chapter nine
Morning again. Franklin came into the kitchen.
Lucy was already up and at the sink again. She hadn’t noticed him yet. She’d drained the last bit of her coffee but still held the cup. She stretched up on her tip-toes, straining to see the street behind the apartment building. She kept the curtain close to her face as she spied out the window.
“At it again, I see,” he said.
Startled, she whirled around. She flung the empty coffee mug at him. He ducked as the mug sailed past his head and bounced off the wall, pock-pock-pockiting around on the floor. Lucy shook and grunted her frustration.
“Don’t feel bad,” said Franklin. “Years of clowning plus the occasional heckler hones the reflexes to razor sharpness. You’d have beaned a lesser clown.”
“Don’t you clowns wear bells, or honk, or something?” She shaded her eyes to avoid looking at him. “Can’t you look normal?”
“Clown’s gotta eat.” He picked the cup up off the floor. “Relax. Buster and I will be at the Super City Mall all day.” He hefted the cup a few times. “You managed to find the only plastic coffee mug in the place. Someone’s looking out for me.”
He stepped toward the counter, keeping himself out of Lucy’s range as he stretched to set the cup back on the counter. He yanked his hand away and edged backward to the coffeemaker, keeping Lucy in sight the whole time.
“Everything else had clowns painted on it. The cups, the plates, the silverware.”
“Mom. She had a thing for clowns. She figured everybody else should, too. She had me sleeping on circus sheets and wearing clown boxers until my senior year.”
“High school?” Lucy winced at the picture.
“College.” Franklin tipped the coffee pot. A single drip made the perilous drop into his cup. Refusing to let her beat him, Franklin used his finger to wipe the drip out of his cup and popped it into his mouth.
“Ahhhhh. Better than yesterday’s. Coffeemaker must like you. I’ve seen it bite the fingers off strangers who get anywhere near it.” He stroked the coffeemaker. “Good boy.”
“Make your own coffee.”
“So. How’d you get out without waking Buster?”
“Trade secret.”
What she’d done was re-rig the cat’s cradle contraption Buster had hooked up to the door, then plucked a strand. Buster yanked open the door, ready to begin his new life joined to this strange and wonderful creature with the fake first name and no last name. A steam iron swung in, smacking him in the face, laying him out, unconscious. She stepped over him on her way to the kitchen.
But Lucy didn’t tell Franklin any of that.
“I may need it again,” she said, leaving him to wonder.
Franklin took a fistful of bills from his clown purse and held them out to Lucy. “It’s all I’ve got. Give us thirty minutes and call a cab or something.”
“You’re admitting you took my wallet?”
“I’m admitting you deserve a head start.”
“I’m going to need every bit of my money you lost to get out of this town. A few bucks and a bus ticket won’t cut it.”
Buster came in holding his eye, moving his hand to squint at Lucy and Franklin in the kitchen.
“Hey, now they match,” said Franklin.
“I’ve been thinking,” Buster said to Franklin, but keeping his eyes on Lucy. “Maybe it’s time for me to hang up the old nose. I never liked clowns. I mean, have you ever looked at one up close? I’ve always been on the inside looking out. How do little kids stand it?”
“We’ve got an all-day gig at the mall today. Founders Day? Remember?”
“Very appropriate. This is the first day of the rest of my life with the girl—I mean, woman—of my dreams. You honestly expect me to spoil it by going to work?”
Lucy froze, her eyes locked on Buster.
“Of course not.” Franklin gave Lucy a sidelong glance.
Lucy’s eyes clicked over onto Franklin.
“So it’s just you and me,” he said, shrugging at Lucy.
“Wait. What about you and her?”
“She wanted to be a clown for a day. You know, walk-a-mile-in-your-size-fifty-six-shoes kind of thing?”
Lucy twisted her neck so she could glare at Franklin with the volcanic intensity he was learning to know and dread. He fished an extra clown-nose from his pocket and held it out to her.
