Free The Sixteen Burdens by David Khalaf

wouldn’t smash into each other.”
    “That’s the price of being a gentleman,” she said. “Or whatever you are. Excuse me.”
    She pulled on the door again but Gray had his hand firmly set against it. He turned around and looked for Pickford, who was unlocking her passenger door for the man with her.
    “We’ll flip for it,” Gray said.
    “I don’t gamble,” the girl said. “I never gamble.”
    She had a stiff dress and white gloves, her hair kept back by a headband. Although it suited her nicely, the dress looked far too conservative for the day’s fashion, as if it had been purchased for a young woman thirty years ago.
    Gray let go of the door and the girl slipped in. She reached over to shut the door but Gray slid in beside her, jostling her with his jacket elbow.
    “We’ll share,” he said. “You can have it when I’m done.”
    “I’m in a rush. You can have it when I’m done!”
    They turned their heads and looked out the back window. Pickford was pulling away.
    “Driver, follow that car!” they both said.
    They looked at each other.
    “I guess we can share after all,” Gray said. “You paying, muffin?”
     
    Ten minutes later, the taxi was cruising west down Wilshire Boulevard. The young woman was looking out the window, and her shadowy face illuminated with an orange glow every time they passed a street lamp.
    “Mary Pickford,” Gray said. “Who’s she with? You overhear any of her conversation?”
    “Tell me first why you’re following her.”
    Gray adjusted the fedora on his head.
    “I’m a private eye on a case.”
    She looked at him for the first time since they had gotten in the taxi. A laugh escaped from her mouth that she didn’t bother to stifle.
    “You’re a private detective? Who’s your client, Rin Tin Tin?”
    “Sure, cookie. The case of the missing dog bone.”
    She didn’t respond, but continued to stare out at the oncoming traffic. He noticed a large red hand mark across the side of her face. Someone had slapped her, hard.
    “What happened to you?” he said.
    She gingerly touched her cheek.
    “I made a madman madder.”
    She looked at him.
    “There’s no use getting angry on my behalf.”
    “Who said I was angry?”
    Gray looked at her. For the briefest moment he saw red energy swirl around her, with a thin ribbon of blue deep inside. It was like a smoke bomb, but translucent and glowing. Just as quickly it was gone. It must have been the reflection from a passing neon sign.
    “You have a lot of anger,” she said. “Other things too.”
    She twirled her hair for a while, staring out the window, then seemed to make a decision.
    “There’s a reward for information leading to the capture of the man who’s abducting all of those actresses,” she said. “I intend to claim it.”
    “Do you have information about that?”
    “I overheard Mrs. Pickford say she knew who the man was, and she said she was on her way to stop him,” Elsie said.
    “Did she say anything about him?”
    She tugged on one of her curls as she thought about it.
    “They called him the world’s strongest man.”
    The world’s strongest man.
    Why did that sound familiar? He thought a moment, then removed the newspaper from his jacket pocket. He flipped through the pages to find what he was looking for; it didn’t take long. There, on the same inside page of the story about Nina Beauregard was a quarter-page ad for the circus. Spanning the top of the ad was a drawing of a giant man lifting a massive barbell above his head. He had a handlebar mustache and an intense gaze. Above him, a headline: “Darko Atlas, the strongest man on Earth!”
    Below the strongman was a collage of other circus performers—acrobats, an animal tamer, a knife thrower—but Gray zeroed in on a cluster of performers: three half-sized clowns who were juggling batons.
    The Lollipop Guild.
    “I know where we’re going,” Gray said.
    “Where?” she asked.
    Gray didn’t respond. He didn’t want her running