Страница 20 из 61
The manager's trailer was at the opposite end of the midway behind the tents that housed the featured attractions: Whores billed as "exotic dancers," a freak show featuring a three-eyed cow, and, behind a final ba
A dwarf who smelled of vegetable soup pointed Wilson between the tents to a silver Airstream trailer. It was dull and spotted with grime. A small sign on the door read MANAGER. The manager would be a Mr. Jacob Lenz, with whom Wilson had spoken. Mr. Lenz would be expecting him.
Wilson rapped at the door and let himself in without waiting to be asked. Time was money.
"Mr. Lenz? Ken Wilson. I appreciate your cooperation."
Wilson offered his hand.
Lenz was a broad, heavy man with lined skin and small eyes. He stood to take Wilson 's hand, but he didn't look happy about it.
"I just wa
"There's no trouble. He's done this before."
"I can't keep track of all the people around here. Kids come, they go, I don't know who belongs to who. I just wa
"I understand."
Wilson took out a picture and held it up. It was a black-and-white school photograph taken two years earlier.
"Now let's be sure we're talking about the same boy. Is this Elvis Cole?"
"Yeah, that's him, but he tells everyone his name is Jimmie."
"His name was Philip James Cole until his mother changed it. He used to go by Jimmie."
"She changed his name to Elvis?"
Wilson ignored the question because the answer left a sour ache in his stomach. Wilson felt bad for the kid. Here was this little boy, one day out of the blue, his mother changed his name to Elvis; not Don or Joey-Elvis. Here's this poor kid with no idea who his father is because the crazy bitch won't tell anyone, and bammo-she feeds him a bullshit story that his father was a human ca
"Does the boy know I've come for him?"
"You didn't want me to say, so I didn't say. You want me to get him?"
"It's best if you take me to him. That way he won't run."
"Whatever you want. I jus' don't want no trouble with the family."
"There's no trouble."
"I'm glad to get rid of him, all the trouble he made. He was a pain in the ass."
Wilson followed the manager out past a giant tarpaulin showing a stripper crooking her finger. The paint was faded and her hairstyle was ten years out of date. A voice balloon over her head read: C'mere, big boy!!!
Wilson clucked to himself.
Three exclamation points.
These people were something.
Elvis Cole
Elvis Cole, fourteen years old, heard about Ralph Todd's 21st Century Shows Diversions from a kid named Brucie Chenski who lived in the trailer park where Elvis and his mother stayed when his Aunt Ly
First day they met, Brucie told Elvis his older brother was a dealer and the two of them were going to San Francisco to get Free Love. Everything Brucie said was like that: large dramatic adventures involving his brother, dope, and Female Conquest. Elvis never believed him. Then one day Brucie said, hey, bro, my brother and I fucked these whores at the carnival. The part about the carnival nailed Elvis's attention like an iron spike through his feet.
What carnival?
The carnival out past the water tower, Brucie says, Jesus, they got this one girl was in Playboy, I saw her picture right out of the magazine, tits out to here, they got rides, a retarded midget that eats worms, these strippers who are total slut whores, my brother sold this girl some acid and she sucked our dicks while -
Elvis interrupted.
They got a human ca
Yeah…
Elvis walked away, just like that, not even caring when Brucie called out the carnival was already gone.
Elvis hitched a ride to the water tower, which sat on a great wide pasture at the edge of town. As Brucie warned, the carnival was gone and the pasture was empty. Elvis kicked through litter for almost two hours until he found a poster that showed the dates and locations for the carnival's next four stops. That was enough.
Elvis hitchhiked to the highway, where, twenty minutes later, two college girls gave him a ride. He caught up with Ralph Todd's midway two days later, one hundred forty-six miles from home.
He had gone to find his father.
That first night, when Elvis finally reached the carnival, he saw a huge ba
See Him EXPLODE from a Ca
See Him BURST into Flames!!!
See Him DEFY Death!!!
The AMAZING Human FIREBALL!!!
every night at 9pm!!!
It was five minutes before nine when Elvis went through the gates.
A crowd was gathered at the end of the midway. Elvis could see the ca
Elvis shoved his way to the front of the crowd only to find the crowd had gathered for the freak show. A sign hanging from the ca
Elvis felt a frantic despair, like he had lost his last good chance of finding his father, then pushed back through the mob. He found a ticket kiosk where he asked when the Fireball was going to perform.
A woman with two missing front teeth said, "Might not be for three or four days. Eddie hadda fly to Chicago."
"He's coming back?"
"Sure, kid, but he won't catch up to us until the next town. You're go
Three or four days. That wasn't so bad. Elvis decided he would wait for three or four weeks, if that's what it took. All he had to do was wait. All he had to do was be around when Eddie got back.
Eddie.
Elvis.
Same first letter.
Maybe that's why his mother had changed his name.
Elvis drifted along the midway until the carnival closed. He was hungry and cold, but he hid in the tall grass behind the tents until the grounds were empty and the thrill rides were dark, and then he slipped back into the midway. He slept beneath the ca
Eddie.
The next morning, Elvis watched as the roustabouts and carnies emerged from trucks and trailers to begin their day. They streamed across the midway into a large kitchen tent set up behind the trucks. Elvis fell in with the crowd. He joined a line and was given a tray filled with eggs and French toast, pretending to be just another teenager in the crowd.
That afternoon he met Tina Sanchez.
He was walking along the midway past a ball-toss concession when a woman cursed angrily in Spanish. She stood on a bucket, straining on her tiptoes to reach a row of stuffed cats on a very high shelf.
Elvis said, "Can I get that for you?"
She twisted around to see him, then stepped down from the bucket. She was short and sturdy, and almost as old as his grandfather.
"Unless I grow another six inches, I guess you'll have to. Climb over the counter there, young mister."