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Occasionally I would do crime stories for a market other than W.W. Scott—and, perversely, I who was too impatient to send my work to a higher-paying market like Manhunt did those other stories for one that actually paid half as much as Scottie did. But these were done as a favor, and a bit of a challenge.
The editor involved was Robert A. Lowndes, a genial, cultivated man who had long been famous in the world of science-fiction for his good taste as an editor, for his amiable personality, and for the low budgets of the magazines that circumstances forced him to edit. Because of his friendship with most of the great science-fiction writers, he was able to cajole top people into writing fine stories for him at a fraction of the fee that they could have had elsewhere. Lowndes’ roster of contributors included such people as Frederik Pohl, James Blish, L. Sprague de Camp, Poul Anderson, Murray Leinster, and Clifford D. Simak, all of them major science-fiction names in that day. In the summer of 1955 I began to sell stories to his s-f magazines myself, despite the low-and-slow payment policies: I was so prolific that I wanted every market I could get, there was prestige if not much money in writing for Lowndes’ magazines, and I enjoyed the company of the charming, civilized Lowndes himself, who became a close friend.
Lowndes edited not only two very good science-fiction magazines but a dizzying cluster of old-fashioned pulp magazines of other genres—a couple of western magazines, two or three detective-story magazines, a sports pulp or two, and maybe some others. How he managed it all I never knew. He invited me to try my hand at writing for some of them, just to see how versatile I was, and I did indeed write a couple of western stories for him, at least two sports stories, and —at his request—seven detective stories in 1957 and 1958.
These were different from the crime stories I was doing for W.W Scott. Most of them were classic puzzle-and-solution stories, ending not in some cataclysm for the protagonist but for the upbeat resolution of the plot problem. “Hot Heiress” was the fifth of this group. Lowndes ran it in the September, 1958 issue of Double-Action Detective, using my pseudonym “Calvin M. Knox,” which was already well established in science-fiction. (The byline was an inside joke, yoking two very Protestant names together to tease a famous s-f editor who was—wrongly—thought to dislike having Jewish names on his contents page. The middle initial stood for “Moses.” Lowndes, a High Church Episcopalian himself, was greatly amused when he heard the explanation, as was the allegedly anti-Semitic editor himself.)
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HOT HEIRESS
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Maybe Lois Hannon had killed her millionaire father, maybe not. That was none of my concern. She was wanted for questioning, and I had to find her. Then I got a tip that my hot little heiress was connected with this two-bit carnival, upstate. That was fine—only I couldn’t find any trace of her here, either. Then the sword-swallower got himself run through with his sword, and I began to see that there might be paydirt here after all...
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It was a typical cheap honky-tonk carnival, all right. I stood in the middle of it, munching on a stale carnie frankfurter—only two bits with mustard and relish—as I looked around. I wondered if I was ever going to find Lois Hannon in a place like this, and wondered why I was crazy enough to think that the heiress to the Hannon millions could really be hiding out in a cheesy little traveling carnival.
I guess it wasn’t bad, as carnies went. I turned around with my elbow on the edge of the frankfurter counter and looked it over. The menagerie was off to the left—mangy lions, toothless tigers, and a big grizzly that had seen better days in the North Woods. The freak runway was over to my right—sword-swallower, bearded lady, fat lady, the india-rubber man, and the rest of the usual routine. Far to the back, a gaudy sign beckoned to the cooch-dancer’s tent—“Formerly of King Farouk’s court”—a little further on, the talents of a female impersonator were being offered. One of those effeminate men who prance up and down in a convincingly ladylike fashion, doing imitations of well-known dames.
There were kids running all over the place, most of them tow-headed, skinny, deeply tanned, and between the ages of nine and thirteen. They looked the way most all small town kids do in the summertime. No doubt the arrival of Judson’s Traveling Carnival was the epochal event each summer in towns like this—Riverview, population 10,000. The kids were waving cotton candy, pennants, and rubber monkeys dangling from sticks; they were having the time of their lives.
