albino’s face.
And if I can’t see him clearly, he can’t see me any better, Conrad
thought, relieved. He can’t see the tarp, and even if he can see it,
he can’t possibly know what’s in it.
“Conrad?”
“Yeah. Here.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no. Nothing.” i The gates are open. We’ll have marks swarming
all over us in a couple of minutes.”
Conrad crouched beside the tarp, using his body to further block
Ghost’s view of it. “There was some junk on the track. But it’s okay
now. I’ve taken care of it.” “You need some help?” Ghost asked,
starting toward him.
“No! No, no. I’ve got everything under control. You better get out
front, throw the switch, and start selling tickets. We’re ready to
roll.”
“Are you sure?”
UOf course I’m sure!” Conrad snapped. “Get moving. I’ll be out in a
few minutes.”
Ghost hesitated for just a second, then turned and walked back the way
he had come. I As soon as the albino was out of sight, Conrad dragged
the tarp behind the papier-mache boulders. He had a bit of trouble
squeezing the grisly bundle through the trapdoor. He leaned in after
it, lowered it the length of his arms, then let it drop the rest of the
way. It landed at the foot of the ladder. The tarp flopped open, and
the ghastly, disembodied head looked up at him, mouth stretched in a
silent scream.
Conrad went down the ladder again. He closed the trapdoor above him.
He bent, gathered up the corners of the tarp, and dragged the corpse to
the maintenance area in the northwest corner of the funhouse
basement.
Overhead, the building was abruptly filled with eerie, tape-recorded
music as Ghost started switching on the system.
Grimacing, Conrad picked up the dead woman’s gore-spattered clothes,
one piece at a time. He checked the pockets of her jeans, jacket, and
blouse, looking for some scrap of identification.
He found her car keys right away. Attached to the key ring was one of
those miniature license plates that were sold by some veterans’
organizations. The number on it was the number on her real plates.
Even before he had finished his search of her clothes, he saw the Big
American Midway VIP badge pinned to her blouse. That discovery rocked
him.
If she was someone with important carnival connections, Gunther’s
secret could no longer be concealed.
Conrad found the sort of thing he was looking for in the last pocket he
turned out. It was a laminated ID card that said she was Janet Leigh
Middlemeir, she worked for the county Office of Public Safety, she was
a safety engineer, whatever the hell that was, and she was accredited
by the State of Maryland.
A government official. That was bad. But not as bad as he had
feared.
At least she wasn’t a sister or a cousin of one of the carnies. She
didn’t have any friends or relatives on the lot, no one who would be
looking out for her.
Evidently she had been on the midway strictly in a professional
capacity, making spot safety checks. No one would have realized that
she had disappeared in the middle of one of those inspections because
no one would have been paying special attention to her. There was a
good chance that Conrad could move the body and plant it far away from
the carnival, in such a way that the police would think she had been
killed after she quit working.
But he couldn’t do anything more until it was dark, it would be a risky
bit of business even then.
Now he had to get out front, on the barker’s platform, before Ghost
started wondering what had happened to him and came looking again.
Conrad took a coil of rope from one of the storage shelves and threaded
it through the eyelets around the edges of the tarpaulin. Then he
pulled the rope like a drawstring and made a bag out of the tarp, with
the dead woman and her belongings inside. He put the bag in the
corner. He stripped out of the bloody coveralls and put them with the
bag. His hands were bloody, and he wiped them off as best he could on