ClownFellas (27 page)

“So let's hear this routine,” Buggy said.

Bobby Goldstein did not appear very optimistic about the routine he'd come up with. There wasn't much he could do in only three days. Unfortunately, Buggy needed it to be golden.

“Can you at least untie me first? I'd be able to do my routine better if I were standing.”

Buggy shook his head. “You should stay off your leg as much as possible until the show. Just tell the jokes.”

Bobby Goldstein cleared his throat and got into character. He did his best to add a cheerful, charismatic tone to his voice as he spoke, but his physical and emotional conditions were just too pitiful to be masked.

“Have you ever noticed…,” Bobby began.

Buggy waved his hands to stop him. “Hold up, wait just a minute.”

“What?”

“You're not seriously going to tell a have-you-ever-noticed joke, are you?”

“Yeah, what's wrong with that?”

“Those jokes are cliché and terrible. Anytime a comedian auditioning for me starts a joke with that I kick him right out of my office before he even finishes his sentence. You might as well start a joke with
knock knock.
”

“But all I've got are have-you-ever-noticed jokes,” Bobby said. “That was my thing back in the day. Everyone used to love them.”

Buggy groaned and put his face into his oversized hand. “So you have no other material?”

“Not that I have prepared.”

Buggy groaned again. Then let out a deep breath and said, “Fine. Just tell me what you've got.”

“Okay,” Bobby said. Then he cleared his throat again and started over. “Have you ever noticed how it's impossible to respect a guy who carries a dog with him everywhere he goes?”

Buggy stopped him again. “Wait, hold it right there.”

“What?”

“Are you talking about me?” Buggy asked.

Goldstein noticed Buggy was holding his bulldog in his hands.

“
I
always carry Mittens around with me everywhere I go. Are you trying to say that people don't respect me?”

“No!” Bobby waved his hands in a panic. “I'm not talking about you at all. It's just a joke. I was talking about
other
guys.”

Buggy stood up and pointed at Goldstein's face with one hand while cradling his dog in the other.

“I
have
to carry my dog. Mittens can hardly walk on his own these days. What do you expect me to do? He's terminally ill, you heartless prick.”

“I'm sorry,” Goldstein cried. “I didn't know. As I said, the joke isn't about you. I was talking about guys who carry terriers and poodles. Not…” The comedian looked down at Mittens. “Not bulldogs.”

“Erfff…,” Mittens said.

“Don't tell that joke. It's offensive and I don't like it.”

“Sure, fine. I don't have to tell it.”

Buggy went back to his chair and sat down. “I'm serious.”

Goldstein was clearly shaken up by the confrontation, but he moved on to the next joke with only a hint of a stutter.

“Have you ever noticed that at the end of every party there's always a fat girl crying?”

“Hey!” Buggy said, interrupting him again. “My sister had a weight problem, you insensitive son of a bitch!” Buggy curled his fingers into a fist. “She was so depressed about it that it eventually drove her to suicide. Do you think that's funny?”

“No,” Goldstein said. “No, that's terrible. I'm sorry.”

“She tried losing weight, but it was really hard for her. You don't know what it's like. People were really cruel. She just couldn't take it anymore.”

Goldstein tried to calm the clown. “Honestly, I had no idea. It's tragic. I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose a sister like that. I won't tell that joke, either, if you don't want me to.”

Buggy tried to calm himself down, but he was still visibly angry and annoyed by the comedian's routine. “Just tell the next joke.”

The comedian tried to tell one of his jokes that wouldn't offend the mobster, but he had no idea what was going to set him off. Goldstein just had to throw one out there and hope it was okay.

He took a deep breath and said, “Have you ever noticed how whenever you have sex in a public bathroom you feel all sexy and cool, but whenever you masturbate in a public bathroom you feel kind of perverted and creepy?”

“Whoa…Hold on…” Buggy's face cringed with disgust. “You actually masturbate in public bathrooms?”

“No, it's just a joke.”

Buggy pointed at the bathroom door. “You didn't jerk off in
there,
did you? I just used that toilet not twenty minutes ago.”

“I didn't, I swear. It's just a joke. Don't take it seriously.” Goldstein was getting frustrated with the clown's defensiveness. “Can I please just tell the jokes without constant interruptions?”

Buggy didn't believe him. He kept staring at the bathroom door, imagining what the old comedian was doing in there every time they untied him to use the toilet.

“Fine, I'll shut up and let you tell your damn jokes,” Buggy said.

