Hunter (9780698158504) Read online

Lance swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “You’ve never dealt with your loss. Never really faced it.” She regarded him in silence for a few seconds. “Yes, that must be it. Lance, your path into the future is littered with obstacles. Some you must avoid, others you must confront. I can’t give you any more details than that. With many folk, I can see their future like a road ahead of them—an indistinct road, at night, but a road nevertheless—but your road has many branches, and I can’t see which of those you will take. Or which you should take. Your path is incomplete—to my sight—and I fear that it is one you must travel alone. Not for the entire journey, but for much of it.”

  Lance was about to get to his feet once more, then he paused and leaned closer to the woman. “There’s more, isn’t there? You’re holding something back.”

  “You are gifted, Lancelot. Yes, there’s more, but I can’t quite pin it down. The alteration to your memories and emotions is obscuring too much. There’s a gap. I can’t tell whether it’s in your past or your future, or even how it pertains to you. All I know is that it is important. Vital.”

  “A gap . . . Like, someone has made me forget something? Because that has happened, more than once.”

  Mary-May slowly shook her head. “No. Not that.” She spread her arms and shrugged. “I’m sorry, Lance. It’s something outside of you, I think.” A frown further creased her wrinkled face for a moment, and she began to drum her fingers on the table. “A gap . . . But that’s not the right word. Not a strong enough word to correctly express its nature. Perhaps it would be better described as a chasm.”

  IN LATE FALL, the carnival settled in Roeville, Alabama, for a two-week-long engagement. Early on the Monday morning of the second week, Lance and Masatoshi were woken by a violent hammering on the door of their caravan.

  Masatoshi was out of his bed in seconds, pulling the door open even as Jerry was shouting in, “We’ve been robbed—Morty’s hurt!”

  Lance pulled on his jeans and followed Masatoshi out into the cold darkness. Jerry had already moved on to the next trailer, and around them everyone was emerging, blinking and confused.

  Lance caught up with Tina as she was running toward Morty’s caravan. “What’s happening?”

  “You know as much as I do.”

  Outside Morty’s small caravan, Nigel was blocking the door. “Packo and Trixie are with him,” Nigel told the crowd. “Whoever it was surprised Morty as he was sleeping. Hit him a few times with something, then took the cashbox. He’s conscious, so it’s not too bad. Paramedics are on the way. And so are the police.”

  “How did they get in?” Tina asked.

  “Dunno. That’s what the cops are going to find out. So everyone, please, keep back. Don’t touch anything.”

  Lance took a few steps back through the crowd. “Who’s got a flashlight? Someone get me—” He saw that Kevin was carrying a small battery-powered lantern, and grabbed it from him. “Thanks!”

  He walked around the caravan in a slow circle, examining the seals around its windows. When he returned to the door, he found Masatoshi and Tina again. “They didn’t get in through the windows, and the skylight’s too small. The door’s not showing any signs of damage either. So either Morty left the door unlocked—”

  “He’d never do that,” Tina said. “He’s paranoid about that sort of thing. Whoever it was must have picked the lock.”

  Lance nodded. “Could be. That’s a Quadmatic Mark One—they’re about as simple as you can get. Just two tumblers, and they don’t even have a deadfall. That’s one of the locks they teach you how to pick in your first lesson of the correspondence course. You could jimmy one open with a flat-head screwdriver in a couple of seconds. That’d ruin the lock, though, and it doesn’t look damaged.”

  He realized that everyone was staring at him. “What?”

  Keeping his voice low, Masatoshi said, “You’re still the new guy.”

  “So?”

  “That makes you the prime suspect. Boasting about picking locks isn’t helping.”

  “I wasn’t boasting! I . . . Look, it wasn’t me—I’d never hurt Morty!” Lance looked around and saw Jerry looking at him. “You know it wasn’t me!”

  Jerry said, “Right now I don’t know anything.”

  Tina said, “We have to do a head count. Make sure that everyone’s here and no one else has been hurt.”

