A PROLIFIC AUTHOR of popular fiction, especially science fiction and mysteries, Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was best known for his long series of novels about the international adventurer and private eye Chester Drum, beginning with The Second Longest Night (1955) and concluding a run of twenty exploits with Drum Beat—Marianne (1968).
The Drum character clearly owes a great deal to Mickey Spillane’s very tough private detective, Mike Hammer. While most of Hammer’s cases were set in New York City, the peripatetic Drum engaged in crime solving and espionage in such far-flung locales as Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, Berlin, India, South America, and Iceland. Commonly known as Chet, he was single, kept a bottle of booze in his office, and carried a gun that he wasn’t afraid to use.
Born Milton Lesser in Brooklyn, New York, he legally changed his name to Stephen Marlowe in the 1950s, one of the many pseudonyms he employed over his long and productive career; other names were Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, Darius John Granger, Jason Ridgway, C. H. Thames, and Stephen Wilder. He also was one of many authors who penned the later Ellery Queen novels, his titled Dead Man’s Tale (1961). He collaborated on Double in Trouble (1959) with the very popular Richard S. Prather as Drum teamed up with Shell Scott, Prather’s series P.I.
Marlowe was presented with The Eye, the lifetime achievement award given by the Private Eye Writers of America. He also won the Prix Gutenberg du Livre, a French literary award.
“The Shill” was originally published in A Choice of Murders, edited by Dorothy Salisbury Davis (New York, Scribner, 1958).
EDDIE GAWKED AND GAWKED. The crowd came slowly but steadily. They didn’t know they were watching Eddie gawk. That’s what made a good shill, a professional shill.
He was, naturally, dressed like all the local thistle chins. He wore an old threadbare several years out of date glen plaid suit, double-breasted and rumpled-looking. He wore a dreary not quite white shirt open at the collar without a tie. And he gawked.
He had big round deep-set eyes set in patches of blue-black on either side of his long narrow bridged nose. His lower lip hung slack with innocent wonder. He had not shaved in twenty-four hours. He looked exactly as if he had just come, stiff and bone weary and in need of entertainment, off the assembly line of the tractor plant down the road at Twin Falls. He stared in big eyed open mouthed wonder at Bart Taylor, the talker for the sideshow, as Bart expostulated and cajoled, declaimed and promised the good-sized scuff of townsfolk who had been drawn consciously by Bart Taylor’s talking and unconsciously by Eddie’s gawking.
He was a magnificent shill and he knew it and Bart Taylor knew it and not only the people at the Worlds of Wonder sideshow knew it but all the folks from the other carnival tents as well, so that when business was slow they sometimes came over just to watch Eddie gawk and summon the crowd with his gawking and they knew, without having studied psychology, as Eddie knew, that there was something unscientifically magnetic about a splendid shill like Eddie.
They used to call Eddie the Judas Ram (cynically, because the thistle chins were being led to financial slaughter) and the Pied Piper (because the thistle chins followed like naive children the unheard music of his wondering eyes and gaping mouth). But all that was before Eddie fell in love with Alana the houri from Turkestan who did her dance of the veils at the Worlds of Wonder, Alana who was from Baltimore and whose real name was Maggie O’Hara and who, one fine night when she first joined the carnival at a small town outside of Houston, Texas, stole Eddie’s heart completely and for all time. After that Eddie was so sad, his eyes so filled with longing, that they didn’t call him anything and didn’t talk to him much and just let him do his work, which was shilling.
From the beginning, Eddie didn’t stand a chance. He was a shill. He was in love with Alana, who was pale, delicate, and beautiful, and everyone knew at once he was in love with her. In a week, all the men in the carnival were interested in Alana, whom nobody called Maggie. In a month, they all loved Alana, each in his own way, and each not because Alana had dunned them but because Eddie was a shill. It was as simple as that. Alana, however, for her own reasons remained aloof from all their advances. And the worst smitten of all was Bart Taylor, the talker and owner of Worlds of Wonder.
