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

I glanced around as Kay approached my table with a cup of coffee. Kay was dark, pretty and discontented with carnie life. We had a thing going. I had once been a practicing attorney, and Kay was always at me to return to private practice. I kept procrastinating. I liked the free and easy life of a carnival Patch.

“Hi, Dave. Got everything buttoned up for the night?”

“Just about, babe.”

She sat down and said in a low voice, “What’s with those two?”

“Gil and Linda? Could be they— Oh, oh!”

I broke off as I spotted Carl Mercer entering the tent and striding to the table where his wife sat with Holt. Juval trotted along behind him, the inevitable pop bottle in his hand.

Mercer paused beside Linda’s chair. He didn’t bother to keep his voice down, every word carrying easily. “I thought you understood our relationship, Holt. In any case I will clarify it now.”

“But I—” Holt started to say.

“You work for me as front talker,” Mercer swept on. “And that is the extent to which you are involved with my wife and me. Do I make myself clear?”

“No, you don’t,” Holt blustered. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

Mercer’s gaze was level. “I think you do. I think you know very well. There is a line which you do not step over. If you do, I will find myself another front talker.”

Holt’s show of indignation crumpled under Mercer’s penetrating stare, and he looked down at his coffee cup.

Mercer held out his hand. He said imperiously, “Come, my dear.”

Linda got up without looking at Holt and went out with her husband, Juval dancing at their heels. Holt sat staring down into his cup. Then he looked up, gaze sweeping the tent as if daring anyone to even look crosseyed. He got to his feet and stomped out.

“You think somethin’s going on between those two, Dave?” Kay asked. “Gil Holt and Linda, I mean?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Linda’s an idiot, if she’s fooling around. But then—”

“But then something’s always going on with carnies. Right, Dave?”

I changed the subject. “How about a movie, Kay? There’s a good one showing in town.”

“You’re sure you can leave the carnie for that long?” Then she relented, reaching over to touch my hand. “That sounds fine, darling. Soon as I close up the register.”

The crowd was gathering around the ten-in-one the next night as I walked up. Gil Holt was beginning his last bally pitch of the night. Juval was on the platform, banging on an iron wheel with a hammer and, capering on his short legs. Gil Holt, sporty in a bright shirt and dove-colored slacks, marched up and down, chanting into a small microphone cupped in his hand.

“Hi, lookee! Everybody down this way, folks! This is where the freaks are! The strange, the unusual, the weird, the unbelievable! Gather down in close for a free show!”

Holt motioned, and a parade of freaks filed up the short steps and lined up on the bally platform. Ikey, the Tattooed Man, wearing only a loin cloth, every inch of his exposed body, excepting his face, covered with tattoos. Flowers, ships, miniature landscapes, panels of comic strip characters. He flexed a bicep, and a naked woman performed a rippling dance.

Next the Crucified Man, who had small holes bored through his hands. With a hose he shot jets of water through the holes, while the growing crowd stretched, craning necks, and oohed and aahed. Next came Fumo, a tall man in a flaming-red Satan suit complete with horns, carrying two blazing torches. He tilted his head far back, rammed a torch down his throat until it seemed to go out, then removed it and leaned toward the audience, breathing flames like a dragon of olden times.

Gil Holt gestured grandly. “That’s enough! After all, we’re here to make money. We can’t show all our wonders for free, now can we?” He chuckled companionably. “What you see before your very eyes, ladies and gentlemen, is only a small sample of what goes on inside the tent.”

He wheeled and pointed a dramatic finger at the big center banner stretched across the entrance of the tent. The banner depicted the buried casket with Carl Mercer in it, eyes closed, hands folded across his chest. Across the top of the banner were huge letters: BURIED ALIVE!

“This is our main attraction, ladies and gentlemen,” Holt said smoothly. “You have to see it to believe it! This man was breathing, eating, living, only short hours ago. Now he is, for all practical purposes, dead. He is not breathing, his heart is not beating. Yet, less than one hour from now, he will return to the land of the living! You have to see it with your own eyes to believe it. So step right up and buy your tickets! No waiting, ho delay, the show never stops. It’s going on inside right this very minute!”