Dark Carnival Murders (5 page)

"In moderation and small
amounts, it’s still early in the term and I don’t drink
much."

I went to the kitchen and
opened the brandy we had for special occasions. I poured the liquor
into four glasses and put them on a tray. I handed out the glasses
and sat.

I held up my glass,
"Here’s to a long and happy marriage and a happy baby." We drank,
Lynn sipped.

Deacon told us all the
details of their honeymoon in Hawaii and left not much out, much to
Lynn’s dismay. She had to hit him a few times.

We sat talking for a while
and then they said they were tired from their trip back and we
finished up the evening.

At the door Lynn said,
"I’ll get on this in the morning. I can understand what the parents
are going through, especially now that I’m going to have a child
myself."

"I’ll be in touch," I
said. They left and I set the alarms and pulled Penny to the
bedroom. She was dragging, but short of carrying her, I got her to
bed.

~~*~~

Around midnight, Buck and
Mac had finished the shift of getting people on and off the
round-up. The crowd had thinned and then finally went home. Buck
and Mac closed down the ride and secured it, then they turned to
see Mr. Dark approach.

"Men, I watched you both
and you attracted a lot of nice young ladies to this ride. Women
like big strong men like you, I think you can be handy. Are you
open to making a lot more money?"

"We don’t have to kill
anyone, do we?" Buck said with a grin.

"Oh goodness no, just
convince a few nice ladies to join our traveling show, that’s all.
Not hard is it?" Dark said with an evil smile.

Buck leaned towards Dark
and said, "I get what you are saying, we don’t really need to
convince them do we?"

"You understand,
fantastic, we have a deal?"

"As long as the money is
good too."

"Oh, it can be if you
deliver the goods."

"We can do the job," Buck
grinned.

"Fantastic, you can go off
to your little camper for now, but I think maybe we can arrange
better quarters for you. Oh and I called my friend Piper Davis and
he remembers you too. He said to say hi and gave a glowing report
of your past, I like it." He turned and walked away. Buck looked to
Mac and smiled.

~~*~~

The next morning, Sunday,
Angelo was preparing his famous sausage, eggs and cheese biscuit
sandwiches and the smell pulled me from my sleep. I hit the
bathroom and quickly went to the kitchen before Penny ate
everything.

I had my fill since Angelo
made extras and even Willy had his treat. Penny was making a piggy
out of herself and I joked to her that her butt was getting bigger.
Big mistake.

She finished her sandwich,
stuck her tongue out at me and stalked off to her
bathroom.

"Mr. R., I think you may
be in trouble, women don’t like being told their asses look fat,"
Angelo said.

"Angelo, you are wise
beyond your age. I knew as soon as it slipped out of my mouth. The
thing about Penny is that she holds it in until the right moment
then she lets loose. So I’m in terror all day," I said with a
laugh.

I finished up my meal and
then my cell phone buzzed, it was Buck. "Talk to me," I
said.

"I think we got him," was
all he said and hung up.

*

Chapter 6

I figured Buck was in the
middle of something or he would have said more, so I just had to
wait, but the news was encouraging. Penny came back out from the
bathroom, all dressed and ready for the day. I wondered if my fat
ass comment had settled.

She kissed my cheek and
pinched my butt. "Hmm… getting a bit cheeky there, lard
ass."

I just had to hold in the
laugh and hope that was it. Then she said, "Angelo we need to get
Mr. R. a bigger stool so his butt can fit on it." Angelo held his
laugh also.

Penny leaned down to pick
up Willy and said to him, "Be careful baby, so daddy doesn’t sit on
you."

"Okay! I apologize for my
insensitive remark, can we drop it now," I pleaded.

"All right blubber butt,
it’s over." She kissed me again and took Willy out the sliding
patio door to the backyard.

I just shook my head and
Angelo laughed aloud. I stood and went through the patio door to
the back and found Penny standing on the lawn with Willy running
around the yard like a mad dog.

"He’s getting his
exercise, we need to make him walk more instead of carrying him all
the time," she said.

"I agree, but he’s so
small he’s liable to get stepped on," I said just as my cell phone
buzzed. I pulled it out and the caller ID said it was Deacon. "Hey
big guy, is the honeymoon over yet?" I said.

"Not yet, we are just
getting started. Just called to see if you’re going to that
carnival again. Lynn did a quick check and could find nothing on
Jacob Dark. She has Warren checking on the city permits for the
carnival to set up and see what that says. Otherwise, he’s not on
the radar, no criminal past that she can find. Heard from Buck
yet?"

"As a matter of fact, he
called about ten minutes ago and cryptically said that we got him
and hung up. I suppose we’ll have to wait until he can talk. Are
you and Lynn thinking about going to the carnival?"

"If you guys are, Lynn
wants to see carnie Buck as she’s calling him now."

I turned to Penny and
quickly told her what Deacon said, she replied, "I’m all for going
to see carnie Buck too."

"Okay, tell Lynn that you
guys can meet us at my office in an hour. Bring a couple of fans,"
I said and hung up.

"Willy can go with us this
time, he may enjoy the kiddie boat ride," Penny said with a grin
and called to Willy. He came running and she picked him up and
headed back into the house. Angelo was just finishing cleaning the
kitchen and I asked if he’d like to go to the carnival
again.

"Thanks Mr. R. but I got
plans for today and I’m calling mom this afternoon, she may come
out for a visit."

Penny heard this and made
a little happy squeal, "When do you think she may be
here?"

"We have to work it out,
I’ll let you know. You have to recommend some good shows to go to
also. Mom is going to be here for at least five days so we need to
have things to do."

