Kaleidoscope Page 15
“Know for sure?”
“I guess more like hope. Got no choice, really; I have no other place to go.”
“Sometimes you can’t find somethin’, you gotta just let it go, Jack.”
“Wish to hell I could. It’s not for me. I don’t find what I’m looking for, me and my family, well—let’s just say we’re gonna be looking over our shoulders for a long, long time. If you get what I mean.”
The massive head dropped ever so slightly.
“I know that feeling. I do.”
“No grins, is it?”
“Come up here,” she commanded. “Stool over there, pull it up.”
He gathered up a low-back beside the supporting pole and complied.
“Gonna tell you a story, Jack. About a little girl. She was a petite little thing, at first. Charming. Precocious, even. She wanted to play the violin—oh, yes! But Daddy said, no. And then her fingers got too fat and her joints riddled with gout. Her mother wanted her to play. Her mother said she had the soul of an artist. Her mother was never ashamed. Never distant. She could play like an angel. And this little girl was educated, too.
“But her daddy was a cold man. Distant. And when the little girl got fat she became an embarrassment to her father, and on her nineteenth birthday he committed her to a sanatorium. You ever been to a mental ward, Mr. Romaine? It’s hell. It is a living hell even if you are insane, but his girl was not insane, Jack. No, no. She wasn’t loony. She was just fat.”
Jack cleared his throat.
“How’d you get out?”
“Money. Orderlies at mental institutions are chronically underpaid, which makes them easy to bribe, and cheap. My mother managed it. One graveyard night a pair of orderlies wheeled me down to the infirmary. But instead of putting the juice to me, or dropping me in the cold tank, they had an ambulance waiting.”
“And you came down here with your mother.”
“I came down here, eventually,” she corrected him. “But Mother—”
A single tear ran down the bowl of her face.
“I think Daddy must have killed her.”
“Jesus. And your old man, does he have any idea where you are?”
“If he did he’d come for me, I’m certain,” she sniffed. “And I would most certainly be trapped again in a living torment until I died…
“Have you ever met a man who would put his own child in hell, Mr. Romaine?”
“I know a candidate, believe me.”
She drew in a long, soughing breath.
“Then you know the only thing you can do is to stay far away. Stay far away. Far. Far!”
Ambassador stirred at the tank.
“It’s all right, Ambassador,” she smiled. “We’re all right, baby.”
Jack lifted the corner of her sheet.
“Take it easy, Princess.”
He wiped her face gently. Probably the first time he ever actually looked at her face properly.
“Thank you,” she smiled and dimpled.
He started to retreat.
“No, wait. Wait.”
She gathered his hand into her own. Was like putting a walnut inside a glove.
“I don’t think anyone down here knew Alex, really, except me. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I can tell you Alex didn’t have anything of value. Anyway, if he did, he never mentioned it.”
“I don’t think it’s the kind of thing he’d likely talk about,” Jack squeezed her hand. “Did he mention any kind of, say, investments? Anything like that?”
She snorted.
“The only thing Alex took stock in was a bottle.”
Jack took back his hand and Ambassador jerked his trunk to challenge.
“Shit, what’d I do?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Peewee patted him on the arm. “He’s just reminding me.”
“Of what?”
“My bathtime.”
She swept her bedsheet aside.
“I’m ready, Ambassador.”
His trunk uncoiled to wrap beneath her lap as though she were a log.
“The hell’s he doing?!” Jack scrambled off his stool.
“Taking me to my tub,” she smiled coyly.
The massive bull draping his Princess gently over his twin tusks as gently as a towel. Hefting her like a forklift from her bed.
Jack retreated another yard.
“You sure this is smart, Princess? After what happened to Alex?”
“How else am I to get to my bath?” she seemed amused.
The ground trembling as the rogue bull swiveled to the water tank. Ambassador lowered Peewee still wrapped in her shift into the cool water. She slid off his tusks with a delighted squeal. Then a long, luxurious sigh.
“Only place where I can move, really,” she said slipping out of her nightgown.
