In the main area, the entertainers were beginning their acts. Not mere freaks, but legitimate performers with skills and talents. Exhibiting not themselves, but rather their unusual abilities. Dancers, acrobats, jugglers, fire-eaters, wrestlers, fighters, animal-tamers, clowns, riders, divers, strong men, magicians, fortune-tellers, pretty girls… acts that had come down through thousands of years. Nothing new: only the freaks were new. The war brought new monsters, but not new abilities.
Or so he thought. But he hadn’t seen Jones, yet. Nobody had; it was too early. The world went on rebuilding, re-constructioning: its time hadn’t come.
To his left glared and winked the furious display of a girl exhibit. With some spontaneous interest, Cussick allowed himself to drift with the crowd.
Four girls lounged on the platform, bodies slack with ennui. One was clipping her nails with a pair of scissors; the others gazed vacantly at the crowd of men below. The four were naked, of course. In the weak sunlight their flesh glowed faintly luminous, oily, pale-pink, downy. The pitchman babbled metallically into his horn; his amplified voice thundered out in a garble of confused noise. Nobody paid any attention to the din; those who were interested stood peering up at the girls. Behind the girls was a closed sheet-tin building in which the show itself took place.
“Hey,” one of the girls said.
Startled, Cussick realized she was speaking to him. “What?” he answered nervously.
“What time is it?” the girl asked.
Hurriedly, Cussick examined his wrist watch. “Eleven-thirty.”
The girl wandered out of line, over to the edge of the platform. “Got a cigarette?” she asked.
Fumbling in his pocket, Cussick held up his pack.
“Thanks.” Breasts bobbing, the girl crouched down and accepted a cigarette. After an uncertain pause, Cussick reached up his lighter and lit it for her. She smiled down at him, a small and very young woman, with brown hair and eyes, slim legs pale and slightly moist with perspiration. “You coming in to see the show?” she inquired.
He hadn’t intended to. “No,” he told her.
The girl’s lips pulled together in a mocking pout. “No? Why not?” Nearby people watched with amusement. “Aren’t you interested? Are you one of those?”
People around Cussick tittered and grinned. He began to feel embarrassment.
“You’re cute,” the girl said lazily. She settled down on her haunches, cigarette between her red lips, arms resting on her bare, out-jutting knees. “Don’t you have fifty dollars? Can’t you afford it?”
“No,” Cussick answered, nettled. “Can’t afford it.”
“Aw.” Teasing, pretending disappointment, the girl reached out her hand and rumpled his carefully-combed hair. “That’s too bad. Maybe I’ll take you on free. Would you like that? Want to be with me for nothing?” Winking, she stuck out the tip of a pink tongue at him. “I can show you a lot. You’d be surprised, the techniques I know.”
“Pass the hat,” a perspiring bald-headed man on Cussick’s right chuckled. “Hey, let’s get up a collection for this young fellow.” A general stir of laughter drifted around, and a few five-dollar pieces were tossed forward.
“Don’t you like me?” the girl was asking him, bending down and toward him, one hand resting on his neck. “Don’t you think you could?” Taunting, coaxing, her voice murmured on: “I’ll bet you could. And all these people think you could, too. They’re going to watch. Don’t you worry—I’ll show you how.” Suddenly she grabbed tight hold of his ear. “You just come on up here; mama’ll show all of you people what she can do.”
A roar of glee burst from the crowd, and Cussick was pushed forward and boosted up. The girl let go of his ear and reached with both hands to take hold of him; in that moment he twisted his way loose and dropped back down in the mass of people. After a short interval of shoving and running, he was standing beyond the crowd, panting for breath, trying to rearrange his coat… and his savior faire.
Nobody was paying attention to him, so he began walking aimlessly along, hands in his pockets, as nonchalant as possible. People milled on all sides, most of them heading toward the main exhibits and the central area. Carefully, he evaded the moving flow; his best bet was the peripheral exhibits, open places where literature could be distributed and speeches made, tiny gatherings around a single orator. He wondered if the lean war veteran had been a fanatic; maybe he had identified Cussick as a cop.
The girl exhibit had been a sort of all-man’s land between freak and talent. Beyond the stage of girls stood the booth of the first fortuneteller, one of several.
