9
“Mr. Zahler?”
There was a small tap at his door that night, and Russell’s eyes flew open. He was lying on the bed in his room in the inn. Only a single bedside lamp was on, cutting through the soft, warm darkness like a moonbeam. It was one thirty in the morning. The digital radio that came with the room was playing something light and classical. He didn’t know much about music. Most of his life, his ears had been stuffed with the tinny sounds of carnival rides. But this was nice. It had lulled him to sleep when he’d only meant to nap for a while before meeting Anne in the kitchen at midnight for food, as had become their custom.
He slowly rose, his joints popping. He took his old magician’s robe from where he’d carefully laid it at the bottom of the bed and put it on to cover his old pajamas as he walked to the door.
Anne Ainsley was standing in the hallway, holding a plate that contained chicken salad, potato chips and a pickle. She had a cold, unopened can of beer in her other hand. “For when you get hungry,” she said, handing him the plate and drink.
She wasn’t upset that he’d stood her up for their midnight meeting. Hers was a life that accepted disappointment as inevitable. She was bored, and he entertained her. It was her curious streak that had led her up here with the plate she’d prepared for him, nothing more. She’d been drawn to his door to find out what was wrong. Perhaps she thought she might find him dead in his bed. That would certainly give her the excitement she was looking for. He wondered if she would mourn him, if that happened, if she would feel genuine sadness.
He wondered if anyone would, which was a new thought to him, and he took a moment to examine its weight and its edges. He didn’t like this new thought, he decided, yet seemed incapable of tossing it away.
“Please, Anne, call me Russell,” he said as he took the things from her. “I’m terribly sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”
“You’re tired. You’ve been doing a lot of walking lately,” she said. “Listen, I’m sorry to remind you, but the original reservation for this room, the one I canceled for you, is through Friday. New guests are coming in that day for the room. They’re regulars who come every year, so I can’t cancel without my brother hearing about it from them.”
“I understand,” he said genially. “Truthfully, I wasn’t planning to stay this long, but I found I enjoyed the company. I’ll be gone by Friday, for sure.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, leaning against the doorjamb.
All he wanted to do was go back to that soft, warm bed. But, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and all that jazz. “Florida. I spend my winters there every year.”
She smiled. The lipstick she’d just applied was smeared on her yellow front teeth. “That sounds nice.”
Nice wasn’t what he would call it. “It’s warm, at least.”
“It was unusually hot for October around here before you came. I guess you brought the cold with you,” she joked.
“That’s not the first time someone has said that to me.”
She laughed, then looked down the hall, afraid she might have woken the other guests, asleep in the night.
“Anne, you’ve made this old man more comfortable than he expected to be here. Your kindness has not gone unnoticed. Thank you,” he said, politely telling her to go away.
“You’re welcome, Russell,” she said, as he closed the door on her.
The fact that she’d been snooping in his room when he was out had not gone unnoticed, either, but he didn’t mention that. He always kept a strand of hair draped over his folded clothes, a strand from a long, blond lock that one of the peep-show girls named Bountiful Belinda had given him. It was his way of telling if someone had been looking through his things. Anne had been meticulous about putting things back, except for the strand of hair.
And, of course, the Great Banditi flyer she’d taken.
He kept waiting for her to put it back, not because it was dangerous for her to know who he was, but because he only had those three flyers left. They were his only mementos of his carnival days, along with his deck of tarot cards, his hypnotizing crystal and his robe. He had his memories, of course, both good and bad, and he never forgot anything, his mind like a movie on a screen, constantly running. But it was nice to have things he could touch, too, things that reminded him that it had all been real. The line between real and story was a very, very thin one sometimes.
He walked back to his bed and sat on the edge. He put the plate on his lap and ate, enjoying each bite.
Five days, he thought with wonder. He’d been here five days.
Two days—in and out—was how it used to be. He’d been quicker back then, after he’d left the carnival. The stakes had been higher back then, too. He’d had bigger marks and there’d been more money involved, so leaving quickly had been a necessity. These days he was strictly small-time. He had fewer files, and they were worth less money, so the sense of urgency was almost gone. Food was his main motivating factor these days. Food, and a soft place to sleep.
