Mostly Murder Page 5

  Beyond the zebra was a horse with a silver mane, and beyond the horse the canvas sidewall that hung around the merry-go-round’s circumference at night.

  But whatever Mr. Razatsky had heard, it could not have been one of his animals. Nor could it have been a noise from the carnival lot outside. There was noise outside, for a few of the concessions were still running to late hangers-on. Lots of noise out there, and the sound of a strong wind thumping canvas, too. But Mr. Razatsky had turned in early tonight, and his ear had been attuned only to sound within the circling sidewall of his merry-go-round. The sounds outside he heard, but they would not have awakened him.

  He cleared his throat and asked, “Is anybody?”

  There wasn’t any answer. Mr. Razatsky sighed and got out of bed. He walked around the platform, shining his flashlight first into the swan-car and then into the baby-elephant-car. There was a drunken rideboy asleep in the latter.

  Mr. Razatsky sighed again. Those nicely upholstered spots were magnets, it seemed, for drunken rideboys, the ideal place for them to sleep off a jag. But a drunken rideboy can make an awful mess of a merry-go-round float.

  He said, “Pete, wake up, no?” and shook the rideboy’s shoulder until the fellow’s eyes opened.

  “Aw, Nick,” mumbled the sleeper. “Let a guy sleep.”

  “Somewhere else, yes,” said Mr. Razatsky. “All night, somewhere else. Good-by now.” Gently but firmly he ejected the rideboy and then went back to sit on the edge of his cot alongside the engine-housing in the center of the merry-go-round.

  Outside was the sound of stakes being driven. That meant it looked like wind was coming up, and they were double-staking the bigger tops. No danger to his merry-go-round, of course; no ordinary windstorm could bother that.

  But the sound of staking made him restless. Instead of lying down again, Mr. Razatsky pulled on his shoes and trousers—the latter having been hanging over the lavender antelope—and went outside.

  The Great Hernando, who ran the illusion show, was standing there leaning against the merry-go-round ticket booth, watching the canvasmen ring a stake.

  Spang. Spang. Then faster, spang, spang, spang. Then merging into one continuous sound as the stake went into hard-packed ground as though into butter.

  “Wind coming up, Perfessor?” Mr. Razatsky yelled over the sound.

  The Great Hernando turned. “Hi, Nick,” he said. “Don’t think so, but it might. They’re just playing safe.” Mr. Razatsky nodded. “Tune is it?” he asked.

  “Little after midnight. I’m going to the cookhouse for java. Come along?”

  “See you there later, Perfessor,” said Mr. Razatsky. He took the Great Hernando’s place against the ticket booth as the illusionist went on up the midway.

  It was good to feel the wind in his face and to hear the rhythmic spang of sledge on stake head. But he wasn’t thinking of either of these things, nor yet coffee with the Great Hernando.

  For Mr. Razatsky’s mind was in the ticket booth against which he leaned. Not, however, on the subject of tickets and profits. Tickets and profits took care of themselves when you had a merry-go-round concession with a good solid carney, and when you ran it faithfully and lived economically.

  It was not for financial reasons that the booth against which he leaned was to Mr. Razatsky a shrine. True, in afternoon and evening, the booth held tickets, but it held also the seller of those tickets, Margie Evans.

  Young and beautiful was Margie Evans. Ever since, at the far-distant opening of the season, Mr. Razatsky had hired her to sell tickets, he had been on the merry-go-round figuratively even more so than literally.

  Not that he had ever said anything to her, or ever would. It was too ridiculous to think of a slob like him winning a girl like Margie.

  For Margie was a vision and a dream. She had blonde hair that was like cornsilk and eyes that were brown and bright, but soft like her hand when—once in a long while—it accidentally touched his.

  Oh, yes, golden Margie was too good for a fat-and-almost-forty Lithuanian carney who could not even speak too-good English yet. Well, maybe he wasn’t fat, Mr. Razatsky solaced himself, but anyway stocky and plump, which was even worse because it was funnier.

  And then there was the fact that Margie worked for him and if he ever said anything to her or tried to take her anywhere or anything, she’d think he was trying to take advantage of the fact that she worked for him, wouldn’t she?

