Carnival of Shadows (36 page)

He looked up at Greene and smiled in recognition. “In the attic, Mr. Greene. Right up there in the attic, isn’t it?”

Greene nodded, but did not speak.

“We chased that kid every day,” Rourke went on, his voice hurried. “We called him names. We threw stones. We pushed him into puddles of dirty water. One time we pushed him off the bridge into the river, and he was damned near swept away. Hell, he could have died, you know? That poor defenseless, dumb son of a bitch could have died, and we would have murdered him, wouldn’t we? We would have been murderers; at ten or eleven years of age, we would have been responsible for taking the life of another child.”

All of a sudden Rourke was not alone. Another man stood beside him, his hand on Rourke’s shoulder. A gesture of support, of understanding. It took a moment for Travis to realize that it was Larry Youngman. Rourke reached up and gripped that consoling hand, and the two of them continued to stand there together as Rourke went on.

“His name was Bobby, and he was a Jew.” Rourke looked up at stage. “Which, considering present company, makes it seem all the worse, Mr. Greene.”

Greene waved his hand dismissively.

“He was just a regular kid. He didn’t look no different, and he didn’t sound no different, but he was a Jew. That made him different. That made him a target for our name-calling and baiting, our… our mental torture. Because that’s what we did to him, you see? We tortured him. I mean, it was before all this stuff came out about what happened during the war, the way the Jews were persecuted and murdered. We didn’t know about that, you know? That’s not why we chased him and bullied him. We chased him and bullied him because he was different, that was all… And when you people came into town, when I saw you for the first time, I was reminded of this so terribly. It was such a strong memory, Mr. Greene, and it’s been preying on my mind ever since you arrived, and I just knew I had to say something…”

Rourke lowered his head.

“Thank you for opening the box, Sheriff Rourke,” Greene said. “And I can tell you right now that Bobby is just fine.”

Rourke looked up, his eyes wide.

Greene smiled. “Believe me or not, Bobby Alberstein is fine and well. He got married, has three kids, and runs a successful chain of convenience stores in the Midwest.”

Rourke stepped back. Youngman stepped aside.

“But… but… his name? How did you know his name?”

Greene shook his head. “You opened the box, Sheriff Rourke… I just had a moment to look inside.”

Travis looked at Chester Greene, this Jewish dwarf from Oklahoma City, and then he turned and looked at Sheriff Charles Rourke of Seneca Falls, Kansas. Had they really staged this? Had they planned this together? And, if so, was he somehow involved in the death of the Hungarian man? Surely not.

Rourke’s reaction to this revelation seemed genuine enough, but perhaps Rourke was as skilled an actor as he was a liar. Perhaps the friendly and cooperative small-town sheriff persona that he seemed to wear so effortlessly was nothing more than a facade.

Travis was confused. Here was something that ran far deeper than he’d at first believed. Either that, or…

The other possibility seemed too ludicrous and surreal to consider.

“He’s o-okay?” Rourke asked.

“He sure is, Sheriff Rourke,” Greene said. “In fact, he tells his friends that the bullying and harassment he received as a child toughened him up. He tells them that had he not been bullied, he would never have had the courage to ask his wife to marry him, and he would have been too indecisive and nervous to take a punt on his own business. He even mentions you by name. Chas Rourke, he says. That asshole made me the man I am today.”

The audience erupted into laughter. Rourke stood there for a moment, and then he started laughing too, crying as well, and Larry Youngman stepped forward once more and put his arm around Rourke’s shoulder. Rourke’s entire body seemed to shake with emotion. Travis had never seen anything quite like it. If this was an act…

The crowd seemed to swallow Sheriff Rourke. There were hands on his shoulders, people hugging him, and then—after a minute or two—the audience settled down.

Greene stood there in silence for a little while, and then he smiled and nodded his head. “And now I am tired,” he said. “I am very tired.”

