I heard the door open and shut, and then Alma walked into the room, wearing a heavy sweater and a pair of faded jeans. Thaddeus looked surprised for just a moment, and then his face became a blank.

"May I sit down?" she asked.

He gestured toward a chair.

"Thank you. Thaddeus, I have to talk to you."

"I'd better leave," I said, getting up from the court but Thaddeus pushed me back down.

"Stick around, Tojo," he said. "This is your trailer, too."

"I'd rather we spoke alone," she said uneasily.

"I'm sure you would," said Thaddeus. "But we no longer have any intimate secrets, do we? Unless you have some new ones to tell me, that is."

"You're making this very difficult for me, Thaddeus," said Alma.

"I can't imagine why," he said bitterly. "We don't have all that much in common anymore, so why should a little talk be difficult?"

"I stopped by the tent tonight," she said.

"Oh?" replied Thaddeus, lighting a cigarette. "Which one?"

"You know which tent," she said. "Is it true?"

"Probably. But just for the record, is what true?"

"Are you really going to put them in Monk's cages if another one of them gets sick?"

"Why should it concern you?" he said.

"You didn't answer me," said Alma.

"You noticed," he said with a harsh grin. "Why don't you ask Queenie? I understand she has all the answers these days."

"Are you going to put Rainbow on display if Dapper Dan doesn't go on tomorrow?"

"You'd better believe it!" snapped Thaddeus. "Being sick is one thing. Going on strike is another."

"Can't you see that Dapper Dan is the sickest of them all?" she said.

"He's as healthy as I am," said Thaddeus.

"Physically, yes. But he thinks he's going to die, and that you've condemned his soul to everlasting perdition."

"Who told you that?" demanded Thaddeus, suddenly tense.

"Mr. Ahasuerus."

"Did he say what religion Dapper Dan practices?"

"I don't know," said Alma. "Probably some Eastern one. What difference does it make? He thinks you're sending him to hell. That's all that matters."

I could see the tension seep away from him as he realized she still thought they were merely freaks: odd and ill-formed, but of this world.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked at last. "Close the show every time one of them wishes he was somewhere else?"

She shook her head. "Just treat them like human beings. They may be different, Thaddeus, but they're not monsters. You've got to start allowing them their dignity."

"Well, now, look who's talking about dignity!" said Thaddeus, a cruel grin on his face. "You spread your legs for two thousand strange men every day and then you go and crawl into the sack with a dumpy fifty-five-year-old broad who didn't even know which side of her welfare check to sign when I found her. That's some goddamned dignity!"

"Who taught me to work in a meat show?" said Alma without any hint of anger. "As for Queenie, she loves me."

"Hah!" snorted Thaddeus.

"She does, Thaddeus. I'm important to her. She treats me like a person instead of just a body. You treated me the way you treat them. You can't go through your whole life using people like that. It's got to stop!"

She pulled a crumpled Kleenex out of her pocket and blew her nose. "I didn't mean to lecture you, Thaddeus," she said slowly. "It never does any good, and it's not what I came over for."

"Now that you're on the subject, just what the hell are you doing here, besides telling me how to run my business?"

"I've come to make a deal," she said. "You like deals, don't you?"

"I'm listening."

She shifted uneasily on her chair and lowered her gaze to the floor. "If you'll promise not to put them in cages, or to make Rainbow work in the sideshow until he's healthy, I'll move back in with you."

I don't know what Thaddeus was expecting, but that sure wasn't it. For just a second he looked surprised; then a strange expression—perhaps concern, perhaps something else—crossed his face.

"Did you have a fight with Queenie?" he asked a long, uncomfortable pause.

"No," said Alma, still staring at the floor.

"Does she know you're making this offer?"

Alma shook her head, and a tear trickled down her cheek.

"Do you love her?" he asked softly.

"I need her. I need someone," she whispered, more tears following the first.

"And you're offering to come back, just because of a bunch of freaks?"

She forced herself to look at him. "Is it a deal?" she asked, her face very pale and very wet.

"I'd make you unhappy."

"You always do."

"I'd still sleep with other women," he said. "I'm too old to change."

"I know," she replied, blowing her nose again.

"Queenie would hate you even more than she hates me," he pointed out. "If you move in here, she'll never take you back. She's not as generous as I am."

"Queenie will live without me. Those poor creatures won't."

"You really think I'd kill them?"

"You kill everything you touch in one way or another," said Alma, never taking her eyes from his. "This won't be any worse for me than working in the show."

"Or any better?" he asked with a wry smile.

"Or any better."

"And yet," he said, truly puzzled, "you'd come back. For them."

"Yes." She wiped the tears from her face with a forearm. "You know something, Thaddeus?" she said with a wistful little smile. "When I was nine or ten years old I was one hell of a tomboy. I played football and baseball with the best of them, and I used to go home with cuts and bruises all over me, but I never cried—not once." She ran the soggy Kleenex over her face. "Until I met you."

He stared at her and said nothing. I think she must have felt more naked than she ever felt on any stage, and she began shifting uncomfortably again.

"Well?" she asked at last, and her voice shook just a little. "Do we have a deal?"

"Go back where you belong," he said wearily. It could have sounded nasty, but somehow it didn't.

"What?" she asked, blinking as if she was sure she didn't understood him.

"Go back to Queenie."

"You don't want me?" she said, a blush of shame starting to spread across her face.

"I don't make deals."

She turned to me, and I could tell she was going to start crying again.

"Goodnight, Tojo. I'm sorry you had hear this."

"Goodnight, Alma," I said. "Take care."

She turned and walked out of the trailer without saying another word.

"She really thought I was going to lock them in cages," said Thaddeus, watching her through a window as she ran back to Queenie's trailer.

"Weren't you?" I said.

"With everything I've done, she was willing to come back for more, just to help them," he said, ignoring my question. "Isn't that odd?"

He lit another cigarette and looked at the dormitory tent for a long minute.

"It's starting to snow again," he said.