–
I drifted over to the sideshow. It was in the shadow of the swooping Ferris-wheel and the changing shadows flickered over the tinsel trappings of the individual sideshow booth. I was sweating. The temperature was in the low nineties, and the humidity was about the same. I wished to hell I could find the Hannon heiress some time in the next ten minutes, and get back to New York City and the blessed relief of air-conditioning yet.
The sword-swallower was performing, and he was pretty good. A big strapping fellow—bare to the waist, with thick bulging biceps and a coarse mat of hair on his chest—he reared back, spread his legs, scooped up a saber with a casual swipe of his big paws, and stuffed it down his throat. The kids went wild.
I felt a lump rise in my throat, the way I always do when I watch a stunt like that. Call it empathy. I have a way of putting myself in the other guy’s place and imagining myself feeling what he’s feeling.
–
The sword-swallower yanked the weapon triumphantly from his throat, brandished it over his head, and grinned showing square white teeth. The kids yelled.
“Now I shall perform a very difficult maneuver,” he announced in a thickly-accented voice. He picked up a glass tube about twenty inches long, and thick as a man’s finger, and plugged an electrical cord that dangled from its lower tip into a socket. The glass tube glowed bright red.
“As you can plainly see, a heated wire runs the length of this tube. I will proceed to place the tube in my body, where you see it glowing. If the tube should break while inside my chest cavity, it would mean instant electrocution for me.”
I wondered what the life-expectancy for these fellows must be. I watched and grew as silent and as fidgety as the kids around me as he lowered the tube carefully into his throat. It wasn’t any fake; I could see the glowing light shining out of him as the tube descended past his esophagus. He paused for a moment with the tube almost completely down his throat; then, gingerly, as if he expected the fragile glass to shatter at any moment, he drew it out.
The applause was deafening. I think it was half an offering of relief that he got through the stunt alive. Nobody likes to see a man electrocuted in front of an audience, even if he’s getting pain for it.
The sword-swallower bowed, gathered up his little collection of weapons, and made a quick exit through the dingy curtains that boxed off his booth. I guess even a sword-swallower gets a coffee break, now and then. The crowd around the booth broke up and I wandered on down to peer at the fat lady.
–
She was a mountain of fat: a pretty little face was hidden in all that lard. She must have weighed 600 pounds. There was a microphone resting on her enormous bosom and she was regaling the crowd with tales of her love life. It seemed she was married to the india-rubber man, and you can figure out the rest for yourself.
I moved on, after a while, and watched her alleged husband do his polymorphic tricks; from there I headed for the beer-stand, and then down to the menagerie. I was getting fascinated despite myself. I had to remind myself that I was no longer ten years old, that I hadn’t come here for the purpose of gawking around at the freaks. Lois Hannon was hiding out somewhere in this ersatz Barnum & Bailey. I was here to find her.
I sat down in the shade of a big umbrella and sipped my beer and tried to think the whole thing out.
–
Lois Hannon had disappeared three weeks ago. She was twenty and —from her photos, at least—good-looking. She was the chief heiress to the Hannon millions, a newspaper fortune. And she had last been seen on a Thursday at the end of June, the day her father had died.
The medical report simply called it death from a sudden heart attack; the man had been in his fifties, and had had heart trouble before. Old Hannon keeled over and died, and if Lois hadn’t vanished there wouldn’t have been any problem.
But Lois did vanish. A maid reported that she had seen Lois go into her father’s study that fatal morning and that she had come out about an hour later. Lois had looked highly over-wrought on the way out. The maid had continued her work and, half an hour later, passed by the study, whose door was ajar. She looked in and found Hannon slumped over his desk. When she tried to find Lois, to tell her about her father’s death, there was no sign of the heiress anywhere in the house. She was gone.
Naturally, a search followed. There was no formal suspicion of complicity in her father’s death, but a man with a cardiac condition can be killed easily without having it look like murder, and Lois’ disappearance certainly spoke against her.
–
The tracers went out all over the Atlantic states. And gradually the word came filtering in from here, there: a girl resembling the Hannon heiress had been seen in Westchester County. She had been seen in Rockland County. She had been seen in half a dozen places in upstate New York.
We plotted out the course of her wanderings, discounting the fact that half the reports were probably phony in some way or another, and we started to narrow her down. She was in New York State.
