A Carnival of Killing by Glenn Ickler Read Free Book Online Page B

even applied grease to a few kiddy faces and helped pass out big red-and-black metal pins with Vulcanus Rex’s face on them.
    “Pin one on me,” shouted one of the young women overseeing the juvenile mayhem. She thrust out a substantial bosom, with the top two buttons of her blouse unbuttoned, as my target. I gingerly grasped the open edge of her blouse near a buttonhole and slid the pin into the cloth, hoping I wouldn’t stab too deep. Before I could move my hands away, she pressed that substantial bosom tight against my chest, wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on both cheeks. “Hail, Vulcan!” she said when she pulled her lips away.
    “Hail, Vulcan!” I said with my palms still trapped against her breast. At last I was beginning to understand why men volunteered for this job.
    The woman kissed me enthusiastically again, this time on the lips, and momentarily tightened her bear hug before releasing me. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “The kids just love you guys.”
    “And we love them,” I said, resisting the urge to tell her what else I’d loved about this visit.
    The Vulcans were moving toward the door, so I gave the woman a little goodbye wave and followed the river of red. Outside on the sidewalk, Al fell into step beside me. “Looks like you were keeping abreast of the action in there,” he said.
    “Are you going to bust me for that?” I asked.
    “I do have a photo of your brave frontal advance, which would be of great interest to both your city editor and your live-in lover.” He extended his camera, and in the display window I saw myself wrapped in the daycare worker’s arms with my hands obviously buried against her breasts.
    “But neither Don nor Martha will ever see that photo, will they?”
    “Why won’t they?”
    “Because I’ll throw your camera off the back end of the fire truck if you don’t hit the delete button right now.”
    “You’d have to throw me with it,” Al said.
    “That’s no problem,” I said. I was three inches taller than Al, even if our poundage was roughly the same.
    Al pressed the delete button. “Happy now?”
    “Hit it again,” I said. I knew the first press merely brought up a message asking for confirmation of the order to delete.
    He frowned and pressed delete again. “It’s a shame to lose the photographic record of such a historic act. I even had the perfect cutline in mind.”
    “And what was that?” I asked.
    “Staff writer Warren Mitchell becomes a titular leader of the Vulcan Krewe.”
    Back in the box of the Luverne, I worked my way next to one of the two Vulcans I hadn’t quizzed. There was barely enough skin showing between his goggles and his beard for me to ascertain that he was the African-American. He told me his title was Count Embrious and said he was the Fire King’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before I could ask a single question, he said, “I’m not discussing Lee-Ann, any of the other Klondike Kates or anything I saw in O’Halloran’s Bar with you.”
    I wondered if he realized he’d just told me that he’d been in the bar with the murdered woman. Not wishing to press my luck, I said, “I’m not going to push you on that subject. It seems like you guys have decided as a team not to answer any questions about Lee-Ann.”
    “You got that right,” Embrious said. “You want answers, ask the cops.”
    “I’ll do that,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
    I felt a nudge from the other side and turned to find myself facing the only man (with the exception of Vulcanus Rex himself) I hadn’t spoken with. “I’m the Prince of Soot,” he said. “Talk to me when we get back to the hotel.”
     
     

Chapter Seven
    Foiled Again
     
    There was one more stop for the Royal Chariot before returning to the hotel. This facility’s residents were at the opposite end of the age spectrum from those in the daycare center. We were parking in front of a nursing home
    Although we were welcomed with smiles in the nursing