Chapter 17
The evening was a huge success for Cotty. The tent was full all evening. As rapidly as it emptied, it filled again. People were always lined up waiting to get in. After the fourth short bally, he stopped called the freaks out to the platform. After each show he gave the wheel a few whacks. When a crowd had gathered, he said a few words into the mike and turned them in.
One thing did dampen his pleasure. Paula's behavior puzzled him. Every time he went into the tent he found her hovering in clucking solicitude around the dwarf. She kept the crowd back from the chain and refused to answer any questions fired at her. Once, Cotty saw her urging food and water on Juval. Juval continued his fast and only took a little water.
Cotty simply couldn't understand it. During a lull between shows, he tried to question her. "What's with you and the runt, Paula?" He laughed. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd adopted him, for God's sake!"
"Your job's the front end, Cotty. You handle that and I'll take care of things inside." Her manner was cold, aloof, the Paula of old. "You're having a big night. Be happy with that."
"I am happy. I should think you would be, too."
"I couldn't care less." She shrugged and turned her back.
Baffled, he stared at her. She stepped to Juval and began talking to him in a low voice, pointing to her lips and wriggling her fingers. She was trying to get through to him, for hell's sake!
Cotty heard the buzzing of voices behind him as a new mob surged in. He returned to the bally platform. He would get it all straightened out after closing.
The freak show was the last to close. The other shows were closed and dark, most of the rides shut down, when Cotty finally went inside. Paula was gone, the tent empty except for Juval.
It was Paula's job to take the night's receipts to the office wagon, but Cotty was perfectly content to perform that chore. Holding the heavy canvas bag by the neck, he sauntered up the midway. Some of the carnies he met turned their heads away without speaking, but most of them had a friendly word of congratulations on his big night. He knew that what had happened would, in time, become a carnie legend. Carnies, most of them anyway, admired a moneymaker and they weren't particular about the methods used, Dan Fields to the contrary. Again Cotty indulged himself in the dream, the dream about what he would do if he used Greer's money to buy Greater Universe. Mr. Shoo-fly Dan Fields would be the first to go!
After checking the night's take in at the office wagon, he briefly considered going by the cook tent and do his part in embellishing the Cotty Starke legend. But Paula's odd behavior tonight nagged at him like the twinges of a sore tooth. He had to find out why her sudden concern for the dwarf.
There was a light on in the trailer, but the door was locked. He was going to have to ask Paula for a key. He had to knock several times before she finally came to the door.
"Oh, it's you."
"Yes, it's me," he growled, stepping inside. "You took long enough."
She was wearing a floor-length dressing gown and carried a glass. She motioned with the glass, sloshing some of the liquor on the gown. "You want a drink, help yourself. You know where it is."
He eyed her uneasily. She was unsteady on her feet; she must have been drinking heavily since closing. "I don't want a drink. Not now. First, I want to know why the business with Juval."
"I don't have to explain anything to you!" she blazed at him.
"Oh, yes, you do! We're partners, remember?" In two strides he had her wrist in an iron grip.
"Partners! What a joke!" She threw back her head and laughed. The laughter sounded dangerously close to hysteria.
Cotty tightened his grip cruelly. "If it's such a joke as all that, suppose you let me in on it."
"Ouch!" She tried to free her arm. "Damn you, that hurts! Let go!"
"Okay, but tell me."
"All right, sweetie, why not? You'll have to hear the good news some time." She gulped the rest of her drink. "You'd better sit down. It's a dinger."
Apprehension tightened his nerve ends. He groped behind him for a chair and sat down. His mind raced frantically. They couldn't suspect anything about Greer's death! Not unless he'd been seen slipping under the bally platform. But even if he had, how could Paula know about it?
She said, "My dear husband was worth one hundred thousand dollars...."
"But that's great, better than we'd expected!"
" ... and he left ninety-nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars of it to Juval. And the other dollar went to me! How about that for a knee-slapper, sweetie?"
It was too much for him to grasp. "But he couldn't do that!"
"He could. He did. He made a last-minute will. It's iron-clad, Dan Fields says."
"Patch? What the hell does he know?"
"He knows. Don't kid yourself. He was once a top-drawer attorney. That was my first thought, too, to fight it, but I changed my mind. There's another kicker, you see." Her sudden smile was sly. "The money's actually in trust for the little guy. And so long as I take good care of him, the trust takes good care of me."
Cotty stared. "You mean you're going to play nursemaid to a dwarf?"
"Oh, it won't be all that bad. I've been thinking about it. He's not helpless or anything like that. If I can get him away from the carnie...."
She broke off and crossed over to make herself a drink.
After the initial shock, Cotty's mind was stirring, probing at it. "Was that all there was in the will?"
She looked around quickly, eyes narrowing. "All? Don't you think that's enough?"
"I was just wondering if that was all the bad news," he muttered. "So where does that leave me?"