Jack found himself tempted to look. But Ambassador stood guard over his lady’s balneation like a palace eunuch.
“The water! Marvelous!”
She leaned back and her breasts bobbed to the surface like kegs.
“I wouldn’t mind your staying, Jack. But we don’t know each other well enough. Yet.”
Running her hands to her crotch.
“I’ll just show myself out.” Jack found the railway.
“Sweet of you to drop by,” she called after him.
Jack turned back, briefly.
“One thing, Princess: You don’t have to look over your shoulder here. Nobody’s gonna let anybody take you from this place. Nobody.”
She smiled sadly.
“Merci, monsieur. Bon nuit.”
Jack was long asleep when a Packard coupe pulled away from the apartment attached to the Kaleidoscope Café, heading west for a drive to Tampa. He was not there to see Tampa’s midnight train hoot its imminent departure. A thick fog shrouded the man and woman who waited at a bench that was gathering dew beneath the station’s shallow-peaked shelter. Could you have penetrated the fog you might notice that the woman was unusually tall, a head taller than her companion even while seated. The couple, though closely seated, did not appear intimate. Were Jack present he would have noticed the worn medical bag placed like a border between that pair of mismatched thighs.
“All aboard for ALBANY, ATLANTA…CINCINNATTI!….”
The porter’s baritone summons nearly swallowed by the fog.
“Don’t forget your hat.” Luna Chevreaux handed Doc Snyder a boater.
It was not Doc’s usual derby, this headpiece. It was a summer hat, gaily ribboned and flat-brimmed. Made of straw.
“Be careful, Doc.”
“And yourself.”
Iron valves hissing, a brakeman waving his flag, the plaintive complaint of a steam-driven whippoorwill, and Kaleidoscope’s physician was swallowed into the morning mist. Luna remaining behind, tall and silent and alone.
Was a good hour after midnight when Jack Romaine was jerked from a fitful sleep.
“Get up, dammit! Get yer ass up!”
Tommy Speck jumping up and down on his goddamn bed.
“The fuck, izzit five awready?”
“It’s the twins!”
A scramble of brogans and trousers and suspenders, then, Jack stumbling after Tommy to reach the Siamese brothers’ neighboring cottage.
Cassandra was ahead of him, flat against the corrugated wall.
“They’re sick,” she offered that prediction. “I tried to ask them, I speak a little, but—”
“Let me take a look.”
Jack raised Tommy’s lantern to inspect the twin faces, rigid as logs on their rude bed. Both of the twins were pale, lips going blue. Marcel appeared to be the worst of the two; his face was clammy to the touch, his neck and shoulder swollen to the size of a gourd.
Jack took a hand. Cold. He leaned close to inspect the fingernails.
“What is it?” Tommy prodded.
“The fuck would I know?” Jack leaned down to Jacques.
“(Jacque. Jacques, my friend. Can you hear me?)”
/>
“Jack? Oui.”
“(How long have you been like this?)”
“(Minutes. It started with Marcel. He said he could not breathe. We—! Cannot…breathe!)”
“(Is Marcel choked? Did he swallow something?)”
“(No. A bee.)”
“What was that?” Tommy asked.
“Bee stung him.”
Jack verified the welt swelling over Marcel’s shoulder.
“We need Doc,” Jack declared.
“He’s out of town.” Cassandra reported that fact as if she were to blame.
Jacques gasped violently.
“(Oh, God!)”
Marcel’s head rolling back.
“GIVE ME SOME ROOM,” Jack fumbled for the knife in his trousers.
“What in God’s name—?” Tommy trapped his fist.
“Lemme go, Tommy, he’s gotta breathe.”
“Have you done this before?” Speck did not let him go.
“Couple times. I was a corpsman.”
“Let him go, Tommy!”
“…awright, awright.”
“Cassandra, take the globe off the lantern. Use the oilcloth, you have to, but get it off.”
Jack took the naked lantern and ran the blade of his knife back and forth through that white-hot flame.
