I took a little break before starting The Carny Murders. I have finished Act I and with the exception of a few narrative hiccups/hiccoughs, I’m confident in the direction of Act 2. If you haven’t been keeping track, this is story number 4 of my second collection. It is a detective-less horror mystery that still has an impossibility. When this one is finished, I’ll see where I stand on word count.
Maybe there will be one more story, maybe there will be two. I’m much too involved in writing to think about it. I’m a man, and as we all know, men can only think of one thing at a time.
I’ve been offering little excerpts now and again just to reward readers of this blog. With It’s About Impossible Crime, I posted an entire story. I think this is better. Here is an excerpt from The Carny Murders —
No one looked when Sheila entered the ventriloquist’s tent.
That was unusual. Sheila was the tattooed lady of Hargrove Carnival. She was allowed—even expected—to show skin. Her outfit was little more than a few triangles and some string. Gawkers usually found themselves lost in her ink images.
Colors bled into crevices. Designs layered and overlapped until it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began. Maps and beasts and saints and storms sprawled across her skin, stitched together in gorgeous ink.
This crowd wasn’t interested. Every face remained fixed on the man seated on the platform with his hand up the dummy’s back.
Sheila sat at the edge of a bench. A bead of sweat slid from her neck and tickled the arch of her back. The afternoon heat was thick with the smell of sawdust and tobacco.
Marlow, the dummy, spoke first in a high, tight voice that sounded childlike, but with a brittle edge that made it clear it belonged to no child at all.
“Hey, hey, folks! Come see the wonder of the midway! The finest ventriloquist act in the world! The one and only Leonard Pike and his lovable little dummy pal Marlow! You say you’ve seen ventriloquism, but you’ve never seen anything to equal Leonard and Marlow! Only two passes, my friends! The show is about to start!”
Leonard responded with a midwestern monotone. “Well, jeeze, Marlow, the doors are shut. I think the show has already begun.”
“It starts when I say it starts, buddy.”
Sheila took measure of Leonard’s face. He wore the saddest milquetoast expression she’d ever seen. His jawline was almost concave and his pale eyes held a dull, uninquisitive vacancy. He looked like a bored vulture.
Marlow was childishly dressed with an oversize bowtie and suspenders. Its eyelashes were long and the painted red circles on its cheeks glowed like fresh lacquer.
The dummy’s head swiveled. Leonard’s lips barely cracked open as the dummy piped in its shrill voice. “Shut the doors! Shut the doors! We’re ready to start.”
The crowd giggled.
Marlow admonished them. “Wait until I say something funny before you get all giggly. I haven’t even begun insulting him yet.”
A few chuckles slipped through the benches anyway.
Leonard breathed an awkward laugh. “Now, now, Marlow. We must be polite to the paying crowd.”
The dummy’s head turned toward the ventriloquist. “Wait a minute, Leonard! You’re getting paid? You said we were doing this show for free.”
That got a rolling, thunderous laugh.
“Let’s tell the folks a little about yourself. You’re made from the finest maple. And you—”
“That explains all the sappy jokes. The only thing more wooden than me is your performance.”
Sheila wasn’t terribly impressed with the routine, but she was floored by Leonard’s control of the dummy. He was a natural. The movement, the timing, his vocal dexterity—all were outstanding, among the best she’d ever seen in fifteen years as a carny. If Leonard had a good writer supporting him, the act could be a sensation. Even with this hack material, he had the rubes eating out of his hand.
“Marlow, they call you a dummy.”
“I don’t know why. I don’t pay taxes and I didn’t vote for Coolidge.”
The adults in the crowd burst into early applause for that one.
Sheila had seen enough. She waited outside for the show to finish and Leonard to pack up his dummy.
The back of the tents was a gangway for performers to either hit another platform or head toward the trailers and food tents.Leonard soon appeared with the dummy case strapped to his back.
She stepped in front of his path. “Hey! You’re Lenny, the new ventriloquist.”
“Uh…Leonard,” he corrected her. His eyes caught the snake spreading across her cleavage. He kept staring. “My name is Leonard.”
This was going to be a cakewalk.
“Pleased to meet you, Leonard. I’m Sheila. I would tell you my job, but I think you can guess.” She lifted one arm in the air and locked the other to her hip. It was a pose meant to show off her colorful assets.
“Uh-huh,” he said, eyes still locked on the serpent.
She let the pose fall apart and settled back onto both feet. “How do you like Hargrove?”
“Hargrove?” He finally looked up at her face.
Sheila gave the light, foolish laugh men liked best. She’d practiced it for years. “Yeah, our employer. Hargrove Carnival. Do you like working here?”
He opened his mouth, but no answer came out.
“Maybe Marlow’s right. You really are the dummy.”
She meant for it to come off as an innocent joke, but the hurt on his face showed immediately. For a moment Leonard’s hand tightened on the dummy case strap. The movement was small but sudden.
“I didn’t mean it. It’s…it’s a line from your routine. Remember?”
He forced a smile. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have work to do. I’m in the middle of making a new dummy.”
It was time to push the issue. With some guys, soft ones especially, you just had to be firm and guide them. A guy like Leonard didn’t know what he wanted until someone told him. He had no vision for opportunity. Sheila knew better.
She slipped her hands onto his shoulders while still keeping her distance. “Raymond is paying us peanuts. You know that, right?”
He stood very still. “It’s a fair wage.”
“For most of these crumb bums maybe. But for people like you, people with talent, this is a dead end.”
“I’ve worked in worse places.”
“But have you worked in better? I have an offer for you. A chance at more money. The kind of money a guy like you deserves.”
“More money?”
“Meet me at the hooch mill at 10:00. We’ll discuss business.” She leaned in close to his ear, letting her breath brush the tiny hairs. “You can leave the dummy in your trailer. I only want to talk to you.”
She stole a quick glance at his crotch and saw the slight bulging of the fabric.
Yep. This was going to be a cakewalk.
Tales of Madness and Murder
- Killer Pete
- Madmen Prefer Blondes
- Red River
- The Carny Murders
- ?
James Scott Byrnside 