The Great and Secret Show

  "Not much to ask is it?" he said. "You won't be telling any lies."

  "No."

  "So you'll tell her?"

  "Yes."

  "On the Great White God of America?" he said. "What's his name . . . Quetzalcoatl?" She looked confounded. "Never mind," he said, "I'll leave. I'm sorry if I've crippled the morning's trade."

  Leaving her looking panicky, he stepped out into the open air. In the twenty minutes he'd spent in the shop the cloud layer had broken, and the sun was coming through, shining on the Hill. In a few minutes it would break through on the mortals in the Mall, like himself. The girl of his dreams had spoken the truth after all.

  V

  GRILLO woke to the sound of the telephone, lashed out, knocked over a half-filled glass of champagne— his last drunken toast of the previous night: To Buddy, gone but not forgotten—cursed, claimed the receiver and put it to his ear.

  "Hello?" he growled.

  "Did I wake you?"

  "Tesla?"

  "I love a man who remembers my name," she said.

  "What time is it?"

  "Late. You should be up and working. I want you to be free of your labors for Abernethy by the time I arrive."

  "What are you saying? You're coming here?"

  "You owe me dinner, for all the gossip on Vance," she said. "So find somewhere expensive."

  "What time are you planning to be here?" he asked her.

  "Oh I don't know. About—" With her in mid-sentence he put down the receiver, and grinned at the telephone, thinking of her cursing herself at the other end. The smile dropped from his face when he stood up, however. His head throbbed to beat the band: if he'd emptied that last half-glass he doubted he could have even stood up. He punched Suite Service and ordered up coffee.

  "Any juice with that, sir?" came the voice in the kitchen.

  "No. Just coffee."

  "Eggs, croissant—"

  "Oh Jesus, no. No eggs. No nothing. Just coffee."

  The idea of sitting down to write was almost as repugnant as the thought of breakfast. He decided instead to contact the woman from the Vance house, Ellen Nguyen, whose address, minus a telephone number, was still in his pocket.

  His system jazzed by a substantial caffeine intake he got in the car and drove down to Deerdell. The house, when he finally found it, contrasted forcibly with the woman's workplace on the Hill. It was small, unglamorous and badly in need of repair. Grillo already had his suspicions about the conversation that lay ahead: the disgruntled employee dishing the dirt on her paymaster. On occasion in the past such informants had proved fruitful, though just as often they'd been suppliers of malicious fabrications. In this case he doubted that. Was it because Ellen looked at him with such vulnerability in her open features as she welcomed him in and brewed him a further fix of coffee; or because when her child kept calling from the next room—he was sick with the flu, she explained—each time she returned from tending to him and picked up her story afresh the facts remained consistent; or simply that the story she told not only bruised Buddy Vance's reputation but her own as well? The latter fact, perhaps, more than any of the others, convinced him she was a reliable source. The story told spread the blemishes democratically.

  "I was his mistress," she explained. "For almost five years. Even when Rochelle was in the house—which wasn't long of course—we used to find ways to be together. Often. I think she knew all along. That's why she got rid of me the first chance she could."

  "You're no longer employed up at Coney, then?"

  "No. She was just waiting for an excuse to dismiss me, and you provided it."

  "Me?" said Grillo. "How?"

  "She said I was flirting with you. Typical that she'd use that kind of reason." Not for the first time in their exchanges Grillo heard a depth of feeling—in this instance, contempt— which the woman's passive demeanor scarcely betrayed. "She judges everyone by her standards," she went on. "And you know what those are."

  "No," Grillo said frankly, "I don't."

  Ellen looked astonished. "Wait here," she told him. "I don't want Philip listening to all this."

  She got up and went to her son's bedroom, spoke a few words to him Grillo didn't hear, then closed the door before coming back to continue her story.

  "He's already learned too many words I wish he hadn't, just in one year at school. I want him to have a chance to be . . . I don't know, innocent? Yes, innocent, if it's only for a little while. The ugly things come along soon enough, don't they?"

