The Three-Legged Hootch Dancer: Tales of the Galactic Midway, Vol. 2 Read online

  “Still...” persisted Tojo.

  “All right! Just tell Gloria she's up to bat first, and I promise to come by and check you out."

  “Thank you, Thaddeus,” said Tojo, walking back to the tent and securing yet another rope to one of the corner stakes. Flint watched the little hunchback throw himself into his work, whistling the score of some Broadway show or other so he wouldn't embarrass himself by tripping over the words. At least, reflected Flint with a sardonic smile, someone was adjusting to things without much difficulty.

  The rest of the afternoon was devoted to printing tickets (different worlds with different currencies required different tickets, another minor problem that had never occurred to him until it became a major one). Swede returned about thirty minutes before sunset with the observation that these marks didn't seem any stranger than any of the others, which Flint tried without much enthusiasm to view in a positive manner. Then the sun was gone, three moons slowly clambered up over the horizon, Flint gave the signal, and the Midway was bathed in thousands of colored lights. He walked to the control tent, inserted a cassette of calliope music into a recorder, hooked it into the sound system—and the carnival was open for business.

  As he walked out to greet those few Borgraves who had arrived ahead of what he hoped would be the huge crowd from the city, Monk pulled him aside and informed him that the leopards simply couldn't get the hang of this world's gravity, and that he was going to have to go with just Simba and Bruno, which meant that the Dancer would have to add some fifteen to twenty minutes to his act. Flint nodded, and told him to inform Mr. Ahasuerus and the Dancer of the problem.

  Then he began checking out the games, and realized that the Rigger was in for a long night: the Borgraves’ hands were so misshapen that most of them couldn't even pick up a ball or a hoop, let alone throw them accurately, and that in turn meant only three of the six games were going to take in any money to speak of. He started thinking very fondly of the little towns in Maine and Vermont that he had abandoned to seek his fortune amid the glittering, mysterious stars. At least the marks of Earth were a little more predictable, a little more familiar, and it was a rare evening that some local girl didn't try to convince him, in her own inimitable manner, that she was just what he needed for the meat show...

  A few hundred more Borgraves filtered in, and then he remembered the strip show, and walked over to check it out.

  He stepped inside the tent and stood at the back as Tojo, dressed in a candy-striped coat, white pants, and a straw boater, stood atop a box that was mounted on the side of the stage and spoke into his translating device. He wondered if the little hunchback knew how silly he looked, like some misshapen monkey mocking a human being, then shrugged as he decided that Tojo probably didn't look any sillier to the audience than he himself did.

  He became aware of a strange birdlike sound permeating the tent, and realized that it was coming from the translator. Annoyed—the pitch of the sound hurt his ears—he walked to the side of the tent and approached the stage so that he could hear Tojo's untranslated patter as he spoke into the mechanism.

  “...the Toast of a Thousand Worlds,” cried the little hunchback, “the most sexciting ecdysiast in the civilized universe, a frothy feline morsel who's got curves in places where most girls don't even have places..."

  On and on he droned as Flint caught his eye and nodded in approval and Tojo smiled back in obvious relief. Flint recognized most of the lines as having been lifted from his own patter back on Earth, and wondered what the mechanism was doing with the alliteration and the phony come-on words such as “sexciting."

  Tojo kept speaking until the tent was full, then uttered a cue phrase.

  Someone backstage hit a switch, and a recording of “Harlem Nocturne” was piped into the tent.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen,” said Tojo, climbing off his box and carrying it to the edge of the stage. “Here's the moment you've all been waiting for. Here she is, boys; here she is, world; here she is, galaxy! Here's Butterfly Delight!"

  Tojo clambered off the stage, the rhythm of the recording picked up steam, and then, from behind a curtain, stepped Gloria Stunkel, all feathers and beads and sequins and satin. She pursed her bright-red lips, creating soundless little explosions in time with the insistent beat of the snare drum, and undulated to the center of the stage.

  “How did I do, Thaddeus?” asked Tojo, walking over to join him.

