ClownFellas (34 page)

Clyde and Caesar needed a wheelbarrow to get the giant clown's body off Carnival Island and into the back of Bingo's car. The second they were outside Carnie territory, they both gasped with relief.

“I thought we were dead back there,” Caesar said.

“It's been my recurring thought all day,” Clyde said.

They bought a sturdy chain and enough weight to sink an elephant, then they attached it to the clown's body and tossed him in the river. As he sank, the two cleaners watched the water to make sure he went down.

“So that's it?” Caesar asked.

“That's it,” Clyde said. “We just need to ditch the car, get our stuff back at the clown's place, then get the heck out of this shithole circus town.”

As they turned to go back to the car, the water exploded behind them. Somebody gasped for air. The cleaners didn't want to turn back. Even when they heard the chains rattling across the ground, they didn't want to believe it was true.

“It can't be…,” Clyde said.

“How the hell is it possible?” Caesar said. “He was dead. You saw.”

Then Bingo stepped up next to them, pulling the chains off his arms.

“I think you guys were right,” the clown said. “I think next time I'm going to have to go in there with a plan.”

“You can't be serious…” Clyde shook his head. He should've known the day was never going to end.

Bingo held out his hand. “What I need is some gasoline, some lube, and one of those collars that those dominatrix girls wear.”

The next thing the cleaners knew, they were at a clown sex shop on the main strip of Little Bigtop.

Bingo looked at the clown woman at the register, holding up a glittery pink leather choke collar. His blood trickled down his arm onto the counter.

“I'd like the biggest one of these you got in stock,” he said.

Even with the Carnie's knife still sticking out the side of his throat, Bingo was as casual as if nothing were wrong with him at all. The cashier couldn't take her eyes off his disfigured condition as she rang up his order.

“And some lube,” Bingo said with an incredibly serious look on his face. “I'm going to need a lot of lube.”

The two cleaners tried to pretend as though they weren't with him.

Before they got back to the car, somebody pulled over in front of him. Vinnie Blue Nose stepped out and approached the big man.

“Hey, Vinnie,” Bingo said. “What're you doing here?”

Vinnie didn't have too happy a look on his face.

“I heard you paid a visit to the Carnies today,” Vinnie said. “You know the boss ordered us to stay far away from Carnival Island.”

Bingo shrugged. “Who said I went to Carnival Island? I haven't been to Carnival Island in years.”

Vinnie pointed at his neck. “You've got one of their knives stuck in your throat.”

Bingo touched it and pretended to act surprised, as if he'd not noticed it before. “What? This? Nah, this was just from a couple of street jugglers who got me by mistake.”

“Come on, Bingo,” Vinnie said. “Why'd you go to Carnival Island? It's not like you to break the rules.”

Bingo decided to stop with the act. “Look, Vinnie. They took my violin. You know how important that thing is to me.”

“Important enough to start a war over?”

Bingo didn't want to let Vinnie know just how valuable his violin really was, but if he knew he would agree that it was worth risking a war to get it back.

“They know I didn't go there on the boss's orders.”

“It doesn't matter. Rules are rules. If this gets back to the boss, I don't know if I can protect you.”

“You don't need to protect me,” Bingo said. “Besides, it wasn't just the violin. I thought they kidnapped Isabella.”

Vinnie paused. He put a cotton candy cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “If that was the case you should've come to me first. I would've figured something out.” Then he took a deep drag. “Is she okay?”

“That's the thing, when I got there it turns out she wasn't Isabella anymore. I mean, she was the same woman, I'm sure of it, but she wasn't a clown. She was vanilla, dressed up like a Carnie. Fantasio said she was his fiancée.”

Vinnie nodded his head. “Poison Strawberry.”

“Huh?”

“She's a con artist that's earned the nickname Poison Strawberry, on account that she usually kills her marks by feeding them poison berries once she's through with them. She finds a guy who's got something she wants, either a valuable antique or just a crap-load of cash, then she transforms herself into that guy's perfect mate. After months of seducing the poor bastard, she sinks her teeth into him when he least expects it. I heard she was coming to town, based on the trail of bodies she left leading to Little Bigtop, but I never thought she'd choose you or Fantasio as her marks. I'd figured Uncle Jojo would've been more her style.”

Bingo still didn't want to let on how valuable his violin was, but realized that must have been what she was after the whole time. He felt like such a sucker. He should've known she was too good to be true.

“I don't think she really does it for the money,” Vinnie said. “I think she does it for kicks. She probably gets something out of becoming a new person every few months.”

Bingo still couldn't believe it. He wanted to get her out of his head. He really loved that woman.

