Killer, Come Back to Me

“The truth!” cried Raoul. “What is the truth?”

Father Dan couldn’t face him, he had to look away. “That you were fed up, sick of being tied to Roger like a horse to a tree, that you—that you killed your brother to be free—that’s what they say!” Father Dan sprang to his feet and paced the sawdust. “I’m not believing it—yet.”

“But,” cried Raoul. “But, maybe it would’ve been worth risking, isn’t that what you mean?”

“Look here, Raoul, it stands to reason, if one of the geeks killed Roger, why in hell are you alive? Why didn’t he kill you? Would he chance having you catch up with him? Not on your busted tintype. Hell. None of the geeks killed Roger.”

“Maybe he got scared. Maybe he wanted me to live and suffer. That would be real irony, don’t you see?” pleaded Raoul, bewildered.

Father Dan closed his eyes. “I see that I’ve got my head way out here.” He shoved out his hand. “And this business of the torn painting of you and Roger that Lal found. It points to the fact that someone wanted Roger dead and you alive, so maybe you paid one of the other geeks to do the job, maybe you didn’t have the nerve yourself—” Father Dan paced swiftly. “And after the job was done, your murderer friend tore the picture triumphantly in two pieces!” Father Dan stopped for breath, looked at Raoul’s numbed, beaten face. “All right,” he shouted, “maybe I’m drunk. Maybe I’m crazy. So maybe you didn’t kill him. You’ll still have to pull out. I can’t take a chance on you, Raoul, much as I like you. I can’t lose my whole sideshow over you.”

Raoul rose unsteadily. The tent tilted around him. His ears hammered crazily. He heard his own strange voice saying, “Give me two more days, Father Dan. That’s all I ask. When I find the killer, things will quiet down, I promise. If I don’t find him. I’ll go away, I promise that too.”

Father Dan stared morosely at his boot tip in the sawdust. Then he roused himself uneasily. “Two days, then. But that’s all. Two days, and no more. You’re a hard man to down, aren’t you, number two twin?”

* * *

They rode on horseback down past the slumbering town, tethered up by a creek, and talked earnestly and kissed quietly. He told her about Father Dan, the split canvas, Lal, and the danger to his job. She held his face in her hands, looking up.

“Darling, let’s go away. I don’t want you hurt.”

“Only two more days. If I find the murderer, we can stay.”

“But there are other circuses, other places.” Her gray eyes were tormented. “I’d give up my job to keep us safe.” She seized his shoulders. “Is Roger that important to you?” Before he knew what she intended, she had whirled him in the dark, locked her elbows in his, and pressured her slender back to his scarred spine. Whispering softly, she said, “I have you now, for the first time, alone, don’t go away from me.” She released him slowly, and he turned and held her again. She said, so softly, “Don’t go away from me, Raoul, I don’t want anything to interfere again.…”

Instantly time flew backward. In Raoul’s mind he heard Deirdre on another day, asking Roger why he and Raoul had never submitted themselves to the surgeon’s scalpel. And Roger’s cynic’s face rose like driftwood from the tide pool of Raoul’s memory, laughing curtly at Deirdre and retorting, “No, my dear Deirdre, no. It takes two to agree to an operation. I refuse.”

Raoul kissed Deirdre, trying to forget Roger’s bitter comment. He recalled his first kiss from Deirdre and Roger’s abrupt voice: “Kiss her this way, Raoul! Here, let me show you! May I cut in? No, no, Raoul, you’re unromantic! That’s better. Mind if I fan myself?” Another chortle. “It’s a bit warm.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” screamed Raoul. He shook violently, jolting himself back into the present—into Deirdre’s arms—

He woke in the morning with an uncontrollable desire to run, get Deirdre, pack, catch a train, and get out now, get away from things forever. He paced his hotel room. To go away, he thought, to leave and never know any more about the half of himself that was buried in a cemetery hundreds of miles away— But he had to know.

Noon bugle. The carnies, geeks, finkers, and palefaces, the shills and the shanties, lined the timber tables as Raoul picked vaguely at his plated meat. There was a way to find the murderer. A sure way.

“Tonight I’m turning the murderer over to the police,” said Raoul, murmuring.

Tattoo almost dropped his fork. “You mean it?”

“Pass the white top tent,” someone interrupted. Cake was handed past Raoul’s grim face as he said:

“I’ve been waiting—biding my time since I got back— watching the killer. I saw his face the night he got Roger. I didn’t tell the police that. I didn’t tell anybody that. I been waiting—just waiting—for the right time and place to even up the score. I didn’t want the police doing my work for me. I wanted to fix him in my own way.”

“It wasn’t Lal, then?”

“No.”

“You let Lal be killed?”

“I didn’t think he would be. He should have kept quiet. I’m sorry about Lal. But the score’ll be evened tonight. I’ll turn the killer’s body over to the police personally. And it’ll be in self-defense. They won’t hold me. I’ll tell you that, painted man.”

“What if he gets you first?”

“I’m half dead now. I’m ready.” Raoul leaned forward earnestly, holding Tattoo’s blue wrist. “You won’t tell anyone about this, of course?”

“Who? Me? Ha, ha, not me, Raoul.”

* * *