ClownFellas (7 page)

When they got on deck, Earl wondered just what kind of man Vinnie Blue Nose really was. There were bodies everywhere, all of them filled with laughing bullets—one of them lying with half his face blown off, using his dying breath to giggle at the rising moon. Blue Nose had taken them out single-handedly.

“Don't look,” Earl said to the youngest daughters as they walked through the corpses. “Close your eyes.”

Vicky had no problem closing her eyes tight, but Mandy wouldn't do it on her own. Earl had to cover them for her.

Mandy said, “Daddy, why's it all slippery?”

“Never mind that, honey. Just keep moving.”

They couldn't swim for it, so they headed for the ramp leading down to the dock. Along the way, Vinnie used his silencer to take out two more French clowns who were looking for them.

“Why are people laughing, Daddy?” Mandy asked.

“Because they're really happy, baby,” Earl said.

When they ran into Hats Rizzo, he was hiding behind a lifeboat. His acid squirt gun hadn't been fired at all.

“Where's Jackie?” Vinnie asked Hats as he pulled him out of hiding.

“How the heck should I know?” Hats said. “He never made it up the rope.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Last time I saw him he was swimming back to shore.”

“Have you seen Coco de Merde?”

“Does he have yellow hair and a brown trench coat?”

“Yeah.”

Hats Rizzo pointed over his shoulder. “Then I think he's right behind you.”

Vinnie turned around to see the sunny-haired scumbag leading a group of French clowns across the deck, searching for the intruders who'd killed his men. The Bozos ducked behind the lifeboat where Hats had been hiding.

“What do we do?” Earl asked.

“We're going to have to run for it,” Vinnie said.

“There's at least twenty of them. We'll never make it. Not with my daughters.”

Vinnie looked at the condition of the vet's teenage daughter. She was still in bad shape, barely conscious. They weren't going to be able to run very fast.

“You still got your emergency pie?” Vinnie asked Hats.

“Yeah, right here.” Hats removed his pimp hat to reveal a small mincemeat pie resting on top of a miniature cowboy hat. “I've been saving it for an emergency.”

“Well, it's an emergency.” Vinnie took the pie from Hats. He nodded at Earl. “Get ready.”

When Coco de Merde and his men came in range, Vinnie slid the mincemeat pie across the deck. It opened up like a package and a machine grew out of it and unfolded into a turret gun. How such a massive machine gun fit inside the pie, or how Hats was able to carry all that weight on his head, Earl had no idea. He plugged his youngest daughter's ears as it opened fire.

“Now,” Vinnie yelled.

As the turret gun pie oscillated from side to side, emptying bullets into the French clowns, Earl and his daughters took off running in the opposite direction. Hats and Vinnie soon followed.

“Stop them!” Coco yelled to his men, but they were busy diving for cover or getting torn up by the blitzkrieg of bullets.

Coco did not jump for cover. He raised his hands into the air, moving them up and down, then side to side.

Earl looked back and saw the French clown's movements. “What's he doing?”

Bullets fired directly at Coco, but they didn't hit him. They bounced off what appeared to be an invisible barrier.

Hats held on to his mini cowboy hat as he looked back at Coco. “He's miming!”

“Just keep moving,” Vinnie said.

Coco de Merde continued miming the invisible wall until the turret gun ran out of bullets. Then he stepped forward, kicked the pie gun out of his way, and mimed something else with his hands.

“What's he doing now?” Earl asked.

Hats cried, “He's miming a machine gun!”

Bullets poured out of the invisible gun as Coco stepped toward them. Although there was no sound coming from the gun in his hands, they could hear the bullets as they whistled through the air and tore through the deck. Earl couldn't move fast enough with his daughters. They had to duck for cover behind a cargo crate.