One person started clapping, and then two, three, ten, twenty, and soon the tent was bursting with riotous applause. There were whoops and screams and whistles, and Travis watched in wonder as the entire congregation closed up toward the edge of the stage, reaching out to the little man, trying to touch him, as if merely making contact would somehow realize some supernatural effect on themselves and their lives. Travis had never seen anything like this outside of evangelical gatherings. Greene had taken on the mantle of preacher, confessor, savior. It was almost religious in its enthusiasm, and Travis was both appalled and transfixed.

Greene received their enthusiasm, but he did not stay long. He was gone within a minute or two, and the people were left talking animatedly among themselves, little crowds assembling around Sheriff Rourke, Miss Petersen, the young pregnant woman and her husband.

Travis was sweating profusely beneath his shirt. He had not realized how hot it was inside. He knew that he couldn’t absorb any more. His emotions wrestled with his certainties, his suspicions with his convictions, and he had to get away. He walked around the back of the gathering, along the edge of the tent itself, until he came to the doorway. He passed out into the cool night air unnoticed, and he stood there—once again looking at the sky—and his body felt like a thousand pounds of darkness, so much blacker than the sky, so much heavier than the earth beneath his feet.

He breathed deeply—in, out, in, out—and he felt the vista before his eyes waver just a little. The horizon seemed to disappear, and then it was right back where it was supposed to be. He felt as if he were hallucinating, as if someone had perhaps put a drug in his coffee, and now he was seeing and feeling things that were not even real. He wondered if he had been drugged… if he had actually been drugged before, that night when someone crept into his room and typed a single word on a sheet of paper…

“Good, eh?”

Travis turned to see Doyle standing no more than six feet away. He was smoking a pipe.

Travis just started at Doyle, momentarily incapable of speech.

“Is your head still square, Agent Travis?”

“I-if th-that question is designed to elicit some reaction from me, Mr. Doyle, then I am afraid it will not. I believe I understand what you are asking me, and I will not play the game.”

“Which is answer enough,” Doyle said. “Such a shame.”

“A shame? What’s a shame, Mr. Doyle? That I am not fooled by such performances? Granted, they are very impressive, both Mr. Slate and Mr. Greene. Extraordinary talents for sleight of hand, even sleight of mind, might we say, but the truth of that matter is that I have not seen anything that has proven beyond a reasonable doubt—”

“Proven what, Agent Travis? What do you think anyone is trying to prove here?”

“That you can read people’s minds, Mr. Doyle. That you can see into the past. That you can know things about people that they don’t even know themselves. This kind of thing has been going on for hundreds of years. You people set yourselves up somewhere, you make people believe that you are capable of something, that you possess some kind of ability or power that is beyond the parameters of human capability, and then you fleece them for all you can get—”

Doyle raised his hand. “I am not of a mind to argue with you, Agent Travis, nor am I of a mind to counter your accusations, all of which, I might add, are utterly unfounded and entirely without substance. What happened in there tonight was what happened. How people reacted to it was how they reacted to it. Some people feel better. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the vast majority of people who were present tonight have gone home feeling better than when they arrived. Everyone but you, Agent Travis. Perhaps it touched a raw nerve; perhaps it made you feel vulnerable or exposed or afraid. I don’t know, and I don’t know that I care to know. What I see, what I hear, what I feel is what I see and hear and feel, and I do not need anyone to agree with me to know that it is true.”

Doyle looked away toward the horizon, and then he looked back at Travis with a knowing smile.

“I will bid you good night, sir, with the hope that you sleep well, that you do not dream, that you wake refreshed and content. Personally, I cannot even begin to imagine the claustrophobic sense of isolation you must feel each and every day of your life. To have no faith, to have no belief, to have no magic? Oh, that must be the worst hell of all.”

Travis opened his mouth to speak, to give some sharp rebuttal, but he had nothing.

By the time he realized he had nothing, Doyle was gone.

31

That night the dream returned, almost as if Doyle’s words had been a premonition.

The shadow of a man, the cracked and arid field, the laughing crow.

This time, however, Travis was aware of other aspects of the dream that he had not previously noticed. Somewhere in the background was the sound of calliope music—distant and almost inaudible but definitely there. Every once in a while he believed he heard the sound of child calling his name. Far to his right, there along the horizon, was a disappearing line of telegraph poles, the wire between them black with grackles and other birds he did not recognize. And there between the telegraph poles the ground was blanketed with endless forget-me-nots.

