"Uh. . yeah." Harper had now rested her foot in my groin, and I was starting to sweat. "Whatever you say, my dear."
"I say it's time we went to bed."
"Right. You're going to have to stand and walk right in front of me when I get up, or I'm going to be seriously embarrassed."
"It can be arranged."
Our lovemaking that night was well worth the wait.
Chapter Five
We flew to Topeka the next morning, rented a car, and drove south to Dolbin, where World Circus had set up for the week on the county fairgrounds. We arrived too late to catch the matinee performance under the Big Top, and we bided our time by wandering over the grounds. I would have liked to view the animals, perhaps say hello to my old friend Mabel, but a number of posted signs and the presence of security guards made it clear that visitors were not welcome in the penning areas.
As we approached a water spigot near one of these areas, Harper abruptly stopped, squatted down. She opened her leather purse, took out what appeared to be a wooden pillbox with an enameled cover that had perhaps a half dozen tiny holes punched in it. Next she produced a sealed plastic refrigerator bag, and I was rather startled to see that it contained a strange mix of dead flies and small, live beetles. The last item to come out of her purse was a small sponge encased in plastic wrap. She set the wooden box down on the ground, slid the top back a fraction of an inch, shook an ounce or so of the anteater's trail mix into the opening, closed it again. She straightened up, wetted the sponge under the spigot, squeezed a few drops of water through the holes in the cover of the box.
"Feeding time," she said brightly, smiling at me. "What's the matter, Robby? You look very strange."
"I may look very strange, love, but you are very strange."
"Why, thank you."
"Harper, what the hell have you got in that box?"
"Oh, I always bring a little friend with me when I travel," she said in the same bright tone as she wiped excess water off the top of the wooden box with a tissue, then replaced box, plastic bag, and sponge in her purse. "For some reason, having said little friend always makes me feel more secure. Does it make you nervous?"
"You make me nervous, Harper. You've always made me nervous."
"Come on, sweet thing," she said, slinging her purse over her shoulder, grabbing my hand and leading me toward the midway, which was set up on six or seven acres at the northern end of the fairgrounds. "First I want to ride on the Ferris wheel, and then you can buy me some cotton candy."
It didn't take much sight-seeing to establish that World Circus was well managed, a class act-at least as far as the midway and food concessions were concerned. The grounds were relatively litter-free, the mechanical rides all showed indications of proper maintenance, and the food stalls were clean. There were none of the seedy peep shows one finds in so many rural road shows, and I saw no evidence of cheating at any of the game stalls. A few inquiries later, we learned that the rides, games, and food concessions were all locally franchised, administered separately from the circus itself; a number of different booking agents were used all along the circus's great, circuitous route. Nobody we talked to knew any of the actual circus performers or roustabouts, since these people invariably kept to themselves. Still, all the concessionaires seemed happy with the arrangement and went to some lengths to police themselves; while insisting on honest, clean operations, World Circus paid a slightly higher percentage of profits than other road shows that came through the area, and the concessionaires were anxious to remain in good graces. Word of mouth was good, and attendance at the circus had tripled from the year before.
This was all very depressing. I'd been hoping to find a failing operation, a deteriorating mud show whose discouraged owners might be more than willing to dump it all off on anyone who made them a reasonable buy offer. What I'd found instead was a lean and efficiently run circus that might well be turning a small profit, if the costs for the performing talent weren't too high.
And I found myself growing depressed about other things. Wherever we walked, we immediately became the center of attention. People openly gawked at the dwarf and the beautiful woman, and not a few of the stares were hostile, as if the fact that we might be attracted to each other was a violation of some natural law. A few times I tried to remove my hand from Harper's, but she only tightened her grip as she kept up a constant stream of chatter, seemingly oblivious to the starers. In my frame of mind, her gesture took on heroic proportions. Falling in love with Harper Rhys-Whitney, I thought, was most definitely something I did not need. Through no fault of hers, she made me feel small and needy; her perfection only served to magnify, at least in my mind, my own imperfection. It was, of course, all quite neurotic, the kinds of unhealed scars we all carry with us from our childhood-but there it was, a terrible, and growing, insecurity. And I feared it was already too late to do anything about it. I was apparently still not sufficiently emotionally healthy to accept the love of a woman without risk of destroying myself with the gift.
I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched-which, I told myself, was absurd, since I was so obviously being watched. But I also sensed that we were being followed, and that was something different altogether. I abruptly turned around a few times, but in the crush of people it was impossible to pick out any one individual who might be tailing us.
Wandering around a circus midway set up in a vast field in the heart of rural Kansas, I was reminded yet again that a hole opened in my heart whenever I left New York City, with its crush of anonymity, and traveled into America's interior. The fields of Kansas reminded me too much of my childhood home in Nebraska. Out through that hole in my heart flowed my self-confidence; all that was left was a bilious, sour cloud of self-consciousness and paranoia. It was a lousy feeling, only exacerbated by the lovely creature holding my hand, and with whom I was sharing a bed. In my present frame of mind, I considered Harper-or, to be more precise, what I was feeling for Harper-all the more dangerous to my spiritual well-being. Being a dwarf was occasionally a pain, but I'd learned to deal with it; being a self-pitying dwarf was intolerable to me. It made me anxious to get on with my business in Kansas so that I could get back to where I felt safe, perhaps taking Harper with me. Yet I knew I couldn't afford to be-or seem-in a hurry. I owed it to Phil to try to keep myself together long enough to make the strongest effort of which I was capable in order to try to buy back his circus for him.
The evening show under the Big Top began at eight. At seven-thirty we wandered back in the direction of the enormous canvas tent, along with a crowd of what I estimated to be upwards of eight or nine hundred people. It wasn't at all a bad turnout, especially considering the fact that it was a weeknight and many of the families, most with small children, had undoubtedly driven a considerable distance over a countryside that was being terrorized by a vicious, insane killer.
As we got into the line that had formed in front of the ticket booth, I once again had the feeling that we were being observed, followed. I abruptly turned to my left, found myself staring into a pair of mud-brown eyes that framed a large, bulbous nose illuminated by networks of flaming, alcohol-ruptured veins. He was a big man, with a potbelly and legs that were slightly bowed, as if bending under the man's considerable weight. He looked like a roustabout, or perhaps the kind of thuggish security guard often hired by shows to remain in the background and provide muscle in case of trouble with town rowdies. Our gazes locked and held, and then the potbellied man flushed a deep red that almost matched the broken veins in his nose, turned, and walked quickly away.