William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Stan swallowed. “No. They don’t print you on vag and peddling falls. Not in that town, anyway. But they know it was a blond pitchman working horoscopes.”

Joe thought some more. “They didn’t mug you?”

“No. Just a fine and a boot in the tail.”

The half-man acrobat pushed aside the piles of letters and hopped over to the stairway, which led to the attic bedrooms. He swung up the stairs and out of sight; overhead they could hear a scrape as he crossed the floor.

Stan pushed back his plate and took a cigarette from the pack on the window sill. “Zeena, I’ve been living in a goddamned nightmare-a dream. I don’t know what ever got into me. When vaudeville conked out we could have worked the night clubs. I don’t know yet how I ever got tangled up with the spook racket.”

The big woman was piling dishes in the sink. She was silent.

Stanton Carlisle’s voice went on, getting back something of the old resonance. “I don’t know what ever got into me. I don’t expect Molly ever to forgive me. But I’m glad the kid got herself a good spot. I hope he’s a swell guy. She deserves it. Don’t tell her you ever saw me. I want her to forget me. I had my chance and I fluffed, when it came to Molly. I’ve fluffed everything.”

Zeena turned back to him, her hands shining from the soapy water. “What you going to do, Stan, when you leave here?”

He was staring at the ember of his cigarette. “Search me, pal. Keep on bumming, I guess. The pitch is out. Everything’s out. Good God, I don’t know-”

On the stairs Joe Plasky made a scraping noise, coming down slowly. When he entered the kitchen he held a large roll of canvas under his arm. He spread it on the linoleum and unrolled it in two sections-gaudily painted banners showing enormous hands, the mounts and lines in different colors with the characteristics ascribed to each.

“Sophie Eidelson left these with us last season,” he said. “Thought maybe you could use ’em. McGraw and Kauffman’s is playing a town down the line from here-be there all this week. There’s worse places to hole up in than a carny.”

Zeena dried her hands hastily and said, “Stan, give me a cigarette, quick. I’ve got it! Joe’s got the answer. You could work it in a Hindu makeup. I’ve got an old blue silk kimono I can fix over for a robe. I reckon you know how to tie a turban.”

The Great Stanton ran his hands over his hair. Then he knelt on the floor beside the half-man, pulling the palmistry banners further open and examining them. In his face Zeena could see the reflection of the brain working behind it. It seemed to have come alive out of a long sleep.

“Jesus God, this is manna from heaven, Joe. All I’ll need is a bridge table and a canvas fly. I can hang the banners from the fly. They’re looking for a pitchman, not a mitt reader. Oh, Jesus, here we go.”

Joe Plasky moved away and picked up a burlap sack containing outgoing mail. He slung it over his shoulder and held the top of it in his teeth, setting off for the door on his hands. “Got to leave this for the pickup,” he said, around the burlap. “You folks stay here-I’ve got it.”

When he had gone Zeena poured herself a cup of coffee and offered one to Stan, who shook his head. He was still examining the banners.

“Stan-” She began to talk as if there was something which had to be said, something which was just for the two of them to hear. She spoke quickly, before Joe could return. “Stan, I want you to tell me something. It’s about Pete. It don’t hurt me to talk about him now. That was so long ago it seems like Pete never hit the skids at all. Seems like he died while we were still at the top of the heap. But I got to thinking-a kid will do an awful lot to lay some gal he’s all steamed up about. And you were a kid, Stan, and hadn’t ever had it before. I expect old Zeena looked pretty good to you in them days, too. Pete wouldn’t ever have drank that bad alky. And you didn’t know it was poison. Now come clean.”

The Great Stanton stood up and thrust his hands into his pockets. He moved until the sun, shining through the window of the kitchen door, struck his hair. Soap and hot water had turned it from mud to gold again. His voice this time filled the kitchen; subtly, without increasing in power, it vibrated.

“Zeena, before you say another word, do me one favor. You remember Pete’s last name?”

“Well-Well, he never used it. He wrote it on our marriage license. Only I ain’t thought of it for years. Yes, I can remember it.”

“And it’s something I could never guess. Am I right? Will you concentrate on that name?”

“Stan- What-”

“Concentrate. Does it begin with K? ”

She nodded, frowning, her lips parted.

“Concentrate. K…R…U…M -”

“Oh, my God!”

“The name was Krumbein! ”

Joe Plasky pushed at the door and Stan moved aside. Zeena buried her mouth in the coffee cup and then set it down and hurried out of the room.

Joe raised his eyebrows.

“We were cutting up old times.”

“Oh. Well, in that outfit I know McGraw a little-only you better not use my name, Stan. A guy as hot as you.”

“What’s calluses on the ends of the fingers, left hand?”

“Plays a stringed instrument.”

“What’s a callus here, on the right thumb?”

“A stonecutter.”

“How about a callus in the bend of the first finger, right hand?”

“A barber-from stropping the razor.”

“You’re getting it, Stan. There’s lots more that I forget-I ain’t read mitts steady in many a year. If Sophie was here she could give you hundreds of things like that. She’s got a whole notebook full of stuff. It locks with a key. But you’ll make out all right. You always could read.”

Zeena and Joe were sitting in the shade of the porch, opening letters and shaking out dimes. The woman said, “Hand me some more Scorpios, hon. I’m fresh out.”

Joe ripped open a carton. The astrological booklets came in stamped-and-sealed envelopes. They addressed them quickly with fountain pens and threw them in a wire basket to be bundled up later for the postman.

Zeena said, “Beats all, Stan, how this mail-order business snow-balls up. We put in one little ad and plowed back the dimes into the business. Now we got five chains of magazines covered and we can’t hardly stop shaking out dimes to tend to the place here.”

The Great Stanton reached into a saucepan by the side of the steamer chair where he lay in the sun. Taking a handful of dimes he counted out five batches of ten and rolled them into a red paper wrapper-five dollars’ worth. The little red cylinders piled up in a china bowl on the other side of the chair, but he had carelessly allowed several to fall beside him. They were hidden between his thigh and the canvas chair-seat.

Joe hopped off the porch and over toward Stan, holding a basket of dimes in his teeth. He emptied them into the saucepan, smiling. “Little more and we’re going to buy another place-farm next to this one. We’ve pretty near got this place mortgage-free. Long as people want horoscopes, I mean, astro-readings-you can’t call ’em horoscopes through the mail unless they’re drawn to the hour and minute of birth-long as they keep going like this we’re set. And if they slack off, we’ve still got the farm.”

Stan leaned back and let the sun strike through his eyelids. He was gaining. A week had filled him out. Almost back to his old weight. His eyes had cleared and his hands hardly shook at all. He hadn’t had anything but beer in a week. A guy who’s good at the cold reading will never starve. When Joe turned back to the porch Stanton slid the red cylinders from the chair to his pants pocket.