Then we got a report that she had joined—of all things—a traveling carnival. She was with the carnival in some sort of disguise; but evidently, someone had seen her without the disguise at some time. The hunt narrowed down. I got my orders: attach myself to that carnival and find out if there was any truth in the report. Lois Hannon had to found. And if she happened to be with Judson’s Traveling Circus it was my job to find her and bring her back to New York for questioning in the matter of her father’s death.
–
I sat in the shade a while longer, and one of the carnival clowns came over to me. There were five or six clowns, all of them wearing the standard joey makeup and the big flapping shoes and tattered old clothes.
“You shouldn’t be sitting there like that,” the clown said to me. “Ought to be out looking for a girl.”
“I am looking for a girl.”
“You ain’t gonna find her sitting on your butt, Charlie,” the clown said. He sniggered, chuckled, pointed to a girl nearby and murmured something. I don’t suppose he talked that way to the kiddies. I didn’t find his joke very amusing; and when he caught on, he nodded solemnly and went shuffling away.
A girl like Lois could hide as a clown, I thought. Behind the fake nose and the grease-paint almost anyone of either sex could hide and get away with it.
For a moment I almost went after the clown. Then I eased up; Lois wouldn’t have made any remarks like that. But it was something to keep in the back of my mind. Maybe she was masquerading as one of the clowns.
Or maybe...
Whatever speculation I was about to usher into the world died aborning just then. Because a wail of pain rose from somewhere in the carnival—a deep-throated gurgling howl of agony that drowned out the noise of the kids, and the creak of the Ferris wheel, and the roaring of the animals.
Time seemed to stand still all over the carnival lot. Everyone in the place had heard that yell, and it was the sort of yell that made you stop and take notice. It was the yell of a man dying painfully.
–
A moment later, life resumed. The show had to go on. The fat lady went back to telling her stories, and the india-rubber man contorted his boneless arms. I started to walk quickly—not running, because I didn’t feel like touching off a panic—toward the source of that yell. It had seemed to come from the little clump of dressing-room trailer cars parked in the middle of the carnival. All the sideshow booths radiated outward from the trailers, where the performers lived.
The carnie people were trying to pretend that nothing had happened. I passed the female impersonator’s booth and he was carrying on in front of a gaping audience. He had padded his bosom and hips and wore makeup and a yellow wig; right now, he was parading up and down, muttering husky things into a microphone, and generally giving a creditable imitation of a certain well-known blonde and bosomy movie actress. I never could see much entertainment value in watching a man pretend he was Marilyn Monroe, but this guy was good at it.
I rounded the impersonator’s booth and moved quickly toward the trailer cars. Some people were gathering round one of them. I spotted a couple of men in the uniform of the State Police, and a fellow wearing the uniform of a carnie patrolman; and there were some off-duty performers clustered around. They all looked upset.
I went over to them.
–
I got within five feet of them when a slim hatchet-faced fellow with a gray crew-cut turned to me and said, “Sorry mister. This is private.”
“I’m police,” I said, “from New York City—special investigator.”
I handed him my credentials and the State Trooper boys gathered around to look too. They seemed to be impressed by the fact that a genuine metropolitan cop was on hand. I sensed the shift in everybody’s attitude; instead of regarding me as a nosy passerby, they were expecting me to take over.
So I took over.
I said to the bunch of them, “Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” the hatchet-face said. “I’m Mack Judson, the owner of the carnival. And we’ve never had anything like this happen before!”
“Anything like what? Who yelled, and why?”
“Come on inside and I’ll show you.”
He led me into the trailer; the State Troopers came along behind, while the carnie policeman stayed outside to keep snoopers away.
–
The place was a mess. The bed was unmade, the furniture was old and battered; and everything was disorganized.
And my friend the sword-swallower lay sprawled out on the floor of the small room. He was still wearing his costume—green tights, and nothing more. The black matted hair of his chest was stained with deep red, already turning purplish.
Someone had killed him with one of his own swords; it was lying next to him. Somebody had rammed the sword into him, then yanked it out. That explained the ungodly yell.
“We were detailed to watch the carnival,” one of the State Troopers explained. “Just in case of fire or an animal escaping or something like that. And when we heard that yell we came fast.”
