'Oh, yeah? What's so evil about him, apart from the fact that he looks like Jack Nicholson in drag?'

'Mago Verde always plays cruel and s.a.d.i.s.tic tricks on his audience. For instance he might produce a small guillotine and show a volunteer that when he sticks his finger in it, and trips the switch, it looks like this really sharp blade is coming down but he's completely unhurt. So the volunteer willingly copies him, and crunch! he gets his pinkie chopped off.'

'Hilarious,' said Walter.

'You know what Lon Chaney Junior once said about clowns? "There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight."'

'There is nothing funny about clowns in any kind of light, period, and especially in the dark. But what I would dearly like to know is, why did this Maria Fortales have a picture of this freak stuck up on her closet?'

Charlie was scrutinizing the pictures even more intently. 'Mago Verde isn't the only freak here. Look - here's a picture of Prince Randian the Human Caterpillar and Johnny Eck the Half-Boy. They were both in that Tod Browning movie, Freaks.'

'Yeah, I saw it,' said Walter. 'That guy didn't have no arms or legs, did he? But he still managed to roll a cigarette, put it into his mouth and light it.'

They both frowned at each other, baffled. Then Walter abruptly opened the closet doors, as if he were trying to surprise whoever was hiding inside it. All that it contained, however, was a row of wire hangers, with dresses and skirts and two short coats, one tartan and the other brown suede.

Walter yanked out the three drawers underneath, but one of them was only a snakes'-nest of thongs and bras and pantyhose, while the other two were crammed with sweaters, purple and crimson and marigold yellow.

'Smell that?' he said, lifting up one of the sweaters. 'She sure liked her vanilla musk.'

Charlie bent over and lifted the side of the bedspread so that he could check under the bed. There was nothing there but a large gray suitcase and a grubby red backpack. He dragged out the suitcase and opened it up but it was empty except for some travel brochures for Mexico and a sewing kit from the Hacienda San Miguel Hotel in Cozumel.

Walter meanwhile went over to the desk. He opened the laptop and switched it on, and when the screen saver appeared it was a picture of the same clown, Mago Verde, standing in a gra.s.sy field wearing an ankle-length green coat. In spite of his dark green painted-on smile, his expression was one of unmitigated rage, as if he were furious at having his photograph taken. The sky above him was gray and swollen with rain, and behind him there was a sinister collection of black circus tents and a.s.sorted marquees.

Beside one of the tents, half hidden behind its entrance flap, stood a small boy with a washed-out face, almost as gray as Mago Verde in his make-up. He looked both frightened and sad.

The rain sprinkled against the window. Walter picked up the notebook and rolled off the elastic bands. When he opened it he saw that it was Maria Fortales' diary. It was written in purple ink, in rounded handwriting, which was so diminutive that he could barely read it. Every page was full to the last line, and some extra sentences had even been written vertically up the margins.

He turned to the last page, which Maria Fortales had written yesterday.

'What's that?' asked Charlie.

'Diary,' said Walter. 'Listen to this: "Last night the show was all packed up and ready to leave for Waterloo, Idaho. It rained and rained and it never stopped, and all of the meadow was churned up into thick black mud. I was cold and shivering and even the bears looked miserable. I went to BJ's caravan for warmth even though BJ scares me so much. BJ never stopped ranting and raving although I could hardly understand a word he was saying. Then Natasha came and found me and warned me that The GF was growing impatient and that I should be very careful and have eyes in the back of my head especially where MV is concerned. I don't know what to do. I am so frightened but I don't know how to escape."'

Walter turned back a few pages. 'Here we are again. "Tonight only seventeen people turned up for the show and MV said that The GF was very angry. He wants to move on but two of the trucks are still out of commission and we have to wait for them to be fixed before we can leave here."'

He flipped back again, and read some more, and then flipped back again. 'Jesus. She has dreams about this circus every single night. Every single G.o.dd.a.m.ned night. No wonder she's obsessed.'

Charlie said, 'I guess "MV" is Mago Verde. But who's "The GF", I wonder? And "BJ"?'

Walter closed the book, snapped the elastic bands back around it, and handed it over. 'There. Take it home and read it from page one. Maybe you can work out who they are, and why she's so scared of them. You're the clown expert.'

Charlie took the diary and looked around the room again, as if he were half expecting to find her hiding under the candlewick bedspread, or standing completely motionless in one corner so that he hadn't noticed her. 'OK. But it still doesn't tell us what's happened to her, does it?'

'Well, take her laptop, too. Have Morrie go through it, in the lab. My guess is that she's simply gone wandering off someplace without telling her landlord about it.'