“They’re charlatans,” the portly curly-haired man revealed to him; he was standing with his family by a dart-throwing booth, a handful of darts clutched, trying to win a twenty-pound Dutch ham. “Nobody can read the future; that’s for suckers.”
Cussick grinned. “So’s a twenty-pound Dutch ham. It’s probably made of wax.”
“I’m going to win this ham,” the man asserted good-naturedly. His wife said nothing, but his children displayed overt confidence in their father. “I’m going to take it home with me, tonight.”
“Maybe I’ll get my fortune told,” Cussick said.
“Good luck, mister,” the curly-headed man said charitably. He turned back to the dart target: a great eroded backdrop of the nine planets, pitted with endless near-misses. Its virgin center, an incredibly minute Earth, was untouched. The portly, curly-headed man drew back his arm and let fly; the dart, attracted by a deflecting concealed magnet, missed Earth and buried its steel tip in empty space a little past Ganymede.
At the first fortunetelling booth an old woman, dark-haired and fat, sat hunched over a squat table on which was arranged timeless apparatus: a translucent globe. A few people were lined up on the stage, crowded in among the tawdry hangings waiting to pay their twenty dollars. A glaring neon sign announced:
YOUR FORTUNE READ
MADAME LULU CARIMA-ZELDA
KNOW THE FUTURE
BE PREPARED FOR ALL EVENTUALITIES
There was nothing here. The old woman mumbled through the traditional routine, satisfying the middle-aged women waiting in line. But next to Madame Lulu Carima-Zelda’s booth was a second booth, shabby and ignored. A second fortuneteller, of sorts, sat here. But the bright glaring cheapness of Madame Carima-Zelda’s booth had faded; the glittering nimbus died into gloomy darkness. Cussick was no longer walking through the shifting artificial fluorescent lights; he was standing in a gray twilight zone, between gaudy worlds.
On the barren platform sat a young man, not much older than himself, perhaps a little younger. His sign intrigued Cussick.
THE FUTURE OF MANKIND (NO PERSONAL FORTUNES)
For an interval Cussick stood studying the young man. He was slouched in a sullen heap, smoking angrily and staring off into space. Nobody waited in line: the exhibit was ignored. His face was fringed with a stubbled beard; a strange face, swollen deep red, with bulging forehead, steel-rimmed glasses, puffy lips like a child’s. Rapidly, he blinked, puffed on his cigarette, jerkily smoothed back his sleeves. His bare arms were pale and thin. He was an intent, sullen figure, seated alone on an empty expanse of platform.
No personal fortunes. An odd come-on for an exhibit; nobody was interested in abstract fortunes, group fortunes. It sounded as if the teller wasn’t much good; the sign implied vague generalities. But Cussick was interested. The man was licked before he started; and still he sat there. After all, fortunetelling was ninety-nine percent showmanship and the rest shrewd guesswork. In a carny he could learn the traditional ropes; why did he choose this offbeat approach? It was deliberate, obviously. Every line of the hunched, ugly body showed that the man intended to stick it out—had stuck it out, for God knew how long. The sign was shabby and peeling; maybe it had been years.
This was Jones. But at the time, of course, Cussick didn’t know it.
Leaning toward the platform, Cussick cupped his hands and yelled: “Hey.”
After a moment the youth’s head turned. His eyes met Cussick’s. Gray eyes, small and cold behind his thick glasses. He blinked and glared back, without speaking, without moving. On the table his fingers drummed relentlessly.
“Why?” Cussick demanded. “Why no personal fortunes?”
The youth didn’t answer. Gradually his gaze faded; he turned his head and again glared down sightlessly at the table.
There was no doubt about it: this boy had no pitch, no line. Something was wrong; he was off-key. The other entertainers were hawking, yelling, turning themselves inside out (often literally) to attract attention, but this boy simply sat and glared. He made no move to get business; and he got none. Why, then, was he there?
Cussick hesitated. It didn’t look like much of a place to snoop; actually, he was wasting the government’s time.
But his interest had been aroused. He sensed a mystery, and he didn’t like mysteries. Optimistically, he believed things should be solved; he liked the universe to make sense. And this blatantly flaunted sense.