A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) (11 page)

"No shit, Felicity. My first
impulse was to dump you out on your ear, and
I
actually like you and
want
to believe you didn't take that cash. If you did, well don't do it here. You
can't afford the consequences of that." It sounded sinister, even coming
from a little person. Maybe especially then. If the girl didn't wonder if
leaving right then was the better part of wisdom, then she was a lot braver
than Jay was. Or dumber.

"I understand. Thanks. I
know that things are messed up, but it really wasn't me."

Jason thought about that, and
then shrugged.

"The problem there is a very
old one. You were accused, and in the minds of most people that's enough to
have you branded as guilty. Now, no matter what else happened back then, you
have to dig yourself out from under it. Fairness has nothing to do with it, but
here's a shovel. It's all we can do for you." That was really more than
they could get done, he knew, but having a good position for a while would at
least let her pay her rent. Until she messed up again.

Not that he knew she was guilty
of anything. Really, she had a pleasant face and dark hair that just brushed
her shoulders, hanging loose. It was shallow of him, but he wanted to believe
that she was telling the truth. That she was a good person, and not the kind to
do horrible things. That couldn't be proven yet, so they'd have to watch her,
closely
.
Jay waited for Max to tell her what to do, but nothing came, other than a few
sly looks at the girl, so he cleared his throat.

"If you could meet back here
tomorrow, at two o'clock? We can reset the schedule a bit. After that you'll
need to be here for part of each day, acting as a greeter. We'll get you a
costume for that part." She should have seemed upset, since that kind of
thing was generally beneath a real performer, even if Joey the Clown had to do
it. She however... lit up a bit. It was a subtle thing, but he noticed it.
More, so did Carlos.

"Sure, no problem. Two
tomorrow?"

They agreed on that time, and she
left. The dining room crew came in, and looked at them, wanting them to get out
of the way so they could get place settings out before they opened for dinner.
There were six of them, four men and two women, all dressed in identical red
frilly shirts, black vests and slacks. It made them seem like they belonged
there. A lot more than he did.

Max looked at him, and started to
speak, only to be cut off.

"Can I use your phone? Or
you can, which might be better. I'd like you to see if Greg Michelson can have
her followed when she leaves. I know, the security here isn't made up of
private investigators, but she was a bit too happy to be getting placed on the
main floor passing out fliers and chanting slogans." Plus, it was clear,
he'd become a cynical a-hole, somewhere along the line. Not that he didn't know
when that had happened exactly.

The heavy man just shook his head
a bit and then made the call. It didn't take long, but after listening to what
was being said he covered the mouthpiece, instead of hitting mute.

"This about earlier?"

"Yeah. Not definite, but
could be." It got repeated but for some reason Carlos and Wendy both
stared directly at him. If he'd eaten at all he would have figured that he had
something on his face.

"What? Did you think I was
just trying to get her in because she reminds me of my daughter? Which she
does." The one that wasn't actually his. That... It was reasonable, he
knew. Pain ran through him for a bit, but he didn't let it show. No more than
it normally did.

Wendy looked at the door that the
girl had exited from as she stood.

"I didn't know that she did.
I'm just used to you seeming more... I don't know, passive. Not the kind of
person to take charge really."

That was true enough, so as
Carlos nodded he got up too, and moved toward the back of the room, near the
stage. It was time for him to get ready, since he was going to be up first, and
had to be prepared. Everyone there understood that, so he didn't have to talk
about it much or make excuses. All that was really needed from him then was
following the script and making sure no one got too bored. Things went well on
their end, but it was the second long day in a row. The big difference this
time was that he was brought a sandwich between acts that Wendy had ordered for
him. Along with a bottle of water. She always thought that he didn't eat
enough. It was true, but felt weird, having anyone worry about him.

At two in the morning he sent the
remaining few people away, inviting them back the next day. Then, without
saying much, he got to bed directly, because getting a full eight hours of
sleep was going to feel nice. To his utter shock, he got it, nearly, being
woken at ten-thirty by pounding on his door. It was the aggressive kind that
made him wonder for a minute if he were going to be greeted by the police, or
possibly the jealous husband. If so then the beating he was about to get was
totally undeserved, but he doubted that he'd get a chance to explain that. The
hammering happened twice more before he got there, dressed only in a pair of
tan shorts, since the hotel was a little warmer than he liked it for sleeping.

Pulling the door open nearly got
him hit, as a small fist came down to slam him in the face. Or, more likely try
to knock again. He leaned back to avoid it, and then smiled, still a bit
blurry.

The woman at the door was Rhonda,
and she looked about ready to kill someone. Probably him, being that she was at
his door, but she didn't press the attack. It left him standing there, mostly
naked, with his door held open. He didn't invite her in, but she pushed past
anyway.

Looking around she sniffed the
air, like a hound dog might, and then made a face at him.

"Micki took off. We're
supposed to meet for breakfast and go over set arrangements. I figured you'd
have her in here. She isn't with Billy either. Can you believe this bull? This
is my life. It's like trying to herd cats, most days. You'd think, grown women,
how hard can it be? It's like pulling their teeth. Argh!" She grabbed her
head, or pretended too, not wanting to mess up her hair.

Jay nodded.

"Thanks." He meant it,
but moved into his room and grabbed a t-shirt. He'd started out the night in
it, so it was sitting out. In a day or two he'd need to go and get the rest of
his clothing, that or buy more. He'd collected up enough cash that he sort of
wanted to put it in the bank, so that there would be less temptation to spend
it.

The woman stopped and dropped her
hands, looking at him as if he'd said something funny.

"Sorry? Thanks for what?
Waking you up?"