The French clown laughed. “I presume Don Bozo is still alive, no? His death was all a ruse?” Earl recognized his voice as the man he'd spoken with on the phone. This was definitely the guy who kidnapped his family. “Well, it's no problem. I'm happy to settle for killing you, Mr. Blue Nose—street boss of the Bozo Family.”

While Coco was busy speaking, Vinnie stood from cover and fired two laughing bullets directly into the clown's chest. Coco staggered back, looked down, then wiped the flattened slugs away. They hadn't broken his skin. Vinnie aimed for Coco's face and pulled the trigger, but the gun only clicked. He was out of ammo.

“Good thing I already mimed a bulletproof vest.” Coco fired his invisible gun until Vinnie returned to his hiding spot. “That's one of many reasons why Le Mystère is superior to you Bozos. You can't mime, you have no acrobatic talent, you lack imagination and wonder. All you do is throw your pies and honk your noses.”

Vinnie double-checked his pockets, but he didn't have any more laughing bullets.

“I'm out of ammo,” he said, as Coco fired more rounds at them. “What have you two got?”

Earl held up his balloon knife. “I only have this.” The second he held it out, a gust of wind blew it out of his hands. They all watched it as it rose up into the air. “Never mind…I've got nothing.”

“I got my squirt gun.” Hats handed the weapon to Vinnie.

Vinnie tilted it up, inspecting the fluid tank. “What's it filled with?”

Hats smiled. “Toxic waste.”

“That's not going to kill him very quickly.”

“Yeah, I prefer dealing a long, painful death to my enemies. Get hit with a splash of this, and it can take weeks or months to die.”

Hats smiled proudly at his sadistic yet completely ineffective weapon.

“It's useless,” Vinnie said.

As they spoke, Coco de Merde continued firing at them, stepping casually across the deck. The invisible gun seemed to have limitless ammo. All Coco had to do to was mime a longer ammunition belt to feed into the weapon and he'd be able to fire it all day long.

Coco said, “Little Bigtop doesn't need you Bozos anymore. You're old, outdated. The future of clowning belongs to Le Mystère.”

“What about pies?” Earl pointed at the miniature cowboy hat on Hats's head. “Do you have another pie under that?”

Rizzo removed his final hat to reveal a mini white-frosted cupcake beneath.

“What's that?” Earl asked.

Hats took a bite out of it. “It's coconut.”

“Coconut?”

“It's delicious.” Coconut frosting coated Hats's nose after he took a second bite.

“Mr. Blue Nose, they say you're the luckiest clown in Little Bigtop,” said the French clown as he reached their hiding spot. “And that nobody's ever been able to beat you in a game of poker.”

Vinnie had no other choice but to use the squirt gun. He nodded at Hats and Earl, telling them to get ready to run.

“But it looks like your luck has finally run out,” Coco said. “Your full house is a good hand, but it does not beat my royal flush.”

Vinnie stood up. “That's where you're wrong.” Then he sprayed the toxic waste into the Frenchman's eyes.

The clown shrieked, dropping his invisible machine gun. The toxic chemicals burned through his retinas.

“Poker is a game of skill,” Vinnie said. “Luck has nothing to do with it.”

As his eyes melted down his face, Coco mimed a .50-caliber Gatling gun large enough to be mounted on a helicopter. “Goddamn filthy clown!”

But before Coco could open fire, the wind changed direction.

He never saw it coming. It floated delicately on the breeze, like a leaf drifting through a stream, but when the yellow knife-shaped balloon hit Coco in the back it pierced through his chest and poked out the front of his rib cage as if it were a steel sword. The Frenchmen fell to his knees and coughed blood onto the deck.

“I guess he was right,” Hats said to Blue Nose. “You really are one lucky son of a bitch.”

“It wasn't me.” Vinnie put his hand on Earl's shoulder. “It was the vet's knife that killed him.”

Hats licked frosting from his round nose. “Thanks, Doc. You saved our asses.”

But as blood pooled beneath him, Coco de Merde moved his hands around an invisible box in front of him.

