The Shankill Road Contract by Philip Atlee

Author:Philip Atlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

21

Walking to the last caravan in the line, I noticed that it was brighter, more newly painted than the others. When I moved up the three steps and rapped on the gilt-edged door, Quentin Elgin opened it. He was wearing only slippers, the flaring white Pierrot pants, and was wiping off his makeup with a cold-creamed rag.

When I said I was Richard Gibson, an American journalist, and would like to speak to him for a few minutes, he hunched his bare shoulders.

“Whatever for?” he enquired. “Life magazine has folded, so how could I possibly interest you?”

“Five minutes,” I requested. He stood looking down at me, arabesqued, a feline gesture with both hands, and stood aside. I stooped entering the caravan, and he closed and bolted the door. Turned back to his small illuminated mirror and resumed the job of taking off his smeared, sad countenance. When he had finished, his face was not much more euphoric.

“Scotch over there, bunk behind the shelf,” he said. “Vichy water, too. Sorry, no ice.”

I had a dollop of the Cutty Sark straight, then tried to rinse the glass under the single faucet in the tiny wash basin. No water came out of it, so I stowed the glass and bottle back where I had found them. Quentin was watching me in the mirror. He said that “that damned Mickey” had promised to fill the tank.

“Doesn’t matter.” I sat on the narrow bunk across from his back.

“Okay,” he went on briskly. “You got in, so interview me. Grock is gone, won’t ever be back. But I’m working in the great clown tradition. My makeup is unique, having been bought for shekels plenty, from a retired clown in Brussels—”

“Your father is worried about you,” I said.

“Is he?” Quentin’s hands stopped, but he did not turn. He was cadaverous, for his age, but the naked shoulders were wide and muscular. He stood up and peeled out of the bottom half of his costume, kicking it at the corner. “First time for that. He might want me covered up, locked up, or castrated, but he never demonstrated much affection. I’m queer as a three-legged cat, Mr. Gibson. Or perhaps you knew that? And the condition is bad at the polls and in the councils of the mighty.”

“Mr. Elgin, I do not specialize in the Mattachine brotherhood, or the sisterhood of Bilitis.”

“Oh?” Quentin moved with ballerina grace to the shelf, neat as heat, and had a drink, chasing it with Vichy water. “What was your news syndicate again?”

“The American Newspaper Alliance. I saw your father before I left the States, a few days ago. He doesn’t want you to go ahead with… whatever you have planned. Your prints were found on the Shankill Road Armalite rifle, and he thinks you’re a contract assassin.”

The slender clown, wearing only ballet-type slippers, laughed out loud. “Beginning to take me seriously, is he? Sent you to rap me over the noggin and return me to sanity?”

“Not necessarily,” I said.

The dropout-turned-clown swung the empty glass idly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.