“You check the sword for fingerprints?”
“It had been wiped clean; not even the sword-swallower’s prints were on it.”
Judson was wringing his hands and looking unhappy and tense. I looked at him closely. He was about 35, very thin, very scared.
“What’s the dead man’s name?” I asked him.
“Bergonzi. Enrico Bergonzi. He’s been with the show for five years.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“A girl friend?”
–
Judson shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t keep such close tabs on my personnel.”
“Okay. You have any idea who would want to murder the sword-swallower?”
“He didn’t seem to have any enemies.”
“What sort of man was he?”
“Reserved. Aloof. Like a lot of carnie people. He didn’t make friends too easy. He kept to himself, practiced his routines, did exercises. Best damn swallower you ever saw in a show this size.”
I nodded, trying not to look at the mess on the floor. Half an hour ago Enrico Bergonzi had been flirting with death, shoving glass tubes down his throat—but here he was, dead. I scowled. I didn’t want to get too deeply involved in this murder; I was here for other reasons, and I knew that the local police would be very glad to let me do the brunt of the investigating.
I glanced at the two locals and said, “I’m turning this case back to you. I’ll conduct an independent investigation, but the jurisdiction is yours.”
“Yessir.”
I said to Judson, “You better get yourself a drink. You look ready to collapse.”
“I am. The horror...of this...”
“Tell your employees to stick around on the grounds tonight. I imagine the Troopers are going to want to question them. What time do you close the show?”
“Sundown. Around seven-thirty or so.”
“Spread the word around that none of the carnie people are to leave the grounds until they’ve been cleared through the police. And try to keep everything normal until closing time. Don’t let the word get to the customers about what happened.
Judson’s lips quirked. “Of course not. Don’t you think I know my business? You think I want a panic? Or that...”
“Yeah,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m not implying any criticism of you, Mr. Judson. Just telling you the way things are to be run.”
He nodded. “Naturally. I’m sorry...The strain...”
“I understand. Get yourself a drink.”
–
I got out of there, because in the July heat it wasn’t pleasant to hang around in a room with three other live men and one messily dead one. I felt sorry for poor Bergonzi, but I couldn’t let myself get too involved in the investigation for his murder.
That was the job of the local police. But in a way I saw I could capitalize on the death of the unfortunate performer. By pretending to be investigating the Bergonzi murder, I could snoop around freely asking questions—while quietly doing my real job, which was looking for Lois Hannon.
And I didn’t have any immediate notions of where to begin on the Hannon business. I couldn’t go up to anybody in the carnival and say, “Do you happen to know if a girl who looks like the one in this photo is disguised as a member of this outfit?”
Uh-uh. If Lois had really joined Judson’s show, she would need a confederate to help her. I didn’t want to risk alarming her by spreading the word that I was hunting her; that way she might slip off, and I’d never be able to track her.
Instead I had to pussyfoot around and hunt for her. Was she selling popcorn? Hiding under a clown’s makeup? Wearing a gorilla suit? She might be anywhere.
Oh nowhere.
I didn’t know; I just had to keep looking. Seek, and ye shall find.
–
Judson and the cops came out of Bergonzi’s trailer and headed across the way to the main office of the carnival. I caught up with them.
“I want a list of every employee you’ve got,” I said. “Is there such a list handy?”
“I’ll give you the payroll list.”
Inside the office, he rustled round until he found it. The list consisted of three legal-length mimeographed sheets with about fifty names on it. It covered everyone in Judson’s employ—roustabouts, clowns, freaks, animal trainers, refreshment vendors.
“Anyone special you’d like to see?” Judson asked.
I shook my head. “I’ll conduct my own investigation. Meantime you cooperate with the State Troopers in every way you can.” He seemed to be calming down now, getting control of himself; these carnie bosses are tough. “You say there’s never been any violence in your outfit before?” I asked.
“No more than’s normal in this kind of business,” Judson said. “A little friction, a bit of jealousy, a fist-fight now and then.”
“Was Bergonzi mixed up in any of this stuff?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And you couldn’t pick out anybody who might want to kill him?”
Judson gestured with turned-out palms. “No one.”