“I think she loved you, too,” Vinnie said, as if he were reading the clown's mind. “When she plays a character, I believe she actually becomes that character. She felt everything Isabella felt. But eventually her fantasy world had to come to an end and she had to collect.”

“But I still don't get it. How was she able to become a clown? I felt her. She was real. There's no way you could fake that.” Then he pointed to the cleaners standing behind him. “Look at those guys.”

Vinnie looked over at the two guys with clown paint half smeared off their faces. They pretended he didn't notice them.

“There's all sorts of prosthetics and makeup effects that can be achieved these days. She surely knows every trick in the book. Otherwise, somebody would have tracked her down a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well she's good. I'll give her that.”

“Look,” Vinnie said, placing his hand on the clown's shoulder. “I'll talk to the boss and see what I can do about getting your violin back. But for now you got to get to a hospital and get yourself looked at. You're tough, but there's only so much injury a clown can take. I can't afford to lose you.”

“Don't worry about it.” Bingo shrugged so deeply he nearly drove the knife deeper into his throat. “This is nothing.”

“I'll catch up with you later,” Vinnie said, heading back to his car. But before he got in, he turned back to the giant clown. “Just do as I say. Check yourself into the hospital and whatever you do don't go back to Carnival Island.”

“Sure thing, skipper,” Bingo said.

Once Vinnie drove off, Bingo looked back at the cleaners.

“Let's go,” he said.

“What?” Clyde asked. “Where?”

“Back to Carnival Island,” Bingo said.

“But that guy just told you
not
to go there.”

“You'd think I would've heard that,” Bingo said, rubbing the back of his scalp. “But I guess getting shot in the head really messes up your short-term memory.”

Then Bingo loaded them back into his car. He trusted his capo would help him the best he could, but he couldn't count on him to get the job done. For starters, he didn't know the value of the violin. And on top of that, Bingo had no idea how long Isabella was going to hold on to his violin. He had to get there before she sold it off and left town.

“We're really not having a good day, are we?” Caesar asked his partner.

Clyde yanked the clown nose from his face until the rubber band snapped, then tossed it on the ground. “Nope. I'd say this is quite possibly the worst day I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing.”

They were in the exact same place they'd been in three hours ago—standing in the center of Carnival Island, surrounded by a horde of angry Carnies. But this time Bingo had a knife stuck in his throat and a huge smile on his face.

“Aren't days like these the best?” Bingo asked, as if he hadn't just heard the cleaners' conversation.

When the four Carnie generals saw the clown standing there again, they couldn't believe their eyes.

“How the hell are you still standing?” asked Orlando the Strong Man.

Bingo cracked his knuckles and then rubbed his round nose. “I guess I just don't know when to quit.”

Orlando sent the other three generals at him first. “Finish him.”

Gustav, Petunia, and Enzo charged the clown.

As Bingo saw Enzo the Human Pretzel leading the pack, he pulled off his shirt. The clown's greasy well-lubed body glistened in the twilight. But Enzo must've assumed it was just sweat, because he jumped at him anyway.

“What's wrong, Bendy?” Bingo asked as the human pretzel slipped and squirmed against the clown's back, not able to get a good hold.

Bingo slipped Enzo off his torso like a used condom, wrapped his armpit around his neck, and bent his head so far back that even a master contortionist couldn't endure it. The cracking sound echoed through the carnival. Then Bingo tossed the skinny man's corpse to the ground like an old jump rope.

“Who's next?” the clown asked.

The Carnies were furious. Seeing one of their own generals killed right in front of them was enough to send them into a feral rage.

When Petunia the Bearded Lady tried to spit fire at him, Bingo beat her to it. He took a swig of gasoline just as she was pulling out her lighter. Once she lit the flame, Bingo spit first, covering her face in a ball of fire. She screamed and ran through the crowd, trying to find water somewhere to put out her beard of flames.

Gustav threw knives at Bingo, but the clown just casually walked past him. The knives either bounced off the clown's thick hide or went in just an inch, then fell back out. The knife thrower couldn't even pierce his neck this time, now that Bingo wore his new glittery pink leather choke collar—which he had to alter to accommodate the knife already sticking out of his throat.

“Keep trying, buddy,” Bingo told the knife thrower as he strolled past him.

Gustav did keep trying, tearing up with frustration, until he ran out of knives to throw. Then he bent down and picked up empty beer cans and threw those, but they didn't come even close to their target.

When it was just Orlando left, the strong man was furious.

“This time I'm ending you, big nose,” the strong man said.

“Then get on with it, mustache,” Bingo said.

