Raoul heard his own voice burst out. “I came back because one of you killed Roger! Besides that, the circus was and is my life, and Deirdre is here. None of you can stop me from staying and finding my brother’s murderer in my own time, in my own way.”
“We were all in bed that night,” whined Fat Lady.
“Yes, yes, we were, we were,” they all said in unison.
“It’s too late,” said Skyscraper. “You’ll never find anything!”
The armless lady kicked her legs, mocking. “I didn’t kill him. I can’t hold a knife except by lying on my back, using my feet!”
“I’m half blind!” said Cyclops.
“I’m too fat to move!” whined Fat Lady.
“Stop it, stop it!” Raoul couldn’t stand it. Raging, he bolted from the tent, ran through darkness some ten feet. Then suddenly he saw her, standing in the shadows, waiting for him.
“Deirdre!”
She was the white thing of the upper spaces, a creature winging a canvas void each night, whirling propeller-wise one hundred times around to the enumeration of the strident ring-master: “—eighty-eight!” A whirl. “Eighty-nine!” A curling. “Ninety!” Her strong right arm bedded with hard muscles, the fingers bony, grasping the hemp loop; the wrists, the elbow, the biceps drawing her torso, her tiny bird-wing feet on up, over, and down; on up, over, and down; with a boom of the brass kettle as she finished each roll.
Now, against the stars, her strong curved right arm raised to a guy wire, she poised forward, looking at Raoul in the half-light, her fingers clenching, relaxing, clenching.
“They’ve been at you, haven’t they?” she asked, whispering, looking past him, inward to those tawdry platforms and their warped cargo, her eyes blazing. “Well, I’ve got power too. I’m a big act. I’ve got pull with Papa Dan. I’ll have my say, darling.”
At the word “darling” she relaxed. Her tight hand fell. She stood, hands down, eyes half-closed, waiting for Raoul to come and put his arms about her. “What a homecoming we’ve given you,” she sighed. “I’m so sorry, Raoul.” She was warmly alive against him. “Oh, darling, these eight weeks have been ten years.”
Warm, close, good, his arms bound her closer. And for the first time in all his life, Roger was not muttering at Raoul’s back: “Oh, for God’s sake, get it over with!”
* * *
They stood in the runway at nine o’clock. The fanfare. Deirdre kissed his cheek. “Be back in a few minutes.” The ringmaster called her name. “Raoul, you must get up, away from the freaks. Tomorrow you rehearse with the Condiellas.”
“Won’t the freaks detest me for leaving them on the ground? They killed Roger; now, if I outshine them again, they’ll get me!”
“To hell with the freaks, to hell with everything but you and me,” she declared, her iron fingers working, testing a practice hemp floured with resin. She heard her entrance music. Her eyes clouded. “Darling, did you ever see a Tibetan monk’s prayer wheel? Each time the wheel revolves it’s one prayer to heaven—oom mani padme hum.” Raoul gazed at the high rope where she’d swing in a moment. “Every night, Raoul, every time I go around one revolution, it’ll mean I love you, I love you, I love you, like that—over and over.”
The music towered. “One other thing,” she added quickly. “Promise you’ll forget the past. Lal’s dead, he committed suicide. Father Dan’s told the police another story that doesn’t implicate you, so let’s forget the whole sorry mess. As far as the police know Lal was blind and in the confusion of the lights going off, when the animals got free, he was killed.”
“Lal didn’t commit suicide, Deirdre. And it wasn’t an accident.” Raoul could hardly say it, look at her. “When I returned, the real killer got panicky and wanted a cover-up. Lal suspected the killer, too, so there was a double motive. Lal was pushed under those elephants to make me think my search was over and done. It’s not. It’s just beginning. Lal wasn’t the kind to commit suicide.”
“But he hated Roger.”
“So did all the geeks. And then there’s the matter of Roger’s picture and mine torn in two pieces.”
Deirdre stood there. They called her name. “Raoul, if you’re right, then they’ll kill you. If the killer was trying to throw you off-trail, and you go on and on—” She had to run then, off into the music, the applause, the noise. She swung up, up, high, higher.
A large-petaled flower floated on the darkness and came to rest on Raoul’s shoulder. “Oh, it’s you, Tattoo.”
The Eiffel Tower was sagging. Twin flowers were twitching at Tattoo’s sides as in a high storm. “The geeks,” he muttered sullenly. “They’ve gone on hands and knees to Father Dan!”
“What!”
“Yeah. The armless lady is gesturin’ around with her damn big feet, yellin’. The legless man waves his arms, the midget walks the table top, the tall man thumps the canvas ceiling! Oh, God, they’re wild mad. Fat Lady’ll bust like a rotten melon, I swear! Thin Man’ll fall like a broken xylophone!
“They say you killed Lal and they’re going to tell the police. The police just got done talking with Father Dan and he convinced them Lal’s death was pure accident. Now, the geeks say either Father Dan kicks you out or they go on strike and tell the cops to boot. So Father Dan says for you to hop on over to his tent, tout de suite. Good luck, kid.”
Father Dan sloshed his whiskey into a glass and glared at it, then at Raoul. “It’s not what you did or didn’t do that counts, it’s what the geeks believe. They’re boiling. They say you killed Lal because he knew the truth about you and your brother—”