  Yes, it was hopeless. So hopeless that he was glad that young Mr. Nesterman had been hanging around the ticket booth of late. Toby Nesterman was the nephew of old man Burman, who owned the carney. Maybe some day Toby would own it, or anyway a slice of it.

  And Toby Nesterman was a nice young fellow, too. It would make a good match for Margie.

  The canvasmen had worked their way around back of the illusion show top now, and the midway was deserted. Mr. Razatsky sighed and turned to head for the cookhouse at the back end of the lot. All the fronts were dark except the office wagon, out in the middle of the midway just past the bingo top, and the cookhouse. It had been a pretty good day, and Walter Schmid, the bookkeeper-paymaster, must be working late checking in the receipts.

  Jay Coulin, the watchman, was sitting on the tongue of the office wagon, leaning back against it. Mr. Razatsky said, “Hullo, Jay,” and the watchman started, and nearly fell off the wagon tongue.

  He grinned sheepishly. “Hi, Nick. Musta been asleep. Good thing it was you come along, and not the boss.”

  Mr. Razatsky shook a stubby finger at him, and walked on. The boss was coming, as a matter of fact. Asa Burman and his nephew, Toby Nesterman, were cutting across the midway toward the office wagon. Mr. Razatsky waited to pass the time of night with them.

  “Hi there, Nick,” said the carney owner, and then yelled in the direction of the office wagon a few paces away, “Hey, Schmid, you through yet?”

  Toby stopped beside Mr. Razatsky. He said, “Nick, you’ll see Margie tomorrow, and I’ll be out of town. Will you tell her—”

  Asa Burman had walked up to the door of the office wagon and opened it. A sudden, not quite articulate, sound from him made Toby Nesterman and Mr. Razatsky turn to see what was wrong.

  Burman said, “Get Doc,” and climbed quickly into the wagon.

  Past Burman, Mr. Razatsky could see little Walter Schmid, the accountant, lying doubled up on the floor in front of the iron safe. The safe was open.

  Mr. Razatsky swung around to head for Doc’s trailer, but Toby had seen, too, and Toby was younger and had faster reflexes. He was already dashing across the midway back in the direction from which he had come.

  So Mr. Razatsky turned back to the door of the office wagon. He said, “Toby’s gone to get him, Mr. Burman. I can do anything?”

  Burman had been bending over the accountant. He straightened up and turned around. “He’s dead, Nick. And the money’s gone—today’s receipts.”

  Suddenly Mr. Razatsky jumped, because a voice said, over his shoulder, “Then it’s murder.” The Great Hernando was standing there, although Mr. Razatsky hadn’t heard or seen him coming.

  “Better not touch anything, Asa,” the illusionist added.

  “And better phone the police.”

  Asa Burman was already backing out of the office wagon. “Didn’t touch anything,” he grunted. Then, his feet back on the lot again, he turned toward the white-faced watchman.

  “You, Jay,” he said. “Where the devil were you?”

  Jay Coulin licked his lips nervously. “I—I guess I was dozing, Mr. Burman. It was early, and there were people going by, and I thought—”

  “When did you see Schmid last?” Hernando demanded.

  “M-midnight. I heard a clock strike uptown. He—he was all right then.”

  Asa Burman raised a wrist to look at his watch. “Only half-past now. Run over to that all-night drugstore and phone the coppers. Tell ‘em our money car got hijacked. Don’t mention murder.”

  As though glad of a
chance to escape, the watchman turned and ran toward the front end of the midway.

  Hernando stared curiously into the open door of the brightly lighted office wagon. “Why not, Asa?” he wanted to know. “It is murder, isn’t it?”

  “There’s no mark on him that I can see. And he had a bad heart. Had a couple of attacks last year. My guess is he keeled over naturally, and somebody came by and found him that way, and Jay asleep, and walked off with the cash.”

  Mr. Razatsky nodded soberly, and hoped that Mr. Bur-man was right. Murder, maybe by one of the carneys wasn’t nice to think about. Robbery was bad enough.

  A curious crowd, almost all carneys, was gathering around the wagon now. Somehow, word had got down to the cookhouse where most of those who were still awake and on the lot had been gathered.

