The Fear In Yesterday's Rings Part 3

I told her how I had come across Phil Statler, homeless, missing fingers and toes, waiting to die in a welfare ward at Bellevue Medical Center.

"G.o.d, Robby," she said in a small voice. "I had no idea; n.o.body had any idea. I left the circus almost eight years ago. A while back I heard that the circus had changed hands, but we all just a.s.sumed that Phil had sold at a good price and was off lazing around on the beach of some Caribbean island."

"No. Phil's circus was his body and soul; he would have died working it, and now he'll surely die a lot sooner if he doesn't get a circus to work. I want to make a stab at buying his old one back for him, maybe through some sort of limited partners.h.i.+p deal, a consortium with Phil actually running the show like he always did. I'm here to see who might have some money to invest in a venture that, even if we could keep it going, might never show any real profits. If I can get a promise of financial backing, then I'll approach whoever owns the circus now and make an offer. At this point, quite frankly, the idea is all I have. For all I know, the circus may no longer even exist."

"It exists," Harper said with an abrupt nod of her head. "I'll tell you what I know about it-which isn't much. We don't get the kind of scuttleb.u.t.t on that show that we do on all the others. All the performers now appear to be foreigners; if they speak English, they don't let on. n.o.body around here knows anybody who works it. It's been renamed 'World Circus.' The only things the new owner kept were the hardware, the rigging, the tractor-trailers, and the animals. They brought in a whole new stable of performers-people none of us had ever heard of. I don't know where all those people came from, but people around here who've caught the show say they're d.a.m.n good. Every act. In fact, they've got an animal trainer named Luther who's supposed to be as good as Gunther Goebbel-Williams, which means that it's a small miracle that Ringling Brothers hasn't hired him away by now. Believe it or not, this Luther rides Mabel the way you used to-and he's even managed, from what I hear, to teach the old girl some new tricks. I'd have bet a lot of money that n.o.body but you would ever get Mabel to do anything but rigging work."

"Are you sure n.o.body around here knows who those performers are?"

"I'm sure. Whoever they are, they didn't come from the usual places, American or European. What's more, World Circus doesn't do a whole lot of advertising or any other kind of promotion. They don't feature headliners, the way most circuses do. Everybody's a star-and n.o.body is."

"You mentioned how good this Luther is."

"Word of mouth, not promotion. It's a different way of doing circus business, almost as if they're attracting attention without even trying. I can't see how it works. You remember Henry Catlander?"

"Yes."

"He caught the show last year in Illinois, and he said there were barely a hundred and fifty people at the matinee. But he also said that all the acts were top quality; not a filler in the bunch. It just seems odd to have that kind of talent and then not do any major promotion. They must be losing money."

"I certainly hope so. You hear any rumors about what individual or corporation owns it?"

Harper shook her head. "I've told you all I know-except for the fact that everybody connected with the circus seems to be very unfriendly. Henry wanted to go back to the pens and dressing area after the show to say h.e.l.lo-you know, as an ex-colleague-but they wouldn't let him. n.o.body knows where they go in the off-season. They all keep pretty much to themselves."

"Where do they winter the livestock, store the rigging and the trucks?"

"Beats me. They don't come anywhere around here."

"Well, with a little luck I'll be able to change World Circus back to Statler Brothers Circus. A lot depends on my getting a name and financial figures from the bank that auctioned off the circus in the first place. If I can do that, then I can prepare to make an offer-a.s.suming I can get the financial backing I need. Do you suppose there's anyone living around here willing to take a flyer on owning a piece of a circus that would be run by Phil Statler?"

"Considering the circ.u.mstances, I think you'll find a number of enthusiastic backers-especially me. But it's easy enough to find out. I'll arrange a little get-together for tonight, and then you can make your pitch yourself."

"Harper, I didn't call you because I wanted to put you to any trouble."

"Don't be silly. Just about all the entertainment in Palmetto Grove takes place in people's homes, and everybody's ready to party on short notice. I won't go to any trouble. I'll have a batch of pizzas delivered, and you can make your pitch after we eat. Let me take care of it. Why don't you go upstairs and take a nap? You look tired."

