Joyland(80)

"I only figured it out tonight," I said.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire."

We swept past the ramp and started up again. I thought, He's probably going to shoot me when the car's at the top.

Then he'll either shoot himself or push me out, slide over; and jump onto the ramp when the car comes back down. Take his chances on not breaking a leg or a collarbone. I was betting on the murder-suicide scenario, but not until his curiosity was satisfied.

I said, "Call me stupid if you want, but don't call me a liar. I kept looking at the pictures, and I kept seeing something in them, something familiar, but until tonight I couldn't quite figure out what it was. It was the hat. You were wearing a fishtop baseball cap in the photos, not a derby, but it was tilted one way





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when you and the Gray girl were at the Whirly Cups, and the other when you were at the Shootin' Gallery. I looked at the rest, the ones where the two of you are only in the background, and saw the same thing. Back and forth, back and forth. You do it all the time. You don't even think about it."

"That's all? A f*cking tilted cap?"

"No."

We were reaching the top for the second time, but I thought I was good for at least one more turn. He wanted to hear this.

Then the rain started, a hard squall that turned on like a shower spigot. At least it'll wash the blood off my face, I thought. When I looked at him, I saw that wasn't all it was washing off.

"One day I saw you with your hat off and I thought your hair was showing the first strands of white." I was almost yelling to be heard over the wind and the rush of the rain. It was coming sideways, hitting us in the face. "Yesterday I saw you wiping the back of your neck. I thought it was dirt. Then tonight, after I got the thing about the cap, I started thinking about the fake bird tattoo. Erin saw how the sweat made it run. I guess the cops missed that."

I could see my car and the maintenance truck, growing larger as the Spin neared the bottom of its circle for the second time.

Beyond them, something large-a wind-loosened swatch of canvas, maybe-was blowing up Joyland Avenue.

"It wasn't dirt you were wiping off, it was dye. It was running, just like the tattoo ran. Like it's running now. It's all over your neck. It wasn't strands of white hair I saw, it was strands of blond."

He wiped his neck and looked at the black smear on his palm. I almost went for him then, but he raised the gun and



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all at once I was looking into a black eye. It was small but terrible.

"I used to be blond," he said, "but under the black I'm mostly gray now. I've lived a stressful life, Jonesy." He smiled ruefully, as though this were some sad joke we were both in on.

We were going up again, and I had just a moment to think that the thing I'd seen blowing up the midway-what I'd taken for a big square of loose canvas-could have been a car with its headlights out. It was crazy to hope, but I hoped, anyway.

The rain slashed at us. My slicker rippled. Lane's hair flew like a ragged flag. I hoped I could keep him from pulling the trigger for at least one more spin. Maybe two? Possible but not probable.

"Once I let myself think of you as Linda Gray's killer-and it wasn't easy, Lane, not after the way you took me in and showed me the ropes-I could see past the hat and sunglasses and facehair. I could see you. You weren't working here-"

"I was running a forklift in a warehouse in Florence." He wrinkled his nose. "Rube work. I hated it."

"You were working in Florence, you met Linda Gray in Florence, but you knew all about Joyland over here in NC, didn't you? I don't know if you're carny-from-carny, but you've never been able to stay away from the shows. And when you suggested a little road trip, she went along with it."

"I was her secret boyfriend. I told her I had to be. Because I was older." He smiled. "She bought it. They all do. You'd be surprised how much the young ones will buy."

You sickf*ck, I thought. You sick, sickf*ck.

"You brought her to Heaven's Bay, you stayed at a motel, and then you killed her here at Joyland even though you must have z66

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known about the Hollywood Girls running around with their cameras. Bold as brass. That was part of the kick, wasn't it?

Sure it was. You did it on a ride full of conies-"

"Rubes," he said. The hardest gust yet shook the Spin, but he seemed not to feel it. Of course, he was on the inside of the wheel where things were a little calmer. "Call em what they are. They're just rubes, all of them. They see nothing. It's like their eyes are connected to their *s instead of their brains.

Everything goes right through."

"You get off on the risk, don't you? That's why you came back and hired on."

"Not even a month later." His smile widened. "All this time I've been right under their noses. And you know what? I've been . . . you know, good . . . ever since that night in the funhouse.

All the bad stuff was behind me. I could have gone on being good. I like it here. I was building a life. I had my gadget, and I was going to patent it."

"Oh, I think sooner or later you would have done it again."