Эд Макбейн - Happy New Year, Herbie and other stories

He felt weak and very tired. He felt alone and wet and feverish and chilled, and he knew he was going to die now, and the knowledge made him suddenly sad. He was not frightened. For some reason, he was not frightened. He was only filled with an overwhelming sadness that his life would be over at sixteen. He felt all at once as if he had never done anything, never seen anything, never been anywhere. There were so many things to do, and he wondered why he’d never thought of them before, wondered why the rumbles and the jumps and the purple jacket had always seemed so important to him before, and now they seemed like such small things in a world he was missing, a world that was rushing past at the other end of the alley.

I don’t want to die, he thought. I haven’t lived yet

It seemed very important to him that he take off the purple jacket. He was very close to dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, “Oh, it’s a Royal.” With great effort, he rolled over onto his back. He felt the pain tearing at his stomach when he moved, a pain he did not think was possible. But he wanted to take off the jacket. If he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket. The jacket had only one meaning now, and that was a very simple meaning.

If he had not been wearing the jacket, he would not have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife hated only the purple jacket. The jacket was a stupid meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life. He wanted the jacket off his back. With an enormous loathing, he wanted the jacket off his back.

He lay struggling with the shiny wet material. His arms were heavy, and pain ripped fire across his body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm was free and then the other, and then he rolled away from the jacket and lay quite still, breathing heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sound of the rain and thinking, Rain is sweet, I’m Andy.

She found him in the alleyway a minute past midnight. She left the dance to look for him, and when she found him she knelt beside him and said, “Andy, it’s me, Laura.”

He did not answer her. She backed away from him, tears springing into her eyes, and then she ran from the alley hysterically and did not stop running until she found the cop.

And now, standing with the cop, she looked down at him, and the cop rose and said, “He’s dead,” and all the crying was out of her now. She stood in the rain and said nothing, looking at the dead boy on the pavement, and looking at the purple jacket that rested a foot away from his body.

The cop picked up the jacket and turned it over in his hands.

“A Royal, huh?” he said.

The rain seemed to beat more steadily now, more fiercely.

She looked at the cop and, very quietly, she said, “His name is Andy.”

The cop slung the jacket over his arm. He took out his black pad, and he flipped it open to a blank page.

“A Royal,” he said.

Then he began writing.

He first came in one morning while I was making out the payroll for my small circus. We were pulling up stakes, ready to roll on to the next town, and I was bent over the books, writing down what I was paying everybody, and maybe that is why I did not hear the door open. When I looked up, this long, lanky fellow was standing there, and the door was shut tight behind him.

I looked at the door, and then I looked at him. He had a thin face with a narrow mustache, and black hair on his head that was sort of wild and sticking up in spots. He had brown eyes and a funny, twisted sort of mouth, with very white teeth which he was showing me at the moment.

“Mr. Mullins?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, because that is my name. Not Moon Mullins, which a lot of the fellows jokingly call me, but Anthony Mullins. And that is my real name, with no attempt to sound showman-like; a good name, you will admit. “I am busy,” I said.

“I won’t take much time,” he said very softly. He walked over to the desk with a smooth, sideward step, as if he were on greased ball bearings.

“No matter how much time you will take,” I said, “I am still busy.”

“My name is Sam Angeli,” he said.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Angeli,” I told him. “My name is Anthony Mullins, and I am sorry you must be running along so quickly, but...”

“I’m a trapeze artist,” he said.

“We already have three trapeze artists,” I informed him, “and they are all excellent performers, and the budget does not call for...”

“They are not Sam Angeli,” he said, smiling and touching his chest with his thumb.

“That is true,” I answered. “They are, in alphabetical order: Sue Ellen Bradley, Edward the Great and Arthur Farnings.”

“But not Sam Angeli,” he repeated softly.

“No,” I said. “It would be difficult to call them all Sam Angeli since they are not even related, and even if they were related, it is unlikely they would all have the same name — even if they were triplets, which they are not.”

“ I am Sam Angeli,” he said.

“So I have gathered. But I already have three...”

“I’m better,” he said flatly.

“I have never met a trapeze artist who was not better than any other trapeze artist in the world,” I said.

“In my case it happens to be true,” he said.

I nodded and said nothing. I chewed my cigar awhile and went back to my books, and when I looked up he was still standing there, smiling.

“Look, my friend,” I said, “I am earnestly sorry there is no opening for you, but...”

“Why not watch me a little?”

“I am too busy.”

“It’ll take five minutes. Your big top is still standing. Just watch me up there for a few minutes, that’s all.”

“My friend, what would be the point? I already have...”

“You can take your books with you, Mr. Mullins; you won’t be sorry.”

I looked at him again, and he stared at me levelly, and he had a deep, almost blazing, way of staring that made me believe I would really not be sorry if I watched him perform. Besides, I could take the books with me.

“All right,” I said, “but we’re only wasting each other’s time.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” he answered.

We went outside, and sure enough the big top was still standing, so I bawled out Warren for being so slow to get a show on the road, and then this Angeli and I went inside, and he looked up at the trapeze, and I very sarcastically said, “Is that high enough for you?”

He shrugged and looked up and said, “I’ve been higher, my friend. Much higher.” He dropped his eyes to the ground then, and I saw that the net had already been taken up.

“This exhibition will have to be postponed,” I informed him. “There is no net.”

“I don’t need a net,” he answered.

“No?”

“No.”

“Do you plan on breaking your neck under one of my tops? I am warning you that my insurance doesn’t cover...”

“I won’t break my neck,” Angeli said. “Sit down.”

I shrugged and sat down, thinking it was his neck and not mine, and hoping Dr. Lipsky was not drunk as usual. I opened the books on my lap and got to work, and he walked across the tent and started climbing up to the trapeze. I got involved with the figures, and finally he yelled, “Okay, you ready?”

“I’m ready,” I said.

I looked up to where he was sitting on one trapeze, holding the bar of the other trapeze in his big hands.

“Here’s the idea,” he yelled down. He had to yell because he was a good hundred feet in the air. “I’ll set the second trapeze swinging, and then I’ll put the one I’m on in motion. Then I’ll jump from one trapeze to the other one. Understand?”