Read Online Unhappy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stuart Palmer
Tags: Suspense
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rapidly filling table in his remark. “I thought there wasn’t supposed to be any more of that sort of thing after last week?”
“Last week?” prompted Rook. Here perhaps was his first real lead.
“The less said about last week, the better,” spoke up a slight, muscular-looking man in a white terry-cloth bathrobe who had just appeared and taken a place across the table. With him was an exotically pretty Latin woman in street clothes, who wore her right arm in a sling, also the little girl Rook had seen earlier doing practice turns outside the dressing rooms.
The conversation died, and Rook poked at his pie. “How’s the shoulder, Gina?” asked the bandmaster after a moment.
“Stinking.” She spoke in a heavy Italian accent. “What do you expect? I’m grounded for two weeks, maybe more.”
“Mama mia,” spoke up the little girl, “if you can’t fly for a while why don’t papa work out some sort of a fill-in act with du Mond? She’d be willing—”
“Eat and be silent, small one,” said Gina. “Drink your milk.”
They all continued eating in a heavy silence. Howie Rook felt more baffled than ever; the circus and its people seemed to have taboos well beyond his ken. At any rate, he reminded himself, James McFarley must have made some of the same mistakes, and trodden on some of the same toes. All he could do was to try to retrace the other’s footsteps, to walk that same shadowed path that had led eventually to the discovery of that painted, bewigged corpse in the locked apartment. Without, of course, walking it too far. Rook was a prudent man.
4
Clowns are pegs, used to hang circuses on.
—P. T. Barnum
I T WAS ONE O’CLOCK NOW, and Howie Rook hastily wound his way through the maze of tents and machinery and trucks, looking for the domain of the clowns, the place called Clown Alley. He tried to take what he thought was a short cut—and found himself in the horse-top. Here he rashly decided to go straight on through, noting as he passed that the magnificent Percherons and Clydesdales of the circuses he remembered had disappeared forever; all of the great draft horses that once had drawn the gaily painted wagons through the streets were gone with the parade itself. Here were only a hundred or so thoroughbreds, pure-bred Arabians, and white-and-gray resin-backs with stubby legs. Some of them turned to whicker at him, then noticed his formal apparel or his clean smell and wisely turned back, certain that he had brought them nothing to eat.
At the farther end of the tent were a pair of fat little striped zebras, gay sport-model jackasses. Rook had never seen a zebra this close, and he came up behind them and chirped pleasantly. He was surprised, to say the least, when both animals whirled as one and slashed out at him with neat little hind feet which came inches from his brisket. He leaped back and swore under his breath, not as much at them as at himself.
There was a rumble of laughter from the near-by exit, and he looked up to see Gordo, the Muscle Man human mattress, looking very amused and not at all sympathetic. “I didn’t know they were loaded,” Rook said wryly.
Gordo, in Cossack uniform now and evidently whiling away the time by throwing knives at an improvised target affixed to a tent pole, slammed a knife into the bull’s-eye and said, “A lot of things are loaded around the circus, mister. The show grounds is a bad place for an ammytoor to wander around in. People can even get theirselves hurt. You hell-bent to be a clown, you go be one. But you leave the animals—and the performers—strictly alone if you’re smart, see?” He came closer. “Don’t make the same mistakes as that smooth-talking guy who was around here last week with his little black notebook and his silly questions.”
Gordo turned and walked away, just as Howie Rook was about to ask a sensible question. There might be the makings of trouble here, he decided. The Muscle Man evidently had a sort of
“Last week?” prompted Rook. Here perhaps was his first real lead.
“The less said about last week, the better,” spoke up a slight, muscular-looking man in a white terry-cloth bathrobe who had just appeared and taken a place across the table. With him was an exotically pretty Latin woman in street clothes, who wore her right arm in a sling, also the little girl Rook had seen earlier doing practice turns outside the dressing rooms.
The conversation died, and Rook poked at his pie. “How’s the shoulder, Gina?” asked the bandmaster after a moment.
“Stinking.” She spoke in a heavy Italian accent. “What do you expect? I’m grounded for two weeks, maybe more.”
“Mama mia,” spoke up the little girl, “if you can’t fly for a while why don’t papa work out some sort of a fill-in act with du Mond? She’d be willing—”
“Eat and be silent, small one,” said Gina. “Drink your milk.”
They all continued eating in a heavy silence. Howie Rook felt more baffled than ever; the circus and its people seemed to have taboos well beyond his ken. At any rate, he reminded himself, James McFarley must have made some of the same mistakes, and trodden on some of the same toes. All he could do was to try to retrace the other’s footsteps, to walk that same shadowed path that had led eventually to the discovery of that painted, bewigged corpse in the locked apartment. Without, of course, walking it too far. Rook was a prudent man.
4
Clowns are pegs, used to hang circuses on.
—P. T. Barnum
I T WAS ONE O’CLOCK NOW, and Howie Rook hastily wound his way through the maze of tents and machinery and trucks, looking for the domain of the clowns, the place called Clown Alley. He tried to take what he thought was a short cut—and found himself in the horse-top. Here he rashly decided to go straight on through, noting as he passed that the magnificent Percherons and Clydesdales of the circuses he remembered had disappeared forever; all of the great draft horses that once had drawn the gaily painted wagons through the streets were gone with the parade itself. Here were only a hundred or so thoroughbreds, pure-bred Arabians, and white-and-gray resin-backs with stubby legs. Some of them turned to whicker at him, then noticed his formal apparel or his clean smell and wisely turned back, certain that he had brought them nothing to eat.
At the farther end of the tent were a pair of fat little striped zebras, gay sport-model jackasses. Rook had never seen a zebra this close, and he came up behind them and chirped pleasantly. He was surprised, to say the least, when both animals whirled as one and slashed out at him with neat little hind feet which came inches from his brisket. He leaped back and swore under his breath, not as much at them as at himself.
There was a rumble of laughter from the near-by exit, and he looked up to see Gordo, the Muscle Man human mattress, looking very amused and not at all sympathetic. “I didn’t know they were loaded,” Rook said wryly.
Gordo, in Cossack uniform now and evidently whiling away the time by throwing knives at an improvised target affixed to a tent pole, slammed a knife into the bull’s-eye and said, “A lot of things are loaded around the circus, mister. The show grounds is a bad place for an ammytoor to wander around in. People can even get theirselves hurt. You hell-bent to be a clown, you go be one. But you leave the animals—and the performers—strictly alone if you’re smart, see?” He came closer. “Don’t make the same mistakes as that smooth-talking guy who was around here last week with his little black notebook and his silly questions.”
Gordo turned and walked away, just as Howie Rook was about to ask a sensible question. There might be the makings of trouble here, he decided. The Muscle Man evidently had a sort of
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