“Okay,” I said. I’ll leave it at that.”
I left.
–
The list he had given me included four people designated as clowns; they were all men, and they doubled as roustabouts when it came time to move the show to the next town. It didn’t seem likely that Lois Hannon was one of them, but it was worth a try.
I spent the next hour wandering around the carnival grounds hunting up those four clowns, one at a time, and talking to them. By the time I was finished, I felt ready to start cake-walking myself. All four were men; under the thick coating of make-up I saw the stubbles of their beards, and that ended one nice theory. If Lois was in this carnival, she wasn’t pretending to be a clown. Not unless she had a case of five o’clock shadow—in which case she’d be doing better as the bearded lady.
The afternoon died slowly into evening as I prowled around Judson’s Traveling Carnival. As the shadows deepened, people began leaving. I wondered how many of them knew that a man had been brutally murdered during the day.
–
I interviewed about thirty people on Judson’s list—all the popcorn-and-frankfurter girls, the women who were listed as secretarial assistants, bareback riders and the tumblers. By the time I was finished there was a checkmark next to every female name on the list Judson had given me. I had talked to them all; and unless miracles were happening again, not one of them was Lois Hannon in disguise.
During the afternoon other local police arrived too, investigating the Bergonzi killing. The staff people became tight-lipped and sullen from too much questioning. By twenty after seven, the last customer had left the carnival grounds. Clumps of performers and carnie workers sat here and there on the grounds, annoyed and unhappy. This was their free time. Some—like the fat lady and the other freaks—probably never ventured beyond the confines of the picket fence; but the others, whose appearance wouldn’t attract attention, probably went into town each night to relax and live it up. They were confined to grounds until further orders, and they didn’t like it.
Tension seemed to hang electrically in the air over the carnie grounds. I was figuring on another hour of snooping around, no more. I was getting nowhere. Tomorrow I would drive back to the city, report that Lois Hannon was nowhere to be found, and await developments. Hell, I had tried, hadn’t I?
And Bergonzi’s murder wasn’t my affair. It was too bad it had to happen while I was here, but I wasn’t responsible for conducting the investigation.
–
It was nearly eight, and the long summer day was just about over, when I made up my mind it was fruitless to stick around any more. I strolled toward the exit gate. On my way I met the ranking Trooper on the grounds.
“Leaving?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’ve done all I can here; you have any leads?”
He shook his head glumly. “My men have interviewed just about everybody on the premises. Nobody had any reason for killing Bergonzi. And everybody seems to have a passable alibi for the time of the killing. These carnie people stick together and they stick together close.”
“Have you given consideration,” I said, “to the possibility that it wasn’t a carnie killing? That one of the townspeople might have done it?”
He moistened his lips. “We’ve thought it; but nobody in town would have a motive either.” He shook his head. “In two days this carnival is supposed to pull up and head for Albany. Dammit, why couldn’t they have waited ’til they were up there before they had any murders?”
I knew what he meant, and I sympathized. He was interested in protecting the lives and limbs and property of local people; he didn’t care much about itinerant carnie folk. But the law said his job was to find Bergonzi’s killer, and he was stuck with it. I muttered something encouraging and went on my way.
I hadn’t gone more than twenty feet before I heard a high boyish voice yelling, “Leave me alone! Get away from me, damn you...”
Trouble. The voice was coming from behind one of the trailers. I went to see what was up.
–
In the half-darkness, I saw two figures struggling in front of a trailer. It seemed as if one of them was trying to drag the other into the trailer. One was a heavyset man; the other was slim and boyish.
I clamped one hand on the back of each neck and pulled them apart. “What’s going on here?”
The boy pointed at the other one and said, “That sloppy pig...”
“I didn’t mean anything!” the other protested. “I just wanted to be friendly that’s all. All a big mistake, officer. Nothing to get excited about, just...”
“Who are you two, anyway?” They were carnie people, but they were out of costume and I didn’t recognize them in normal dress.
“S-sam Johnson,” the bigger man said. “I’m one of the clowns. I was only...”
“And how about you?” I asked the kid.
“Mike Leroy,” he said.
“Did I see you around today?”
“How should I know?”