"What? Oh, I don't think-"

"Go on," she said, pus.h.i.+ng me ahead of her in the aisle between the gla.s.s cases, back toward the main house. "I want you to make yourself at home. You can take a nap in my bed. It's very comfortable. You'll like it."

Outrageous.

A "batch of pizzas" turned out to be an exquisite fondue smorgasbord that Harper had shopped for and prepared while I slept. Twenty people, all of them ex-circus performers with money, had been invited. I knew about half the guests, having worked with them at one time or another; the other half had heard of me, and knew Phil Statler.

After dessert of fruit compote and angel cake, I made what amounted to a sales pitch without financial figures. All of the successful businessmen and women at the gathering were eager to take part in the venture. A woman by the name of Florence Woolsey-one of the three former fat ladies at the party who had partic.i.p.ated in a weight-loss program after retirement and who was now, if not exactly svelte, at least no more than zaftig-was a lawyer, and she volunteered her legal services if and when the time came to draw up agreements and corporate papers. Everyone agreed that the new owner must have picked up the circus at a bargain price, and I was authorized to make an offer that would guarantee the owner up to a hundred percent profit; if he was willing to sell but wanted more money, I was to bring back his counteroffer for the group's consideration.

All in all, I decided, it had been a most remarkable day and evening. Now I was in the kitchen with Harper, helping her empty the dishwasher and put the dishes away. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my courage, I sidled over to her as she stacked dishes, pecked her on the cheek. I said, "Thank you, Harper. You did real good."

Her response was to turn and press her lips against mine. "The pleasure was all mine, sir," she murmured in her husky voice. "You're quite a public speaker; that was some speech you gave."

Suddenly I felt flushed, and I dropped my gaze. "The project sold itself. Everybody wants to help Phil."

"What do you think of the werewolf killings?"

"Huh?" I was still very conscious of the feel and taste of her lips on mine, and more than a bit distracted by the sudden physiological change she had effected in me, in my groin.

"The werewolf killings. Jesus, don't you remember? That's what everyone was talking about by the end of the evening. Henry had just come back from Kansas, and he was telling us about them. It's all they talk about in that part of the country. I would think a werewolf would be right up your alley. I have a file on you, remember? I know the kinds of strange cases you get involved in."

"Well, it sounds to me like your file is out of date. I don't get involved in that kind of stuff anymore." It wasn't quite true, but the more bizarre cases Garth and I had become entangled in over the past few years were not matters I wished to discuss with Harper. "My brother and I are partners now, and mostly what we do are cut-and-dried investigations for corporations, congressional committees, and lawyers. It's a lot more boring than working with poisonous snakes, I a.s.sure you."

"But don't the killings interest you? There have been seven of them so far-all men, disemboweled and with their throats torn out, and partially eaten. Ugh."

"Sure, they interest me, but not because of the werewolf angle. That's just a tag the supermarket tabloids came up with to sell papers; I see the stupid headlines every time I go shopping. The only good story I've seen on the matter was in the New York Times; they ran a piece after the fourth killing on the growing hysteria in the Midwest. It's interesting, yes, but werewolves don't exist."

"I know, but what kind of animal kills like that?"

"My guess is that the culprit is that most dangerous and savage beast on the face of the earth-one of us, a human being. Those killings have all the earmarks of the work of a serial killer."

"A subject on which Dr. Robert Frederickson is an acknowledged expert."

"You flatter me. I told you I don't do that stuff any longer."

"But even the eating of the flesh . . ."

"Sure-a.s.suming the flesh really was eaten and not simply made to look that way. What else could it be but a human? There aren't any wolves or bears left in that part of the country; even if there were, no single rogue individual or pack would operate over the range indicated by the killings, sometimes hundreds of miles apart, across the Midwest. The same holds true for feral dogs, and a rabid animal would have died by now. No, it's a man. He could be using special instruments for all the rip-work, but it's not inconceivable that he's using only his own teeth and fingernails. When you're dealing with serial killers, no degree of savagery or kind of behavior is too bizarre to be discounted."

"But they're supposed to have found tracks, hair, and saliva- and they can't identify the animal that left them."