  There was excitement in the crowd and curiosity, but no grief. Walter Schmid had been a crabbed little man with an acid tongue, and hadn’t joined in the easy friendships of the lot. He had been just an office-machine, as far as the carneys were concerned. Not one of them, really.

  And then there were sirens wailing in the night, and policemen pushing through the crowd around the office wagon.

  Mr. Razatsky went to the cookhouse and ordered coffee and, as afterthought, a hamburger steak. While he ate, others of the carneys drifted back. Some of them with morsels of news.

  The police had set up shop in the penny arcade, and were questioning carneys. The police had decided it was murder. The police had found it wasn’t murder. There wasn’t a mark on the body. The police had found the gun he’d been shot with, lying on the floor of the office wagon where the killer had dropped it. They’d found some short ropes the killer had brought to tie up Schmid with. The coroner had told the police Schmid had died of heart failure.

  The money had been found. There was a goose-egg on Schmid’s head where the killer had hit him. The money was still missing. Nobody knew exactly how much, but it was about a thousand dollars in currency and two hundred in silver.

  The police had arrested Toby Nesterman for murder, having found some of the money under his bed.

  “You’re kidding, no?” Mr. Razatsky asked. He put down his knife and fork and looked up at the Great Hernando, who had brought that last item of news. There was a worried look in Mr. Razatsky’s eyes as the illusionist shook his head.

  “No,” said Hernando, “I’m not kidding, Nick. They took him down to the station house and booked him.”

  “But that is very silly,” said Mr. Razatsky. “He was with his uncle when Asa looked in and saw Schmid.”

  Hernando shrugged. “Sure, but he’d just met Asa a few minutes before, and he didn’t have any alibi for the half hour before that.”

  “Neither have I, Perfessor,” said Mr. Razatsky, “but they didn’t arrest me.”

  “They didn’t find the money under your bed.”

  “Phooey,” said Mr. Razatsky. “Somebody could have put it there to put the blame on him.”

  “There’s more evidence than that, Nick. I don’t know just what it was, but the police seem pretty much satisfied with it.”

  “Phooey,” repeated Mr. Razatsky firmly. “Toby Nesterman is nice young feller. He’d no more kill anybody than—than one of my merry-go-round horses would bite me.”

  “They’re not sure he intended to kill Schmid,” explained Hernando. “He was going to tie him up. But the shock of being held up scared Schmid and his weak ticker went bad. Maybe it’ll be only a manslaughter rap.”

  “Is silly,” said Mr. Razatsky. “By morning they find out they made a mistake and he’ll be back.”

  By morning they hadn’t.

  Nor by one o’clock in the afternoon, when he was getting ready to start the merry-go-round, had Toby returned. Rumor around the lot had it that he was now formally charged with armed robbery and that the police were using the threat of a manslaughter charge to threaten him into a confession.

  Mr. Razatsky shook his head slowly and went up to the ticket booth.

  “Margie,” he said.

  “Yes, Nick?”

  “He didn’t done it—do it. Toby is a nice young feller, not thief. They find out they make mistake.”

  He didn’t look directly at her, but down at the roll of tickets lying on the ledge. He asked, “You’d like day off maybe? I can get somebody sell tickets.”

  “N-no, Nick. Thanks. I’m afraid there’s nothing I could do.”

  “Go see him, maybe. It would make him feel better He—he likes you, Margie. If he knew you knew he didn’t done—do it—”

  “He does, Nick. I saw him a few minutes this morning,”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Razatsky. Then: “How was he feeling Margie?”

  “Pretty blue, and bitter. He says somebody framed him, but made it a tight case. He’s afraid they’ll convict him.”

  “They won’t, Margie,” said Mr. Razatsky. He put conviction into his voice, more conviction than he felt. He kicked at the sawdust in front of the ticket booth a while, not quite daring to look up into Margie Evan’s face.

  Then he looked around as though counting the people on the midway, and said, “Don’t sell no tickets, just yet, Margie. I got to see Asa about some business.”

  Asa Burman was struggling with the books in the office wagon when Mr. Razatsky knocked. He looked out the door and then said, “Come on in, Nick.” His voice sounded tired, and old.

  Mr. Razatsky went in. “Mr. Burman,” he said, “Toby didn’t steal that money. He’s a good boy.”