And then the footsteps came, and they were slow and labored, and each time he sensed from which direction they were coming, he would turn, and there would be nothing there but more distance, the horizon beyond, a deep and profound sense of being alone. And yet the feeling of being watched. The
certainty
that he was being watched.

Travis did not like this feeling at all. It slipped beneath his skin and enveloped his nerves.

Even as he dreamed, he knew he was dreaming. He knew he was sleeping, right there in the McCaffrey Hotel in Seneca Falls, but he could not bring himself awake.

Over and over in his mind, he turned the events of the evening—the things he had seen and felt, the things he had witnessed in others, the fact that however much he wrestled with his conscience and his rationality, he could not explain what had happened. He
knew
there was an explanation—he
knew
this without doubt—and yet he could not find it. The death of Ron Petersen, the story from Sheriff Rourke about Bobby Alberstein, the fact that such things had happened when the carnival had gathered before.

It was with that thought that Travis woke.

And he lay there for half an hour, his throat as parched as the arid field, still the echo of the laughing crow, the grackles on the telegraph wire, the sound of the footsteps that yet never reached him.

Eventually he rose and took a drink of water from the glass beside his bed. He walked to the window, drew back the curtain a handful of inches, and looked out into the cool blue of nascent dawn. It was a little before five, and already the light was rapidly peeling back the shadows.

He knew in which direction the carnival lay, and though his first instinct was to dress, to walk back out there, to look at this place in daylight once more—but with a different eye, a different state of mind, a different scale of perceptions—he withheld himself. A calm and measured state of mind was required. But it seemed as if his own past, his present, even his future were being undermined. Travis walked back to the bed and sat down. Most everything had been objective. Most everything had been studied, right back to college, the things he had learned in the army, everything he had been taught in Bureau training, everything he had recorded, annotated, and transcribed while working with Unit X in Kansas City. Academic, always maintaining a
safe distance
, and yet who were they fooling with their reports and documents, their detailed summaries and color-coordinated filing systems? Life was not paperwork. Life was not observing, analyzing and documenting. Life was living. Life was losing his parents, losing Esther. Life was hurtling through an obstacle course while flash charges deafened you, some drill sergeant screaming obscenities at you, finding yourself waist deep in mud, your rifle buried beyond reach in the filth beneath you. Life was the Scarapetto raid, the certainty that you had killed a man. Life was standing in a morgue and questioning the presence of inexplicable tattoos on the unidentified body of a murdered Hungarian. Life was seeing a woman like Laura McCaffrey and knowing that a girl like that could never love the kind of man that you were.

And was this him? This dry and humorless man? Was he this way because of what had happened, or would he have been this way regardless of the circumstances of his childhood and teenage years? These were the very questions with which he had been challenged by the Bureau psychologist in Kansas, the very questions that they had focused on within Unit X. Was a man born with identity intact, or was he a product of his environment? That was as much a question for himself as it was a question for any of the unit’s subjects.

But now, the past aside, it was the present that needed explanation. Things had happened—strange things—and Travis knew that their explanation would somehow relate to the resolution of the homicide. They had to be connected. Understand one, and he would understand the other.

Some of those answers had to lie with Chester Greene. All of those answers had to lie with Edgar Doyle and Valeria Mironescu. This was their creation. Everything that had happened here, everything that was happening right now, lay within the province of their understanding. The half answers, the inferences and innuendos, the ever-present sense that they themselves were intentionally keeping him at arm’s length, was something of which he was certain.

It was then that Travis noticed the sheet of paper upon which he had written the name Harold Blauer. Doyle had given him that name almost as an aside, almost nonchalantly, as if it meant nothing at all. And yet Travis did not believe Doyle to be a man who did anything unless he intended it. That name had been forwarded for a reason. That name possessed significance. Bishop had told him that he was not to involve other Bureau offices in his investigation, but this now seemed ludicrous. The very least he could do was drive out to Wichita and see if this Blauer existed somewhere within the Bureau system. Travis was then struck by another thought. Was the dead man Harold Blauer? Was this whose body was found beneath the carousel, the body still residing in the Seneca Falls morgue? Blauer did not seem to be a Hungarian name, but perhaps the man had used an alias. If he was in fact some kind of assassin, then it would be routine to operate under an alias.