  "The ugly things?"

  "You know: the people who cheat you and betray you. Sex things. Power things."

  "Oh sure," Grillo replied. "They come along."

  "So I was telling you about Rochelle, right?"

  "Yes, you were."

  "Well, it's simple enough. Before she married Buddy she was a hooker."

  "She was what?"

  "You heard right. Why are you so surprised?"

  "I don't know. She's so beautiful. There must have been other ways to make a buck."

  "She has an expensive habit," Ellen replied. Again, the contempt, mingled with disgust.

  "Did Buddy know when he married her?"

  "About what? The habits or the hooking?"

  "Both."

  "I'm sure he did. That's part of why he married her, I guess. See, there's this thick streak of perversity in Buddy. Sorry, I mean there was. I can't quite get over the fact that he's dead."

  "It must be extremely difficult talking about this so close to losing him. I'm sorry to put you through it."

  "I volunteered, didn't I?" she replied. "I want somebody to know all this. In fact I want everybody to know. It was me he loved, Mr. Grillo. Me he really loved, all those years."

  "And I presume you loved him?"

  "Oh yes," she said softly. "Very much. He was self-centered, of course, but all men are self-centered, aren't they?" She didn't leave time for Grillo to exclude himself before heading on. "You're all brought up to think the world revolves around you. I make the same mistake with Philip. I can see myself doing it. The difference with Buddy was that for a time at least the world did revolve around him. He was one of the best-loved men in America. For a few years. Everybody knew his face, everyone had his routines by heart. And of course they wanted to know all about his private life."

  "So he took a real risk, marrying a woman like Rochelle?"

  "I'd say so, wouldn't you? Especially when he was trying to clean up his act, and get one of the networks to give him another show. But there was this streak of perversity, like I said. A lot of the time it was plain self-destructiveness."

  "He should have married you," Grillo said.

  "He could have done worse," she observed. "He could have done a lot worse." The thought brought a show of feeling that had been conspicuous by its absence through her account of her own place in this. Tears welled in her eyes. At the same moment the boy called from his bedroom. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.

  "I'll go," said Grillo, getting up. "His name's Philip?"

  "Yes," she said, the word almost incoherent.

  "I'll take care of him, don't worry."

  He left her wiping the tears from beneath her eyes with the heels of her hands. Opening the door to the boy's room, he said:

  "Hi, I'm Grillo."

  The boy, in whose face his mother's solemn symmetry was much apparent, was sitting up in bed, surrounded by a chaos of toys, crayons and scrawled-upon sheets of paper. The TV was playing in the corner of the room, its cartoon show silent.

  "You're Philip, right?"

  "Where's Mommy?" the boy wanted to know. He made no bones about being suspicious of Grillo, peering past him for a glimpse of his mother.

  "She'll be here in a moment," Grillo reassured him, approaching the bed. The drawings, many of which had slipped from the comforter and were scattered underfoot, all seemed to picture the same bulbous character. Grillo went down on his haunches and picked one of them up. "Who's this?" he asked. br />
  "Balloon Man," Philip replied, gravely.

  "Does he have a name?"

  "Balloon Man," came the response, with an edge of impatience.

  "Is he from the TV?" Grillo asked, studying the multicolored nonsense creature on the page.

  "Nope."

  "Where's he from then?"

  "Out of my head," Philip replied.

  "Is he friendly?"

  The boy shook his head.

  "He bites does he?"

  "Only you," came the response.

  "That's not very polite," Grillo heard Ellen say. He glanced over his shoulder. She'd made an attempt to conceal her tears but it clearly didn't convince her son, who gave Grillo an accusing look.

  "You shouldn't get too close to him," Ellen told Grillo. "He's been really sick, haven't you?"

  "I'm OK now."

  "No you're not. You're to stay in bed while I take Mr. Grillo to the door."

  Grillo stood up, laying the picture on the bed among the other portraits.

  "Thank you for showing me the Balloon Man," he said.