Buster leaned in at Franklin, whispering, “You said she hated clowns.”
The curl in Lucy’s lip was more than enough proof if he needed it.
“I told you. Therapy.” Franklin leaned in to Buster. “Maybe it’s me who could be the cure for what ails her.” Franklin smiled and sucked a big, airy swig from his empty coffee mug.
Lucy’s mouth smiled at Franklin. Her eyes, however, could only be described as a warm, I-will-kill-you-and-eat-your-entrails-sautéed-in-hot-sauce kind of smile.
“No way, Frankie-boy.” Buster pivoted and dashed back into his bedroom.
“I will not. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to spit in your beer?”
“Best way is to lose yourself among all the other clowns. I’ll keep Buster busy. You grab a cab, come back here for your stuff. Key’s in the mailbox. You give Buster and the private eye the slip. Kill two birds—I didn’t mean kill.”
“What about my money?”
“I don’t have it. Buster’s not about to give it to me. Money won’t do you much good if the detective figures out you’re the one he’s been tracking. You’re running out of time.”
Franklin could see the veins stand out in Lucy’s neck, primed for her to go full negatory when Buster came bounding back in.
“Hey! I know! We could have a clown wedding! Clown bridesmaids, squirting flowers, whoopie cushions in the pews.”
Lucy, her eyes flashing in a kind of angry surrender, fixed on Franklin. She snatched the clown nose from his hand and twisted it on.
“Brings out the blood red fury of your eyes,” said Franklin.
In no time, they were dressed and headed for the street, with Franklin helping Lucy down the stairs. Franklin had Lucy all clowned up, her face painted with triangular eyebrows and a red-and-white frown. She insisted on the frown. She wore a multi-color, checkerboard jumper, red vest, topped off with tinsel hair under a Swiss-cheesed top hat full of random holes. She struggled down the stairs in a pair of Franklin’s biggest shoes. He could see that Lucy trying to walk a mile in anyone’s clown shoes would be tough going.
“How am I supposed to sneak anywhere in these things?”
“You’re a natural. Your own mother wouldn’t know you.”
“You think this makes up for what happened at the bus stop?”
“Could it?”
“No way.”
“Okay then, no. And I didn’t take your wallet.”
“It’s your fault I dropped my bags. Doesn’t matter who took it. It’s your fault.”
Franklin ran her bit of logic through the old neural network. “Can’t argue with that.” Although he wanted to try.
Buster burst from the apartment, still thrusting his arms through the sleeves of his coat. He pulled the door closed and duck-walked down the steps.
This was the first time Lucy had seen Buster done up in his own clown rig.
“Say something nice,” said Franklin.
“I’d like to puke on him,” said Lucy.
“The way Buster’s feeling right now, he’ll figure out a way to make it into a compliment and still blame me for it.”
“In that case, I’d rather not waste it.”
Buster wore two-toned clown shoes, multi-color baggy pants, a bright oversized red swallow-tail coat with gold buttons, a blue and white striped undershirt, fake collar and big, butterfly bowtie. He’d painted his face with oversized eyebrows, an oversized mouth turned up at the corners, which could be flexed into a sleazy leer with the twitch of a cheek muscle. He wore a long red nose, a mop of orange hair parted on the side and topped off by a battered blue derby with a tulip in the hatband.
Franklin reached to open the car door for Lucy, but Buster hip-checked Franklin out of the way. With a flourish, Buster pulled open the door.
Lisker yowled, throwing his hands out, startling the three of them and himself. He brushed an old clamshell container of stale fast food off his lap. He hooked his arms on the door and roof of the car, struggling to extricate himself from Franklin’s vehicle. Very much like a baby yak working itself free of the birth canal.
“You could help, y’know,” said Lisker.
“Makes you stronger if I don’t,” said Franklin.
With a grunt, Lisker popped free. “Thanks a lot, buddy.”
“Anytime—buddy,” said Franklin. “Why are you sleeping in my car?”