Walter lifted the home-knit cardigan off the back of the chair and rummaged in the pockets. The cardigan smelled of vanilla musk, too. 'Hey,' he said. 'Look at this.'

Out of the right-hand pocket he produced a brown leather purse, with Mayan decorations on it, a souvenir from Mexico. He opened it up, and there was Maria Ynez Fortales, frowning at him from her driver's license. A pretty round-faced girl with wavy black hair and pouting lips and a beauty spot on her left lip.

'Well, at least we know what she looks like.'

He went through the rest of the contents. Twenty-seven dollars in cash, a library card, a Visa card, and a business card from Alphabet Cabs. Also, a student identification card from Case Western Reserve University which carried another photograph of her, this time smiling and wearing a green silk headscarf.

'She wouldn't go out without her purse, would she?' said Charlie. 'So where the h.e.l.l is she?'

'She's not here, for sure, but I don't see any evidence of abduction, can you? If she went, she went without kicking over the furniture or pulling down the drapes.'

'What about the screaming?'

'Who knows? Maybe she was screaming at her boyfriend or something, on her cell.'

'And the sawing noise?'

'Pff,' said Walter, dismissively. 'If you ask me, the old man's hearing-aid is on the fritz. My mom's hearing-aid used to make a noise like a flock of Canada geese.'

'But the door was locked from the inside. The key's still in it.'

'There are ways of doing that.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know. Don't make complications. Think Occam's Razor. The simplest solution is always the most likely.'

They looked around the room one last time. 'Maybe we should get a sniffer dog up here,' said Charlie.

'Yeah, maybe you're right. But let's give it twenty-four hours before we start treating Ms Fortales as a missing person. Like I say, she probably went out without the Yarbers seeing her. The best place for us to go now is CWRU, to see if she's there, or if any of her friends know where she is.'

They went back downstairs. Mr Yarber was still standing in the hallway, with Mrs Yarber close behind him. 'Well?' said Mr Yarber. 'She well and truly vanished into thin air, didn't she?'

Walter gave him what he hoped was a rea.s.suring smile as he headed out the door for the car. 'Don't you fret, Mr Yarber. She'll turn up. There was no foul play carried out in that room, I can a.s.sure you.'

'Now, are we going to Rally's or not? My triple cheeseburger is getting cold.'

Charlie didn't start up the engine. 'How did Maria Fortales get out of the room, Walter? Just explain that to me.'

'It's obvious. She wasn't in the room in the first place.'

'So how did she lock the door from the inside? And how come her purse was still on her desk? She wouldn't have gone out without her purse, would she?'

Walter slumped his head forward in defeat, so that his double chins bulged out. 'She evaporated, OK? That's how she did it. She just f.u.c.king evaporated.'

'Did you ever see that happen before? Somebody just vanish like that?'

'No, but this business is all about the inexplicable, isn't it? We're not here to explain anything. We're here to find Maria Fortales and/or anybody who did her any harm. That's all.'

EIGHT.

Helpless Lincoln became aware that somebody was saying his name, over and over - not as if they were trying to wake him, but as if they enjoyed repeating it simply for the way it sounded.

It was a young woman's voice, soft and modulated. At first he thought she sounded like Grace, his wife, but then he realized that she had a slight accent. She reminded him of a pretty Creole girl who used to work on the reception desk at K-C Records in New Orleans.

He opened his eyes. At first, everything was foggy. He was lying in an unfamiliar room, lit by bright fluorescent strip-lights. Above him there was a polystyrene-tiled ceiling and when he lifted his head a little he saw that three sides of his bed were surrounded by a pale yellow curtain with an interlocking pattern of seabirds on it.

'Lincoln!' cooed the young woman's voice. 'Lincoln, you're back with us! I'm so glad!'

He tried to sit up, but for some reason he found that he couldn't. He felt no pain, but his muscles wouldn't work. He lifted his head a little more and he could see his feet at the end of the bed, in white surgical socks, but he couldn't waggle them. This was more than numbness. He felt as if he were completely absent from the chest down, leaving only his head and his arms.

The girl stood up and leaned over him and to his bewilderment it was the Creole girl from K-C records. She was dusky-skinned, with high cheekbones and feline eyes, and her ma.s.s of black dreadlocks made her look like Medusa, who could turn men to solid stone. She was wearing a clinging dress in purple jersey with a large amethyst pendant dangling between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and at least a dozen silver bracelets on each wrist.

Lincoln could smell her and she smelled like jasmine flowers on a warm summer evening, in some enclosed courtyard in the French Quarter.

'Can't remember your name,' Lincoln whispered. He gave a dry, abrasive cough, and then he said, 'What was it? I know... always reminded me of "ukulele".'

'Eulalie,' the girl smiled. 'Eulalie Pa.s.sebon.'