  “Just fine,” replied Flint, his eyes never leaving the girl on the stage.

  “You're sure?” persisted Tojo.

  “I couldn't have done better myself,” lied Flint. “You're such a lecherous little bastard to begin with...” He snorted. “I just hope you didn't get them so turned on that Gloria can't deliver."

  That seemed to satisfy Tojo, and Flint returned his attention to the stage.

  Gloria had removed a shoulder-length glove and was in the process of slithering out of her gown. It fell to the stage in a heap, and she kicked it into the wings with an eye-popping bump.

  Six Borgraves walked out of the tent.

  Gloria started grinding her hips, punctuating the motion with bumps to match the drumbeat, then unhooked her bra and spent about twenty seconds teasing the audience, flashing her breasts at them, before removing it and tossing it after the gown.

  Four more Borgraves left.

  Gloria's pasties had glittery tassles, and she began rotating them, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then in opposite directions. They began moving so fast that Flint half-thought she might take off like a helicopter.

  Eleven more Borgraves made their way to the exit.

  Gloria stripped down to her G-string, threw her pasties to the crowd—which ducked—and lowered herself to the floor where she commenced a series of sensuous gyrations.

  Flint studied her with an expert eye. This wasn't the kind of show Ann Corio was putting on for middle-aged housewives who wondered what their husbands had been so interested in twenty or thirty years ago, but it wasn't strong, either—at least, not carny strong. And he had to admit she was damned good at her job.

  Then she was on her feet again, shaking, bumping, swaying, pulsating, fantasizing with the curtains, contorting her sweating body in ways that no one who hadn't seen her perform would ever have believed possible.

  Twenty Borgraves left.

  Flint became aware of an insistent tugging at his sleeve.

  “Thaddeus, she's dying up there!” whispered Tojo haltingly. “You've got to do something."

  “Like what—lock the doors?"

  “She's a star, Thaddeus,” persisted Tojo. “You can't let this happen to her."

  “All right,” said Flint with a sigh. “Have you got that translator?"

  Tojo unhooked the mechanism from his collar and handed it to Flint.

  “Let's get to the back of the tent, where she can't hear me speak into it."

  A moment later he had posted himself in the doorway. “How do you turn this damned thing on?"

  Tojo pointed to the switch, and Flint activated it.

  “Borgraves!” he shouted into the translating device. “This is one of the holiest and most sacred rituals of my race. Please do not offend our practitioner by walking out or otherwise distracting her. Your money will be refunded at the conclusion of the performance."

  Most of the Borgraves continued leaving, but a few hesitated and returned to their seats as Flint repeated his message twice more.

  “Satisfied?” he said, handing the mechanism back to Tojo.

  “What happened, Thaddeus?” asked Tojo. “Why did they all leave?"

  “You know,” said Flint thoughtfully, “I think I've finally got a handle on this problem."

  “What is it?"

  “Would you pay good money to watch a bird molting to music?” replied Flint with a rueful grin.

  Gloria was finishing her act, her sultry animation replaced by a frozen mannequin's smile, her movements still correct but now mechanical, her eyes
puzzled and hurt. The music clicked off and she struck a final pose, the same one that had drawn wild ovations from thousands of appreciative audiences on Earth.

  The seventeen remaining Borgraves walked out without a sound.

  Flint and Tojo sat alone in the back of the tent in silence. Finally Flint lit a cigarette.

  “Tojo, starting tomorrow I want you to move over and bark for Monk and the Dancer."

  “What about the strip show?"

  “I'm shutting it down."

  “You're sure?"

  Flint nodded. “Maybe running the only meat show in the galaxy wasn't as bright an idea as I thought.” He shook his head. “Oh, well. Tell the girls to report to the Rigger in the morning."

  “All right,” said Tojo uncomfortably.

  “What's the matter?"

  “Well, Priscilla and Barbara will probably be overjoyed. They never gave a damn about stripping. But Gloria..."

  “I know,” said Flint. “Tell you what. You talk to the other two, and I'll speak to Gloria myself."

