Madball (4 page)

She prayed a little, Please God, don't let Leon find out I was out last night.

Even without that, she realized now, she was in for a terrible day and evening. Now that Leon had once asked if she'd been the woman with Mack Irby, he'd go on brooding about it more and more all day and when she stood in front of the board this afternoon and evening for him to throw the knives at her he'd do like he always did when he'd been brooding, throw them closer than usual, dangerously closer, to punish and frighten her.

If only it would rain today, if only it would rain so they wouldn't open. She prayed a little again, this time: Oh, Lord, please make it rain today, please make it rain.

The sun came out bright and the day was pleasant.

CHAPTER FIVE

COPS. THE LOT WAS FULL OF COPS. There seemed to be dozens of them although actually there were only four.

They got to Dr. Magus a little after ten o'clock. Rather, one of them did. A lieutenant in plain clothes that might just as well have been a uniform from the look of him. Mother-naked you'd still have spotted him for a cop.

But not a tough one. Despite his size, six feet one and two hundred thirty pounds, he was soft-spoken, gentle. For a cop, smart. Showalter, his name was, Lieutenant Showalter. Dr. Magus found that he liked him. Not strange really because Dr. Magus liked just about everybody, even cops if they didn't throw their weight around.

The lieutenant sat now with an open notebook on the little table in the mitt camp and Dr. Magus, not wanting to sit across from him as though telling his fortune, sat on the foot locker off to one side. The lieutenant poised his pencil.

"Your name?"

"Dr. Magus."

"I mean your real name."

Dr. Magus smiled. "I've almost forgotten it, Lieutenant. And I'd much prefer to forget. But since you'll no doubt suspect me of being an escaped convict, I suppose I shall have to tell you. The name is Morris, Raymond L. Morris. If I recall aright, the L stands for Leroy. And I was born under the sign of Scorpio in the year 1900 and in the town of Green Bay, Wisconsin."

"Got a record, Morris?"

"Please call me Doc. The title is almost genuine."

"What do you mean, 'almost genuine'?"

"It would have been Doctor of Philosophy, not of Medicine, but at the age of twenty-three I was within four months of acquiring that degree when a youthful peccadillo caused my expulsion from the august halls of learning. I have, of course, a master's degree, psychology major, but I presume you would not want to call me Master."

The lieutenant said, "I'll settle for Doc. And the record?"

"Nothing really worth mentioning. A few fines for fortune telling in places where the law frowns upon my profession. A few other and minor misdemeanors."

"Done time?"

"Fifty-two years of it, but none behind bars. In front of bars, quite a bit."

"How well did you know Mack Irby?"

"Merely a casual acquaintance. And as to when I saw him last, which is what you'd ask me next if I do not anticipate the question, it would have been late yesterday evening, somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven o'clock. He'd just returned; from what I hear, he couldn't have been on the lot more than fifteen or twenty minutes. Is that right?"

"Yeah. His train got in at ten twenty-five. He took a taxi to the lot, so he'd have got here about a quarter to eleven. Where did you see him?"

"Here. He dropped in merely to pass the time of evening. I gave him a drink, but he stayed only a minute."

"You didn't see him after that?"

"Not even the empty shell from which his soul had fled. I fear that I slept through the commotion which I hear accompanied the finding of his body early this morning. It had been taken away by the time I was up and about. Who found him, by the way?"

"A halfwit named Sammy. Doesn't have any last name, or so he says. What do you know about Sammy?"

"Almost nothing except that I like him. He's done errands for me a few times. He works for Jesse Rau, who runs the milk bottle game. Sammy sets up the bottles when they're knocked down. He seems to have the requisite mentality to perform that task."

"After Irby left did you stay in this tent all night?"

"I did."

"You didn't go outside once, not even to go to the doniker?"

"I see you are picking up carney slang already, Lieutenant. No, I did not go to the doniker. But if you want to make a very fine point of whether I remained within these canvas walls, I recall that once I stepped under the back one and a few feet beyond it. On business, let us say, but not sufficiently serious business to require a longer walk than that since it was in the middle of the night."

"About what time?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. Why would it matter?"

"It might if you saw anybody while you were out there. Did you?"

"Not a soul."

"You spent the night alone?"

"On the contrary, Lieutenant. I enjoyed
-
and I use the word advisedly
-
very pleasant company."

"Who?"

"I fear it would be indiscreet for me to answer that. Unless of course the young lady in question has already told you she spent the night with me, in which case I shall be glad to confirm her story."

"She has. And otherwise, Doc, there's suspicion she may have been the dame who was with Irby last night."

"Very well. Then I spent the night with the young lady who told you she spent the night with me."

"That won't do, Doc. Maybe she didn't but if I told you the name first you'd say she did just to give her an alibi. It wouldn't mean anything if I told you first."

"You have a point there, Lieutenant. My companion last night was Maybelle Seeley. And again to anticipate a question, she came here, by prearrangement, somewhere around midnight and she left somewhere around eight o'clock this morning."

"She was here all the time?"

"Yes, she was. I will not strain your credulity by claiming that I, at my age, was awake all night. But I am a very light sleeper; she could not possibly have left and returned without my knowing it."

"A light sleeper? The commotion over finding Irby's body didn't wake you this morning."

"Lieutenant, that was on the other side of the midway, around behind the penny arcade top. I would hazard the guess that the distance between here and there is two hundred yards. I doubt if I could have heard voices at that distance even if I had been wide awake and listening for them. By the way, Lieutenant, you said that there is
-
or, I hope, was
-
suspicion that Miss Seeley was with Irby last night. May I ask why?"

"Some dame was with him and we haven't found out who yet. And he talked to her around in back of the model show tent."