"Is Gino coming also?" I
asked.

"It’s not common knowledge
whether he is coming or not, you get what I mean," he said with a
wink.

I wasn’t going to ask
further, it sounded like a clandestine trip, one mob capo getting
out of town under cover. I hope there was going to be no criminal
activities that the Feds may spoil Angelo seeing his
mother.

"Don’t worry, Mr. R. it’s
all good, Gino just needs to get away from the life every so
often."

"Good, you know that they
are more than welcome to visit us while they are here. Are you
putting them up in the Tropicana again?"

"Yeah, mom likes the place
so it’s going to be where they will stay."

Penny spoke, "You make
sure that Francis and I can have a day to ourselves, just the
women."

"I think she is already
planning on it, she asked me to get reservations for that spa she
enjoyed last time she was here, and she said to get one for you
too."

Penny grinned, "Great,
I’ll look forward to it."

"We have to get moving if
we are going to meet Deacon and Lynn," I interrupted. "Angelo, the
house is yours if you need it."

"Thanks Mr. R. but I’m
going to be gone most the day."

I didn’t ask what he was
up to, and really didn’t want to know, especially if it involved
his mob friends. The less I knew the better. Penny went to get her
things and Willy’s leash.

"Not bringing the carry
bag?" I asked.

"Throw it in the van in
case," she said.

We went outside to the
van, drove to the office and saw Deacon’s huge pick-up in front of
the building. I was hoping that Lynn didn’t have any ideas about
going shopping at the mall. We parked and they came over. Lynn had
a camera hanging around her neck.

"You were serious about
taking carnie Buck’s picture," I said.

"Bet your bippy, I want
this to show Maria and Trapper," she said. "Speaking of him, where
is he?"

"I haven’t spoke to him
since Friday when he told me he and Samantha were going to try and
see if they can rekindle their relationship," I said.

"So Trapper’s horny and
Sam is available," Deacon laughed.

"Probably, but that’s his
business. Now shall we hit the desert before it gets too hot out?"
I said.

We all got into my van and
I drove back south to the carnival. Parking wasn’t so bad this time
and we weren’t too far away from the midway. We entered and went
down the first row of rides, until we got to the corner where I
spotted Buck and Mac at the entrance to the round-up. Buck was
operating the controls and Mac was helping people on and off the
massive ride.

Lynn spotted them also and
we headed there. I said that we didn’t want to give away their
cover, so I told the women to just act like they were interested in
Buck and Mac, since I could see there were a few women crowding
around them. Penny handed Willy to me as Deacon and I stood back
while she and Lynn went up to the metal railing surrounding the
ride. They stood near the entrance where the now sweating men
herded the people onto the ride.

Buck saw Lynn and Penny,
he didn’t make a fuss but after the people were on the ride, Mac
closed the door and stood back as Buck started the thing running.
The huge round machine started to spin forcing the people standing
against the wall to be pinned. The whole thing started to lift off
the ground, giving the riders the feeling they were going to fall,
but wouldn’t.

Lynn moved up to Buck
while still watching the ride spin, she glanced over and smiled to
Mac and Buck. Buck wiped the sweat from his head and moved closer
to the women.

"I got some goods on
Dark," he said quietly, "He asked Mac and me to help induce women
into joining the carnival if you know what I mean." He went over
and pushed a few controls to take the ride higher. The people were
all screaming, then he started to bring the ride back
down.

Lynn leaned to Penny and
said, "So Dark wants to kidnap a few women for possible human
trafficking, but we need to find the boys first."

Buck brought the ride back
down and slowed the spin. After it stopped, Mac helped people off
the ride. More people crowded the gate to get on, covering Lynn and
Penny from unwanted eyes. As Mac herded the people, Buck leaned
against the fence and spoke again.

"Dark wants to talk to us
tonight more about what he’d like us to do. So far we haven’t found
anything about the missing boys, no chatter from the other men.
We’re going to keep our ears and eyes open, so be patient. Once
Dark has us do anything illegal, I’ll call you in. I don’t want to
get involved in kidnapping, so don’t forget that we are
undercover."

Lynn smiled and said,
"Don’t worry, you’ll be covered, short of murder. I need to look
into Dark’s background too, and see if there have been any other
complaints or activity that he may be involved in. Just do your
best and keep me informed."

"I’ll do that, now either
ride or move away before they get suspicious." He stepped back to
the controls as Lynn brought up her camera and snapped off a couple
pictures of him and Mac.

"Lacey will love this,"
she said to Penny as they moved away from the ride.

They came back to us and
Lynn passed the info she got from Buck. "I hope the boys are still
alive, but I believe they are, it’s got to be a human trafficking
operation. They move from town to town and grab a few people, not
enough to draw attention, then move on. A carnival is a perfect
operation."

"I hope that’s going to
comfort the Walkers, that their boys are probably still alive. I
just hope they haven’t been shipped off to some foreign country to
be slaves. That’s not good."

*

Chapter 7

We walked around until I
finally saw Jacob Dark and pointed him out to Lynn. She brought her
camera up and was pretending to take a few pictures of the rides,
then snapped a couple of Dark as he was talking to a well-dressed
dark skinned man in his late fifties. Lynn brought her camera down
and said, "Rather ominous looking isn’t he?"

"Yep, he’s dressing for
the part. He’s a rather pleasant speaking person but it’s mostly
for show I presume. Buck didn’t say much about him?"

"He didn’t say much about
anything other than being asked to grab off a few women. This
carnival is here until Wednesday, so we only have three more days
to shut down whatever Dark is doing," Lynn said.