Now Bart finished his dunning and Eddie stepped up to the stand, shy and uncertain looking, to buy the first ticket. Bart took off his straw hat and wiped the sweat from the sweat band and sold Eddie a ticket. A good part of the scuff of thistle chins formed a line behind Eddie and bought tickets too. They always did.
Inside, Eddie watched the show dutifully, watched Fawzia the Fat Lady parade her mountains of flesh, watched Herko the Strong Man who actually had been a weight lifter, watched the trick mirror Turtle Girl, who came from Brooklyn but had lost her freshness in Coney Island and now was on the road, and the others, the Leopard Man and the Flame Swallower who could also crunch and apparently swallow discarded light bulbs and razor blades, Dame Misteria who was on loan from the Mitt camp down the midway to read fortunes at Worlds of Wonder and Sligo, a sweating red-faced escape artist who used trick handcuffs to do what Houdini had done with real ones.
But there was no Alana. Eddie waited eagerly for her act of the dancing veils, which was the finale of the show, but instead, the evening’s organized entertainment concluded with Sligo. After that, the booths and stalls inside the enormous tent would remain in operation although the central stage was dark. The thistle chins, wandering about listlessly under the sagging canvas both because it was hot and because they too sensed something was missing from the show, had left the expected debris, peanut bags and soft drink bottles and crumpled sandwich wrappers, in the narrow aisles among the wooden folding chairs in front of the stage.
Eddie found Bart Taylor outside in his trailer, spilling the contents of his chamois pouch on a table and counting the take. “Two and a half bills,” Bart said. “Not bad.”
“How come Alana didn’t dance?” Eddie wanted to know.
“Maybe she’s sick or something.”
“Didn’t she tell you?”
“I haven’t seen her,” Bart Taylor said, stacking the bills and change in neat piles on the table in front of him. He was wearing a lightweight loud plaid jacket with high wide peaked lapels of a thinner material. One of the lapels was torn, a small jagged piece missing from it right under the wilted red carnation Bart Taylor wore. The carnation looked as if it had lost half its petals too.
“Well, I’ll go over to her trailer,” Eddie said.
“I wouldn’t.”
Eddie looked at him in surprise. “Any reason why not?”
“No,” Bart said quickly. “Maybe she’s sick and sleeping or something. You wouldn’t want to disturb her.”
“Well, I’ll go and see.”
A shovel and a pick-ax were under the table in Bart Taylor’s trailer. Eddie hadn’t seen them before. “Don’t,” Bart said, and stood up. His heavy shoe made a loud scraping sound against the shovel. He was a big man, much bigger than Eddie and sometimes when the carnival was on a real bloomer with no money coming in they all would horse around some like in a muscle camp, and Bart could even throw Herko the Strong Man, who had been a weight lifter.
“O.K.,” Eddie said, but didn’t mean it. He went outside and the air was very hot and laden with moisture. He looked up but couldn’t see any stars. He wondered what was wrong with Bart Taylor, to act like that. He walked along the still crowded midway to the other group of trailers on the far side of the carnival, past the lead joint where the local puddle-jumpers were having a go at the ducks and candle flames and big swinging gong with .22 ammo, past the ball pitching stand where shelves of cheap slum were waiting for the winners, past the chandy who was fixing some of the wiring in the merry-go-round. For some reason, Eddie was frightened. He almost never sweated, no matter how hot it was. A shill looked too obviously enthusiastic if he sweated. But now he could feel the sweat beading his forehead and trickling down his sides from his armpits. He wasn’t warm, though. He was very cold.
There was no light coming through the windows of Alana’s trailer. The do not disturb sign was hanging from the door-knob. The noise from the midway was muted and far away, except for the explosive staccato from the lead joint. Eddie knocked on the aluminum door and called softly, “Alana? Alana, it’s Eddie.”
No answer. Eddie lit a cigaret, but it tasted like straw. His wet fingers discolored the paper. He threw the cigaret away and tried the door. It wasn’t locked.
Inside, Eddie could see nothing in the darkness. His hand groped for the light switch. The generator was weak: the overhead light flickered pale yellow and made a faint sizzling sound.
