Carnival of Shadows (32 page)

27

The sounds and smells of the carnival came up to meet him as Travis parked his car and started down toward the edge of the field. He had seen the lights and heard the calliope music within a quarter mile of the place, and along the edges of the road it seemed that all of Seneca Falls and a half a dozen towns beyond had made plans to be there.

The atmosphere was one of excited anticipation, evident in the wide eyes and enthusiastic smiles of both adults and children alike.

Travis saw Larry Youngman on the other side of the road, ahead of him a gaggle of kids, and—glancing back over his shoulder—he saw Danny McCaffrey get out of a car with his sister, Laura, both dressed as if for a city restaurant. Travis was aware of the lift he felt in his sprits when he saw her, and he did not ignore it.

By the time Travis reached the field itself, he was somehow caught up in the atmosphere, as if something contagious was in the air, absorbed through the pores perhaps, something that made it almost impossible to resist the ambience created by the presence of these people.

At the makeshift gateway to the field stood the five Bellanca brothers, dressed from head to foot in white, their faces white but for dark circles around their eyes. They should have appeared strangely frightening, but they did not. They did not speak, but they mimed some sort of running joke, slapping one another on the back, laughing silently, handing out balloons and candy skeletons to the kids as their moms and dads paid the entry fee and passed under the archway of Japanese lanterns.

Travis was waved through with no charge, but he insisted on dropping a handful of coins into the bucket. He did not want to be granted any special dispensation, however slight it may have been. One of the Bellancas gave a graceful bow and smiled widely through the skull-like apparition of his features. Travis smiled back. He could not help himself.

Already the place was crowded. The music was loud, and it swelled against his ears and seemed to resonate inside him. He had never experienced anything quite like it. The shabby marquee and the scatterings of tired tents had become something altogether different. Shapes and symbols he had not noticed before, painted there upon the canvas, were now visible from the glow of lamps and lanterns within. In one tent, someone he could only assume to be Akiko Mimasuya, performed acrobatic contortions before a light source. She was visible only as a silhouette, and—as a result—the effect was even more disorientating and unsettling than when he had seen her in rehearsal. She seemed able to bend her body in ways that were not physically possible—at once crouching like a panther, in the next moment unwinding like a snake, and then suddenly she was some other creature that Travis had never seen before. It was then that he understood the crude image on the poster in Doyle’s caravan. It had not been that of an animal at all, but of Akiko.

A smaller tent contained the Bonnie and Clyde car, now strangely illuminated, seeming even more real than when he had first seen it. Beside the tent was a range of curious sideshow attractions—the Fiji mermaid, the Giant Rat of Sumatra, the skeleton of a two-headed dog. Farther down, there were stands selling hot dogs, popcorn, and soda floats.

People seemed transfixed every which way Travis looked. Children, eyes bright, devoured handheld clouds of cotton candy. Their parents seemed captivated in an equal degree of wonderment. Travis saw the McCaffreys again, Laura even waved enthusiastically at him, and for a moment it was as if he was watching them as children.

Travis raised his hand in acknowledgment, once again felt a twinge of something, an emotional reaction to her enthusiastic greeting, and then she vanished into the sea of people once more.

The hubbub of voices was present beneath the music, and Travis heard words and half sentences as he moved through the crowd.

Look, Ma! It’s a man with—

Oh my Lord, I have to say I never saw such—

You come right back here now, young man. How many times have I told you—

Pa! Pa! Pa!

But I want some now—

It was strangely reassuring to find himself surrounded by real people with real lives. That’s how it felt. He had been here no time at all and yet had somehow seen so many slight shifts in his own viewpoint. The people he had interviewed—each in turn—had somehow tilted the axis of his perception. Perhaps they had not intended to do such a thing, but nevertheless it had been done.

For whatever reason, and how it had come about, Travis believed himself to be a different man from the man that had left Kansas City only a handful of days before. That sense of ever-present anxiety had diminished somewhat, the knot that sat in his lower gut had somehow loosened, and the feeling of caution and suspicion with which he had viewed the world for as long as he could remember seemed somehow unjustified here.