  Philip made no reply, but returned to his handiwork, coloring another drawing scarlet.

  "What I was telling you . . ." Ellen said, once they were out of the child's earshot, " . . . that's not all the story. There's a lot more, believe me. But I'm not quite ready to tell it yet."

  "When you are, I'm ready to hear," Grillo said. "You can find me at the hotel."

  "Maybe I'll call. Maybe I won't. Anything I tell you is only part of the truth, isn't it? The most important piece is Buddy, and you'll never be able to write him down. Never."

  This parting thought went with Grillo as he drove back through the Grove to the hotel. It was a simple enough observation, but one that carried much weight. Buddy Vance was indeed at the center of this story. His death had been both enigmatic and tragic; but more enigmatic still, surely, was the life that had preceded it. He had enough clues to that life to intrigue him mightily. The Carnival collection crowding the walls of Coney Eye (the True Art of America); the moral mistress who still loved him, the hooker wife who most likely did not, nor ever had. Even without that singularly absurd death as a punchline it was one hell of a story. The question was not whether to tell it but how.

  Abernethy's view on the subject would be unequivocal. He should favor supposition over fact, and dirt over dignity. But there were mysteries here in the Grove. Grillo had seen them, breaking out of Buddy Vance's grave, no less; taking to the sky. It was important to tell this story honestly and well, or he'd simply be adding to the sum of confusions here, which would do nobody any favors.

  First things first; he had to set the facts down as he'd learned them in the last twenty-four hours: from Tesla, from Hotchkiss, from Rochelle and now from Ellen. This he set to doing as soon as he got back to the hotel, producing an initial draft of the Buddy Vance Story in longhand, poring over the tiny desk in his room. His back began to ache as he labored, and the first signs of a fever brought sweat to his brow. He didn't notice, however—at least not until he'd generated twenty odd pages of cross-referenced notes. Only then, stretching as he rose from his work, did he realize that even if the Balloon Man hadn't bitten him, its creator's flu had.

  VI

  ____________ i ____________

  ON THE trek up from the Mall to Jo-Beth's house it became very clear to Howie why she'd made so much of events between them—particularly that shared terror in the motel—being the Devil's doing. It was little wonder, given that she worked alongside a highly devout woman in a store stocked from floor to ceiling with Mormon literature. Difficult as his exchange with Lois Knapp had been it had given him a better sense of the challenge that lay before him than he would have had without it. Somehow he had to convince Jo-Beth that there was no crime against God or man in their affection for each other; and nothing demonic lurking in him. As pitches went, he could envisage easier.

  As it was, he didn't get much of a chance at persuasion. At first even his attempts to get the door opened to him failed. He rapped and rang for fully five minutes, knowing instinctively that there was somebody in the house to answer. It was only when he stood back in the street and started to holler up at the blinded windows that he heard the sound of the safety chains being taken off the door and returned to the step to request from the woman who peered through the sliver at him, Joyce McGuire presumably, a word with her daughter. He'd usually been successful with mothers. His stammer and his spectacles gave him the air of a diligent and somewhat introspective student; quite safe company. But Mrs. McGuire knew appearances deceived. Her advice was a re-run of Lois Knapp's.

  "You're not wanted here," she told him. "Go back home. Leave us alone."

  "I just need a few moments with Jo-Beth," he said. "She's here, isn't she?"

  "Yes, she's here. But she doesn't want to see you."

  "I'd like to hear that from her if you don't mind."

  "Oh would you?" said Mrs. McGuire, and, much to his surprise, opened the door.

  It was dark inside the house, and bright on the step, but he could see Jo-Beth standing in the gloom, at the far end of the hall. She was dressed in dark clothes, as though a funeral was in the offing. It made her look even more ashen than she was. Only her eyes caught any light from the step.

  "Tell him," her mother instructed.

  "Jo-Beth?" Howie said. "Could we talk?"