  “Thank you, Thaddeus,” said Tojo, looking much relieved.

  “Let's give her a few minutes to calm down first,” said Flint. He put his feet on the chair ahead of him, finished his cigarette in silence, then got up and walked over to Gloria's makeshift backstage dressing room.

  He could tell by the streaks in her makeup that she had been crying, and he was glad he hadn't arrived any sooner. Now she just looked puzzled as she sat before her mirror.

  “What did I do wrong, Thaddeus?” she asked when she became aware of his presence.

  “Nothing,” he said gently.

  “But they all walked out! You saw them. I mean, it's been bad on other worlds, but this is the worst. Is it me?"

  “It's not you. It's just the nature of the beast."

  “I don't understand."

  “What I'm trying to say is that aliens have about as much interest in your body as you have in theirs.” He paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to soften the blow, couldn't see any way, and just came out with it: “I'm closing down the strip show."

  Gloria looked her dismay. “You can't!"

  “I can't afford to keep it open."

  “But what will I do?” she said plaintively. “Where will I go? Stripping is the only thing I know!"

  “You'll stay with us, and you'll learn how to do something else,” replied Flint, pulling a flask out of his pocket and unscrewing the top. “Here. Take a sip. You'll feel better."

  “I don't want a sip, and I don't want to do anything else!” she said, fighting back her tears. “I've been a stripper all my life. I like being on stage, I like making people happy, I like what I do. I'm not like the other girls in the show, Thaddeus—you know that. I work out every morning, I exercise two hours a day, I make my own costumes, I do my own choreography, I—"

  “The problem isn't you,” he said wearily. “It's them."

  “You promised me I'd be the headliner,” she said, looking at him reproachfully. “That's the reason I agreed to leave Earth—because I believed you. You can't shut down the show."

  “You're upset now,” said Flint gently. “We'll talk about it tomorrow."

  She lowered her head in thought, suddenly oblivious to his presence.

  “Maybe it was the music. Maybe it grated on their ears..."

  He sighed and walked out of the tent.

  Diggs was trying, without much success, to show a Borgrave family how to pick up and hold a rubber ball, and Jenny and Lori, two of the other games workers, were sitting in splendid isolation within their booths, unable to attract a single customer. The three remaining games were doing some business, though Flint couldn't tell if it was enough to break even. The Dancer had filled the specialty tent—but the Dancer always filled the specialty tent.

  He heard a deep bellowing curse, stared off into the darkness, and saw that Monk was still trying unsuccessfully to get his leopards to adjust to Ramanos’ gravity. Swede was working the food stand, futilely explaining the joys of coffee and soda pop to a trio of dubious Borgraves. And, Flint was sure, Gloria was still convincing herself that the reason the crowd had walked out had to do with the sound of the music or the intensity of the lights or the shape of the chairs.

  He looked up at the night sky and wondered wistfully how business was in Vermont.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  An iguana would have been right at home on Procyon III. A transplanted scorpion would never have known that it wasn't still on a desert back on Earth. Even Flint was having trouble distinguishing this world from the last five, and secretly wondered if the Community of Worlds really amounted to anything more than a bunch of galactic backwoods provinces.

  The Ahasuerus and Flint Traveling Carnival and Sideshow had played Ramanos for five days of a projected fourteen-day tour, then packed up and moved over to Procyon, some seven light-years away, with their record still intact: they had now gone through five worlds without once showing a profit.

  Flint was sitting on the sand, propped up against a small termite hill (or, rather, the Procyonian equivalent of a termite hill), looking out at the vast expanse of desert and wondering how soon his supply of beer would be gone if he kept drinking it at his current rate, when he noticed his partner approaching him.

  “I've revised my opinion,” he announced.

  “About what?” asked Mr. Ahasuerus.

  “About how long it's going to take Man to conquer the galaxy once he figures out how to travel to the stars.” Flint took a long swallow of his beer and wiped his mouth off with a sweaty shirtsleeve. “I give us three weeks, tops.” He paused again. “That's twenty days to decide whether it's worth the effort, and one afternoon to pull it off."