  “Right,” Jerry said. “You and Newbie take care of that. Check all the cars too; make sure no one’s tampered with them.”

  Dawn had broken by the time Tina and Lance returned to Morty’s caravan. The big man was up and about now, having refused treatment from the paramedics, and was using an old cloth to wipe the fingerprint powder from his caravan’s door.

  “Didn’t see who it was,” Morty told Lance. “He had a light shinin’ in my face—that’s all I could see. He hit me with somethin’, three or four times. Maybe five.”

  “What did the police say?” Tina asked.

  “They said it was prob’ly an inside job. I told ’em, ‘No way, my people’d never steal from me!’ but they didn’t wanna hear that. Guess it makes their job easier if it was one of us that did it. They took prints but they reckon the guy wore gloves.” Morty’s massive chest swelled as he took a deep breath. He held it for a few seconds, then let it out slowly. “Whoever did it knew what they were doin’. That’s the week’s takin’s they got. We’re cleaned out.”

  “It’s that bad?” Lance asked. “Don’t we have, like, a buffer or something? You know, a few thousand dollars stashed away just in case something like this happens?”

  “Always mean to do that,” Morty said. “Never works out. There’s always somethin’ that needs replacin’ or mendin’. We’re livin’ from week to week here, Newbie.”

  “What about insurance?”

  Morty laughed. “Right. We got safety insurance in case some kid chokes on a corn dog or one of the rides collapses and squashes someone, because we hafta have that, but that’s all we can afford.” He scratched at his belly as he looked around. “We don’t make up the loss in the comin’ week, we’re gonna hafta do a flit.”

  “What’s a flit?”

  “It’s when you leave without paying,” Tina explained.

  “We don’t have the cash to pay the farmer for usin’ his field,” Morty said. “Three thousand bucks.”

  “Three thousand for only two weeks? That’s extortion!”

  “It’s the goin’ rate, Newbie. One of the other farmers ’round here offered us his place for only two grand, but we’ve been comin’ here for the past twelve years. Folk know to expect us here.”

  “So the farmer jacks up the price?” Tina said.

  “Yeah. Every year he adds on a little more.” Morty shrugged. “Same thing the whole world over, right? If someone needs somethin’, you charge them more. Newbie, we gotta go talk to the cops in town later. Make an official report. I want you to come with us.”

  “Me? Not a chance.”

  “You don’t like talking to cops?” Tina asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Then bring Nigel with you. Everyone will be staring at him instead of you.”

  Morty smiled at her. “Now that’s good thinkin’, kid.”

  Tina returned the smile. “That’s the only kind of thinking I like to do.”

  Morty looked around again and let out another huge sigh. “Sometimes I start to thinkin’ it’s not worth it. Y’know? Back in the day, a carnival comin’ to town was a big thing. In my pa’s time, the whole town would show up. But who’s gonna get excited to see a guy swallowin’ swords or a buncha clowns foolin’ around when they can turn on the TV an’ see Titan throwin’ a bus at some guy?”

  Tina said, “I know. Who wants to see a bearded lady when you can open a newspaper and read about someone like Energy? Sometimes I think that the superheroes are spoiling ever
ything.”

  “I’m not going to argue with that,” Lance said.

  • • •

  In the afternoon, Morty drove his ancient Cadillac into town, with Nigel in the passenger seat and Lance in the back. Along the way, they talked about the robbery, and with each moment Morty’s grip on the steering wheel grew tighter and tighter.

  Lance said, “Uh, you know, maybe you should drive, Nigel.”

  “No way, man. I don’t drive. Just relax—we’ll be fine.”

  As he was parking the car, Morty snarled, “Whoever did this is gonna pay! I’m gonna tear off his head an’ shove my fist down his throat an’ grab his ankles an’ turn the rat inside out!”

  When they entered the local police station, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at Nigel.

  “Gimme the permits,” Morty said.

  Lance handed over a battered envelope marked with coffee rings. “OK, but, you know, go easy.”