“What's he miming now, Daddy?” Mandy asked.

The smile fell from Hats's face when he saw the invisible box. “It's a bomb!”

They picked up the girls and ran as fast as they could. When the bomb went off, the blast was just as invisible as the device. They could hear the ship breaking apart and feel the force of the explosion as they were thrown off their feet, but they saw nothing. Even the flames were invisible as the ship caught fire.

“Come on!” Jackie the Grump yelled from the dock.

The girls coughed on the mime smoke as Earl and the clowns staggered down the ramp. Jackie stood there dripping wet, holding a gumball shotgun, the bodies of three dead clowns by his feet. “What took you guys so long?”

Hats handed Mandy off to Jackie the Grump. “We ran into Coco de Merde. The douchebag knew how to mime.”

“I hate mimes,” Jackie said.

Three cars filled with Le Mystère reinforcements came roaring down the road toward them. Vinnie waved the group toward Captain Spotty's car. “Let's go. We're not out of the woods yet.”

Captain Spotty pulled up next to them. Vinnie, Hats, Jackie, and the three girls piled into the backseat. Earl rode shotgun.

“Hold on,” Spotty yelled. Then he floored it and sped away from the docks into the streets of Little Bigtop.

Earl couldn't believe it when he saw the six people in the backseat. It looked strange enough when there were only three people layered together back there. They looked like a 3-D movie without the glasses, his daughters folded inside the clowns sitting between them.

“Can you lose them?” Vinnie asked.

Spotty looked a little worried. “I don't know. I'm going as fast as I can. They're gaining on us.”

The clowns on their tail opened fire. Spotty swerved as the bullets pierced his trunk and back window.

“Get down,” Vinnie told the kids, holding their heads as low as they could go in the backseat.

Jackie poked his head out the window and returned fire, but the gumball shotgun had a limited range.

The back of Spotty's car was shredded into Swiss cheese. “We're not going to make it without backup. Where's Jimmy and Bingo?”

“Forget about them,” Vinnie said. “I'm not bringing Jimmy into this.”

“What about Bingo?”

“There's no time. You're just going to have to shake them.”

Earl opened the glove box. Steam poured out. “We could use the pie.”

He grabbed the piping-hot pie out of the oven, the tin burning his fingers.

“Not the cherry bomb!” Spotty cried.

But Earl moved too quickly. He leaned out the window and tossed it at the car behind them. The pie splatted against the windshield. The French clowns riding in the car stopped firing their weapons and stared at it.

When Captain Spotty said the cherry bomb could take out half a city block, Earl figured he was just exaggerating. But once the French clown car evaporated in the explosion and the streets were swallowed by flame, Earl realized that Spotty had actually understated the weapon's potency. The pie was a miniature nuke.

Earl woke up in the hospital surrounded by clowns. With their sinister smiles and wide piercing eyes, his first thought was that he was having some kind of horrible nightmare. But then the memories flooded in, as did the pain.

Bandages covered half his body. One arm was in a cast, propped up in a sling. One eye was swollen shut. He didn't remember anything that happened after the explosion, not even being hit with a faceful of shrapnel. Vicky and Mandy were by his side, safe and uninjured, happy to see him wake up. His teenage daughter wasn't with them.

“Look who's awake,” said Captain Spotty. “I thought you bought it back there.”

“Where's Sarah?” Earl raised himself up, trying to get out of the bed.

“Relax, Doc.” Spotty pushed him back down. “She's in the next room. She'll be fine. Just a slight concussion.”

“And my wife? Laurie? Where's she?”

Captain Spotty shook his head. “We still don't know, Doc. You shouldn't worry about that now. Just be happy that your kids are alive and well.”

Earl held out his hand to Vicky and Mandy. They each grabbed on to a finger. But when he looked them in the eyes he couldn't stop thinking that, because of him, they'd gone through the worst ordeal of their life. Because of him, they might never see their mother again.