  “Am I to assume you are unimpressed with Procyon III?” inquired Mr. Ahasuerus mildly.

  “I'd say that's a pretty fair assumption,” replied Flint. “Granting that we are not playing the most sophisticated worlds on the circuit to begin with, why the hell do we always have to land thirty miles or more from the nearest goddamned city?"

  “Most of these planets don't have spaceports,” the blue man pointed out.

  “I know. But why not five or ten miles?"

  “Regulations."

  “Well,” sighed Flint. “I've got to admit that's one place where you're ahead of us. I have the feeling my bureaucracy could learn one hell of a lot from your bureaucracy.” He finished his beer and threw the can out onto the sand, where it rolled for twelve or fifteen yards before coming to a halt. “How the hell do you pick these worlds?"

  “It's part of the circuit. We could change the order, if you wish."

  Flint shook his head. “A cesspool is going to be a cesspool whether we visit it first or tenth."

  “Procyon III does have a gravity identical to Earth's,” said Mr. Ahasuerus apologetically.

  “I suspect that it's also about as heavily populated as Saskatchewan."

  “I am unacquainted with that location,” said the blue man.

  “So is everyone else.” Suddenly Flint looked up. “You didn't come out here just to listen to me bitch. What's up? Is one of the animals sick?"

  The blue man shook his head.

  “I have had a communication from the Corporation,” he said.

  “And?"

  “They are, of course, concerned about our lack of success."

  “Tell them these things take a while. I ran in the red the first two years I had the show back on Earth."

  “I told them so,” replied Mr. Ahasuerus, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  “They'd better not be thinking of closing us down!” said Flint ominously. “Because if they are, I've got a contract."

  “That eventuality never came up,” said the blue man. “But..."

  “But what?"

  “They are sending an efficiency expert out here to examine our operation."

  “In a pig's asshole they are!” exploded Flint, leaping to his feet. “That's just what I need
—some hotshot junior executive who's never seen a carny, trying to score brownie points with the Corporation by telling us how to run one!"

  “Calm down, Mr. Flint."

  “Up yours, Mr. Ahasuerus! You get on the radio and tell the boy wonder that I'm not letting him set foot on the grounds."

  “I really don't see how we can stop him,” said Mr. Ahasuerus.

  “You watch me!” snarled Flint. “Your fucking Corporation's got five thousand businesses on six hundred worlds. They're rich enough to carry us until we find out what combinations click."

  “They didn't get rich by not attending to details, Mr. Flint,” the blue man pointed out mildly.

  “Look—you get them on the radio and tell them that Thaddeus Flint says he's getting seriously displeased with them!"

  “I think the feeling may be mutual,” said Mr. Ahasuerus wryly. “Let us make the best of the situation."

  “We aren't going to have a situation if he keeps away,” said Flint.

  The blue man sighed deeply. “Mr. Flint, I have been an employee of the Corporation for well over thirty years. Please don't jeopardize my position by causing a scene over a problem that is beyond my power to alleviate."

  Flint stared at him for a long moment. “I'm sorry,” he said at last. “Let me know when he's due to arrive, and I'll see what we can work out."

  “Thank you, Mr. Flint."

  “You wouldn't believe how unwelcome you are, Mr. Ahasuerus,” replied Flint.

  He walked the blue man back to the Midway, which had been erected that morning, and sought out a chair that was shaded by the overhang of one of the game booths.

  It was, he had to admit, a pretty poor excuse for a carnival. No rides, only six game booths, no meat show, no freak show. He knew the real reason he didn't want anyone from the Corporation snooping around, and it had nothing to with infringing on his prerogatives: the man (or thing, or whatever) would take one look and start trying to find ways break Flint's contract.

  And yet, there was money to be made on these damned dirtballs, if he could just figure out how to spring it loose. Maybe he should be staying three or four months on each planet, learning more about the natives, rather than trying this scattershot approach ... but four months on any these worlds would drive him up a tree quicker than four years in Newark, New Jersey. They just didn't come up to his preconceived notion of a galactic civilization.