  “Wish you could prove that, Nick. It looks awful black against him. I don’t think they’ll push the manslaughter business, though.”

  Something in the carnival owner’s tone made Mr. Razatsky look at him very closely, and what he saw in Asa’s face worried him. It was uncertainty. The case against Toby must be very bad indeed, he thought, if the boy’s own uncle wasn’t completely sure of his innocence.

  “But why, Mr. Burman,” Mr. Razatsky protested, “would Toby want money that bad?”

  Burman shook his head. “He shouldn’t have. But he gambled some, so that’s the way the police figure it.”

  “The stories around the lot are mixed up, Mr. Burman. What have the police got against him?”

  “Pretty black, Nick. They found a gun in here with his fingerprints on it. It was Toby’s gun; he had it for target practice And they found the bag of silver hidden under his bed Not the paper money; they haven’t found that yet.” Mr. Razatsky screwed up his face thoughtfully, trying to make sense out of it. “How the cops figure it?”

  Asa Burman leaned back in the chair. “They say he came here with the pistol and with ropes. He was going to stick the gun in Schmid’s back and then tie him up and walk off with the money. Maybe, they say, he had a mask on or a handkerchief around his face so Schmid wouldn’t know him, or maybe he just figured on never letting Schmid get a look at him. Schmid’s chair here had its back to the door, and he could have opened it quietly and stepped in without being seen.”

  “Ah!” said Mr. Razatsky. “The police think the shock of having a gun stuck in his back—”

  “Yeah. Schmid was lying just about where he’d have been if he’d fallen out of this chair, so that makes sense. They say Toby took the money, but got excited and forgot the gun and the ropes. He put ‘em down to feel Schmid’s heart to see whether he’d have to tie him up, and then he got scared and forgot ‘em after he’d taken the dough.”

  “But anybody,” protested Mr. Razatsky, “could have put the money by Toby’s bed, and they put only the silver. How much paper money was there?”

  “About nine hundred and sixty. Schmid had entered the total as eleven twenty-three, the rest being the silver. They think Toby maybe mailed the paper money to himself somewhere, but couldn’t do that with the silver.”

  Mr. Razatsky frowned. “That is silly, no? If he took risk of keeping silver, why mail the rest?”

  Mr. Burman sighed. “They got an answer for that, too. if the silver was found, he i
ntended to claim it was planted there. If it wasn’t, he’d have it too. If he hadn’t forgotten the gun with his prints on it!”

  “But somebody, he could have planted the gun, too.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Burman. “Somebody could have.”

  Mr. Razatsky saw that the carney owner wished he could believe it.

  Sadly Mr. Razatsky returned to his merry-go-round. He avoided the ticket booth. He threw the switch, and the organ started tinkling The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down. It ran all afternoon and evening, and Mr. Razatsky’s mind as well as his body, went in circles with it.

  It seemed to him sometimes, and it seemed so today, that the merry-go-round was an oasis, a stationary point in a midway and a world that spun around it.

  After a while, he managed to resemble his usual cheerful self, and smiled at the children and joked with them, and sometimes forgot to collect tickets for the second ride.

  In the lull between the afternoon crowd and the evening crowd, Hernando came by. He leaned against the swan-car, and shook his head unhappily. “Looks bad for Toby, Nick,” he said. “Something new, it comes up?”

  “Nope. But tomorrow’s tear-down.”

  “So what has that got to do with it being worse for Toby?” Mr. Razatsky wanted to know.

  “We move on. Look, assume for a minute that Toby didn’t do it. Well, the coppers are sure he did. They’re still hunting the rest of the dough, but if they don’t find it by the time the carney moves, they’ll give up. And Toby’ll be convicted sure when they try him.”

  “Ummm,” said Mr. Razatsky. His eyes strayed to the ticket box. Margie had just left, but the booth was still warm with her presence.

  “You mean that Toby, he’s got no chance at all?” he asked.

  “Not unless they can pin it on somebody else. I mean, unless they can find out who really did it—if Toby didn’t.” Mr. Razatsky sighed.

  He thought about it while he ate his supper, and thinking about it didn’t make it any better. Toby Nesterman hadn’t done it. Toby wouldn’t have done a thing like that, a nice young feller like Toby. But then who had? Who else could have?