been dead meat. Don’t tell me about accomplices. She knew we did that, too. But did she put it in her sermon? No way. Her whole point was to make the town—and the cops—look like we’re all in favor of trolling. Called us a booster club, no less. I don’t know how she could look Dave in the face after writing that crap.”
Releasing Harold’s hand, she strode over to the Bazooka Guns. She paid the man behind the counter. He loaded the feed trough with five tennis balls. Joan jacked one into the chamber, sighted down the wide barrel, and fired. The first ball poomphed out, rocketed forty feet, and whacked the suspended dummy. The ball caught it in its belly. Its legs flew up and it twirled on the end of its rope.
She glanced at Harold. He looked as if he regretted mentioning Gloria’s article.
She blasted another tennis ball at the dummy. This one knocked its stuffed head backward.
“We might be able to apprehend the goddamn Billy Goat Gruff if we got a tiny little bit of cooperation from the victims. They give us nothing. Nothing. Do you know what we’ve found out so far?”
She shot a ball into the dummy’s chest.
“It’s teenagers. We’ve been told they’re all girls. We’ve been told they’re all guys. There are anywhere from three to fifty of them, depending on which victim you listen to. The leader is Satan replete with horns and tail, a gorgeous blonde, Mayor Donaldson, a giant black guy, Charles Manson’s twin brother, Zarch from the Sixth Dimension…”
“I get the point,” Harold said.
Joan missed the dummy.
“Ignorant, self-righteous bitch.”
Her last ball struck the dummy in the face.
Harold put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Who’s upset?”
“Gloria’s only doing her job.”
“And we’re doing ours, but she conveniently forgets to point that out.”
They wandered into the stream of the moving crowd.
“Want to try the bumper cars?” she asked.
“In your mood, you’d probably hurt someone.”
“My mood’s fine,” she muttered.
“Step right in, folks!”
She glanced at Jasper Dunn. The cadaverous old man leered at her. She quickened her pace.
“Don’t rush off, Miss Cop. Step right in, you and your handsome beau, and see the amazing, astonishing wonders of Jasper’s Oddities. Lead her this way, fellow. Right this way. Don’t miss out. See the two-headed baby, the hairless orangutan of Borneo, the mummy Ram Cho-tep, and other rare and mysterious wonders. She’ll quiver and shake at the sights. She’ll swoon in your arms.”
She kept walking.
“I take it,” said Harold, “you’re not interested in Jasper’s Oddities?”
“That guy’s swamp scum.”
“Has he done something to you?”
“Just with his eyes. Every time I walk by…Fortunately, he spends most of his time inside with his Oddities. Sometimes I go a whole shift without seeing him. He likes to go in and watch the reactions. And ogle the females.”
“Enjoys watching them quiver and shake,” Harold said. “Have you ever gone in?”
“Just once. Some gal had fainted.”
“Those Oddities must be something to see.”
“I think it was the heat. She was on the floor and her skirt was hiked up around her waist and Dunn was on his knees. I’m not saying he fooled with her or anything, but he sure looked startled when the boyfriend towed us in there.”
She stopped and looked back. A couple of teenage guys with their dates were climbing the stairs, giving tickets to Dunn. One of the girls was husky, but the other was slender and wore a halter top and white shorts. “Watch,” Joan said. “He’ll follow them in. Goddamn lech.”
Dunn followed them through the doorway.
“I wish the creep would dry up and blow away. He’s the guy that owns the Funhouse, you know.” Joan nodded toward the two-story building that stood adjacent to the Oddities. The dark neon sign above its front door, visible in the glow of nearby lights, read, “Jasper’s Funhouse.” All the windows were boarded with sheets of plywood. “I’ve heard he had a grating in one of its corridors. On the floor. And he used to hide under there and look up the skirts of the women when they walked across it.”
“Charming fellow. Is that why it’s closed?”
Joan shook her head. “A couple of his freaks got loose in it one night. He used to have a freak show. In there with his Oddities. Some pretty hideous…people. That’s what I hear. A couple of them got into the Funhouse. This was five or six years ago, I guess. I was still at Stanford. Dave told me about it.