Madball (8 page)

"Will you see if you can find her anywhere around the lot and tell her I said to ask her if she'd drop in the mitt camp as soon as she's free and has time? Look in the chow top first." He dug a quarter out of his pocket and flipped it to Sammy.

Sammy caught it and smiled. A nice smile Sammy had.

"Sure, Mr. Magus, I'll find her. And tell her you want to see her."

"When she's got time, Sammy. Don't make it sound like an emergency."

"Yes, Mr. Magus. Say, will you tell my fortune sometime?"

Dr. Magus laughed. "I'll tell it right now. You're going to get rich, Sammy."

"Gee. You mean paper money, folding money?"

"Lots of it, Sammy."

"When, Mr. Magus? Soon?"

"Maybe sooner than you think, Sammy. Run along now and find Maybelle before you forget what to tell her."

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE MURDERER had not slept well. Not nearly so well as he had slept Monday night after killing Mack Irby.

And in the long hours of last night he had come to the reluctant decision that Dolly Quintana was too dangerous to him to be allowed to live. Rather, it was not Dolly herself who was dangerous
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he felt full and complete confidence that she would never give him away, probably would not have even if he had not given her money
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but it was the explosive situation caused by Dolly's fear of Leon and Leon's completely psychopathic attitude toward Dolly.

He saw now that having given Dolly the money had been a mistake. Whether she used it in an attempt to escape or not, the fact that he had given her that money was a greater danger to him than the fact that she could connect him with murder. If she fled, Quintana would pursue and if he found and caught her the truth would come out. As it would if she stayed and Quintana found the money in her possession. In either case he'd force her to tell where she had obtained the money. He'd believe her as to where she got it, but never as to why. He was too crazy for that. He'd come with knives. And even if he managed to get Quintana first in self defense, the story would come out as to where Dolly had got it and all his careful planning would have been for nothing.

He felt pretty sure now that Dolly wasn't going to run. If she hadn't, up to now, it meant she didn't have the courage to do it. But he was glad now that she hadn't. Because even if she got away clean, if Quintana never caught her, there'd always be the chance that she'd
- well, she herself didn't have the courage to try blackmail but suppose she took up with a man who did have the courage, and confided in him? Or for all he knew Dolly might talk in her sleep or in her cups. Always the chance, even the thousandth chance, that something would happen. Dolly knew that he had killed Mack Irby and as long as Dolly lived he'd never feel completely secure.

Dolly must die. And quickly, for not only was the end of the season only ten days or so away but there was always the chance that she would gather what shreds of courage she had and run away, beyond his reach.

Tonight, if possible.

And he worked out a method that seemed foolproof. He knew for sure that Joe Linder, the talker for the freak show, wanted Dolly. And he had a pretty good hunch that Dolly would go for Linder
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under the right circumstances. Today, somehow, he'd verify those two things and if they checked, Dolly would die all right. Joe Linder would die with her and that was too bad but it couldn't be helped. For that matter he liked Dolly too, but when your own life is at stake
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not to mention the money
- you can't afford to be merciful, can you? Your own safety comes first.

Conning Joe Linder came first and he might as well get that over with right away because if Joe didn't fall for it, he'd have to make other plans, and damned quickly.

Maybe, if Joe really went for it, he could use Joe to get Quintana out of the way so he'd have a really good and safe chance to talk to Dolly. Linder and Quintana both worked for the same show and maybe Linder could think of some excuse to get Quintana to go into town with him. That would be perfect. If Quintana was safely off the lot he could even sit at the same table as Dolly in the cookhouse and talk to her face to face, convincingly. Nobody but Quintana would think anything of them sitting and talking together.

He left his trailer, being careful to lock the door behind him as always now, and waded through mud and water to Joe Linder's living top.

Joe was there, and Joe listened and was pathetically grateful for what he offered to do for him. And Joe said he was sure he could get Quintana into town with him.

The first step of Operation Dolly was successful.

CHAPTER NINE

MAYBELLE SEELEY SAID, "Thanks, Sammy." She gave him a quarter on the off chance that Doc hadn't paid him to look for her. If he had, it didn't matter. And she was glad Doc wanted to see her because she'd been intending to look him up later in the day anyway to ask him for that reading he'd promised to give her. His sending for her made it easier to ask, or maybe even the reading was what he had in mind when he'd sent the message.

On second thought, though, she hoped it wasn't that. Because it just might mean that he'd already cast a horoscope for her
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he'd asked her birth date so he could have
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and had found something bad or dangerous coming that he wanted to warn her about. If everything had been all right why would he have sent for her? Or he could have seen something in his crystal he thought he should tell her about. Or maybe he'd used numerology with her name, but she hoped not because it wasn't her real name, of course, and that would make it wrong. Or would it, since it was the name she used all the time? It was her stage name, kind of, and she'd read that movie stars consulted numerologists before they picked out the names they used in the movies, so it must be that a stage name counted. Her right name was Elsie Grabow, or it had been until she'd married that Dick Potter when she was seventeen but that had lasted less than a year before they'd broken up and she didn't know now if he was alive or dead or had maybe divorced her. But she hadn't thought much of either Elsie Grabow or Elsie Potter as a name so when she'd first got into show business, a pony in a burlesque road show, she'd picked a better one. She'd seen the name Mabel Seeley on a book and had liked it but had made it even better by changing it to Maybelle.

And she was still worried about Monday night and maybe the cops still finding out she'd been with Mack and making trouble for her. She hoped he didn't have any bad news about that. But it couldn't be that. The cops would have picked her up before this if they hadn't believed her.

