Chapter 16
Dan's disgust was so powerful he wanted to vomit. When word had reached him, he found it hard to believe. Even Cotty Starke couldn't possibly be that callous! Yet it was all true. He had arrived in time to observe Cotty's brief bally and had watched the people streaming in. He wasn't particularly surprised at that. He had long since lost all wonder at the things people did. The mere fact that they would pay money to view a platform full of freaks, fake or authentic, had destroyed any illusions in that direction. But that anyone could stoop so low as to make money off a dead man and the grief of a poor deaf and dumb creature!
Rage slashed through him, burning away the disgust. He saw Cotty emerge from the tent and stop behind the ticket booth to light a cigarette. Dan ground out his own cigarette and rounded the booth. Cotty saw him coming. He seemed to go tense. Then he visibly relaxed, a sneering half grin on his handsome features.
"Around a carnie you learn to expect almost anything, but this ... this stunt is the most despicable thing I've ever witnessed!" Dan realized his temper was running away from him. He made a strong effort to hold it in check.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Patch," Cotty said indifferently.
"You know goddamn good and well what I mean! Using Greer's death and Juval's...."
"We're pulling in the loot, aren't we?"
"Starke, as soon as those people get out of there, I want you to close this tent and keep it closed until Greer's had a decent burial!"
"You want? You want! Just who the hell are you to be ordering me around?" Cotty's eyes narrowed to slits. "Paula turned this show over to me and tonight's going to be the biggest gross this nut collection's ever had. And you tell me to slough it? Not a chance, shoo-fly!"
"Then you're forcing me to go to Bart Roberts."
"So go! You know what he'll tell you when he gets the word on how my idea ... my idea ... is paying off?" Cotty hooted with laugher. "He'll tell you to go whistle up a tent pole!"
People were streaming out of the tent. Cotty flipped away his cigarette and bounded lithely up the platform steps. Dan could only stare after him in boiling frustration. He knew Cotty was right. Bart Roberts would charge admission to view the death throes of his own mother if it appeared lucrative enough.
As Cotty began pounding on the iron wheel, Dan turned and strode into the tent, angrily pushing people out of his way. There were still a few bellied up to the chain, gawking at Juval. Dan ducked under the chain and confronted them. "All right, folks, on your way. This particular freak is taken off display until further notice."
But when he dropped to one knee beside Juval, the hopelessness of his situation struck him. How could he communicate with the dwarf? How could he tell him that his grief was being exploited in the tawdriest way possible?
"Juval." He touched Juval on the arm and Juval swung his face around. The grimace that passed for a smile was still on the out-of-proportioned face, but now it was a clown's smile, infinitely sad. Staring into the dark eyes was like gazing into the inky blackness of tiny, bottomless wells.
"Juval, all this is no good," Dan said gently. He formed each word slowly with his mouth and felt idiot laughter bubble up in him. Juval didn't read lips, so what did it matter how fast the words came at him? "You're being used to make a buck. Hard as it is to accept, Greer is dead and he's never, never coming back to life!"
Juval's eyes were without comprehension. As soon as Dan stopped talking, he switched his gaze again to the casket. Dan got slowly to his feet, his futility bitter. It was simply no use. Juval would stay here at least until teardown four nights away. Maybe when the tent was gone, the pit closed up, he would finally be able to accept Greer's death.
He lit a cigarette. Over his cupped hands he saw Paula down the tent, and he knew what he was going to do. He strode purposefully down to her. "Mrs. Greer...."
She looked at him without recognition. Her face had a loose, dreaming expression, and for a moment he thought she was drunk. She said thickly, "Hello, Patch."
"I'd like a word with you."
She raised and lowered one hand. "So talk."
"Not here, some place private. Your trailer would be best. It's a legal matter and concerns you."
All at once she was alert, wary. "Legal? Concerns me?"
He simply nodded.
Her green eyes measured him. "All right, Patch, if it's all that important."
"It's that important."