"I'll finish out the season. You can run the freak show until then. After that...." She shrugged, tasted her fresh drink. "I don't know."
"You don't know!" Cotty sprang to his feet. "Look, we had plans. Why do you think I put all those sleeping pills in Juval's pop bottle ? We were going to spend Greer's money together!"
"We were. But I just told you. I don't have the money."
"You said you'd be getting so much for taking care of Juval."
"That's true, sweetie. Enough for the two of us but not enough for a third party."
"Two of us. Oh, I get it." He sneered. "It's you and the dwarf now. Is he going to share your bed, Paula? Do you think he'll make a good bang? Or wait ... maybe you already know how he is in bed!"
Without warning, she dashed the contents of her glass into his eyes and followed it up with a roundhouse slap with her open hand. The alcohol stung his eyes and his ears rang painfully from the slap. He pawed frantically at his eyes.
"You bastard! You've got a mind like a cesspool," she said in a frigid voice. "Get out of my sight and stay out!"
Then he was outside, the door slamming behind him. He heard the bolt snick home with a sound of finality. He mopped at his face and eyes until he could finally see again. Then a cold and killing fury seeped into him. Juval! The dwarf was to blame for everything going wrong. Even tonight's huge gross was due to Juval. The show would have pulled them in tonight even without a talker; they had flocked in to see Juval and an empty casket. And now it turned out that Juval had inherited all of Greer's money. It was intolerable!
The midway was dark and deserted as Cotty made his way to the freak show tent. He held his breath as he pushed back the entrance flap and peered in. The overhead lights had been turned off but the night light, a weak bulb at one end of the tent, threw enough light to show Juval staring down into the empty casket. Doesn't he ever get tired, for hell's sake? Cotty thought in exasperation. This irritating thought was so minor in the face of his overpowering rage at Juval that Cotty grinned faintly. It was enough to relax him a little, enough to let him calmly consider what he had to do. He had to kill Juval; there was no other way. And it would have to be a violent death this time, done with his own hands. Anything less wouldn't do. This time the thought of violent death didn't bother him in the least. And it should be easy. After all, a dwarf....
He smoked a cigarette all the way through, his gaze never leaving the unmoving figure of Juval. Cotty refused to consider the consequences of his act. He would handle that when the time came. The thought of killing Juval was as pleasurable as the anticipation of sex. In fact, as he contemplated it he felt a sudden and powerful erection. He drew a deep breath, threw away his cigarette, took a last quick look around the tent, and moved quickly and quietly up behind the dwarf. Not that it mattered. Juval couldn't hear him.
In one smooth motion, he hooked his arm around Juval's neck, clamped his other hand around the wrist, making the arm a noose of iron. Juval tensed, then exploded into savage action. His strong hands clawed at Cotty's arm. He kicked back with his heels. His small, wiry body whipped and lashed wildly. Cotty hung on grimly, applying as much pressure as he could. After a moment the dwarf slumped in Cotty's grip, his body going limp. Exultation surged through Cotty. His wrist was already slick with sweat. He relaxed his grip ever so slightly so he could get a better, firmer hold.
Then his arms were seized in powerful hands. Juval crouched slightly, and Cotty found himself flying through the air. He turned over once in flight and, falling, struck his head against the end of the casket. Pain exploded in his skull. He was never completely unconscious. He could feel himself being moved, hauled about roughly. He tried to protest, to struggle, but both his voice and his will to move his muscles seemed paralyzed. Now he was lying on something as soft as silk. Dimly he heard a thumping sound, followed by the clank of chains. ... Chains?
Then he was suddenly, horribly, awake. He was lying stretched out in the coffin, his hands folded across his chest. And looming over him, seen through the thick glass of the coffin lid, was the gargoyle face of Juval. Cotty heard himself screaming obscenities. He beat on the glass with his fists; it was tough as iron. After much difficulty, he managed to remove one shoe. The heel was leather with a metal cap. He pounded on the glass with the shoe heel. The metal cap made a few scratches on the glass and that was all. Juval's face disappeared from view.
All at once Cotty realized he was tiring. He lay very still, listening to the pound of his heart. He was bathed in sweat and his breathing made a rasping sound. How long had he been locked in the casket? Ten minutes? Fifteen? He tried to recall how long the air in the coffin was supposed to last. Twenty minutes? But that was for a man coming out of a deep trance, lungs not fully functioning yet.
Panic pounced on him like a ravening animal. He beat on the glass again with the shoe. He lost the shoe and pounded on the lid with his fists, his head. He ripped the satin lining with his nails.
He scrabbled for purchase on the edge of the glass with his fingers until they were raw and bleeding. He no longer felt pain. He strained up, his nose smashed flat on the glass, his eyes rolling wildly in an effort to see. He saw nothing. He fell back. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt ready to burst. Unconsciousness washed over him in waves of blackness.
His last thought was of Paula. She had won. Damn her, she had.