"I guess that put the fear of God into 'em!" he chuckled, lighting up a cigarette.

"Didn't you mean it?" I asked.

"Of course not! Who the hell is going to shell out money to see a bunch of dying aliens?"

"Then why did you say it?"

"You got to show 'em who's boss, Tojo," he said. "Besides, I didn't want them to think I was so goddamned dumb that I didn't know what was going on."

"But when they find out you're not going to do anything—"

"My God, you're as dumb as they are!" he said irritably. "Do you really think I'd grandstand like that if I couldn't follow it up?"

"I don't understand what you mean," I said.

"I told them I wanted the name of the telepath," he said with a grin. "They're going to give it to me."

"They'll never tell you," I said.

"I already know," he said with a laugh. "It's gotta be the Pincushion."

"Bullseye?" I said. "What makes you so sure?"

"Because he's the only one who doesn't talk. How the hell else can he communicate?"

"Then why didn't you accuse him?"

"Divide and conquer," Thaddeus replied. "I'm going to grill each one privately. When I'm done I'll announce that one of them told me."

"But why?"

"Everyone's got a pent-up supply of rage and suspicion," he said. "Why the hell should it all be directed at an honest businessman like me who's just doing his job? A little dissension, a little distrust, a little skepticism about their comrades-in-arms ought to make everything go a little smoother. Who the hell is going to plan a revolution when they've got an informer in the ranks?"

Deep down inside of me I probably knew it all the time, but it was at that instant that I realized beyond any shadow of a doubt that Mr. Ahasuerus and the others had more than met their match.

Chapter 9

Thaddeus interviewed the aliens one by one, announced that one of them had told him who the telepath was, and settled back to enjoy the show. They didn't say much, but I could tell that there was a new level of tension in the dormitory tent. I also had a feeling that Mr. Ahasuerus knew exactly what was going on, but, for whatever reason, he made no attempt to offer his associates the true scenario.

Rainbow didn't get any worse, but he didn't get any better either, and by the time Four-Eyes was totally recovered another of the aliens was sick. This time it was Pumpkin, which was the name Monk finally came up with for the Elephant Woman. (I approved of it: it was feminine, and at the same time it described her head as perhaps no other word could do.) It turned out that she had developed a severe skin rash in reaction to the dry shampoo we were using on her, but her skin was so oddly textured and miscolored that she was sick for two days before we could pinpoint the problem.

Thaddeus' first inclination was to wash her down and cover her rash with some kind of salve, but Mr. Ahasuerus assured us that she would react far more violently to water than to the dog shampoo.

"Well, what the hell can we treat her with, then?" demanded Thaddeus.

"Time," replied the blue man. "I think that any foreign substance—and you must understand that all of your substances are foreign to her—will merely exacerbate the problem."

I don't think that Thaddeus knew what "exacerbate" meant, but he gave an affirmative grunt and told Pumpkin to stay in the tent until she was better.

Since Rainbow was still under the weather, and Thaddeus never allowed Mr. Ahasuerus to be placed on exhibit, Pumpkin's illness left only nine aliens for the public to see. Business fell off a bit. I attributed it to the increasingly poor weather, and the fact that we'd already been in town for more than a week, but Thaddeus was convinced that the absence of two of the advertised freaks had led some of the people to conclude that they were frauds which had been exposed. It became imperative in his mind to get them back on display, and he spent a lot of time in the dormitory tent supervising their treatment.

Pumpkin wouldn't let him touch her, and even drew back when he merely walked by her, but Rainbow didn't much give a damn who did what to him as long as it made him feel a little warmer, and one evening I walked in to find Thaddeus, his shirt and jacket piled on the floor, sweat pouring off his body, giving the Man of Many Colors a vigorous rubdown. As he did so Rainbow's hue would intensify; when he stopped to rest, the color would become pale again. It was like a war of attrition, which Rainbow finally won since Thaddeus, strong and vigorous as he was, couldn't keep rubbing life and color into Rainbow's limbs and body all night.

"How do you feel now?" he asked, panting, when he had finally given up the battle.

"Better, thank you," said Rainbow, though his color belied his words.

"Just how the hell hot does it get where you live?" asked Thaddeus, grabbing a towel and wiping himself off.

"That's somewhat relative," said Rainbow weakly. "I don't find it hot at all, but it would probably kill you."

"Why did you come here, of all places?" continued Thaddeus.

"To see it," said Rainbow.

"Now that you've seen it, was it worth the trip?"

"No," said Rainbow. "No, it was not." He looked up at Thaddeus. "Will you ever let us go?"

"Let's let that remain one of life's little mysteries," said Thaddeus. He put on his shirt and walked over to me. "If you're not doing anything later, give him another rubdown," he said.

"It didn't do much good," I replied. "Look at him."

"There's an old story about a spider that kept trying to jump across a gap or climb out of a pit or something," said Thaddeus. "I don't remember exactly how it went, but the gist of it is that if you don't keep trying to get Rainbow back in the show I'm going to kick your ass all over the Midway."

"All right, Thaddeus," I said. "I'll do it."

"I knew I could appeal to your sense of Christian charity," he laughed, and left the tent.

I gave Rainbow another rubdown that night, and again the next morning, and strangely enough his color was a little better after each session.

As the crowds continued to diminish, Thaddeus decided that it was finally time to move on. He felt we had to go at least one hundred miles away, since Maine is so sparsely populated that most of our customers drove more than an hour to get to us. He called the weather service, concluded that it was too cold to continue moving to the north, and decided to head back into Vermont.

He never mentioned it, but I'm sure the thought of Mr. Romany searching for us in Maine had something to do with his decision. Obviously Bullseye didn't know exactly where we were, and didn't telegraph the kind of mental signal that Mr. Romany could home in on, or else he would have found us already. I guess "Maine countryside" wasn't enough for him to go on.

We went back to Vermont and set up shop in one of the rural areas after Diggs got us the proper permits. Thaddeus told the aliens we were still in Maine, and then he let Bullseye "overhear" him saying that we were really in New Hampshire and that Mr. Romany would never be able to find us now.

The dormitory tent was getting a grubby, too-well-worn appearance. None of the furniture was really made for the aliens, and it started breaking. Most of them were starting to experience mild digestive problems from the food, too, and we found that winter had followed us to northern Vermont. The wind still cut to the bone, despite the heaters and blowers, and although Pumpkin finally started showing some improvement, Rainbow remained a ghastly shade of pale blue.