"That sounds like tabloid headlines. My sources may not be all that much better, but from what I've read, the FBI isn't talking about what they've found. But even if it is true, it just means the killer is having fun at the expense of the media while he thinks he's being clever. Footprints are easily faked, as any Bigfoot aficionado will tell you, and the DNA of hair and saliva can be altered by irradiation or chemicals. The man gets his jollies by killing, and then by ratcheting the terror up a notch by having people believe there's some kind of savage, maybe even supernatural, animal loose."

"Robby, what if a tiger escaped from the circus-I mean our old circus, World Circus? If you look at a map, you'll see that all the killings have taken place roughly along, around, the route the circus takes-or used to take."

I shook my head. "The circus had to be the first place the police, state troopers, and finally the FBI checked. The World Circus people may be unfriendly, but I have to believe they'd feel sufficient civic responsibility to report to the authorities if a tiger was missing. A tiger might have the natural equipment to kill like that, but it would be far more likely to go after cattle and sheep than people-especially a circus tiger. Besides, where- and for how long-could a Bengal or Siberian tiger hide out in the Great Plains? No, this werewolf is a man, a heavy-duty psychotic, and you can bet there are almost as many FBI agents in the field in the Great Plains states right now as there are farmers. I'll let them hunt the werewolf; I'm going out there to hunt a circus."

Harper thought about it, nodded. "I guess you're right," she said. She paused, then-as if the thought had only just occurred to her-grinned and snapped her fingers. "Oh, by the way, did I mention that I was going with you?"

I stared into her face, slowly blinked. "Actually, I don't believe you did mention it."

"Well, I am. I owe myself some time off, and I can't think of a better way to use it than to help Phil-and to spend some days with you. It just so happens that I have a Lear jet parked at an airport a twenty-minute drive away; she'll go eight hundred twenty miles an hour, no sweat. I'm a h.e.l.l of a pilot, if I do say so myself, with instrument rating. You want to find a circus that could be anywhere along a fifteen-hundred-mile circuitous route between northern Texas and the Dakotas. Unless you enjoy driving and have a lot of time to kill, I figure a small plane can't hurt. What about it, Robby?"

"What about it? Are you kidding me? I hope you didn't make that very generous offer as a kind of gesture, hoping I'd turn it down, because I definitely accept."

"Good. It'll be fun. We'll drop your car off first thing in the morning and take a taxi to the airport. I'll file a flight plan, and we'll be off."

"Outstanding."

Harper nodded again. "Now that you've got your own personal pilot, sir, I'd say you have more options. Do you still want to start off at the bank in Chicago, or do you want to try to get a fix on the circus itself first?"

"Let's find the circus first. I'd intended to start off at the bank, but it might be a good idea to eyeball the show first to see just what it is we intend to buy, and I may be able to pick up some information."

"Check. Want a brandy?"

I shook my head. "No, thanks. Because of you, I've had more than enough . . . stimulation for one day. If we're leaving first thing in the morning, I'd better get some sleep. I saw a motel out on the-"

"Robby, you really are a silly goose. Now that we have our traveling plans settled, we have to get the other thing out of the way."

"Uh . . . what other thing is that?"

"s.e.x, of course. We're going to be spending a lot of time together. I certainly think we both have a real itch for each other, and if we don't scratch it we're just going to be distracted. In a way, you and I have been l.u.s.ting after each other for close to twenty years. Don't you agree that we should do something about it?"

"Uh, I-"

"Don't you want to sleep with me, Robby?"

"Uh, I-"

"That's exactly what I thought," she said as she pushed me ahead of her out of the kitchen, toward other quarters.

Harper shuddered, sighed deeply, then rolled away from me in the warm sea of darkness that was her bed. "My G.o.d, Robby, that was good," she murmured.

Good? It had been . . . outrageous.

"Mmm."

"You've been practicing."

"Mmm."

After a few moments she rolled back toward me, settling her naked body against mine. Her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against my ribs. "Good night, Robby," she whispered.

"Mmm," I replied as I put my arms around her and held her tight. I could feel the beating of her heart, almost indistinguishable from my own.