“(Jacques, listen to me. I have to open your brother’s throat. His throat, do you understand?)”
“Oui.”
“Tommy, Cassandra—hold their hands.”
Cassandra and Speck rushed to either side of the bed. Jack allowed his crude instrument to cool a moment.
“(Mary, Mother of God,)” Jacques croaked. “(In our hour of need we beseech thee—)”
“Hail Mary, Mother of Grace,” Cassandra joined in.
“Good luck,” Tommy added his own benediction as Jack probed gently with his fingers to find the spot. There it was, the cricothyroid, just a notch in the voice box. Couldn’t go too far, though. Or too deep.
Jack plunged his knife into the gap.
Jacques’ protest was no more than the cry of a kitten. Marcel was past pain.
“Did it work?”
“Depends. They’ve got separate airways, but my guess is they’re sharing a lung or lungs. Anyway, it’s all I can think of.. Only thing I can do.”
A small geyser of sputum and you could hear it, the whistle of air through the gash in Marcel’s throat. Jacques swallowing air like a goldfish moments later with the shared ventilation.
“C’mon, Marcel. C’mon, buddy.”
A whistle of air and then his eyelids flicker and then Marcel was back.
“(Don’t try to talk,)” Jack directed. “(I cut a hole for you to breathe, I’m gonna put in a tube so it stays open, so just stay still, Marcel. Let your brother do the talking.)”
“I need some kinda tube,” Jack turned to Cassandra. “Something that’ll hold pressure, doesn’t have to be big.”
“I’ve got a fountain pen,” she offered.
“That all you got?”
“Only thing close.”
“Go get it. Tommy, use the cap. Cut off the tip. We got any alcohol?”
“We’re a beddy, ain’t we?”
“Douche the cap with whatever you got. Burn it. Pour on some more. We’ll worry about the wound later.”
He leaned over Jacques.
“(Has this happened before?)”
“(Yes, once. A wasp.)”
“(Did they pack him in ice?)”
“(Ice, yes! I had forgotten.)”
Jack looked up to see Luna Chevreaux flanking The Giant at the cottage door. The Giant bending low to peer inside.
“We heard they was sick.”
The first words Jack had ever heard the man utter.
“We need ice,” Jack appealed to Luna. “Lots of it.”
“From the café, Giant. Hurry!”
The big man seemed to glide away.
“When did it start?” Luna entered the shack.
“Don’t know,” Tommy replied. “I just heard Jacques croakin’ and came and got Jack.”
“I’ve got the pen!” Cassandra announced breathless from the door.
“Got it.”
Tommy Speck snatched the cap off Cassandra’s pen.
Jacques reaching over to caress his brother’s face.
“(I will never leave you, Marcel!)”
The siblings hanging each to the other like a life raft.
“(Always I am here! Always!)”
“This do?” Tommy handed Jack the cap.
“It’ll have to.”
Jack slipped the makeshift breather into Marcel’s trachea. He’d have to rig a pledget of some kind.
“You got any gauze?”
“Not sure,” Luna apologized.
“Find out. I need adhesive tape, too. And quinine. Surely with all the fever down here you’ve got quinine?”
“We’ll look,” Luna seemed glad to have a task. “Cassandra, can you check the infirmary?”
“Really important we get that medicine,” Jack grated.
“We will,” Luna assured him. “I’ll go back to Tampa if I have to.”
Back to Tampa?
But at that moment, Jacques reached out to take Jack’s hand.
“(Will we live?)”
“(Of course,)” Jack replied and turned his attention to Jacques’ conjoined twin.
“(Marcel, I need to know if you’re getting enough air. Blink once for ‘yes’, twice for ‘no’.)”
Marcel blinked once and quickly.
“(Good. Now we’re going to ice both of you down and get you some quinine. You can beat this thing, my friends. Just try to relax, that’s important. Let us do the work.)”
“Will they make it?” Luna whispered privately.
“You always tell ’em they’ll make it,” Jack kept a smile for the brothers’ benefit. “The hell is that ice?”