Vinnie Blue Nose stood in the doorway and said, “Everyone out. The boss wants to speak to the vet.” When he saw the look on the girls' faces, he could tell they didn't want to leave their father. He nodded at Hats. “Take them to their sister.”

Hats scratched his bald scalp. He didn't feel comfortable without any hats on his head. “Are you kidding me? Leaving me with the brats…” As he mumbled to himself, Mandy hopped onto his back.

“Give me a piggyback ride, Hats!” the kid cried in his ear.

“Get the heck off me, twerp.” Hats tried to shake her off. “I don't like kids. I'm not that kind of clown.”

“Piggyback ride!”

“I'm gonna strangle this brat,” Hats said, but despite his words he still carried her into the next room. Vicky followed. Then all the other clowns dispersed.

When Don Bozo entered the room, Vinnie said, “I'll be outside.” He closed the door behind him, leaving the two of them alone.

The boss clown waddled across the room and pulled up a chair next to Earl's bed. He let out a sigh. Then he blew a balloon animal and twisted it into the shape of a flower.

“Here,” Bozo said, handing him the balloon flower. “A get-well-soon present.”

When Earl held the flower in his hand, it swayed back and forth, almost dancing.

“I'm real sorry about your wife,” said the boss. “We're doing everything we can to get her back. I can't promise anything, but there's a good chance you'll see her again.”

Earl just listened. He wanted to believe everything the boss was telling him.

“It looks like Coco de Merde was acting on his own when he kidnapped your family and blackmailed you into whacking me. Le Mystère isn't too happy about it. I had a sit-down with their administration and they assured me they'd get your wife back as a peace offering, which is good for all parties involved. Neither of our families can afford to go to war right now.”

Bozo made another balloon animal. This one was a little monkey. He set it down on the bed next to Earl and it danced alongside the flower.

“Even though you tried to kill me, I feel kind of responsible for all this. None of it would've ever happened if it weren't for me.”

He made another balloon animal. This time a lion. It seemed the boss liked to make balloon animals whenever he felt awkward. The big clown pet the lion's rubbery mane after it came to life.

“So I've decided to pardon you on the condition that you come work for me as my new chief caretaker. I'd pay you twice as much as you were getting at the Bronx Zoo. But you wouldn't be able to quit until I say you can quit. And you and your family would have to move to Little Bigtop. I know you're scared of clowns and all, but I'm sure you'll get over it eventually.”

Earl looked down at the balloon animals on his bed. The balloon lion jumped on the balloon monkey and popped it. The balloon flower hopped away in terror.

“So what do you say, Doc?”

Earl shrugged. “You're going to kill me otherwise. Do I really have a choice?”

“Not really, but I want you to want this. I don't need you if you only take the job out of obligation. Think about it. Your family will be taken care of, your wife will be returned to you, you'll get more money than you ever did before. You should be happy.”

“Yeah, I guess I should…” Earl put away his phobia and thought about it for a moment. His actions had torn his family apart and working for Don Bozo seemed like the only way he could bring them together again. Although working with clowns sounded like a fate worse than death, he had to give it a try. For his family. “Okay, I'll work for you, but I have conditions of my own.”

The boss chuckled. “Oh yeah?”

“I want better living conditions for those animals of yours,” Earl said. “If I'm going to be your chief caretaker, then things are going to have to be brought up to my standards. It might not be cheap. It might not be easy. But when it comes to the health and well-being of those animals, you're going to have to answer to me. And if you don't like it then you might as well kill me right now, because I won't do a half-assed job.”

The boss stared at him for a moment. Earl thought he was about to be strangled to death for speaking to the big man like that. He shrank into his hospital bed, but he didn't break eye contact.

“Very well, Doc. You got yourself a deal.”

Then Don Bozo laughed so loud his belly shook the hospital bed and sent waves of pain through Earl's shattered arm.