"That too. I meant for
assuming that I'd have a hot women in my room. Next time you should think of
that
first
. It still won't be true until you get here, but hey, it's
always nice to be considered." There was a soft smile to go with it, and
then he waved her away, back toward the now closed door.

"Tell you what, give me ten
minutes and then I'll go and help you look for her. We need to stick together
and... whatever."

It didn't take long, since Micki
found them first, as Rhonda went out his door, just standing there, ready to
knock.

"Oh, hey! I was just getting
some breakfast. I figured you'd be in here. That or with Billy. He's a bit of a
jerk though. Joey is a much better choice." She waved at him through the
door, not noticing that her friend was dressed for the day and he wasn't.

Jay waved back, smiling.

"See, there we go, done
already. You two take care. I'll see you later." It was the literal truth,
after all.

He still got himself around for
the day, and made a point of actually having something to eat, before going
back and getting into his makeup. Today he felt like doing something
particularly happy, so went full out with it, putting on the rainbow wig and
his largest red shoes and brightest nose. In this incarnation Joey ran toward
props, so he packed them along, loading his large bag. The morning was spent
that way, and he didn't get a lot of tips, though a few were handed out, since
people in casinos did that sort of thing for luck.

At two, still dressed up, he went
to the main stage area, to find Carlos and Max there, along with Greg from
security. The large man looked at him and waved for him to come over.

"Dr. Hadley! It looks like
your tip paid off. At least my man gave me this earlier." It was a
picture, and the man had a small electronic pad to display it on, being that he
had the kind of job that it was probably useful for. Handing it over, Jay
understood without the scene being explained.

Right there, in one single frame,
was Felicity Maine, standing right next to Ginger the aggressively helpful
waitress and an old man that he didn't know at all. He was in a leisure suit,
as if those hadn't gone out of style forty years before.

Carlos tapped that image moving
in beside him. "Sid Hammer. I don't know who the other woman is."

Mr. Michelson grimaced.

"One of our waitresses. Also
the old main squeeze of a man that was part of a massive card counting effort.
One of the most famous in history."

Blowing out a deep breath, Jay
looked at the picture. It was pretty clear that they seemed to know each other.
Not that it meant they were the bad guys. It was just the most likely thing,
that was all. Sometimes the
how
really was just that easy.

The little meeting they were
having, Carlos, Max, Greg and himself, was a unique thing, if nothing else. For
the first time in years people were looking at him for answers. Not that he had
anything for them. The girl, Felicity, would be there at any moment, and these
men wanted him to decide what to do about it. Did they kick her out, without
trial or more evidence than the fact that she knew a few sketchy seeming
people, or did they confront her, and try to force her to confess?

In the end, thinking fast, Jason
shrugged off all of those suggestions.

"Why do any of that? I mean,
this could be anything, and we don't have
proof
, just evidence. The easy
thing would be to kick her to the curb, sure, but is that the
right
thing?" It was an ill formed idea, and not one that he could really place
a finger on, to be totally honest. "You know... Why don't we call them all
in and just talk to them about it? Not to blame or accuse, but they did kind of
trigger an alarm, so... Yeah, give them all a chance to answer the
questions."

The three men looked at him with
different expressions. Carlos, it seemed, was more on his side than not. That
was probably more about his own kindness showing through, and the fact that he
thought of old Sidney as a sort of mentor and friend, rather than anything
else. It was the sort of spirit that he had. The kind and gentle heart of a man
that understood being judged unfairly by the world. It hadn't beaten him down,
but it had still left a mark on him, which was shown by a tendency to cheer for
the underdog in most cases.

Like he had with Jay.

Max just looked uneasy. Shifting
his weight back and forth, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. Given that he was
the one that had hired all the scammers in the last batch, and kept doing
business with this Sid guy, that made sense. There was, Jason figured, a better
than even chance that he was in on the whole thing, which might just come out,
if they actually got the whole group in the pictures together.

Jay could only pray that wasn't
the case. He needed his current job, and while new, seemed to actually be doing
all right at it. True, he was better at managing things than being on stage,
but no one had booed him too much yet when he was on, which was better than
some of the acts had going on. Even Rhonda and her crew had people that just
walked out, looking bored, the night before. The audience had stuck around
mainly, while he'd been up front. That would probably be the relative novelty
of what he was doing, more than talent. They'd stayed to see what kind of
things a hobo clown thought he could do on stage, more likely than not.

Greg just wanted to bring the
police in, and not handle it in house.

"Look, I get it. These are
friends of yours, and you don't want them hassled, but if they're really doing
things like we think, then the cops are going to shut them down a lot faster
than us playing nice with them." He sounded pretty certain of that, and
likely wasn't wrong.

Coming from his position, a
security man in a field that had a reputation for leaving people in the desert,
dead, for the very things they were discussing, it seemed pretty law abiding
and pleasant. Jay couldn't fault him either, and shrugged.

"They aren't friends of
mine. I met the waitress one time, and the same with Miss Maine. I've never
spoke to Mr. Hammer. It's just that I don't think we have enough to prove
anything here. I mean, we've all met some of these people too, and that doesn't
really mean that we're all guilty of doing this, does it? Just Max here."
He looked at the man, deadpanned, as both Carlos and Greg nodded, having picked
up on the same things that Jason had. It was sort of obvious.

The man rolled his eyes at least,
and spoke, his voice a bit harder than expected, but also a little nervous.

"Screw you. It's
just..." He looked over to the side and then hung his head, in shame.
"The other day... Before the practice by a few hours, I told Felicity that
I'd get her a job here... if she blew me. She was desperate and so... you get
it? That kind of thing could ruin a career, if it got out, so... It was why the
other acts didn't show, I called them off. So that I could get a little for a
while."