  "You mustn't come here," Jo-Beth said softly. Her voice barely carried from the interior. The air between them was dead. "It's dangerous for us all. You mustn't come here ever again."

  "But I have to talk to you."

  "It's no use, Howie. Terrible things are going to happen to us if you don't go."

  "What things?" he wanted to know.

  It wasn't she who answered, however, but her mother.

  "You're not to blame," the woman said, the fierceness he'd been greeted with all gone from her now. "Nobody blames you. But you must understand, Howard, what happened to your mother, and to me, isn't over."

  "No, I'm afraid I don't understand that," he returned. "I don't understand that at all."

  "Maybe it's better you don't," came the reply. "Better you just leave. Now." She started to close the door.

  "W . . . w . . . w . . ." Howie began. Before he could say wait he was looking at wood panelling, two inches from his nose.

  "Shit," he managed, without a slip.

  He stood like a fool staring at the closed door for several seconds, while the bolts and chains were put back in place on the opposite side. A more comprehensive defeat was scarcely imaginable. Not only had Mrs. McGuire sent him packing, Jo-Beth had added her voice to the chorus. Rather than make another attempt, and fail, he let the problem be.

  His next port of call was already planned, even before he turned from the step and started off down the street.

  Somewhere in the woods, at the far side of the Grove, was the spot where Mrs. McGuire, and his mother, and the comedian had all come to their various griefs. Rape, death and disaster marked the spot. Perhaps somewhere there was a door that would not be so readily closed.

  "It's for the best," said Momma, when the sound of Howard Katz's footsteps had finally faded.

  "I know," Jo-Beth said, still staring at the bolted door.

  Momma was right. If the events of the previous night— the Jaff's appearance at the house, and his claiming of Tommy-Ray—proved anything it was that nobody could be trusted. A brother she'd thought she'd known and known she'd loved had been taken from her, body and soul, by a power that had come out of the past. Howie too had come out of the past; from Momma's past. Whatever was now happening in the Grove, he was a part of it. Perhaps its victim, perhaps its invoker. But whether innocent or guilty, to invite him over the threshold of their house was to put at risk the small hope for salvation they'd won from the previous night's assault.

  None of which made it any easier to see the door closed against him. Even now her fingers itched to pull back the bolts and haul the door open
; to call him back and hug him to her; tell him things could be made good between them. What was good now? Their being together, living the adventure her heart had been aching for all her life, to claim and kiss this boy who was perhaps her own brother? Or to hold on to the old virtues in this flood, though with every wave another was swept away.

  Momma had an answer; the answer she always offered when adversity presented itself.

  "We must pray, Jo-Beth. Pray for delivery from our oppressors. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming— "

  "I don't see any brightness, Momma. I don't think I ever did."

  "It'll come," Momma insisted. "Everything will be made clear."

  "I don't think so," Jo-Beth said. She pictured Tommy-Ray, who'd returned to the house late last night and smiled his innocent smile when she'd asked him about the Jaff, as though nothing had happened. Was he one of the Wicked whose destruction Momma was now praying so fervently for? Would the Lord consume him with the spirit of His mouth? She hoped not. Indeed she prayed not, when she and Momma knelt to speak with God; prayed that the Lord not judge Tommy-Ray too harshly. Nor her, for wanting to follow the face on the step out into the sun, and off wherever he had gone.

  ____________ ii ____________

  Though the day beat hard on the woods, the atmosphere beneath its canopy was that of a place under the spell of night. Whatever animals and birds made their dwelling here they were keeping to their nests and dens. Light, or something that lived in light, had silenced them. Howie felt their scrutiny however. They observed his every step, as though he were a hunter coming among them under a too-bright moon. He was not welcome here. And yet the urge to go forward increased with every yard he covered. A whisper had brought him down here the day before; a whisper he'd later dismissed as his dizzied mind playing tricks. But now no cell in his system doubted that the call had been genuine. There was somebody here who wanted to see him; to meet him; to know him. Yesterday he'd rejected the summons. Today he would not.