'That's it, Eulalie. What the h.e.l.l are you doing here, Eulalie? And come to that, where the h.e.l.l is here?'

'You're in the emergency room at the Case Medical Center, in Cleveland.'

'What?'

'You've had a very serious accident, Lincoln.'

Again, Lincoln tried to sit up. He could move his arms, and press down against the mattress with his hands, but he could only raise his head a few inches.

'I can't move! What happened to me? I don't remember.'

'They found you lying on the patio outside of your room at the Griffin House Hotel. You fell, and broke your spine. You're paralysed - temporarily, at least.'

Lincoln stared at her. 'Paralysed?'

Eulalie took hold of his right hand and lifted it to her lips and kissed it. 'I'm so sorry, Lincoln. This was the very last thing I wanted to happen.'

'Where's a doctor? I need to see a doctor! What are you doing here? Has anybody called my wife?'

'Shh,' said Eulalie. 'I'll call for the doctor in just a minute, I promise you. The hospital staff have contacted Grace to tell her what happened to you. She's flying in from Detroit and she should be here in less than an hour. But first of all it's very important that you understand what's happened to you. You need to understand who you are.'

Lincoln began to panic. 'I don't know what in h.e.l.l you're talking about! I need to see a doctor!'

'Lincoln-'

'I'm paralysed, for Christ's sake! I don't know how it happened and I'm lying here in this G.o.dd.a.m.ned hospital bed and you're a G.o.dd.a.m.ned receptionist for a record company in New Orleans. What's going on? Have I gone crazy, or what?'

'Lincoln, listen to me. We don't have much time. Do you remember the man with the gray face and the green lipstick and the long gray hair?'

Lincoln blinked at her. 'What? I still don't know what you're talking about!'

'It was back at the Griffin House Hotel, room one-oh-four. A woman was lying on your bed. She was badly hurt, wasn't she? Then the bed caught fire and you tried to hide in the bathroom but the man with the gray face and the green lipstick was there, hiding in the shower stall.'

Lincoln said nothing, but continued to stare at her wide eyed. As he did so, a flickering image began to move inside his mind, as if he were remembering a grainy old movie that he had seen a long time ago, in some unfamiliar movie theater.

The gray-faced man stepped out of the shower stall, all spindly and dressed in black, and his lips were painted with green make-up into a mad, pointed grin, even though his real lips were tightly puckered with anger. His voice when he spoke sounded as if he had a mouthful of dry sand.

'I warned you not to come, now didn't I? You would not listen to me, though, would you? You out-and-out refused to listen.'

Eulalie said, 'He came after you with his handsaw, didn't he? And the room was burning and the door was locked and there was only one way out.'

'The fire escape,' Lincoln whispered. Now he remembered.

'That's right. And it collapsed, and you fell three stories to the ground. And that's how you broke your back.'

Eulalie kissed his hand again, and then she said, 'The hotel staff who found you on the patio, they did the right thing and didn't try to move you. So the chances of your recovering look pretty good.'

'That man who came after me, who was he?'

'We don't know for sure. But we think he could have been a murderer called Gordon Veitch.'

'Who?'

'Gordon Veitch. He raped and killed at least a dozen women in the nineteen-thirties. Maybe it wasn't the real Gordon Veitch, because Gordon Veitch is probably dead by now, but a nightmare of Gordon Veitch.'

'A nightmare? That doesn't make any sense at all. You're tryin' to tell me that he was only a dream?'

'Maybe he was, maybe wasn't. Another possibility is that he was somebody who was made up to look like Gordon Veitch. A copycat.'

Lincoln said, 'What happened in that hotel room, believe me, that felt real. I don't know how it could have been, but I'm lyin' here right now with my back broke, and nothin' comes much realer than that, does it?'

'Whoever that man was, Lincoln, and whether he was real or not, we need your help to track him down and put a stop to what he's doing.'

'You're kiddin' me, right? Look at me, I can't even get out of bed.'

Eulalie leaned forward so that her face was very close to his, almost as if she were going to kiss him on the lips. He could even see his own face reflected in her eyes. 'I'm not Eulalie, Lincoln, even though I look like her. The reason I took on Eulalie's appearance was because you know her and like her, and I needed to gain your trust as quickly as possible.'

'You're not Eulalie? Then who the h.e.l.l are you?'

'My name is Springer. I'm kind of a messenger, an envoy.'

'Who for? DHL?'

Springer shook her dreadlocks. 'I come from Ashapola, who is the spirit of faultless light and absolute purity.'

There was a very long pause. Lincoln didn't know if he ought to snort or laugh or burst into tears. 'You're talkin' about, like, G.o.d?'