Luck had been with him when he’d met skinny, sneaky Anne Ainsley. He hadn’t realized how tired he’d been until he had this pillow-top, queen-sized bed to sleep in. The purple room was quiet and luxurious and he felt almost … dare he say it? Safe here.
Which meant he had to leave. Anyone who had ever worked the carnival circuit in his day knew that feeling safe meant sloppy, and sloppy led to bad things.
So he would get money from Claire Waverley, and be on his way.
Florida was waiting.
The campground where he spent his winters was called the Circus Tent, a place where retired circus performers who were down on their luck could stay for a few months at a time and get free meals and medical care. It had been founded by a former circus performer who had struck it rich later in life. It was for old circus and freak-show folks, mainly, but carnies were welcome, too. Only a few from Sir Walter Trott’s group were left. Russell would see a barker or a mechanic from the old crew every once in a while down there, and they’d smile and nod at one another. They all knew what had happened to the original Banditi in that field in Arkansas. A lifetime of keeping tabs on people, stockpiling secrets until he could make a buck or two off them, and yet the one secret that could ruin him everyone else kept.
Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what side of the moral compass we are all on. There are so many things to factor in.
No one knew what the original Banditi’s real name had been. Rumor had it that he’d been there from the start, at the Chicago World’s Fair. His skin had been as tough as leather and he’d had one glass eye, but he’d been oddly handsome in an exotic way. He’d been a big draw for the ladies, who had liked when he leaned in close to get secret clues about them, what they’d last eaten, what tiny initials were engraved on their lockets. He’d always given them just enough for them to believe he really was a seer, then he told them what they all wanted to hear: that their futures were filled with jewels and beautiful children.
Despite the attention, the Great Banditi’s sexual preferences had run in an entirely different direction. His eye, his real eye, had always been on the young boys who helped assemble and disassemble the booths, the ones who cleaned the midway at night and picked pockets for the owner, Sir Walter Trott himself.
Russell had been one of those boys, left at the carnival by his mother the snake charmer, after she herself had been charmed by a local man with some money. No one had been surprised when she’d left Russell behind—he’d been a wild boy with a mean streak, and she hadn’t been what anyone would have called nurturing—but everyone had been absolutely stunned that she’d left behind her beloved snake, an old albino python named Sweet Lou, who had slithered away a week later.
The Great Banditi had lured Russell into his trailer with kindness and taffy the night after his mother left and Russell had no place to sleep. Russell never dwelled on the details of that night. Or on the many details afterward. Almost ten years’ worth.
But when Russell had been seventeen, he’d seen the Great Banditi, drunk in that field in Arkansas, and something had snapped. The aging magician was with one of the orphans they’d picked up in Mississippi, a pretty boy with tan skin and dark eyes and no idea what was coming. It was dark and quiet, the rides shut down for the night, and most of the boys were cleaning the midway and feasting on discarded popcorn and half-eaten candy apples, glad at least it wasn’t them in that field that night. Russell had followed him into the field, for no reason he could ever explain.
When the Great Banditi had been found in the field in the morning, it looked like he’d gotten fall-down drunk and hit his head on a rock. The tan-skinned boy had run far away. Perhaps he was still running.
Everyone knew what had happened, but no one said a word. The original Banditi had been a horrible man, one who had cast a pall over the entire carnival, making it a bitter, fearful place to everyone on the inside. He raped and he stole and he cheated, and the owner could do nothing about it, because Banditi had something on him. What, no one would ever know.
Out of unspoken gratitude, Sir Walter Trott, a tiny man with very large ears, who said he’d been born in a logging camp in Oregon and that all his brothers were tall and strong and could fell trees with a single swipe of an ax, had offered Russell the position of the new Banditi. The original Banditi had taught Russell many tricks, after all, most he wished he’d never had to learn.
Russell Zahler had no heart, and very little conscience, but he’d never physically harmed another human being after that night. He was just a simple con man now, old and dreaming of soft beds as he stole from people who had enough to spare.
He was not the best person in the world, of course.
But, as anyone from Sir Walter Trott’s Traveling Carnival could tell you, he was far from the worst.