“I never sleep.” Lisker brushed himself off and straightened his clothes. “I’m on a stake-out.” He yawned, rubbed his face and fixed his clown wig and nose back into place.
“For what?”
“Catch the Slasher using your car. Saw some pretty odd tire tracks out where Big Rig nearly got it.”
“My tires don’t have any tread left on them.”
“Exactly. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
“I go out there for gas all the time.”
Lisker circled Lucy, studying her closely but talking to Franklin. “What about last night? You need any gas last night?”
Lisker stopped and straightened up, his head cocked, still studying Lucy. He shook his finger at her. “That face.” Lisker clinched up his own face as if working hard to pull something stuck between the dried-up lobes of his brain.
“You haven’t heard, have you?” Lisker went on. “They found Big Rig out on the highway early this morning. Lucky for him, he landed on somebody soft. Maybe saved his life.”
“Lucky,” said Franklin.
“Lucky for Big Rig. Lucky for the rest of you clowns.”
“How’s it lucky for the rest of us?”
“Slasher’s getting careless. Maybe soft-hearted even. You know what happens when Slashers go soft?”
“They’re easier to peel?”
Lisker pivoted, swooping in close on Lucy. “That clown face. Those clown gloves. Are you the girl from last night? At the bus stop? Phyllithh?”
“This is someone completely different. Phyllis is long gone. Never did get her last name.” Franklin pushed Lucy behind himself.
Lisker’s mouth popped open. “I only closed my eyes for a minute!” He scrambled, tumbled, pirouetted, then recovered and dived into his own car, driving off, fish-tailing all the way.
Lucy exhaled, pure relief.
“The fake face comes in handy, doesn’t it?”
“You are a real pal. You had me thinking the whole clown thing was so you could horn in on my girl.”
Franklin and Lucy turned around to look at Buster as he closed the hood of Franklin’s car.
“But—in case you do get any ideas about horning in on my girl.” Buster handed Franklin the distributor cap. With a gallant sweep of his arm, Buster invited Lucy into his clownmobile.
Lucy hesitated.
“You want to be stuck here when the private eye comes back?” Buster asked her.
The twist in Lucy’s neck as she looked from Buster to Franklin made it easy for him to see she didn’t like either option. But she got in with Buster.
Franklin could only watch them drive off.
♣︎ ♣︎ ♣︎
“She never looked back or anything,” Franklin said to Gladys. He took a puff of his cigarette. He studied Gladys a long moment. “You seem like a needy person, given to meaningless relationships in search of a manageable intimacy.”
Gladys’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Damn.” She took a drag on her own cigarette. “It shows?”
“I mention it because I want to ask—what do you look for in a guy?”
“Right now?”
“Like what’s-his-name. Whoever it was stood you up?”
“It’s still early.”
“Early keeps getting later and later. What do you look for?”
“Something sharp. All the way up to the handle.” Gladys sipped her drink, sucked hard on an ice cube, and crunched it.
♣︎ ♣︎ ♣︎
Sitting in the front seat next to Buster, Lucy had looked back, which Buster saw. He gunned the accelerator, putting a lot of quick distance between Lucy and Franklin. Lucy watched Franklin diminish into a red and blue speck.
“What a pest.” Buster checked the mirror.
“He must’ve been in Franklin’s car half the night, waiting for us.”
“Not him. Frankie-boy.”
“He’s—okay, I guess. If he wasn’t a clown.”
“But would he lie under oath for you? I don’t think so. Candy? Jewelry? Doesn’t mean a thing. Perjury? Come’s straight from the heart.”
“Jail time would sure put a crimp in your style.”
“It’ll take more than jail time to keep you and me apart. It’ll take a coma or a full-body cast.”
“I like the sound of that. Do you have a preference?”
“Doesn’t matter. Suffering for love is my middle name.”
“Fair enough.” Lucy settled back in the seat.
Buster smiled and did his fanny dance, swaying and bouncing.
The clownmobile motored onward.