"Yes, she mentioned to me that he had talked to her briefly. And why not? Maybelle had been, ah, going steady with Charlie Flack, who was killed in the same accident in which Irby was injured. He wanted
to tell her how sorry he was that Charlie had been killed."

"So she told us. Okay, but since it wasn't Maybelle, have you got any idea who it could have been he took to that tent?"

"Please, Lieutenant, do not continue to use the word tent; it hurts my ears. There are no tents on a carnival lot; they are all tops, from a sleeping top on up, there is not a tent among them. No, I have no idea who, if anyone, he took to the sleeping top."

"He had somebody there. Otherwise why'd he rent it from Rau? Irby had a bedroll of his own, still over at the Mystery of Sex show he used to be barker for."

"Talker for, Lieutenant. More specifically grinder for, since a show that operates continuously and without a bally doesn't require a spiel. But yes, I agree that if Mack Irby had intended to sleep alone he could have done so almost anywhere and without renting the bridal suite. But it is possible that he rented it in advance, in hope, and he might have been disappointed in that hope."

The lieutenant grunted agreement, as Dr. Magus hoped he would. He had coached Maybelle very carefully in her story, had told her to volunteer
-
lest someone had seen or heard them talking
-
the information that she had talked to Irby, and the further information that he had made a pass at her and had told her he'd rented Rau's top and wanted her to spend the night with him there. But that she'd turned him down because of a previous commitment if for no other reason.

He pushed home the advantage. "From what I hear, Lieutenant, Irby was in funds and a few dollars would not have mattered to him, so it is not unlikely that he would have rented that top merely in the hope that he could have company therein. He may even have had Maybelle in mind, among others. But if he made such a suggestion to her she didn't tell me about it. However it is not unprobable that whether he had one particular woman in mind or was willing to settle for one of several
-
as seems likely after seven weeks' continence in the hospital
-
he might have been unable at so late an hour, on such short notice, to find a woman who was both free and willing to help him break his fast."

The lieutenant grunted again.

Dr. Magus asked, "But if he did have a woman there why is her identity important? You don't think a woman killed him, do you?"

"Not likely, with a tent stake. It isn't a woman's weapon. We found the tent stake, still with traces of blood and hair on it. The murderer had carried it with him until he got almost to the midway alongside the penny arcade tent-top. And besides, Irby was struck down just outside the sleeping top and he hadn't been dragged. From the position we figure he crawled out and was struck down just as he started to get to his feet. But about the woman, if there was one she could have fingered him for the job, couldn't she? She could know or think he was loaded with dough, see? And she could arrange before she went there with him
-
or went to meet him there, whichever it was
- to have a man waiting outside to slug him when he came out. And if he didn't go out for any reason of his own, she could have pretended to be thirsty and talked him into going out so he'd get it."

Dr. Magus nodded. "Could have been that way, if there was a woman with him. Know what time he was killed?"

"Coroner says somewhere around two o'clock, give or take an hour. Examined him at six o'clock and said he'd been dead somewhere around four hours."

"You said something, Lieutenant, about his being loaded with dough. Have you been able to find out?"

"We know how much he must have had within a few dollars. We phoned Glenrock and the boys there checked it right away. With the hospital and other places. Had a hundred and twenty-seven bucks on him when he was admitted to the hospital. Their guess is he averaged spending about ten bucks a week for the seven weeks he was there
-
cigarettes and other stuff he could send out for
-
so he left there two o'clock yesterday afternoon with somewhere around fifty-five bucks cash and an insurance company check for two thousand. Went right to the Glenrock bank and cashed it but took eighteen hundred in traveler's checks. Gives him two hundred fifty-five, give or take a little according to how good their guess is at the hospital on how much he spent for incidentals while he was there. Caught a 4:10 train out of Glenrock, came right here. Figure his ticket, meal on the train, taxi fare, bottle or two of whisky, say twenty bucks. He'd have had about two hundred thirty-five. And the traveler's checks, but they were still in his pocket."

Dr. Magus said, "How disappointed someone must have been, if the someone knew about that insurance settlement and thought he might be carrying two thousand cash on him."

"Did you think that?"

"I'd heard
-
and I've forgotten where but it was the general rumor around the lot
-
that Mack got a settlement from an insurance company on the accident. But I certainly wouldn't have figured him as stupid and careless enough to carry it on him in cash. Does your question indicate that I am a suspect?"

The lieutenant grinned. "Doc, you're the only guy around here I've talked to that hasn't acted like I got leprosy or something. Maybe that ought to make me suspicious of you, that and the fact that you've pumped me into doing more talking than you have. But you just don't look to me like a guy who'd use a tent stake."

"Thank you kindly."

"Not at all. If this was a con game setup instead of a bashing you'd be my first choice. What's an unborn show?"

Dr. Magus smiled. "An unborn show is a collection of fetuses in glass jars. It is also known as a punk show and the fetuses are known as pickled punks. Whatever the grind is, that's the joint. Usually they are human fetuses in various stages of development, but occasionally there will be an animal fetus if it's a freak one. I believe Burt's unborn show, the Mystery of Sex, has the fetus of a two-headed calf. But that's just an extra attraction, the pitch is on the Iranian
fetuses
-
male and female, naked and unadorned. Which, of course, they are."

"Fake or real?"

"Probably quite real because they'd be cheaper to get. It's carney tradition to kid an unborn show man about the Goodyear trade marks on the kiesters of his pickled punks, but it's just a stock gag. Think what they'd cost, whereas the human fetus has no market value
-
except possibly in parts of Mexico where I am told they are used in making tamales, although that is possibly apocryphal. But anyone who has a friend in the right spot in a hospital or morgue can get all the fetuses he wants for a few drinks or at most a few bucks apiece."