For the next hour, Buggy listened to joke after joke. All of them were terrible. Buggy waited for just one of the jokes to be funny. He was dying to hear a good joke. But as with all the bad comedians he interviewed, all the jokes were bad. It had been years since a comedian had actually made Buggy laugh. He wondered if it was even possible for him to laugh anymore.

When the routine was finished, Buggy knew he was in big trouble. The act wasn't going to fly with the audience. He had to figure something out.

On the way out of the club, he ran into Snuffy and said, “I want you to bring your canisters of laughy-gas to the show on Friday.”

“Why do we need that, skipper?”

“Because I want you to gas the crowd, just like you do at your own shows. We need them to laugh and since Goldstein's performance ain't gonna do the trick, we need to use some chemical enticement.”

“But the venue's too big,” Snuffy said. “We'd have to use all three canisters.”

“Then we'll use all three.”

“But I invested a ton of money into that stuff. Are you going to pay me back?”

“No, I'm not. Because it's your fault we need to use the gas in the first place. If you didn't offer a money-back guarantee we wouldn't be in this mess.”

“Are you serious?” Snuffy whined. “That's bullshit and you know it, Buggy.”

“Who do you think you're talking to? Just bring the canisters to the show or you're done.”

“Fine…” Snuffy kicked a chair like a disappointed kindergartner.

But the laughy-gas still wasn't going to be enough. Buggy needed to do one more thing to make sure the show went over successfully. In his current condition, Goldstein wasn't going to be able to perform in a way that would capture his audience. Eighty percent of comedy was in the presentation, so Buggy had to do something drastic to make sure Goldstein performed with energy and charm.

“On more thing…,” Buggy said.

Snuffy turned back. “Yeah?”

“Pick me up some Happy Juice.”

“Happy Juice? What for? Do you know some vanilla schmuck who wants to be turned into a clown?”

“Yeah, Goldstein,” Buggy said.

“Goldstein wants to become a clown?”

“No, he's not going to know about it. I want to inject him with a time-released dose just before the show.”

“But how will anyone recognize him if he's a clown?”

“That's why it will be time-released. He'll transform on stage. I'm sure it will be a big hit with the crowd. Not only that, but he'll have the energy and charisma of a clown. Who knows, he might even do a good job up there.”

The night of the big show, Buggy was a nervous wreck. His palms were sweating inside his gloves and his bow tie was spinning in circles. He showed up at the Rainbow Gardens two hours early, but there was already a line around the block. At first, he assumed people were just dying to see Bobby Goldstein, but that wasn't it. The majority of the crowd were parishioners from Reverend Jellybottom's church.

“What are all these people doing here?” Buggy asked when he tracked down Jellybottom having cocktails in the bar of the brothel.

“Ah, Brother Buttons!” the reverend cried, already a bit tipsy from a few too many fuzzy navels. “How are the preparations for the show coming?”

“They're coming fine,” Buggy said. “But what I want to know is why you've got so many of your churchgoers crowding the sidewalk?”

“I told you Friday Night Mass is popular.” The reverend slapped Buggy on the back and took another drink.

“You didn't tell me it was going to be
this
popular.”

“Yeah, normally the turnout isn't this good, but once I told everyone that Bobby Goldstein will be here they all wanted to come.”

“Are you kidding me?” Buggy said, pulling the reverend's drink away from his mouth. “They can't stay for Goldstein's performance. They have to leave after your sermon unless they pay a thousand bucks a ticket like everyone else.”

“It's too late,” Jellybottom said. “I already told them they'd be seeing Bobby Goldstein. I can't deny them that now.”

“Well, you're going to have to. This isn't a free show.”

The reverend just laughed and shook his head. “I reserved this venue for the whole night. I said you can use the stage after my sermon, but I didn't say that my parishioners had to leave.”

Buggy wondered what kind of Hell he'd go to for strangling a priest with his own robe. “Fine, but they're standing in the back. Paying customers get the seats.”

“I'm sure that will be fine,” said the reverend, taking a fresh drink from a pink-haired waitress in a mini skirt. He didn't attempt to hide the fact that he was admiring the clown girl's behind as she walked away. A big smile crossed his face as he held up his glass in a toast. “Here's to a great show.”

Then he slammed it down.

“You seem to drink a lot for a holy man,” Buggy said.

“Just loosening up,” said the reverend, slapping the behind of the clown waitress as she passed him again. “It's going to be my biggest sermon ever.”