“I’m the female impersonator,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m a pansy. And if this old nonce thinks he can paw me just because—look, I’m willing to forget the whole thing. Let’s just drop it.”
–
I stared at him, remembering how convincingly sexy he had looked while made up as Marilyn Monroe. He was of medium height, slim and narrow-shouldered; his face looked soft and gentle in the darkness. His hair was cut short; it was dark and floppy. Dressed as he was in man’s clothes, he looked quite different from the voluptuous siren that had been on display this afternoon.
I said to the clown, “Okay, beat it. And if I hear you’ve been bothering this fellow again I’ll have you run in on a vagrancy charge.”
“I won’t make no trouble,” Johnson said, and went shuffling off into the dark.
To the kid I said, “Has he ever pulled that before?”
“He’s been making eyes at me ever since I joined the troupe. Thinks that just because I’m good at imitating women I’ll make a good lover-boy for his kind. Well, it isn’t so.” Leroy chuckled. “He’s a pitiful old creep. I wish he’d take no for an answer. Good night, officer.”
“Good night,” I answered mechanically.
–
I watched him walk away into the dark trailer area and saw why he made a good female impersonator. He had the distinctive feminine hip-swaying, the way of carrying his arms, the tilt of his head. With a little padding he could fool anyone who didn’t look too close. I wondered what made people do that for a living—men who were normal, as this kid had just demonstrated.
Then my jaw dropped half a foot and I realized what a dumb fool I had been. To stand here, talking to that impersonator, and not to catch on...
I started to run toward the trailer that Mike Leroy had entered. Suddenly the picture had come into focus. It all made sense.
–
I jogged up the two or three steps and pulled the trailer door open. The impersonator had been over by the clothes closet; he had taken off his shirt and was about to change into a new one, he whirled in surprise and alarm as I came bursting in.
“What are you doing in here!”
I smiled. He had pulled the shirt up, but not quick enough to hide everything that ought to be hidden. I saw a tight breastband wrapped around Mike Leroy’s chest, as if he had a couple of broken ribs, or as if he were trying to hide a woman’s breasts.
He wasn’t any impersonator; he wasn’t any he.
“Hello Lois,” I said.
“What are you talking about? And why are you in here? Where’s your search warrant?”
“I guess I don’t have one. This was pretty clever of you, Lois; if that clown hadn’t tried to make a pass at you I never would have thought of it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do; you’re Lois Hannon, not Mike Leroy. And you’re no female impersonator; you’re the real article.” I chuckled. “Nice and ironic, isn’t it? A runaway girl posing as a man who poses as women, and then getting into a scrape with a fellow who likes boys. You figure out a more complicated setup. I dare you.”
“You’re crazy.”
–
I took a couple of steps toward her. It’s true, isn’t it? You are Lois Hannon.”
“Of course not. I’m Mike Leroy.”
“Suppose you prove it,” I said. “Suppose you take your clothes off. Right here and now.”
“No!”
“Ashamed? I’m just another man, Mike, and I guarantee not to make a pass. Go on—take your clothes off; I’ll apologize if I’m wrong.”
“I won’t do any such thing.” There was a feminine quaver in the voice now; with tears choking the back of her throat, she was having trouble keeping it down in the proper register. She had had a haircut, and she looked like a boy of eighteen or so—a rather effeminate boy, though.
I took a couple more steps toward her. “You won’t take off your clothes? Suppose I do it for you? Suppose I strip you down to the buff to find out whether you’re really Mike Leroy?”
I reached out and my hand caught the belt of her troopers. She jerked away, slapped at me, then crumpled down in a sobbing heap on the bed.
“Don’t touch me,” she whimpered miserably. “You win. I am Lois Hannon. I guess I couldn’t get away with it forever. What do you want with me?”
“I’m a detective from New York. Investigating the death of your father.”
–
She looked up, pale, frightened. “Investigating—the death of my father...?”
“You knew he was dead, didn’t you?”
“Of course. I read about it in the papers. But why should detectives be investigating...”
“Because of your disappearance. It left an unanswered question.”
“You think I murdered my father?”
“I don’t think anything,” I said. “My job was just to find you and bring you back to New York for questioning.”