And then he remembered
why
he was here.

“Agent Travis!”

Travis turned at the sound of his name and was confronted by the towering presence of Gabor Benedek. On his shoulders sat Chester Greene. Greene was dressed in a black pants, a black shirt, and a top hat adorned with peacock feathers. Benedek himself wore a white guinea tee, white pants, and a multicolored sash was tied around his waist.

“It is good to see you!” Greene shouted above the noise all around them. “Hope you enjoy the show!”

“Thank you, Mr. Greene,” Travis replied.

“You should have a hot dog,” Benedek said. “They are very good.”

“I will,” Travis replied. “I am hungry, yes.”

Benedek pointed to the hot-dog stand, back in the right-hand corner of the field. There were two people manning it, neither of whom Travis recognized. He bade farewell to Benedek and Greene and made his way over there.

Travis stood in line behind a half-dozen other people, and when it came to his turn, he was greeted by a young couple, all enthusiastic smiles and heartfelt welcomes.

“What’ll you have?” the girl asked. She was in her mid-twenties at a guess, and Travis wanted to know who these people were. They had not been present at any of the meetings or meals in the central marquee.

He said he’d have a hot dog with everything on it—onions, cheese, sauerkraut, ketchup, mustard.

“Who are you?” he asked as he handed over his money and took the dog.

“You’re the FBI man, right?” the young man asked him.

“I am, yes.”

“Name’s Ben Littleton,” the man said. “This here is my wife, Sue-Anne.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Sue-Anne said.

“Likewise,” Travis replied. “You don’t work for these people, do you?”

“Oh no,” Ben said. “We just came down here, and Mr. Doyle asked us if we wouldn’t mind helping out some. More than happy to, of course. It’s a fun place. You should see that man with his tricks. The one with all the fingers. Spooky!”

“No, it’s the Thin Man who does all them tricks,” Sue-Anne interjected. “Makes you see things that ain’t even there,” she added, and laughed.

“Hell, they all do something wild and wonderful,” Ben said. “You just have to see all the shows.”

Travis stepped a little closer to the hot-dog stand. “Were you here last Saturday night?”

“Oh, look out, sir,” Ben said. “We got a queue backing up behind you. Can’t keep these hungry folks waiting!”

Travis stepped to the side, saw a line of people behind him, and all of a sudden both Ben and Sue-Anne Littleton were serving customers. Travis was forgotten. He walked away, ate his hot dog—which
was
very good indeed—and he made a mental note to go back to speak with the Littletons about anything they might have seen or heard on the night the body had been discovered. He also thought of Frances Brady, that he had intended to track her down, to speak with her as well, and how it had slipped his mind entirely.

Travis made his way back toward the central marquee. Within it, a low stage had been erected, the remainder of the space cleared of tables and chairs. Strings of lights hung from the inner roof, giving an impression of a multitude of stars. The effect was surprisingly good, and Travis was impressed with the ability of Doyle and his people to create such an environment in so brief a time. It did feel as if the real world ended at the makeshift gateway to this field, and here there was something else going on, something that tapped into everyone’s wish to escape the humdrum, the routine, the predictable. That was all it was, after all—an illusion. There was no real magic here. Real magic did not exist. Sleight of hand and misdirection was all it took to deceive the less discerning eye. Travis believed himself quite capable of explaining everything that he might see this evening, and yet he was more than content to let Doyle and his people engage his attention and entertain him. It was an opportunity to see them working within their own zone of familiarity, and in such a zone they might relax their caution, and in relaxing their caution they might give him something that would assist the investigation.

Travis made to leave the marquee when his eye was caught by Mr. Slate.

“Mr. Slate,” he said, approaching the man as he appeared from the left side of the stage.

“Agent Travis,” Slate replied. “A good evening to you. You have come to see my show?”

“It begins soon?”

“In a few minutes. If you want to see the spectacle up close, then you better stay. It can get pretty crowded in here.”

“I am sure I will be able to see all I need to see, Mr. Slate.”

