William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

“One other thing, Mr. Carlisle.” She blew cigarette smoke. “The man you claimed to have killed in Mississippi-I thought at first that was merely another delusion involving the father-image. On investigation, however, I discovered there really was such a death-Peter Krumbein, Burleigh, Mississippi. I know you’ll be glad to know that , at least, really did happen. It was quite easy to trace. Not so many years ago, was it, Mr. Carlisle?”

She turned away suddenly and picked up the telephone, the smooth voice brisker now. “Mr. Carlisle, I’ve done all I can for you, but you must have hospital care. These hallucinations-We can’t have you wandering about and getting into trouble. Just put yourself in my hands; you can trust me absolutely.

“Bellevue Hospital? Psychiatric Division, please.”

The buzzer hummed; a latch clicked in the foyer. Then the door into the waiting room opened and closed. Someone coming.

He backed away, looking at her, his mouth hanging open, his eyes bulging. Door. Have to get out. People. Danger.

“Psychiatric Division? This is Dr. Lilith Ritter. Please send an ambulance…”

The door, rushing behind him, shut off her voice.

Get out. Street. Hide. He clung to the knob, holding the door shut so she couldn’t follow him.

Dream. Nightmare. Delusion. Nothing… nothing real. Tongue… naked… talk… money… dream… nightmare.

Dimly, through wood, he heard the telephone click into its cradle. Snap of a latch… waiting room. Then her voice. “Will you come in, please?”

Silence.

He sucked without thinking at the back of his right hand, where there was a red, smarting mark like a cigarette burn.

Safe? People coming! Got to get-

Another voice beyond the panels, high-pitched. Man. “Doctor -a ghastly mess…”

“Lie straight on the couch, please. Let me take your glasses, Mr. Grindle.”

Beneath his bat-wings the lovers stand in chains .

THERE was a plate of glass shaped like a star in the floor where the dancers swayed and shuffled. When the band went into a sweet one the house lights dimmed out and the star glowed, shining up the girls’ skirts, leaving their faces in darkness, but X-raying their clothes from the hips down. They screamed and giggled as their partners pushed them across the star and back into obscurity.

In one corner of the room the mentalist rose from his chair, steadying himself by a hand on its back. “Thank you, sir, and your charming girl friend, for your interest and for the drink. You understand, folks, I’ve got other people waiting…”

The drunk slid a silver dollar along the table and the mind reader took it in his finger tips. It vanished in a quick movement. He bowed and turned away.

The girl snickered, the noise bubbling in her glass as she drank. “Daddy, isn’t he spooky?” She kept on chuckling. “Now, then, sweetheart, you heard what he said! He said, ‘A man who has a good head for business will give you the thing nearest to your heart, something which once lived in a wire cage.’ You heard him, daddy. What d’you s’pose he meant?”

The man said thickly, “Anything you say, kid, goes. You know that. Anything. Gee, honey, you got the prettiest lil pair of-” He remembered the slip of paper that the mind reader had told him to tuck under the strap of his wrist watch and he pulled it out, unfolding it and trying to focus on it. The girl struck a match.

In her affected scrawl, using small circles for dots, was written, “Will Daddy buy me that red-fox jacket?” He stared at the slip and then grinned. “Sure, kid. Anything for you, kid. You know that. Le’s get outa here-go up t’your place. C’mon, honey, ’fore I’m too lit-too lit t’enjoy”-he broke wind but never noticed it -“anything.”

At the bar Stan knocked off another quick one on the house. Even through the curtain of alky the maggot in his mind kept burrowing. How long will this joint last? They get crummier and crummier. That shiny-haired bastard-private. Private. Private information. Private investigations. Private reports, private shellackings. Private executions?

The thought turned and twisted in his mind, burning the alcohol out of it. Jesus, why did I ever have to tangle with that old crumb? How was I to know that Molly- Oh, God, here we go again.

A waiter stepped close and said, “Table eighteen, bud. The gal’s named Ethel. Had three husbands and the clap. The guy with her is a drummer. Plumbers’ supplies.”

Stanton finished his drink and dropped a quarter in the waiter’s vest pocket as he brushed past him.

On his way to the table Stan saw the boss, his navy-blue shirt sleeves rolled up and canary yellow tie pulled down, talking to two men in rumpled suits. They had not removed their hats. Both necks were thick.

A cold ripple slipped down his back. Wind seemed to whistle inside his undershirt. Cold. Oh, Jesus, here they come. Grindle. Grindle. Grindle. The old man’s power covered the country like a pair of bat-wings, flapping cold and black.

Stan walked slowly to the back of the room, ducked behind a partition and squeezed his way through the kitchen and out into the alley at the rear of the Pelican Club, breaking into a run when he was clear of the building. He didn’t dare go back for his hat. Christ, I ought to hang it on a nail right by the back door. But they’ll block that the next time.

Always different faces, different guys. They must hire private dicks in every state, all of them different. Anderson sits inside that barbed-wire fort and spins it out like a spider, millions of bucks to smash one guy. Mexico. I’ve got to jump the border if I’m ever going to shake them. Three thousand miles of this damn country and no hole to duck into. How do those goons do it so quick? Mind readers-they must chase after every guy doing a mental act and take a sample of his hair, see if it’s blond.

Across the dark rooftops a train whistled, long and mournfully. Stan ducked down another alley and leaned against the wall, listening to the roaring jolt of his own heart, fighting to get his breath. Lilith, Lilith. Across two thousand miles stretched the invisible golden wire still, and one end was buried in his brain.

Back in the Pelican Club the boss said, “Now you fellas run along. You tell McIntyre I’m not putting in no cig or novelty girls and I’m holding on to the hat check myself. It ain’t for sale.”

An old man follows a star that burns in his lantern .

IN THE light of the fire the cards fell, forming the pattern of a cross. Stan dealt them slowly, watching them fall.

The gully was shielded from wind, the fire hidden from the tracks a quarter of a mile away across fields standing high with brittle weed-stalks. Weeds grew to the edge of the gully, the fire turning them yellow against the sky where stars hung, icy and remote.

The Empress . She smirked at him from beneath her crown of stars, holding a scepter with a golden ball on its end. The pomegranates embroidered on her robe looked like strawberries. Beyond her, trees stood stiffly-like the trees on a theater backdrop in a tank town. At her feet the ripening wheat-heads. Smell of ripening wheat. Venus sign on the couch where she sat. Smell of ripening wheat.

What did they think, the wriggling bugs of the scum, jetting into the world to meet acids, whirling douches, rubber scum bags, upholstery of cars, silk drawers, clotted handkerchief… two hundred million at a shot…