Judith Merril - The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 7

‘Look,’ I said carefully. ‘I don’t want to be unpleasant.’

An up-and-down line creased his brow. He stared at me.

‘The fact is — ah — the fairground is closed.’

Silence.

‘Sunday, you know.’

He spoke then, very softly, without malice. ‘I’m not certain I understood your first remark.’

Peculiar accent he had. Some kind of foreigner. I retrospected. First remark? ‘I don’t want to be…’

‘Unpleasant?’ The question came sharply.

‘That’s right.’

He sighed gently. ‘Ahhh!’ Then he said frankly, ‘I like your system down here.’

My heart warmed suddenly. ‘Like it?’ I turned in a slow circle, taking in the tents and caravans under a blue sky. ‘Yes I suppose it’s not a bad layout. You’re in the entertainment world, then?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Government.’

Well, you can understand that this rocked me a little. I mustered up my talking-to-big-brass tone and said politely, ‘Local MP?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘IGC. Inter-Galaxy.’

Some kind of European was my guess. Anyway, I was beginning to wonder about something else. The main gate had been locked, so how had he got in? I looked at his immaculate suit. Kids crawl through the holes, and performers have their own keys. He wasn’t a performer, and he hadn’t been doing any crawling.

‘How — ’

He cut me short. ‘I’m looking for Ephraim Parkinson,’ he said.

For Ephraim Parkinson. That stumped me for a moment. But sometime in the past I had seen that name scratched out on a contract.

‘For Parky?’ I said.

‘Yes — for Ephraim Parkinson. You can direct me?’

Well, I was able to direct him all right. I pointed out Parky’s pitch to him, and off he went. It wasn’t until he was yards away that I remembered to ask him how he’d got in.

He turned when I called out the question.

He smiled brightly.

‘Oh, I came over the gate,’ he said.

In my business you don’t let anything worry you. There are funnymen in every walk of life, and if they’re from the government I leave them alone.

I finished my rounds without further incident and went back to my caravan. I had a drink, read the papers, turned on the radio, turned it off. Then I went to sleep.

If Parky was in trouble it was his lookout.

Next morning I was up at ten. I was shaving when Parky came in. He didn’t say anything. He sat down in one of my chairs and watched me scraping the razor around my face.

‘That’s a fine, well-fed face you’ve got, Charlie,’ he said finally.

I wiped the razor, rinsed my face, and mopped it dry.

‘Thanks, Parky,’ I said.

He watched me, eyes blinking slowly.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘I once weighed a hundred and ninety.’

‘Too much,’ I said. But I knew he was getting at something. As I pulled my shirt over my head I said, ‘What’s eating you today?’

His long fingers were picking at his sleeves.

‘We’ve been together a long time, Charlie.’

This I knew.

‘But I’ve never had a raise, Charlie.’

I knotted my tie and watched him in the mirror.

‘You’ve never had a wage-cut either, Parky.’

I saw his red eyes spark. Suddenly he seemed to reach a decision in his own mind. He got to his feet.

‘Charlie — I’ve got to ask you for a raise. If you can’t give me a raise I’ll be — ’ He hesitated, then said it:

‘I’ll be leaving.’

I didn’t move a muscle. ‘Leaving?’

‘That’s right.’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but I’ve had another offer.’

I sat down. I smiled across at him. Every move was calculated now. For months I’d been trying to shake Parky off my lists — but this was something different. If a performer gets an offer, then somebody thinks that performer is worth something. And if you’ve still got all your screws, this starts you thinking. What had I missed in Parky? What did he have that I hadn’t seen?

‘Parky,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to talk about this.’

He shook his head grimly. ‘I can’t talk about it, Charlie. I’ve been offered another job at a higher rate of pay. That’s all there is to it. I can’t tell you who. I can’t tell you where.’

‘Can’t? Or won’t?’

He didn’t answer me. Just shook his head.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Give me until after the show tonight.’

He nodded, satisfied. ‘That’s fine, Charlie.’

‘You won’t do anything rash?’

He shook his head like a child. I wondered if he realised that he was legally bound to me. Unless I gave him the OK he couldn’t go anywhere. I could hold him to his contract if I had to.

But I wouldn’t do that to the old fraud.

He went off down the steps, beaming, and I opened a beer, gulped it down, and started thinking.

Who the hell was after Parky? That was the first question. Nobody wants psi minds these days. Science has proved that the Power is so much s.f. It’s the equivalent of the headless woman nowadays.

I wondered if the yellow-haired guy had anything to do with it. What did he call his department? IGC? Something connected with government. And what the hell had he meant about ‘unpleasant’?

Angrily I tossed the empty beer-can into a corner and pulled on my coat. I locked the door of the caravan behind me and crossed the battered stretch of grass that separated my place from the rest of the fairground.

The remainder of the morning was spent in futile questioning. Nobody else had been approached. Nobody else had seen the guy with yellow hair. Finally, after lunch, I decided that all I could do was watch Parky’s act. If he had something new, I would spot it.

Accordingly, with two cans of beer and a plate of sausage-and-mash under my belt, I made my way over to Parky’s tent at about seven o’clock. There was a handful of people sown over the wooden benches, all of them looking around without interest, or watching a couple of kids who were trying to pull down the pale-blue curtain that screened Parky’s rostrum.

The dim yellow lights were shining uncertainly on the muddy grass inside the tent, and somewhere behind his curtain Parky was playing the harmonica while he changed his robes.

I sat down at the back of the tent, looking around. There was no sign of the guy with yellow hair. The spectators were an ordinary looking bunch. I would’ve bet my profits that none of them were talent scouts.

Five minutes went by, and the harmonica rose on a weird note, and fell silent. Quite suddenly, the lights went out. A girl in the second row giggled, of course, and for a moment the sound caught my attention. I almost missed the entry of two men who slipped into their seats unobtrusively in the half-darkness. Then Parky flung his curtain open with a flourish and the light from the rostrum fell on the hair of one of the men.

Government my pink eye. Yellow Hair was after Parky.

Almost in the same instant my eyes switched back to the tall, thin figure on the rostrum. I didn’t want to miss anything. So Parky did have something. So what the hell was it?

An hour later I was still asking myself the same question. Parky read the minds of two mindless youths; he foretold the futures of half a dozen seedy couples. But hell! The whole act was corn. His patter was feeble. His stage manner was laughable.

When it was over I ducked out quick because I didn’t want the embarrassment of seeing the guy with yellow hair turning Parky down. It was raining outside — a fine drizzle. I walked back to my caravan through the milling crowds with that rain slanting down into my face and Parky’s troubles in my mind.