Free Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham Page A

dress with enormous flowers worked on it in jet. “Come on in, folks. I—I got Pete all laid out handsome. I just phoned a reverend and he’s coming over. I thought it was nicer to get a reverend if we could, even if Pete wasn’t no church man.”
    They went inside. Joe Plasky fumbled in his pocket and held an envelope up to Zeena. “The boys chipped in for a stone, Zeena. They knew you didn’t need the dough but they wanted to do something. I wrote the Billboard this afternoon. They’ll carry a box. I just said, ‘Mourned by his many friends in show business.”’
    She bent down and kissed him. “That’s—that’s damn sweet of you all. I guess we better get into the chapel. This looks like the reverend coming.”
    They took their places on folding chairs. The clergyman was a meek, dull little old man, looking sleepy. Embarrassed, too, Stan figured. As if carny folks were not quite human—like they had all left their pants off only he was too polite to let on he noticed.
    He put on his glasses. “… we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken …”
    Stan, sitting beside Zeena, tried to concentrate on the words and guess what the reverend was going to say next. Anything to keep from thinking. It’s not my fault he’s dead. I didn’t mean to kill him. I killed him. There it starts again and all day I wasn’t feeling anything and I thought I’d lost it.
    “Lord, let me know my end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live …”
    Pete never knew his end. Pete died happy. I did him a favor. He had been dying for years. He was afraid of living and he was trying to ease himself out only I had to go and kill him. I didn’t kill him. He killed himself. Sooner or later he would have taken a chance on that wood alky. I only helped him a little. Christ, will I have to think about this damn thing the rest of my life?
    Stan slowly turned his head and looked at the others. Molly was sitting with the Major between her and Bruno. In the back row Clem Hoately had his eyes shut. Joe Plasky’s face held the shadow of a smile that was too deeply cut into it ever to vanish completely. It was the sort of smile Lazarus must have had afterwards, Stan thought. Sailor Martin had one eye closed.
    The sight of the Sailor rushed Stan back to normal. He had done that a hundred times himself, sitting beside his father on the hard pew, watching his mother in a white surplice there in the choir stall with the other ladies. There’s a blind spot in your eye and if you shut one eye and then let the gaze of the other travel in a straight line to one side of the preacher’s head there will be a point where his head seems to disappear and he seems to be standing there preaching without any head.
    Stan looked at Zeena beside him. Her mind was far away somewhere. The reverend speeded up.
    “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death …”
    Behind them Major Mosquito heaved a sharp sigh and wriggled, the chair creaking. Bruno said, “Shoosh!”
    When they got to the Lord’s Prayer Stan found his voice with relief. Zeena must hear it. If she heard it she couldn’t suspect him of having anything to do with— Stan lowered his voice and the words came automatically. She mustn’t ever think—and yet she had looked at him sharp when he had said Pete was hanging around the geek. She mustn’t think. Only he mustn’t overplay it. God damn it, this was the time for misdirection if ever there was one. “…
for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever
.”
    “Amen.”
    The undertaker was silently brisk. He removed the coffin lid and set it noiselessly behind the casket. Zeena brought her handkerchief up to her face and turned