Winky Gagliano and his crew were setting up the venue space. When Buggy entered, wheeling Mittens through the double doors, he was pleasantly surprised by how nice the setup was. The stage looked professional. The seats were surprisingly comfortable, more like movie theater seats than the usual high school cafeteria style of seating that most venues had. There was even a velvet curtain around the stage, giving it an almost luxurious look—the kind of atmosphere you'd expect for paying a thousand dollars a ticket.

Buggy was very impressed. That is, until he saw the merchandise table.

“What the heck is this?” Buggy asked, pointing at the row of T-shirts hanging on the wall.

“It's a shirt with Bobby Goldstein's face on it, just like you wanted,” Winky said.

“Yeah, I see that,” Buggy yelled. “But what the hell kind of picture is this?”

Buggy held up the shirt. The picture Winky used for the shirts, mugs, and posters had been taken recently, soon after Goldstein had been hit by Winky's car. His mouth was bleeding. His eye was swollen shut. You couldn't even tell who was in the picture. It just looked like an image of a violently battered face.

“You said you wanted a picture of Goldstein's face so I took a picture of Goldstein's face.”

“But you should've used an old picture from back when he was in his prime, not incriminating proof that he was beaten, kidnapped, and forced to do a comedy show against his will.”

Winky took a bite of a hot dog. “I think they look pretty cool.”

“Oh, you think they're cool, do you? Would you pay two hundred bucks for one of these?”

Winky just laughed at the idea. “No.”

“Then why would anyone else?”

Winky shrugged and took another bite of his hot dog.

As Mittens sniffed at the food Winky was eating, Buggy looked around the room, wondering why all of Winky's men had hot dogs in their hands.

“What's with the hot dogs?” Buggy asked.

“You said you wanted a concession stand.” Winky pointed at the hot dog stand in the corner of the room. There didn't appear to be any other food besides hot dogs.

“A hot dog stand? All you got was a hot dog stand?”

“Yeah,” Winky said. “I got a good deal.”

“I wanted upscale gourmet food. Crab fondue. Meat and cheese platters. Lobster pizza. You know, something we can charge fifty bucks a pop for. Nobody in their right mind would pay fifty bucks for a hot dog.”

Winky took another bite.

“They're good hot dogs,” he said with his mouth full.

Buggy didn't have time for this. He said, “Just charge twenty bucks a hot dog. And tell your crew to stop eating them all. They're for paying customers.”

Buggy went backstage to see how Bobby Goldstein was doing. Snuffy was back there setting up his canisters of laughy-gas.

“Make sure the gas blows
away
from the stage,” Buggy said to Snuffy. “We don't want it to get Goldstein and cause him to laugh hysterically at his own terrible jokes…at least not until the audience is laughing first.”

Snuffy nodded.

Buggy went to Bobby Goldstein, who was still tied to the same chair from Snuffy's club. Knowing Winky and Snuffy, Buggy assumed the two clowns just tossed him in the back of their truck and moved him over like a piece of furniture.

“You okay?” Buggy asked the comedian.

“Do I look okay?” Goldstein asked. “My broken leg is swollen bigger than before and I think the wound on my back is getting infected.”

“Will you be able to perform?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, but I need to know whether or not we need to bring you out there in a wheelchair.”

“You're not bringing me out there in a wheelchair,” Goldstein said. “I'll walk. It'll hurt like hell, but I'll walk. If this is my last show I want to go out on my own two legs.”

“Good to hear,” Buggy said. “Now, after the show, you're going to keep your mouth shut about everything that happened here, you got that?”

Goldstein shook his head. “You don't have anything to worry about. I just want this to be over and done with. Just take care of my medical bills after this and we're good.”

Buggy went around behind the comedian. “I'm going to untie you now, but I've got guys guarding all the exits so don't try to run.”

“I couldn't run if I tried,” Goldstein said, then laughed as if that were a joke. Buggy didn't laugh with him.

As the capo removed the comedian's bonds, he pulled out a syringe filled with Happy Juice and stuck it into his wrist.

“Ow…,” Goldstein complained.

Buggy finished injecting the fluid into the comedian's vein and then hid the syringe back in his pocket. “Sorry, these ropes chafe pretty bad.”

“Just hurry up and get them off.”

When the bonds were free, Goldstein stood up and rubbed his wrists. He could stand up fine, even on the broken leg, but could hardly walk on his own. He needed to lean on Buggy just to get from one chair to another.

“Knock 'em dead,” Buggy said.

The comedian laughed. “Yeah, like that's going to happen.”