She laughed, almost hysterically. “I guess you could say I murdered Daddy, couldn’t you? Even though he was alive when I walked out on him.”
“What do you mean?”
She said, “I went in there that day to tell him I was leaving—running off to be with Mack.”
“Mack?”
“Mack Judson; he runs this show. I met him last year upstate, when I was vacationing. I told Daddy I loved Mack, that I was going to live with him, maybe marry him. He threatened to disinherit me. Started fuming and raging, the way he always does—did. So I told him I could do this without his money, that he could cut me off if he liked. I was going away with Mack. I didn’t even let him answer. I just turned around and walked out, and got a train up here to join Mack. The next day I read in the paper that he—he had had a heart attack, and died. He must have had the attack right after I walked out. And I heard the police were looking for me.”
“So you got a haircut and your boyfriend gave you a job in his carnival.”
“I didn’t want to go back. I don’t want the filthy money! I just want to be near Mack...”
Footsteps sounded suddenly outside the trailer. I heard the door opening. I stepped quickly into the open clothes-closet, and shut it.
–
A moment later, I heard Judson’s voice saying “Thank heaven those cops finally left! Pawing around, snooping. But they would never have found out why Bergonzi got it. They...”
I stepped out of the closet just as Judson stopped talking. Lois had signaled him to shut up, but it didn’t do any good.
I had a .38 in my hand when I stepped out. You never take chances with carnie people.
“Hello, Judson. I was just paying a visit to your girlfriend.”
“But you...”
His eyes went from me to the girl, and she nodded wearily. “He knows about me—about us. About everything,” she said.
“I don’t know about Bergonzi yet. At least I haven’t heard it from your lips, Judson. Why did you kill him?
“Who said I killed him?” Judson’s thin features quivered in agony. He glared at the girl. “You lousy little squealer! Why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut! What have you two been doing in here?”
Then he realized he was hanging himself.
Lois said softly, “Mack, I didn’t say a word about Bergonzi to him.”
He sank down in a chair and ran his hands despondently through his graying crewcut.
“You shot your mouth off, Judson,” I said. “Go on, finish it. Tell me why you killed him.”
–
Judson could just about get the words out. “He—came around to Lois’ trailer to borrow some insect spray, yesterday. He just barged in—she was undressed—he saw her, figured out the truth. This morning he came to her, said he read about her in the papers—that he would expose her as the missing heiress if she didn’t make love to him. She told me about it. When his act was over today, I went to his trailer—talked to him about giving him a raise. He didn’t suspect anything. I picked up one of his swords, kind of absent-mindedly, and then —when he was off-guard—I...I...killed him.”
The last two words seemed to be wrung out of Judson’s soul. For a moment everything was quiet in the trailer—quiet except for the girl’s continuous sobbing, and Judson’s harsh irregular breathing, and the thudding of my own heart inside me.
I didn’t speak. I thought of this whole crazy thing of a rich girl running away from her millions to live with the owner of a flea-bitten honky-tonk carnie, and of her weird disguise, and of the fatal little triangle that had formed yesterday and today.
–
Finally I said, “Okay. That’s about it. Judson, I’ll have to turn you over to the local authorities to stand trial for the killing. You want to put that confession in writing?”
“I guess so. What does anything matter now?”
I turned to the girl.
“What happens to me?” she asked.
“You’ll probably be called to testify at Judson’s trial. It’s got to be a First Degree charge, but maybe there’ll be mitigating circumstances that can get him off light.” It was a lousy situation, but I was just doing my job, that was all; and my job was to bring the Hannon heiress back to New York.
“You’re coming with me, Lois.”
“No! I want to stay here with Mack!”
There was a sour taste in my mouth. I said, “You’re coming back with me. There’ll be an inquiry, and then your father’s will has to be probated. If you’re cleared and given the dough, you can hire some fancy talent to get your boyfriend off. But I don’t think you’ll make it; you can’t buy him out of a murder rap.”
“I don’t want Daddy’s money! she wailed. “I just want Mack!”
It was a lousy situation. But my job was to bring her back, and Judson would have to stand trial.
“Come on,” I said. “Both of you. Let’s go.”
I shepherded them both out into the darkness.