Travis looked at the bedside clock. It was quarter past six. He showered, dressed, was out of the hotel by seven and on the road to Wichita. He would arrive before eight, take breakfast in a local diner, and be at the office as it opened. It would take no time at all to locate Blauer on the system, if he was in fact there, and he could be back in Seneca Falls before ten to track down Doyle and Valeria.

The drive was uneventful, the highway clear of traffic, and Travis was there early. The office was unmanned as yet, so Travis walked a block and a half and found a diner. He took coffee, ate a piece of French toast and a few mouthfuls of scrambled egg.

Travis retraced his steps, waited merely a handful of minutes before Gary Delaney appeared. Delaney seemed surprised to see him again.

“I have to tell you that I received a message from Supervisor Bishop,” Delaney told him as he opened up the office.

“Advising you that I was to be afforded no significant assistance in this investigation, right?”

Delaney looked awkward. “Not in those words, exactly, but that was the basic idea, yes.”

“Well, I am not here to ask for your assistance as such, Agent Delaney. I just need to access some information that may or may not be on the system.”

“Well, we have Receive Only Model 28, so I would have to call in your request.”

“Which is what I am going to ask you to do, Agent Delaney.”

There were a few seconds of awkward silence.

“I am not so sure, Agent Travis. The message from Supervisor Bishop—”

“I am a senior special agent,” Travis said, his voice calm and unhurried. “I am pulling rank on you. I am giving you a direct and legal order. Supervisor Bishop’s message did not say that you had permission to ignore or countermand an order, did it?”

“No, sir, it didn’t.”

“So, there we are then. I am giving you an order. You are complying with that order. If it then comes back to you… well, it won’t come back to you, will it? It will be my responsibility and my responsibility alone.”

“Yes, if you put it that way.”

“And it’s a really simple thing, Agent Delaney. A request for some information regarding one person, and that’s all.”

“Their name?”

“Harold Blauer,” Travis replied.

“B-L-A-U-E-R?”

“That’s right, yes.”

“And do you know anything about him?”

“My understanding is that he was a tennis player.”

“A tennis player?”

“Yes.”

Delaney hesitated once again. “I’m sorry, Agent Travis, but there’s something about this that seems awful strange. I was puzzled when I received that message from Supervisor Bishop, and now you’re here in person asking me to assist you when I have been asked not to do so.”

Travis smiled, trying his best to put Delaney’s mind at ease. The man was doing his job, coloring inside the lines, so to speak, and was concerned that he might incur the displeasure of his seniors. How easily Travis could see himself in this man.

“I appreciate the dilemma, Agent Delaney,” Travis said. “I really do. The simple truth is that this is a test case.”

“A test case?”

“In essence, yes. I received a promotion to senior special agent, you see, and along with that increase in responsibility comes an assignment where you are required to pursue the case without external office assistance. Now, I can wait until the City Library is open and go trawl through their newspaper archives, but here we are dealing with a homicide investigation. Irrespective of whatever else might or might not be going on, we are still dealing with a homicide, and the perpetrator of that murder is unknown and on the run. Not only as a federal law enforcement official, but also as a good citizen, it seems nothing less than irresponsible not to break a little rule in order to expedite the case and bring a felon to justice.”

“Yes, I can see that, Agent Travis, and that is why I am fighting with this,” Delaney replied, and there was a look in his eyes as if he was beginning to reconcile himself to the situation.

“But I really don’t want you to compromise your integrity on this point, Agent Delaney—”

“It is not a matter of integrity, Agent Travis,” Delaney replied, “but a matter of which is for the greater good, and I cannot see how assisting you in this small matter could be anything but positive. I understand that this case might be a test for you, but it is still a case, and—as you say—a man’s life has been taken and someone is responsible. You think that this Blauer might be involved?”