“Coming fast as we can.”
“Sorry, it’s just—I never like to lose a man.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Hell of a time for Doc to run off.”
“He had…business. In Florida.”
“When’s he due back?”
“Could be a couple of days,” she replied as if it were an apology.
“Well, I ain’t gonna brodie ’long as these two are in the woods.”
“Of course not.”
“Put me a cot in here, I’ll be fine. Maybe some coffee.”
“I’ll send over breakfast. How about for the twins?”
“Water’s the big thing. Lots of it. Maybe some broth or consume for nourishment. Nothing they have to chew.”
“Doc should be back in a couple of days,” Luna risked a return to that subject.
Jack pocketed his knife.
“Couple of days it’ll be over.”
Jack sealed the tracheotomy with ordinary adhesive tape and for five nights afterward never left the side of his unusual charges. Every morning one of the performers brought breakfast and coffee, usually with a fresh orange. Jack mixed the quinine got from the carney’s infirmary with orange juice in an attempt to make that prescription more palatable for his patients. He applied warm, dry compresses to the site of the rough surgery. Jacques & Marcel never complained. Occasionally Jack would see the twin heads turn in unison, inches apart, each man inquiring as to his fellow’s disposition, Jacques speaking easily, Marcel stopping the hole in his throat for some hoarse reply. Each brother offering encouragement to the other.
Three times a day, Jack took a temperature. Three times a day he took a pulse.
“(Am I checking one heart?)” he asked his patients, “(or two?)”
Marcel smiled with Jacques’ reply.
“(We share.)”
The pulse was erratic at first and did not settle into any sort of predictable rhythm until the third day. The swelling and fever subsided more quickly; by the second day there was no more need for ice. As would any nurse, Jack urged water or juice at
every opportunity. The twins had good appetites, though Marcel was reduced to soup while Jacques could eat anything he liked.
Nothing to do otherwise but watch and wait. Tommy brought the Tampa paper over from the cookhouse each morning. Jack had forgotten how much he looked forward to a paper, even a Tampa paper.
Some news from home made Tampa headlines: President Hoover was set to visit Cincinnati. Jack couldn’t actually give less of a damn. He was more concerned that the Reds finished out their season with a meaningless loss to the National League champs. And who the hell ever played baseball in October—?! At that rate, half the country was going to be following football before the World Series even started.
There was another kidnapping, some millionaire in Detroit got his kid snatched. Just like the Lindberghs, everybody had an opinion about this one. The most recent scandal centered on the prison riot in Denver. Thirty screws taken hostage. Five thousand inmates holding shivs over their guards.
The latest Tribune reported that the Denver warden was refusing to negotiate with the prisoners. “They can go to hell,” he said, which pretty much guaranteed that his flatfoots were going to get their throats slit.
Business was running pretty much as usual, Wall Street getting richer and richer though Jack briefly noted a back page editorial that whined about the dangers of trading on the margin. Jack skipped that story. The only stocks he was interested in were certificates that belonged to Oliver Bladehorn.
On the morning of the sixth day, Jack removed a jerry-rigged tube from Marcel’s tracheotomy. There was no sign of infection.
“We’re going to leave the wound open,” Jack informed the twins. “It’ll heal on its own. You can put on a bandage to keep it clear, if you want.”
Jack plopped into his nurse’s cot feeling better than he had in days. He slept through the day and on through the next rose-fingered dawn. When he woke he found Tommy Speck and Luna Chevreaux propped like pigeons on either side of the sleeping brothers.
“How are they?” she asked him.
Jacques’ arm was still thrown protectively over his brother’s chest. Marcel was better, much improved in fact, which Jack was relieved to see. The twin’s face and upper torso were returned to something like recognizable proportions. Jack swung out of his cot and walked stiffly over to the twins. He checked their foreheads one at a time for fever. Nothing obvious. The pulse seemed normal, though there was something underneath, some occasional susurration not encountered in his other experience. But there was nothing he could do about that.