  Morty gritted his teeth and began to stride toward the officer.

  Lance thought, This is not going to go well. Dealing with Morty when he was in a foul mood was like kicking a bomb to see whether it was armed. He grabbed Morty’s arm. “Actually, maybe I should talk to him?”

  “All right, yeah.” He handed the envelope back.

  Lance approached the officer, who acknowledged him with a nod while still staring past him at Nigel.

  “What can I do for you folks?”

  “We’re with the carnival,” Lance said.

  “No kidding.”

  “There was a robbery last night, and the owner here was attacked. The officers at the scene said we should come in to make a full report, and to bring our permits.”

  The officer briskly shook himself, blinked a couple of times, and finally looked at Lance. “All right.” Without looking, he reached into a drawer in the desk and took out a bundle of forms. “You’re going to want to fill these out, then sit down with an officer and go over everything. Did you get an incident number?” He tapped one of the forms. “If so, enter that here. Then the time, date, location . . . names . . . exactly what was taken . . .”

  Lance looked up from the form and saw that the officer was again staring at Nigel.

  “Who’s that with you?”

  “That’s Morty, the owner. Morton Ponichtera. And the tattooed guy is Nigel. One of the performers. So . . . Do you have any ideas who might have done this? I mean, we have permits. You saw them yourself. We weren’t breaking any laws or anything.”

  The officer raised an eyebrow. “No one said anything about you breaking any laws. Why bring that up?”

  “Because the cops—I mean, the officers—this morning were saying that it was probably an inside job. It wasn’t. If it was one of us who took the money, we would have done it without hurting Morty.”

  “Uh-huh.” The officer’s gaze had already drifted back to Nigel. “Unless you wanted it to look like someone else had done it.”

  He’s not making this easy, Lance thought. “Trust me, it wasn’t one of us.”

  “All right, then . . . Just fill out the forms. Put everything you can think of in there. Anyone suspicious hanging around, that kind of thing.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You can use the interview room. Then bring the forms back here.” Still looking at Nigel, the officer added, almost to himself, “Man, that’s gotta hurt.” He turned back to Lance. “He’s got iron bars through his nipples and all down his arms! How does he, like, wash himself?”

  Lance gathered up the forms. “I’ve never asked him.” He hesitated for a moment, then asked, “On a totally different subject . . . If I was trying to find someone who might once have lived around here, what’d be the best way to do that?”

  The officer shrugged. “Depends on what you have to go on. If you have that person’s name, first stop would be the phone book.”

  “And the next stop?” Lance had been checking the phone books in every town he visited. He’d encountered dozens of people with the surname Housten, and had spent a lot of money calling their numbers—money that, in many cases, he should have been spending on food—but none of the people who’d answered admitted to knowing a woman with the right first name and age.

  “You could go down the official route and ask at the local records office.” The officer leaned forward, resting his elbows on the countertop. “If that doesn’t work, check at the post office. Postal workers are great at remembering names and addresses. Still no luck, ask at the pizza delivery places. Older people are a good source of local info too.”

  Lance nodded. “Great, thanks.”

  “Then there’s churches, bars, schools . . . Though most schools won’t give out information like that, so you don’t ask the teachers or the administration people, instead you go along to some school event and ask the parents.” The man paused. “OK, I really shouldn’t have told you that last one. Forget I said it. Who are you looking for, anyway?”

  “A woman called Suzanne Housten. She’ll be aged somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, I guess.”

  “Is there any particular reason you want to find her?”

  “She’s my half sister. Only found out about her recently. My dad was a trucker and he used to travel all over the South. Dad told me about her before he died. Suzanne’s the only family I have left now.”

  The officer paused again. “I see. That’s, uh . . . The name doesn’t ring a bell with me, though, and I know most everyone in this town.”

  Behind Lance, Morty said, “Kid, how are we doing?”

  Back to work, Lance thought. To the officer, he said, “OK, thanks. That does help a bit.”

