Unhappy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t. “For your further information, I’m going to be in it.”
    “He’s going to be in it,” said the man to the other who was nailing up the booth, and the attendant snorted. But ferret-eyes jerked his thumb. “Try the silver wagon over there.” Then he said something sotto voce about “First of May”—which was silly because this was October.
    Rook went on, slightly nettled. There turned out to be two wagons marked “Tickets” flanking the entrance to the main tent, but they were painted a cardinal red. A little to one side, however, there was a peeling gray-and-gilt trailer set up. He came to it, stood on the step, and gingerly knocked at the double door. The top half was immediately opened by a plumply pleasant woman of uncertain age who wore remarkable pink hair; after some explanation on his part she nodded and threw open the lower half, beckoning him inside.
    The interior of the “wagon” offered just about enough room in which to swing a hip cat, but somehow it managed to contain the lady with the pink hair, her desk and chair and filing cabinet, a half partition, and a cubicle with another desk and a swivel chair in which sat a tall, thinnish man dressed in gray flannels, with a carnation in his buttonhole; there were worry lines etched across his forehead, but there were also laugh lines around his mouth.
    “This is Mr. Rook, Mr. Timken,” said pink-hair, just as if the circus manager had not been within three feet of the conversation all the time. Timken rose and shook hands. If he was delighted at the prospect of this newest addition to his performing personnel he concealed it very well, though he upended a large wastebasket for his visitor to perch on in lieu of a chair.
    “Yes, I got a wire about you yesterday,” he said. “You want to come and play clown with us for a few days.”
    “If it won’t be too much trouble.”
    “Don’t worry, we can take almost anything in our stride. We’ve had half a dozen distinguished guests with us this season, one a judge and one a state senator. See those names up there?” Timken indicated a three-sheet on the wall behind him, representing a mammoth clown face. “You may as well add your moniker.” And Rook signed with a flourish, just below James McFarley’s name.
    “I was wondering—” he began cautiously.
    But Timken winked at him, and turned. “Honey, will you run out and see if there’s any coffee ready yet?” When she was gone, the circus manager turned back to Rook. “Certainly glad to have you with us,” he said in a rather loud tone. “Any member of that great organization of fans, The Circus Saints and Sinners, is always welcome at the circus—”
    A shadow moved away from the opaque side window, and Timken dropped into more normal tones. “I’ve got orders to cooperate with you to the hilt,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s all about—maybe I’m not supposed to ask.”
    “As far as that goes, I want to be a clown—that’s all.”
    Timken shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, maybe I’m just a born worrier, but there were a couple of Los Santelos detectives here the other day asking some questions about the last guest clown we had, a guy named McFarley.”
    “Oh, yes, I read something about it in the papers. Suicide, wasn’t it?”
    Timken nodded. “Yeah.”
    Rook’s eyebrows went up. So Chief Parkman’s men had known all along about McFarley’s association with the circus—which his wife had only suspected intuitively—and yet Parkman hadn’t wanted to, or hadn’t had time, to fill Rook in! “I still won’t give them the correct time,” he said, half aloud. “Oh?” he said non-committally.
    “Yeah,” continued Timken. “They wanted to know if he seemed despondent or anything. As if anybody here could tell if he was or if he wasn’t—he wore his clown make-up all the time he was on the lot, like a kid with a new Davy Crockett cap.”
    Rook said cautiously, “I suppose the policemen questioned