I couldn't recall a time in my life when I had been happier, more at peace. More satisfied. And yet, in the back of my mind, always, there was a dark place where an inextinguishable fear flickered like an eternal black flame. I was a dwarf; I was different. All my life I had expended a great amount of energy competing, trying to make up in daring, wit, and sheer skill, not to mention stubbornness, for what I lacked in physical size. It was something I could do myself, and did not require anyone else's cooperation. I had been in love with April Marlowe, but the gentle witch from upstate New York had been quite different from Harper Rhys-Whitney, snake charmer extraordinaire and legendary crusher of strong men's egos. Loving, desperately wanting a woman, was not an adventure I was certain I had sufficient courage to try again.

And it might already be too late to turn away.

I'd come to hunt and bag a circus, but, lying in the darkness still redolent with the odors of our lovemaking, I couldn't help but wonder if I hadn't been the one hunted, already trapped, by an exotic creature from the circus in my past.

Chapter Four.

It was now almost midsummer. In the past, Statler Brothers Circus had started the season in March, in northern Texas, then worked its way north in a zigzag pattern through the Midwest to the Dakotas, then south to end the season in Louisiana in November. It was a fifteen-thousand-mile route, a lot of territory to cover. However, there seemed no reason not to a.s.sume that World Circus was not following the established route and schedule Phil Statler had originally traced across the heartland of America. If so, the circus would now be somewhere beyond the Ozark Plateau, in Missouri or Kansas.

It was midafternoon when Harper landed her Lear jet at a small airfield a hundred or so miles west of Springfield, close to the town of Lambeaux, which was our goal. Getting to Lam-beaux turned out to be a good deal more difficult than our journey from Florida; there were no taxis, and no places to rent a car. However, we were able to flag down a Greyhound bus that took us to a highway stop on the edge of town. Greeting us when we got off the bus was a faded, rain-soaked poster stapled to a telephone pole; according to the schedule listed on the poster, we had missed the local appearance of World Circus by ten days. If the information was accurate, the circus was now playing just south of Topeka, on county fairgrounds near the town of Dolbin, and would be there for four more days. The thing to do, we decided, was to fly to Topeka, rent a car, then drive the hundred and ten miles to Dolbin.

Inquiries in town informed us that there was no bus heading back in the direction of the airport until nine-thirty. We decided to spend the night at a bed-and-board in town and start off again in the morning.

The dwarf in the company of the beautiful woman attracted a good deal of attention, but the people of Lambeaux turned out to be open and friendly. We were told that World Circus had attracted decent crowds from towns within a hundred-mile radius for the week that it had been there. Considering the fact that the eighth "werewolf killing" had taken place only forty-five miles west of town while the circus was playing, townspeople thought it quite remarkable that so many people had been willing to leave the safety of their homes to drive any distance out in the open, especially at night. I tended to agree, and I wasn't pleased at all to hear that World Circus seemed to be solving its attendance problems.

There wasn't much to see in Lambeaux, and we saw it all in half an hour. Then, holding hands, we walked a ways out on the prairie, toward the setting sun. I could feel my s.e.xual hunger for Harper growing in me, and I looked forward to returning to our room after dinner in order to continue our exploration of one another. As we reached the border of a wheat field, Harper abruptly kissed me long and hard to show that she shared my hunger and need.

The town's only restaurant was really nothing more than a coffee shop that, in the evening, traded plastic tablecloths for linen, turned down the lights, and set candles on the tables. That was fine with us. In fact, the atmosphere was quite nice, and although it was a Thursday night, the restaurant was almost filled to capacity with farmers and their families, all scrubbed and dressed up for what was to them obviously an important occasion. I'd expected to feel the disorientation and sense of alienation I always felt when I returned to this part of America, where I had been born and raised, but in fact I felt quite comfortable. I suspected Harper had more than a little to do with this newfound sense of well-being. The Midwest was still, of course, no place for a dwarf to escape constantly being stared at, but I'd partially solved that problem by having us seated at a table at the back of the restaurant where I could sit with my back to the wall and hide, as it were, behind the flickering nimbus of our candle.

The house specialty was roast chicken, and it was good. We'd polished off a bottle of wine and were working on our brandies, talking softly, occasionally touching hands or brus.h.i.+ng knees and generally getting ourselves worked up, when Harper abruptly looked to my right, at a spot just above my shoulder. I turned in my seat, found myself looking up at a tall, lean man with long, gray-streaked black hair and sharp, angular features in a rather long face that his hair tended to accentuate. His eyes were black, bright, and he had a slight cast in the right one. His hair was definitely not heartland, nor was the soiled khaki safari jacket he wore. He had New York City written all over him, what with his almost studiedly unkempt appearance and his slightly frenetic air. He was staring down at me, breathing with his mouth open as if he might be suffering from asthma or some allergy.