  “I can put the word out, if you like. Ask around.”

  “No, that’s cool. If I can find her, I don’t want her to know I’m coming. I want it to be a surprise.”

  • • •

  Lance, Morty, and Nigel spent more than an hour filling out the forms, and when they were done, they returned them to the desk clerk, who told them to wait for an officer to talk to them.

  We could be here for hours, Lance thought. All right . . . What if it wasn’t just a robbery? Who gains if the carnival fails? Could be a rival carnival, or someone Morty crossed in the past.

  Or maybe it was someone who used to work for the carnival. Someone Morty had a falling-out with, maybe. They’d know where Morty kept the money, and they could have had a key. If so, then it has to be someone who lives in Alabama. Morty said that there was about fifteen thousand dollars in the cashbox. So the thief would have to be pretty desperate—or really want to hurt the carnival—to travel here from another state just to rob the place.

  Then he remembered Occam’s Razor: Far too many maybes in there. The simplest solution is most likely to be the correct one.

  “Inside job,” Lance said, then realized he’d spoken aloud.

  “What’s that?” Morty asked. “You’re sayin’ one of my own people robbed me?”

  Lane shook his head. “No, sorry. Just thinking. Who stands to gain?”

  “Whoever took the money,” Nigel said.

  “Yeah, I know that. I mean, has anyone in the carnival been asking for a loan, or anything like that?”

  Morty said, “Kid, it’ll be a banner day when someone doesn’t ask fer a handout. Anyhow, it can’t be one of our own ’cause Mary-May would know. Hasta be someone else. A punter who hung around after the show an’ saw me takin’ the cashbox inta my place.”

  The door opened and a police officer entered. “You folks about done?”

  “I think so,” Lance said as the officer approached the table. “So, I guess we have to talk about—” He stopped when the officer scooped up the pages of the report and turned to leave.

  “Is that it?” Nigel said. “We don’t get to talk to a detective?”

  The officer looked back and shrugged. “We’re st
retched kinda thin here. We’ll do what we can.”

  “What can you do?” Lance asked. “What does that mean?”

  “There’s no prints, no obvious suspects. If we’re lucky, there’s a chance that the perpetrator will talk, and word will get back to us. Outside of that, I don’t think there’s much hope you’ll get your money back. Sorry.” He turned to leave again, then stopped and looked back. “Actually, my kids’ve been bugging me about taking them along to the carnival. Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a few comps?”

  Nigel said, “Are you kidding me? We’ve just had thousands of dollars stolen from us! How are we supposed to earn that back if we’re giving away free passes?”

  Lance stood up and pulled a bundle of tickets from his shirt pocket. “Free entry. Best we can do right now.” He passed the tickets to the officer. “There’s about thirty there—hand them out to your colleagues. Ask them to bring their families and friends. Right now, we need all the support we can get.”

  The officer smiled. “Nice one, thanks.” He tapped the bundle of tickets against the completed forms. “Listen, I’ll put the word out. See if we can get this case bumped up a little.”

  When the officer left, Nigel said, “Good thinking, Hunter. The promise of free stuff is the ultimate lubricant when it comes to greasing the wheels.”

  On the return journey, Morty seemed a little calmer. “We need to make our money back, and fast. Any suggestions?”

  “We could up the prices,” Nigel said, “but the last time we did that, we ended up losing money in the long run. What about a donations jar? We tell everyone about the robbery and ask them to throw in a coupla bucks. Might work.”

  “Worth considerin’,” Morty said. “What about you, Hunter? You’re the brains. Whaddaya thinkin’?”

  “I’m thinking that we need to turn this whole mess into an advantage,” Lance said. “And I know a way to do it.”

  “SO,” LANCE SAID TO THE MEMBERS of the carnival gathered in the boneyard. “Can anyone remember someone being pissed at us last year? A customer who felt they’d been ripped off? More than usual, that is?” Lance had been with the carnival long enough to know that there was always at least one person who thought that the games were rigged or the prices were too high.