“I have no idea,” Travis said. “It is just a name that has come up in the course of the investigation, and I want to rule him in or out, one way or the other.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Delaney said. “To hell with the consequences. It doesn’t seem right to me that a federal officer should be prevented from using Bureau resources.”

“That’s very much appreciated, Agent Delaney.”

Delaney started toward an office at the rear of the building. “I’ll send the request now. It’s early, and we might be lucky. Catch them before the full day’s workload starts. Usually it takes a while to get a reply, but we’ll see, eh?”

Delaney left the room, and Travis walked to the front window of the office. He looked down the street both ways. There was very little foot or vehicle traffic, but it was Saturday, and the vast majority of citizens would be home with family. He looked at the absence then—as clear as daylight—and it struck him with some force. He had his room at the McCaffrey, not for long, but it was home until this case was complete. And once complete, he would return to Kansas, there to find his sparsely furnished apartment, his books, his neatly arranged provisions, a single houseplant on the windowsill—a cactus, simply because such a plant required no real attention or care. What was he doing now? Was he questioning the existence he had created for himself? Was he actually challenging the rationale of his own life?

Travis turned at the sound of Delaney returning from the back office.

“Seems we’re out of luck,” Delaney said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Classified,” Delaney said.

“Seriously?”

Delaney handed Travis a sheet of teletype paper. Across the top was printed the date, the call sign of the Wichita office, and beneath it a few lines stating that the information request could not be fulfilled due to the fact that Delaney possessed an insufficiently senior authorization grade.

“Let me use it,” Travis said.

“You’re sure?” Delaney asked.

“Not a hundred percent, but I’m going to try anyway.”

Delaney—once again visibly uncertain—showed Travis through to the back office. Travis keyed in his ID and repeated the request. As an afterthought, and to satisfy another small curiosity, he requested any information on organizations that employed a forget-me-not design as a membership symbol.

“We just have to wait,” Delaney said. “No way to tell how long it will be.”

“I understand,” Travis said. “Same system in every office. I know how it works.”

“Of course you do,” Delaney said. “I’m sorry. This just makes me a little nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” Travis said. “No one’s going to be losing their job over this.”

They returned to the front of the office. Delaney suggested he go out and get coffee.

“Good idea,” Travis said. “Black, no sugar.”

“You want anything else?”

“I’m good.”

Delaney left, was gone a good fifteen minutes, returned just as the teleprinter started chugging away in the back.

Travis walked on through. The information request had been authorized and fulfilled. There was not a great deal of text, but at least there was something.

Travis tore off the pages and sat down. Delaney brought the coffee, set it there on the desk, and though he was obviously tempted to hang over Travis’s shoulder and find out who this Harold Blauer was, he did not. He made himself scarce, and Travis appreciated this.

The brief report made no real sense to Travis.

The earliest note of Harold Blauer was in December of 1952 when Blauer—apparently depressed after a divorce—voluntarily admitted himself to the New York State Psychiatric Institute for treatment. What happened then seemed like something out of a sensationalistic dime-store novel. Blauer—seemingly consensually—agreed to be part of an experimental research program being undertaken by the US Army Chemical Corps into an untried depression medication. In fact, these medications were chemical warfare agents, and Blauer was administered a series of four injections. He protested any further injections, citing the adverse effects that he was experiencing, but he was convinced to continue, the threat of committal to Bellevue Hospital hanging over him. The fifth injection was many, many times stronger than any previous injection. Blauer suffered a series of adverse effects ranging from a stiffening of the musculature to oral foaming. Oxygen, glucose, even sodium amytal did nothing. This continued for two hours, and then Blauer lapsed into a coma and died. The certificate of death stated COD as
coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of an undisclosed substance
. It appeared that all records of this event were then moved out of state by the army, despite a court order requiring the production of those documents. The report went on to state that Blauer’s last and fatal injection had been four hundred and fifty milligrams of an experimental mescaline derivative code-named EA-1298. As of that moment, the case remained closed and no further investigation into Blauer’s death was scheduled.