Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

Linda Mercer was slight, lithe as a whippet, with the purity of beauty of a madonna. Green-eyed, with long golden blonde hair, there was nothing madonna-like about her figure. A yellow sweater and a tight grey skirt outlined an exciting body.

Gil Holt was new this season with the carnie. He was the front talker, the barker, for the freak show. Around twenty-five, he was young for the job. He was darkly handsome, with a lean and hungry look about him. But he had a good voice and a gift of gab. He was doing a good job with the ten-in-one, pulling the marks in. The freak show was the carnie’s top grosser.

A clod of dirt slipped from Juval’s shovel, thudding hollowly onto the half-uncovered casket. The dirge-like sound scraped along my nerves like a file. I shivered and quietly drifted outside.

I paused by the bally platform to light a cigar, looking up the midway toward the smear of light in the carnie night that was the cook tent. The rest of the carnie was dark except for a few bulbs on a light stringer down the middle of the midway. The rides slumbered under their night hoods, and the show tents bulked dark and quiet banners rolled up for the night. The concession tents were also closed down.

I’m called Patch by the carnies, straight name Dave Cole. I’m the fixer for Tex Montana’s Wonder Shows. I’m part lawman, part grease artist. I keep peace among the carnies, which is no easy job, and grease the way with the local authorities in each new location to allow the concession joints to run wide open and the girlie shows to parade the girls in the buff.

I started toward the cook tent, thinking about Carl Mercer, the star attraction and operator of the ten-in-one. East year, Mercer’s first with the carnival, I had watched in his house trailer as Mercer hypnotized himself into a trance in preparation for his act.

It had been an eerie few minutes. Mercer had stretched out on his back on the couch, with his hands crossed over his chest. At the foot of the couch had been a metronome fixed in the beam of a flashlight. As I watched, Mercer had slipped silently into a deep coma. Two canvasmen had entered the trailer and carried Mercer, stiff as a board, into the freak show tent and placed him in the casket. Then Linda had locked the chain around the glass lid, and Juval had shoveled dirt onto it.

Although I don’t have the usual carnie skepticism, I found it hard to believe his act wasn’t gimmicked. Magnets in the lid and in the casket itself sealed it airtight when closed, much as a refrigerator door operates. I had seen needles poked into the man’s skin without Mercer flinching. I had seen a mirror held to his mouth without a trace of moisture showing. A search for a pulse revealed none. It always took a doctor to find signs of life.

A movement at the tent entrance caught my eye. It was Gil Holt. His face dark and scowling, he strode past me without a word.

I had wondered about Holt and Linda Mercer. Linda was a desirable woman, married to a much older man, and Gil Holt was a womanizer. I wouldn’t have been too surprised to learn of an affair between them.

But Carl Mercer was a jealous, possessive man, and he wouldn’t hesitate an instant to throw Linda out if he got even a hint of hanky-panky. And Linda had a good thing going. Mercer was quite well off, and I doubted she would risk losing that money by playing around with some guy. Once a renowned escape artist in the mold of Houdini, Mercer had made a fortune, but something had happened, causing him to lose his nerve. Now he was reduced to the carnie level.

A small figure scooted past me toward the cook tent. It was Juval. That meant that Mercer was out of the pit for the night. I knew Juval was headed for the cook tent for a bottle of pop. He slept on a blanket under the ten-in-one bally platform, and at the end of every engagement his little nest was ringed round with empty pop bottles.

I dropped my cigar onto the ground, toed it out in the wood shavings, and headed toward the cook tent myself. It consisted of a long counter with stools and a number of tables with folding chairs.

It was open to the public, of course, but its primary purpose was to feed the carnies, those who didn’t cook their own meals. After closing each night the cook tent served as a gathering place. Even those carnies who cooked in their trailers or tents usually came in for coffee and pie. They gathered to exchange scuttlebutt and to boast or bemoan the night’s grosses.

I flipped my hand in greeting to Kay Foster at the cash register in front and went along the counter, picked up a slab of apple pie and a cup of coffee and found an empty table in the back.

I saw Gil Holt sitting alone at a table in front. When I’d finished my pie and lit a fresh cigar, I glanced his way again and saw with some astonishment that Linda Mercer had joined him. They were talking heatedly in low voices.