The strong man charged, barreling down the sidewalk like a man-shaped boulder. He clenched his fists and howled at the heavens like a god of war. And from the other direction, Bingo was charging at him. The two monstrous men came at each other, two tanks playing a game of chicken.

When they collided, it was a thunderclap. The two men crushed into each other like a demolition derby made of flesh. But that's when the fight ended. They both stopped moving. Nobody knew what was going on until Orlando backed up, holding his crotch.

Bingo wasn't the kind of clown who was too proud to go after a man's gumballs in a fight. And when a guy as big as Bingo goes for the gumballs, they're surely going to burst as if a sledgehammer has fallen on two raw eggs.

“I guess those aren't steel, too, are they?” Bingo asked.

The strong man crumpled to the ground, writhing in agony. He wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon. In fact, he probably wouldn't be able to walk for a few months at least.

Before Bingo could get to Lord Preston Fantasio and the snake he thought was his girlfriend, he found himself surrounded by the bulk of the Carnie gang. They all held shotguns and high-caliber rifles to his face, the kinds of bullets that not even Bingo's thick skull could stop.

But before a single shot was fired, a tidal wave of clowns flooded Carnival Island. The number of clowns, armed with sizzling pies and gumball shotguns, matched the number of Carnies. They were locked in a stalemate. Everyone stood, aiming their weapons at each other, not even breathing.

Vinnie Blue Nose moved through the crowd like a cool breeze. He was unarmed and completely calm, removing blue gloves from his hands and stuffing them into his suit pocket.

When Lord Preston Fantasio saw the capo, he stepped forward and said, “What the hell's going on, Blue Nose? I thought we had a truce.”

“Sorry, Preston, but I can't let you kill my guy.” Vinnie gave Bingo a disappointed glance. “Even if he doesn't follow orders.”

“He's the one who invaded our territory,” Preston said. “He killed at least two of our guys and maimed a few more.”

As he said that, all eyes went to Orlando the Strong Man as he lay groaning on the ground.

Vinnie walked right up to the boss of the Carnies, and said, “We have to talk.”

Then he stepped past him and entered the boss's tent.

Bingo entered behind Preston and Vinnie. A few Carnies and a few of Blue Nose's men came with them.

Once they were all inside, Fantasio said, “So what the hell do we have to talk about, other than us starting a war?”

“It's about your new girlfriend.”

“Charlotte? What's she got to do with this?”

“Everything,” Vinnie said. “She's not who you think she is. Have you ever heard of Poison Strawberry?”

“Yeah, the woman who kills dumb rich bastards and takes all their money, so what?”

“So you and my man here have both become her latest victims.”

“Are you trying to tell me Charlotte's Poison Strawberry?” the Carnie asked. “That's nuts.”

“Is it?” Vinnie asked. “Think about it. How has your relationship been with this girl you call Charlotte? Has your relationship with her been anything less than perfect since you met her? Has she been everything you ever dreamed of in a partner? Does that sound like reality to you, or somebody who's been trying to play you?”

Fantasio thought about it for a minute. It was obvious that she was the perfect girl for the Carnie boss, but he still wouldn't believe that she was playing him. He was ready to give everything to that girl.

“You're wrong,” he said. “Charlotte's perfect because she's perfect, not because she's playing me for a sucker.”

“Then what's that,” Bingo said, pointing at a bowl of strawberries on the table.

Everyone in the room gathered around the fruit bowl. Charlotte's anaconda was lying dead on the table. Preston used his cane to pick up the limp snake.

“Just the fumes from those things were enough to kill it,” Vinnie said.

It was only then that Fantasio began to believe what the capo was saying. He went to the safe in the corner of the room and pushed open the unlocked door. It was completely bare.

Then he turned to his men, “Find Charlotte. Bring her to me.”

The three Carnies left the tent and went looking for the woman. As they left, a different group of Carnies entered.

“Boss, you gotta come quick,” said one Carnie, the same one who'd been running the ticket booth when Bingo arrived earlier that day.

Vinnie and Fantasio called a cease-fire as they stepped out of the tent, then they followed the ticket booth Carnie across the park. It was their laughy-gas lab. The place was in flames.

“Damn it,” Fantasio cried. Then he yelled at his men, “Put it out.”

The Carnies weren't trained or equipped enough to deal with a fire that size, but they took their extinguishers to it anyway.

As the fire grew out of control, Bingo turned to run.

“Where the heck are you going?” Vinnie asked him.

“I can't let her get away with Melinda,” Bingo said.

Vinnie didn't get a chance to ask who the heck Melinda was before the big clown took off through the amusement park.