The supervisor approved, in the end. She offered him a new job doing such talks regularly and said, "A few opening jokes to engage them, that's not so bad. But we're discussing people's financial future, so don't turn the whole thing into a clown show, whatever you do."
Jamie coughed, choked on his own spit. He managed somehow to get out the words, "Oh yeah, sure, clown show. Wouldn't want to do that."
•
On Friday it was drunk time/woman hunting time with a small gang of chaps from elsewhere in the building, led by the master hunter, Dean (who bought Jamie's first four beers as promised). Dean was six-two, well built with a gymmed-up body, but by no means the handsomest thing in the bar, as far as Jamie or the rest of them could tell. Which didn't bother the ladies at all—when bored with poker machines or moping to them about the one ex he'd truly loved, he'd approach a likely target, speak with her as if he'd already known her for years, and within an hour he'd have his prey. Sometimes it only took a few minutes. Jamie and the others studied him at it, tried to work out what he actually did, but there was really no telling. Often as not his prey was someone's fiancée, wife, girlfriend. A cop's? A karate instructor's? A mob hitman's? It didn't much matter to Dean. And all the while, every day, Dean still moaned, sighed, and waxed depressed about the one ex who had actually dumped him, not the other way around.
"Oh yeah, the excuses man," said another of the gang, as poker machines trilled and chimed their insane music around them, now and then clattering up a vomit of coins. "He hated being with that ex when he was with her, was bored out of his mind. Out cheating on her every weekend, off at the casino playing blackjack while she stays home alone. Feeding her the most convoluted sitcom excuses you ever heard. One time, he got me to smack him in the face in the cubicles at work, so he could claim he'd been mugged and bashed, couldn't make their dinner date that night. He came out drinking with us, talked a stripper into bed, or actually into an alley, fucked her right in front of a homeless guy who was asking for money the whole time. So his ex, this Broncos cheerleader, finally had enough, ditched him, and now months later he's in crazy love with her."
They watched Dean take his new friend by the elbow, both of them laughing at a shared joke as he led her outside, surely headed for the room next to Jamie's. The other two drinking pals were both near age twenty, when getting laid is more or less the point of everything else in life. They studied Dean's every stride, facial expression, and movement as he gradually wove through the busy sea of people breaking like waves on the pub's bar. Ding-a-ling, ching, chime, the insane poker machine music played and played, all too much like carnival music. "I'm out guys," Jamie said. "I stay here much longer I'll be dreaming all night about happy robots."
"Ah, Jamie, you're such a clown."
It was like a slap—Jamie's head whipped back, eyes wide, stunned a moment before murmuring goodbyes and making an exit more clumsy and drunken than it should have been after his four beers. The other two drinking buddies/hunters of the elusive female watched him ping pong off door corners, seats, and people's shoulders. "Interesting," said the one who'd called Jamie a clown. "I wondered how he'd react to that."
"What? Why?"
"That whole circus thing. Didn't you hear about it? That was him. Right in the thick of it. They didn't even find the bodies. He denied all knowledge and they believed him. I hear he even passed a lie detector test."
"Wait, Jamie was that guy they found?"
"Dressed like a clown, yep. Man, I knew Dean had some balls, but living with that guy? Dean's got some balls. Already one person Jamie lived with vanished from the face of the planet. Gone. They didn't even find his body. Only some blood."
A brief awed silence ensued. "Does Dean know?"
"Doubt it. But I'm going to tell him to watch his back. And we better watch ours."
•
Perturbed, Jamie found his feet taking him not home but on a veering detour, past an excited group running toward George Street where apparently some idiot was trashing a bunch of cars right in front of the cops. Jamie headed down through Queen Street, moving through packs of Friday night revelers, some whooping and laughing, while drunk teenagers new to all of this staggered by and gave him looks probably suggesting they were not to be fucked with, or something. He half expected someone to shout "That's him! It's that clown guy!" or maybe just "Murderer."
And here he was, in the quiet little arcade leading to the Wentworth Club. With some surprise he realized it was the first time he'd been here since . . . since returning to his life from some other place. But there was nothing here of interest, just the same high end clothes and shoe shops along the arcade, the eerie quiet that seemed by magic to repel any drunken youths from wandering through. No clues. Yes, that was why he'd come: to find clues. This place had been part of it, maybe where it had all begun. But now it told him nothing.
A tap on his shoulder cut off his thoughts. He'd not heard the club's glass door slide open, had been pacing up and down the arcade without realizing. He turned to see the smiling face of the current concierge beaming up at him from shoulder height. The smile was full of embarrassment; words came out of it: "Hello. Please. Go away."
"What? Why?" The smiley teeth veritably shone. This guy could sell toothpaste. Jamie said, "Hey, I used to have your job, you know that?"
"Oh, indeed. We at the desk have been given firm instruction to . . . and a picture of you, in case you should . . . several pictures, in fact, that in the event of . . . look, very important clientele, and . . . the management wishes to distance our establishment from . . . potential scandal, rumor, controversy."
"Scandal. Seriously, scandal? Wow. Listen to yourself. Our establishment, like you could take a part of it home if you wanted to. A real company man, aren't you. It's like you figure this job's got some kind of future."
"The police are to be . . . firm instructions . . . need I say it?"
Inspired by beer and rage, Jamie stepped closer, growled, "Listen, punk, I worked here and it happened to me. It could happen to you, too. Think about it. You think some of the late night crowd in here weren't involved? They are neck deep. Club management, the highest profile members, all of them. Watch. . . your . . . back." He drank deep of the dawning terror on the dweeb's face then walked away, thinking: Wow. This thing is really going to follow me around til the very end. Forever suspect.
Back out in the mall, among crowds of scantily clad young women and their male orbiters. Drunken shrieks, laughs, staggering steps in high heels. The people out there were coalescing at some point mid-mall, which finally caught Jamie's attention. A big group had gathered like the excited crowds that flock to the school oval for fisticuffs and antler butting, but it had to be something else given all the howls of laughter. "Look at him!" someone hollered.
So Jamie ambled over, took a look over the heads of the outer ring of people, and froze. Part of him must have known what he'd see. Confused and panicking within the ring of people was a round-bellied, white-faced clown with the weirdest eyes he'd ever seen. One was slitted and frankly a little scary with some weird animal quality, the other boggled around at the people like it had never seen such creatures before. Its thick round head refused to turn at the neck; its arms stayed locked at its sides with the hands bunched to fists, spasmodically uncurling, then closing. It wore a ludicrous puffy shirt with bright colors shamelessly splashed over it. Pants that ought to be baggy were stuffed tight with thick jiggling flesh, pushing at the seams with each frightened half turn while it looked desperately for an escape route in the ring of spectators.