love. And she’s got stars in her hair. That’s for all the good things your husband’s going to give you.”

Major Mosquito squeaked with laughter, and Bruno hissed at him to keep quiet.

“The Empress is a good fortune card in love, honey. Couldn’t be better ’cause it means you’ll get what you want most.” She shuffled again and held them up to Stan, who had stood up and moved in behind Molly’s chair. Molly had taken his hand and was holding it near her cheek.

“Go on, Stan. You cut ’em, see what comes out.”

Stan released Molly’s hand. In the stacked cards, the edge of one showed darker than the others from handling and Stan cut to it without thinking, turning his half of the deck face up.

Major Mosquito let out a squall. Zeena knocked over the bottle and Hoately caught it before it had gurgled away. Bruno’s stolid face was alight with something like triumph. Molly looked puzzled and Stan laughed. The midget across the table was beating the cloth with a spoon and crying out in an ecstasy of drunken glee:

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! The Hanged Man! ”

At the call of an angel with fiery wings, graves open, coffins burst, and the dead are naked .

“… I CAN see, madam, that there are many persons surrounding you who are envious of your happiness, your culture, your good fortune and-yes, I must be frank-your good looks. I would advise you, madam, to go your own way, doing those things which you know down deep in your heart of hearts is right. And I am sure your husband, who sits beside you in the theater now, will agree with me. There is no weapon you can use against malicious envy except the confidence in your way of life as the moral and righteous one, no matter what the envious say. And it is one of these, madam, and I believe you know of whom I am speaking, who has poisoned your dog.”

The applause was slow in starting. They were baffled; they were awe-struck. Then it began from the back of the theater and traveled forward, the people whose questions had been whispered to Molly and whose questions he had answered, clapping last. It was a storm of sound. And Stan, hearing it through the heavy drop curtain, breathed it in like mountain air.

The curtains parted for his second bow. He took it, bowing slowly from the waist and then he extended his hand and Molly swept from the wings where she had arrived by the door back-stage behind the boxes. They bowed together, hand in hand, and then the curtains cut down again and they moved off through the wings and up the concrete stairs that led to the dressing rooms.

Stan opened the dressing-room door, stood aside for Molly to go in, then followed and shut the door. He sat for a moment on the wicker couch, then whipped off his white tie and unbuttoned the neckband of his stiff shirt and lit a cigarette.

Molly had stepped out of the skin-tight evening gown she wore and hung it on a hanger. She stood for a moment without a stitch on, scratching her ribs under the arms. Then she slipped on a robe, caught up her hair in a knot and began to dab cold cream on her face.

Finally Stan spoke. “Two nights running is too much.”

Her hand stopped, pressed against her chin. Her head was turned away from him. “I’m sorry, Stan. I guess I was tired.”

He got up and moved over, looking down at her. “After five years you still fluff it. My God, what do you use for brains anyway? What’s eighty-eight?”

Her wide, smoky-gray eyes were brilliant with tears. “Stan, I-I’ll have to think about it. When you come at me all of a sudden that way I have to think. I-just have to think,” she finished lamely.

He went on, his voice cool. “Eighty-eight!”

“Organization!” she said, smiling quickly. “Shall I join some club, fraternity, or organization? Of course. I hadn’t forgotten it, Stan. Honest, honey.”

He went over to the couch and lay back on it. “You’ll say it backwards and forwards a hundred times before you go to sleep tonight. Right?”

“Sure, Stan.”

She brightened, relieved that the tension had passed. The towel came away from her face pink from the makeup. Molly patted powder on her forehead, started to put on her street lipstick. Stan took off his shirt and threw a robe around his shoulders. With a few practiced swipes he cold-creamed his face, frowning at his reflection. The blue eyes had grown frosty. There were lines, faint ones, at the corners of his mouth. They had always been there when he smiled but now he noticed for the first time that they stayed there when his face was relaxed. Time was passing over his head.

Molly was fastening the snaps of her skirt. “Glory be, but I’m tired. I don’t want to go anywhere tonight but to bed. I could sleep for a week.”

Stan sat gazing at his image in the mirror, made hard by the lights blazing around the edge. He was like a stranger to himself. He wondered what went on behind that familiar face, the square jaw, the corn-yellow hair. It was a mystery, even to himself. For the first time in months he thought of Gyp and could see him clearly through the mist of years, bounding through fields grown lush with neglected weeds of late summer.

“Good boy,” he muttered. “Good old boy.”

“What was it, honey?” Molly was sitting on the wicker couch reading a movie magazine while she waited for him to dress.

“Nothing, kid,” he said over his shoulder. “Just mumbling in my beard.”

Who poisoned our dog? People around you who envy you. Number fourteen. One: Will. Four: Tell. Will you tell this lady what she is thinking about?