Free Entwined by Lynda La Plante Page A

from a kid's piggy bank, you have never given a shit for anyone but yourself. How long did you get?"
    Kellerman shrugged. "Five years. It was okay, I survived, the cons treated me okay…the guards were the worst, bastards every one of them, called me monkey or chimpy."
    "You must be used to nicknames by now…"
    "Yeah, haw haw…sticks and stones may break my bones but…"
    He leaned forward, a frown on his face. "I'm shrinking, Ruda, do you notice? Prison doc said it was something to do with the curvature of my spine. I said to him, Jesus Christ, Doc, I can't get any smaller, can I? I said to him, if this goes on I'll be the incredible shrinking man, and he said…"
    Kellerman shook his head as he chortled with laughter. "He said, that was done with mirrors! They built giant chairs and tables, then…fuck it! How could he know, eh? How could he know!"
    Kellerman was referring to his obsession, a fun-house mirror he used to haul everywhere he went. The mirror distorted a normal human being, but it made Kellerman look tall and slender—normal. One night in a fit of rage he had smashed it to pieces, and wept like a child at his broken dream image. He turned now to peer at himself in the dressing table mirror, his head just reaching the top of the table. The effect was comical, even funny, but Kellerman was not a clown. He was a man filled with self-hatred, and convinced of the fact that if he had grown, he could have been recognized as handsome as a movie star, a Robert Redford, a Clint Eastwood.
    He cocked his head, grinning. "You know they got drugs now to prevent dwarfism? If they detect it early enough, they pump you with steroids, and you grow. Ain't that something?"
    Kellerman loathed his deformity; when drunk he was always ready to attack anyone he caught staring at him. The circus was his only employment, his short body rushing around the ring, being chased and thrown around. He opened another vodka and drank it neat from the small bottle.
    "Did you work with the Frazer brothers in Paris?"
    Ruda asked the question without really wanting a reply; her heart was hammering inside her chest. She had to get him into a good mood, she didn't have the money.
    Kellerman nodded. "Yeah, the Frazers had bought my electric car just before I went to jail. So when I turned up and told them I needed a few dollars they put me in the act. My timing was right—you know little Frankie Godfrey? He had joined the act about four years ago. Well, he's been really sick, water on the brain maybe, I dunno. Some crazy woman a few years back got up from her seat and attacked him, she just hurtled into the ring and began knocking him around. The audience thought it was all part of the show, but she was a nut case. Ever since the poor sod's had these blinding headaches; still they paved the way for me to earn a few bucks. Then the management found out about me—gave me my walking papers, they told the Frazers to get rid of me. Cunts all of them."
    "Serves you right, if you steal from the people who employ you, and virtually kill a cashier, what else do you expect?…I did that show, Monte Carlo, wasn't it?"
    "I borrowed the dough, I was gonna pay it back. Yeah, Monte fuckin' Carlo, I only went there to date Princess Stephanie!…haw haw!"
    Ruda laughed. "Oh yeah, where were you going to find two hundred thousand dollars? From Prince Rainier?"
    Kellerman chortled, and pointed to her handbag. "I'm looking right at half that amount now! You know something, we made a good team, we could do it again, I'm good with animals."
    "Fuck off… you hate anything with four legs."
    He shrugged. "No, I'm serious. You hear what that high-wire act got paid for a stint in Vegas? I mean the real dough is in cabaret. And there's a double act with big cats, you know, mixed with magic—they make their panthers disappear. I dunno how the fuck they do it, but it's got to be a con. You ever thought of trying the Vegas circuit? I got contacts there, I mean maybe to have me