She turned away with a flounce of long skirts and headed for the front of the tent.
"Not that way. The back way, Mrs. Greer." Dan didn't want Cotty to suspect anything; he wanted it sprung on the man with the suddenness of a gallows trap opening.
Without looking around Paula changed direction, veering toward the rear of the tent. They didn't speak again until they were inside the Greer trailer. There she faced him. "Well, Mr. Fields?"
"I had intended to wait a decent interval before breaking this to you, Mrs. Greer," Dan began, "but this obscene exhibition with Juval changed my mind...."
"Never mind the moralizing," she snapped, "just get on with it!"
"A few nights ago ... right after Meeks tried to push him off the show train ... your husband came to me and had me draw up a new will. He destroyed the old one, in which you were the chief beneficiary-"
Her sharp intake of breath was like a cry of pain. "Destroyed?"
"That is correct. Under the new will, Juval inherits everything, all except one dollar for you. Greer estimated his estate at approximately one hundred thousand dollars."
Paula had gone as pale as snow, and her eyes seemed to sink into deep sockets out of which they blazed at him. "You're lying! I'll break it! He can't do this to me!"
"He not only could but did," Dan continued steadily. "The will was duly witnessed and I am a competent enough attorney, I assure you, to draw up a will. The will is perfectly legal and will stand up in a court of law. You, of course, have the right to contest it, but it will be a waste of time and money." Dan realized that he was talking more like an attorney than he had in a long time. He had always disliked the windy, pompous verbiage of lawyer dialogues, but it sounded good to his ears now. "There are two stipulations in the will. Since Juval isn't competent legally, a trust was set up. I am the executor of that trust, at least for the time being. Not a chore I particularly relish, I assure you. But that trust will provide you with a good income, providing you take good care of Juval. So you see, your husband did provide for you financially."
Paula had recovered from the initial shock enough to sneer. "Some providing, being stuck with him!"
"The second stipulation states that should Juval predecease you, the trust is resolved and the remainder of the estate then goes to you." He couldn't tell her how hard he'd argued with Greer on the last point. He had failed to convince the man that this placed Juval in jeopardy.
Paula's eyes had brightened noticeably, and she had herself under control again. Dan fancied he could read the thoughts racing through her head. With calculated malice he said, "I tried to persuade Greer that he should make the contents of the will known to you. And to Cotty Starke. Had he done so, he could very well be alive right now."
This made no impression on Paula. She batted the air between them with one hand, as though swatting a buzzing insect. "Listen, Dan..." There was a feverish intensity about her. "Who knows about this besides us ? The witnesses ? And they're carnies, I'll bet."
Caught off-guard, he said, "As a matter-of-fact, they are."
"You know carnies, and I know carnies. For a small chunk of that hundred thousand, they'll forget they ever saw a will. Then you can tear it up and nobody'll need ever know. Basil will have died without leaving a will and his money will all come to me. We'll split it right down the middle!"
Dan's thoughts jumped back to Beth and the false bribery charges, and he was sickened to the depths of his soul.
"Dan?" Something in his face must have revealed what he was thinking, because she took two gliding steps toward him, the planes of her face softening, blurring, before his very eyes. "And that's not all, sweetie. I go with the bargain. Together, we can have a ball!"
He took an involuntary step back, shaking his head. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come.
Paula hooked her fingers in the low neckline of her dress and ripped it down to her navel. She had nothing on under the dress, and her breasts popped free, the tumescent nipples aimed at him like weapons.
Dan bolted, almost taking the door from its hinges in his hurry. He plunged down the steps, gulping greedily at the clean air after the foulness she had offered him.
"You're a damned fool, Patch! And you're not even a man. I always thought so, now I know!" Her taunting laughter pursued him until he was out of hearing.
It was still early, and the midway teemed with people. Dan ignored them, plowing through them toward the cook tent. As he paused by the cash register inside, Debra took one quick look at his face and said, "Wait, Dan, I'll be right back."