She'd been drying her feet when Sammy had found her, having just come in out of the rain and having been foolish enough to wear ordinary shoes that were now coated with mud an inch thick. This time she put on what she should have worn before, rubber boots, and put on her slicker again. Out into the mud that was getting almost ankle deep in places now. But the rain had almost stopped.

She thought about what a surprise Doc had been Monday night. She supposed that at his age
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he must be in his fifties
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he didn't want a woman too often but when he did, wow. And yet how gentle and considerate he'd been,
h
ow different from Charlie and Mack and Dick and almost all of the other men she'd known. They all thought only about their own fun and didn't give a damn about the woman's part of it. Well, she'd tried to give him value for the alibi he was giving her and she knew she had, but the surprising thing was how much she herself had enjoyed it, even after those couple hours with Mack. Or maybe, by contrast, because of them.

Outside the mitt camp she called out, "Doc, you decent?" and he called back, "Not very. But come in, Maybelle." He'd been kidding, though; he was fully dressed, although he hadn't rolled up his bedding yet and was lying on it. But he sat up as she came in.

"Hi, Doc," she said. "Sammy said you wanted to see me."

"At least to see you, my dear."

Maybelle took off her slicker and hung it on the center-pole, stepped barefoot out of the boots. "Will you have time to give me that reading today, Doc? Or was that what you sent for me for?"

"It wasn't, but I'll gladly do it after we compare notes on our interviews with the police. That was what I had in mind. But before either, the amenities."

"The what?" And then Maybelle saw he was holding out a bottle of whisky to her. "Well, it's pretty early in the afternoon but all right, a short one."

She tilted the bottle briefly and handed it back. "Maybelle, was it a Lieutenant Showalter who talked to you?"

"I didn't get his name, Doc. Big guy, plain clothes, dark gray suit, and he had a mole on his cheek."

"That's the one. When did he talk to you?"

"A little before ten o'clock, I think it was."

"Just before he came here. And he hasn't returned, hasn't talked to you again a second time?"

Maybelle shook her head.

"Good. Then I'm sure you've got nothing to worry about. I think I sold him on the idea that Mack could have been alone in that sleeping top after all. At any rate, if he suspected you he'd have been back for a second round of questioning after he talked to me. If he hasn't by now, I think you're safe. If he does, just stick to what you told him the first time and don't let him get you mixed up."

"Sure, Doc."

"Even if he says he now has someone who saw you go to that sleeping top. He'd probably be bluffing just to see if he could get you to change your story. But even if he isn't bluffing, even if he confronts you with a witness who really did see you, stick to your story. It'll be his word against yours
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and yours is supported by mine, such as it is."

"Don't worry, Doc, I'll stick to that story whatever happens. If I changed it now I'd get you in trouble too."

"You are a good girl, Maybelle. Ready now for the reading or will you have another drink first?"

"Let's save the drink till after; I'll have one with you then. Are you going to run the cards for me?"

Dr. Magus stood up. "Let's sit across from one another here, my dear, at the table. And I would rather use the crystal than the cards. Palmistry and cards, Maybelle, are good for reading the future in a general sort of way. But for an answer to a specific question, always the crystal. Sometimes, my dear, I almost believe in the crystal myself, and think that I see things in it and that they are not purely my imagination."

Maybelle laughed. "You're kidding me, Doc. Sure, the crystal's fine if you'd rather use it But what made you think I had a special question? I haven't."

"But you have, whether or not you thought of it in connection with this reading. You want to know, do you not, whether the police will continue to believe your story of Monday night or whether trouble may still come to you from it?"

"Sure Doc, but you said
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oh, I see what you mean. You said you thought I was safe. But with the crystal you can find out for sure?" Doc was smart. She had had a special question and hadn't even realized it until he'd told her.

"I hope the crystal will tell me, Maybelle. I'll try. But I'm going to be honest with you; this will be a genuine reading or none. If I can see nothing in the crystal for you we'll pass it up and I'll run the cards. No, please don't light a cigarette. I want you to sit absolutely quiet."

His eyes dropped from hers to the crystal and she watched him stare into it, completely motionless. And she sat motionless herself so as not to distract him, so motionless that some of her muscles began to hurt a little. And she began to get scared a little. It was spooky the way he sat there so still and for so long. It must be five minutes at least and maybe ten. What if he was seeing something awful in there, her dying maybe, or being injured or going to jail for something she didn't do?

Then he spoke, his voice low. "I am seeing, Maybelle. But I am seeing things in your past life, not in your future. I shall tell you what I see and then perhaps those things will go away and I shall be able to see ahead. I see deep trouble that you have been in, and always because of a man who was a criminal. When you did something yourself that got you in trouble with the law, it was always because of the influence of a man who was evil."

It was so true that she clenched her hands tightly. Yet she had to protest. "Doc, Dick wasn't really-"

"Evil was too strong a word, Maybelle. But he was bad and he was bad for you. It has been your misfortune to be attracted to men like that. Dick was a long time ago. But there were others and recently there was Charlie. He was bad too."

"He'd been a criminal, Doc. But he was going straight. You know that. He was doing good on his job."

"Think, Maybelle, of how he happened to come here."

"He was hot, Doc, yes, they were looking for him for a job in
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he's dead now, so it don't matter I guess what I say
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in Kansas, a bank job, and they'd killed a cashier so the heat was on plenty and they hadn't even got any money out of it, just peanuts. But Charlie swore to me that that had cured him and he was going straight and that's why I got him the carney job. I was
with him for a while last winter but when I found out what he was I told him I was off him, I couldn't take it living with a man who did things that dangerous and-"