Alana was there. Alana was sprawled on the floor, wearing her six filmy veils. In the yellow light, her long limbs were like gold under the veils. Eddie knelt by her side. He was crying softly before his knees touched the floor. Alana’s eyes were opened but unseeing. Her face was bloated, the tongue protruding. From the neck down she was beautiful. From the neck up, it made Eddie sick to look at her.
She had been strangled.
He let his head fall on her breast. There was no heart beat. The body had not yet stiffened.
He stood up and lurched about the interior of the small trailer. He didn’t know how long he remained there. He was sick on the floor of the trailer. He went back to the body finally. In her right hand Alana clutched a jagged strip of plaid cloth. Red carnation petals like drops of blood were strewn over the floor of the trailer.
“All right, Eddie,” Bart Taylor said softly. “Don’t move.”
Eddie turned around slowly. He had not heard the door open. He looked at Bart Taylor, who held a gun in his hand, pointing it unwaveringly at Eddie.
“You killed her,” Eddie said.
“You killed her,” Bart Taylor said. “My word against yours. I own this show. Who are you, a nobody. A shill. My word against yours.”
“Why did you do it?”
“She wouldn’t look at me. I loved her. I said I would marry her, even. She hated me. I couldn’t stand her hating me. But I didn’t mean to kill her.”
“What are you going to do?” Eddie said.
“Jeep’s outside. Tools. We’ll take her off a ways and bury her.”
“Not me,” Eddie said.
“I need help. You’ll help me. A shill. A nobody. They all know how you were carrying a torch for her. You better help me.”
“Your jacket,” Eddie said. “The carnation. They’ll know it was you.”
“Not if we bury her.”
“Not me,” Eddie said again.
“It’s late. There are maybe thirty, forty people left on the midway. We’ve got to chance it now. It looks like rain. Won’t be able to do it in the rain. Let’s get her out to the jeep now, Eddie.”
“No,” Eddie said. He wasn’t crying now, but his eyes were red.
Bart came over to him. Eddie thought he was going to bend over the body, but instead he lashed out with the gun in his hand, raking the front sight across Eddie’s cheek. Eddie fell down, just missing Alana’s body.
“Get up,” Bart said. “You’ll do it. I swear I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Eddie sat there. Blood on his cheek. The light, yellow, buzzing. Bart towering over him, gigantic, menacing. Alana, dead. Dead.
“On your feet,” Bart said. “Before it starts raining.”
When Eddie stood up, Bart hit him again with the gun. Eddie would have fallen down again, but Bart held him under his arms. “You’ll do it,” Bart said. “I can’t do it alone.”
“O.K.,” Eddie said. “I feel sick. I need some air.”
“You’ll get it in the jeep.”
“No. Please. I couldn’t help you. Like this. Air first. Outside. All right?”
Bart studied him, then nodded. “I’ll be watching you,” he said. “Don’t try to run. I’ll catch you. I have the gun. I’ll kill you if I have to.”
“I won’t try to run,” Eddie promised. He went outside slowly and stood in front of the trailer. He took long deep breaths and waited.
Eddie gawked at the trailer. It was like magic, they always said. It had nothing to do with seeing or smelling or any of the senses, not really. You didn’t only gawk with your eyes. Not a professional shill. Not the best. You gawked with every straining minuteness of your body. And they came. The thistle chins. The townsfolk. Like iron filings and a magnet. They came slowly, not knowing why they had come, not knowing what power had summoned them. They came to gawk with you. They came, all right. You’ve been doing this for years. They always came.
You could sense them coming, Eddie thought. You didn’t have to look. In fact, you shouldn’t. Just gawk, at the trailer. Shuffling of feet behind you. A stir. Whispering. What am I doing here? Who is this guy?
Presently there were half a dozen of them. Then an even dozen. Drawn by Eddie, the magnificent shill.
There were too many of them for Bart to use his gun. They crowded around the trailer’s only entrance. They waited there with Eddie. Unafraid now, but lonely, infinitely lonely, Eddie led them inside.
They found Bart Taylor trying to stuff carnation petals down his throat.