“Oh, up close and personal is better, Agent Travis. That way you can see all the tricks of the trade, so to speak.”

“Then I shall stay right here,” Travis said, his attention caught by the sound of voices as people started entering the marquee.

Slate carried a small table to the center of the stage and set it down.

“I must go,” he said. “A few last-minute details to attend to.”

“Of course, Mr. Slate.”

Travis moved to the side of the stage and looked back toward the entranceway. He saw a few familiar faces from Seneca Falls, but the vast majority were strangers. He tried to count them, but once past fifty he lost track. Slate had been right—the marquee became crowded, so crowded as to see Travis backing up to the side wall adjacent to the stage. He could still see clearly, very clearly indeed, but he felt somehow claustrophobic amid the jam of bodies. It was hot in the tent, and he loosened his tie. He was relieved not to have brought his hat and overcoat from the car.

Without warning, a silence fell on the crowd. There was still the faint murmur of voices, but this was punctuated by
Sssshhh
and
Quiet now; it’s starting
.

The calliope music had faded. Perhaps it was still playing, Travis wasn’t sure, but then it was overtaken by the sound of classical strings coming from somewhere behind the stage. A gramophone, no doubt, playing something with which Travis was unfamiliar. It was beautiful, nonetheless, and Travis felt a certain sense of nostalgia overtake him. Where that had come from, and why, he had no idea. He had no reason to feel this way. And then he remembered. Esther, oftentimes, would listen to such music on her own record player, those days she sometimes spent in her pajamas, caring not to get dressed, caring to do nothing but lie on the sofa, perhaps watch television, perhaps drink some wine. Sometimes he would find her still there in the evening; he would frown at her, and she would merely laugh.

“Lighten up, Mr. Serious,” she would say. “Sometimes you need a Sunday even when a Sunday isn’t scheduled.”

He could see her face then, as real as if she were standing right in front of him, and he felt a sharp pain—not physical, but emotional—run right through his body.

Why had he deserted her? Did she get sick because of his departure? Did he in some way contribute to that?

“Ladies and gentlemen!”

Travis looked back to the stage.

Edgar Doyle stood there, dressed in his suit and cape as he had been earlier, in his hand the twisted cane, beside him Valeria Mironescu, stunningly beautiful in a long black dress embroidered with bloodred roses. Her hair was tied away from her face, and a multicolored waterfall of ribbons flowed down her back.

“We welcome you to the Carnival Diablo!”

Travis edged forward. He wanted to see Doyle and the woman more clearly, but his view was partially obscured by a tall man in a heavy overcoat.

Doyle raised his cane and swept it from left to right. “Watch in wonder!” he said. “Be amazed, astounded, stupefied, stunned, and staggered by the wondrous magic of Mr. Slate!”

There was riotous applause, and Doyle and Valeria Mironescu left the stage.

Slate appeared at the rear of the stage center, dressed now as Chester Greene had been—black pants and a black shirt. He wore no hat, however, and when he walked forward toward the audience, there was a hushed sense of anticipation.

Slate held out his right hand, and from the center of his palm a flower slowly appeared, white and pale like an orchid. Travis smiled. There was nowhere for that flower to come from besides Slate’s shirtsleeve, and the smoothness with which he performed that seemingly effortless trick was quite impressive. Slate took the flower from his right hand with his left, and then he held it flat against his palm. His seven fingers closed around that bloom, and he closed his eyes.

The music continued, softer now, almost inaudible but nevertheless very much present.

Slate opened his eyes suddenly, then his hand, and there was a second bloom, a third, a fourth, and he tossed those flowers into the audience. Travis watched as those flowers were snatched from the air by the spectators, and when the flowers were gone, there was a substantial thunder of applause for Mr. Slate.

Slate drew the small table toward him. From it he took a pack of cards. He fanned them, showed the audience. It was a regular pack of cards, by all appearances. Slate closed the fan, held out the fan for a nearby child to take one at random.

The child took it, held it up, was instructed to show it to the audience without Slate seeing it.

The seven of spades.