"Can I help you?" I asked in a tone that was perhaps a bit more terse than was necessary. I didn't like being stared at from such close range, and I particularly didn't like having my little tete-a-tete with Harper disrupted.

"Oh, I-uh, I just wanted to make sure it was you, Dr. Frederickson," he said in a high-pitched, nasal voice. "I've been out in the field for some time. One of my graduate students working with me came into town for supplies. He spotted you and drove right back out to tell me. I was afraid I'd missed you, but then I asked around and was told there was a dwarf eating in here, and-"

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?"

"Oh, I, uh, excuse me." He took a deep breath through his open mouth, and I could hear the air rasping in his lungs. If he wasn't asthmatic, he had a pretty heavy summer cold. "I'm Nate b.u.t.ton, Dr. Frederickson. Dr. Nate b.u.t.ton. I apologize for interrupting your dinner, but I think I may be able to help you. I think we can help each other. I, uh-"

He wasn't going to go away, but I got him to stop talking by abruptly standing up and nodding toward Harper. "This is Harper Rhys-Whitney, Dr. b.u.t.ton. Why don't you sit down- for a few moments?"

The man with the long hair and face nodded gratefully with a quick, nervous bob of his head. He pulled an empty chair up to our table, sat down.

Harper asked, "Would you like a drink, Dr. b.u.t.ton?"

The man smiled nervously and shook his head, then turned his attention back to me. "If you'd waited a few more months before resigning from the university faculty, Dr. Frederickson, we'd have been colleagues. I'm there now. I've heard a great deal about you, to say the least. You made a lot of friends at the university, and everybody's sorry you left. In fact, n.o.body seems to be quite sure just why you-"

"What department are you in, Dr. b.u.t.ton?" I interrupted. I had no desire to talk about the incident that had led to my resignation. I had considered myself betrayed by the university administration while I had been searching for a friend whose life was endangered by the very people who had been pressuring the university to pressure me to cease and desist. Besides, I was once again sharply aware of the light-headedness that had nothing to do with alcohol, everything to do with the woman sitting across the table from me. As far as I was concerned, our intense, nervous visitor couldn't have picked a worse time to pop around; I'd been just about ready to suggest to Harper that we retire to our room for the evening.

"Zoology," he said. He paused to sniff, and clear his throat, then added, "Actually, my specialty is cryptozoology. In fact, I founded and edit what's considered to be the foremost journal in the field. I've been doing everything I can to make my particular area of study a bit more . . . uh, respectable."

Harper looked at me, raised her eyebrows. "What's cryptozoology?"

"The search for so-called hidden animals," I replied, suppressing an impatient sigh. "Cryptozoologists spend their time hunting for things like the Loch Ness monster, yeti, and Sasquatch. And maybe unicorns."

I'd tried to keep my tone even, but Nate b.u.t.ton might have picked up just a trace of sarcasm in my voice. A flush, visible even in the candlelight, spread up and over his prominent cheekbones, and he leaned forward in his seat.

"We're not all fools, Dr. Frederickson," he said, an edge to his voice.

"I never intended to imply-"

"We don't all traipse around the Northwest going gaga over phony plaster casts of footprints by Bigfoot. No serious crypto-zoologist believes that Sasquatch exists, although the jury is still out on the yeti. There are 'hidden' animals, Dr. Frederickson, and the best example I can give you is the coelacanth-a fish thought to be extinct for a hundred million years, until a fisherman in the Mediterranean caught one in his net some years back."

"I can certainly attest to the fact that there are hidden animals, Robby," Harper said thoughtfully as she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, "not to mention 'hidden' plants and insects. It's why I go to the rain forests each year, to search for them. My interest is poisonous reptiles, but I've seen an estimate that only a fifth to a third of all the insects on the planet have been discovered and cla.s.sified."

Great, I thought. For our unexpected visitor to have found a conversational ally in Harper was just what I needed.