She hurried down the counter, returning in a moment with a waiter in tow. She placed him in charge of the cash register, threw a sweater around her shoulders, then looped her arm in Dan's and they left the tent.
She wouldn't let him speak until they had passed through the entrance arch and were strolling along quiet, tree-lined streets. The streets were deserted, and soon the blare of the midway was behind them. Debra pressed his arm and said, "Now, what is it, darling? Tell me!"
He told her about the talk with Paula. When he was finished, he had regained his composure and was ashamed of running away. like a child fleeing a bogieman! "But the way she put it to me, it brought it all back. Beth and everything that happened before. It seemed like I was living it all over again!"
"Darling, it's nothing to be ashamed of. I can see just how it would hit you. That awful woman!" Debra shivered. "I never did like her but ... there's one good thing; Juval getting all that money. Now he'll be taken care of."
"You think so?" he said dourly. "With the money going to Paula if Juval dies, the temptation'll be too much. Somehow, between the two of them, they'll find a way to do away with Juval."
"But Dan, you're the trustee. Can't you watch after him?"
"Not every minute. Besides, there's nothing in the will that says they have to stay with the carnival. Paula can take Juval away somewhere and I can't tag along like a bodyguard!"
"Then there's nothing can be done about Mrs. Greer and ... and Cotty?"
"Nothing that I can see."
"I always thought people couldn't get away with murder." She added softly, "Poor little guy. Poor Juval."
Dan hadn't paid any particular attention to the direction they had been walking. Now he saw that they were in front of his hotel,, and he realized that Debra must have steered them this way. He held back.
Debra tugged at his arm, looking up at him with a tender smile. "Come on, Dan. Come along, darling."
There was a restraint between them. Dan felt it the moment they were inside his room. Although Debra had brought it about, she seemed oddly shy now that she was alone with him behind closed doors. Perhaps she was regretting it. Their one time together had come about more or less by accident.
Dan said, "Maybe we shouldn't be here like this."
Her glance jumped to him. "Oh, no, darling, I want to be here. It's just that...." She moved close to him, her face tilted up. "Outside there, you acted as though you didn't want me."
"I want you, Debbie. You can be sure of that."
He cupped his hand under her chin and kissed her gently. Her lips trembled briefly under his touch, then her mouth opened and she returned his kiss with a fierceness that took his breath away. Her ardor astounded him.
They helped each other undress, doing it without haste and stopping often to kiss and caress. When they were finally together on the bed, Dan made slow, lingering love to her. The first time had been more or less done in haste. Now he took time to explore her body with lips and hands, familiarizing himself with every nook and cranny.
She returned his caresses timidly at first, but she gradually became bold, inventive, under the prod of desire. He kissed her mouth until she was breathless and panting. He kissed her breasts until the nipples tautened to the bursting point. With the tip of his tongue he explored the convolutions of her navel while her fingers combed his hair. All the while his fingers lightly stroked her back, breasts and trembling thighs. When his hand cupped her, Debra uttered a muted cry and arched her head back into the pillow, the tendons standing out like cords.
He said softly, "Debbie. . . ? "
"Yes, darling, oh, yes!"
Still infinitely gentle, he moved to take her. She surged to him, moaning, when he went into her. Her head rolled from side to side on the pillow, hair whipping across her face. Ecstasy stained her cheeks pink. She stretched her arms out straight on each side, her fingers gathering the sheet in folds.
Their lovemaking was a wild, sweet abandon, their pleasure intense. In his rapture Dan forgot his brief moment of unmanliness before Paula and was all man, all male. As their mutual peak neared, he grew rougher, wilder.
Debra welcomed it, matching his wildness with a vigor of her own. Her small hips drove at him in a fury. Her mouth was open, her eyes clenched shut.
And when their frenzy broke, when Dan fell toward her, his body shuddering in release, Debra said strongly, "Dan. ... Oh, how I love you! You can't know. ... Oh, oh!"
"I love you. too, Debbie. Very much."