Noir

Chapter Four – Send In The Clowns

The barrel organ rolled, pumping the air with cotton candy and the screams of children. The smell of the concession stands hawking their sugar-laden wares, barely masking the stench of animal dung. Beyond that, the insipid tang of crime, cutting through the sweat and sweetness and despair. A kid pushed past, his face covered in candy.

As I sat at the back, hat covering my face, I saw it. Between the prancing elephants and spotlights and pomp. Peggle. Its form haunted the place, coursed its black way through the veins of the tents, flickered on the faces of the gawping mob.

I saw him. Kat Tut. The ringmaster-come-performer. The pharaoh of the tent city that was the circus. Gunshot clap, and he was airborne, a rippled cloud of coloured blocks following him, imperceptible yet unmistakable. Crowd goes wild. A mob, baying for spectacle, eating it up. Entranced. Ensnared.

It bubbled in the water, lit by the glare of the flames that licked like a Molotov cocktail on the sands of the ring. I could taste it. Feel the sharp edges on my tongue, the tang of the silver ball. It seeped its way into me, a cold, deep shiver. It was violating me. The crowd stared on in rapture. To them, it was all a game, a show, a diversion from the bleak toil of everyday existence. To me, it was an enemy. A silent foe, to be beaten. Peggle est delenda.

As the final act drew to a close, Tut bowed to the audience as it roared at him, a single animal, hungry for spectacle, pumped on the drug of danger and skill. A Roman mob, baying for blood on the sand. They had had their taste for the night. I had yet to get mine.

I stalked through the trailers, late, a troupe of drunken clowns, half in make-up, half in string vests and soiled trousers, staggering through the animal cries and bustle of the circus as it prepared to sleep until night came once more. Through an open window, in the biggest trailer, I peered into the darkness. Pictures. I recognised some of the faces already, the rest shrouded in darkness. An engine roared. I ducked.

Trunk slams. Elephant wails.
“You got the goods?”
The voice was impatient, whispering like the cold wind.
“Course I got the friggin’ goods. You think I screw this up?”
A thick accent, fresh from the boat, entangled in a life of crime. Caught between a mob boss and a hard grave.
“No, no, I was just sayin’. All right, let’s do this. The circus is packing up in a couple of days and I want this stuff to be well hidden by the time it boards the ship for home country.”
“They search the cages?”
“You gonna sift through pounds of donkey crap?”
“Right.”
Drug mules. Actual drug mules. Life had a cruel sense of humour, the punchlines hitting you like .45 slugs. Mad, bad, and dangerous.
The trunk slammed once more. “You tell Splork down at the alley I’ll send him the money. Now, get.”
The engine growled into the distance, an artificial lion, trapped in its cage of poverty and violence. A vortex of death and despair and decay. A huge oil well, sucking the streets dry as fiends died in the alleyways, shivering from the cold and withdrawl. A sick beast, with one fat tick sitting at the top, bleeding it dry.
The latch clicked, and lights flickered on.
“Geez, all this daredevil business makes me sleepy.” Creak of a floorboard. I slipped away, to the tune of clowns throwing up into their oversized shoes. I had what I needed.

Splork. I knew that Joe wasn’t straight-up, but could never pin anything on him. Time to see what dirt sticks to the underside of the lanes. As I slipped into the comforting darkness of the alleys, I looked back on the events of the week. A lab, a gallery and a circus? Seemed like this case had legs. And like the dame, I wondered exactly how far up they went. Perhaps, somewhere in the shroud laid down by lady luck, it went all the way up.