Carnival of Death Read Online Free Page B

his pocket and put it on.
    “What’s the problem, Ken?” he asked, walking up to the two men.
    Ken looked happy to see Matt. “Seems this gentleman has a complaint about the game. Says he’s going to take a prize, even if he didn’t win it.”
    “Damn right I am,” the mark said.
    Matt looked at him. He had black, unruly hair that stuck out from beneath a Saints cap, little piggy eyes sunk deep in their sockets, and a thin blade of a mouth. No signs of corruption, no odor of the grave, just a normal ugly guy, except for the anger that distorted his features.
    “My game’s on the square,” Jerry Talley said from inside the ringtoss booth. “I explained the game and showed him how it was done.”
    Matt knew that Jerry demonstrated to everybody who came by how the wooden ring fit over the varnished wooden blocks. Usually the marks didn’t notice that the ring he demonstrated with wasn’t necessarily exactly like the ones he handed over when the money changed hands. The ones he gave them would still fit, but it wasn’t easy to make them do it.
    “Look-a here,” Jerry said, dropping the ring he held over a block. “Works just fine. What we got here is a sore loser.”
    The mark backed away from Ken and Matt. “I’m sore, all right. You’re not gonna fuck with me like this.”
    Some of the crowd stopped to watch what was going on, and the mark grinned at them. Matt thought he might trash the ringtoss booth. Matt couldn’t let that happen under any circumstances, much less with people watching. And the parents wouldn’t like it if their kids heard too much cussing.
    The man’s wife was getting embarrassed. “Don’t talk like that, Buford, honey,” she said. She was small with blond hair cut short and close to her head. She wore tight jeans and a man’s white shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. “Let’s us go home before it starts to rain.”
    “Don’t tell me how to talk,” Buford the mark said. “And rain or not, I’m not letting anybody cheat me.”
    “Look, Jerry,” Matt said, “why don’t you give this man a teddy bear if that will make him feel better. We don’t want him to go home unhappy.”
    It wasn’t carnival policy to give an unhappy customer anything, but in this case even Jerry could see the wisdom of it. He took hold of one of the big teddy bears dangling from a string and gave it a pull. The bear came loose and dropped down. Jerry gave it a wistful look and handed it across the counter to the mark.
    Buford took the bear. “You think you can buy me off with a fucking bear?”
    “Nobody’s trying to buy you off,” Matt told him, keeping his voice level. “You have what you wanted. Give the bear to your wife and go on home.”
    “Fuck you,” Buford said. “Fuck her too, and fuck this bear.”
    He took hold of the bear’s head and tore it from its body. Holding the head in his hand, he dropped the body of the bear and stomped it a couple of times.
    “Mama,” a little boy said, “that man killed the bear!”
    Buford laughed and spit on the bear carcass. Then he tossed the head to his wife.
    “Hold that while I take care of business,” he said. He smiled at Ken and Matt, showing off a gold tooth.
    Something was in the air that evening besides rain, Matt thought. First the attempted rape and now this goober going nuts on them. It was time to put a stop to things.
    “I’ll take the high road,” Matt said to Ken. “One, two, three.”
    As soon as Matt reached three , Ken threw himself at Buford’s legs. The man tried to jump backward, but he didn’t react fast enough. Ken hit him below the shins, taking his feet out from under him. As Buford tumbled forward, he put out his arms to break his fall. Matt grabbed the left arm and twisted it up behind the man’s back as he hit the ground. Matt landed on top of him and shoved the arm up as high as he could. Buford groaned.
    Ken was already on his feet, shooing the crowd away. “You all go on home now. This little