The Pilo Family Circus (17 page)

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Gonko screamed from his room.

‘THEY PUNCHED ON THE FREAK SHOW, GONKO! GONKO, THEY BROKE THE FREAK SHOW!’

‘Who did?’ Gonko screamed.

‘I DON’T KNOW WHO DONE IT, GONKO! WHO DONE IT, GONKO?’

‘You’re a dull one, Doops.
CLOWNS!
Everyone out here now. Head count!’

Jamie ran out there before he could think about how easily Gonko would spot his guilt … It was all over him, had to be. Oozing from his pores, he reeked of it. One look in his eyes and it would all be over …

‘Head count,’ Gonko yelled again. ‘Come on, something went down. No one’s hanging this on us, not if I can help it. Everyone out here pronto. Don’t make Gonko go all ragey.’

Jamie paused in the hallway. There were little glass slivers on his pants. He ran back to his room, kicked off the pants, paused … He couldn’t do it, couldn’t face them. He’d get himself killed in two minutes. He went to his cupboard, grabbed the face paint, slopped it on his cheeks, grabbed the hand mirror, took a look at himself, and —

JJ stood perfectly still. He was speechless. The last hour replayed quickly before his disbelieving mind’s eye.

‘GOSHY AND JJ GET OUT HERE
NOOOOOOW!
’ Gonko screamed.

JJ started and ran out to the parlour. The other clowns were all there, including Winston. JJ snarled and bared his teeth.

‘Fine, we’re all here,’ said Gonko. ‘Never seen a more innocent bunch of motherfucks in my life. Boy, it’s sweet,
couldn’t hurt a puppy with a chainsaw. JJ, put some pants on and make it the last time I ever have to give you that particular instruction.’

‘Yes boss,’ said JJ in a cooing, gentle voice. He stared daggers at Winston, who looked back at him mildly. After he’d changed, Gonko led the clowns over to the freak show. JJ sidled up beside Winston and grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him out of earshot of the others. ‘That was a low, low bit of work,’ he whispered.

Winston gave him that mild look again and said, ‘Wouldn’t know. I wasn’t the one doin’ it.’

‘Oh, you’ll get
yours
,’ JJ snarled. He was shivering with anger.

‘That photograph will look just fine in a nice big frame, hung up on Kurt’s trailer door. Really captured your good looks.’

JJ sucked in the ramifications and decided to change tact. ‘You won’t tell, will you? It’s not me I’m worried about … It’s Jamie. Poor Jamie didn’t ask for any of this … He just … He …’ JJ made his voice choke with tender emotion. Winston merely shook his head in disgust and jogged to catch up with the others.

‘Bastard,’ JJ spat. How could Jamie fall for that kindly grandpa act? How
could
he? ‘Oh, Jamie, you’ll get
yours
too,’ he said. And he meant it.

A crowd had gathered inside the freak show, quietly observing the shattered incubators and the banner, which still hung upside down from the rafters. Kurt Pilo had wandered over to see what the fuss was about. JJ watched
him closely; Kurt’s fish lips were twisted in that good- natured grin, but his brow was clenched like a fist. The sum effect was a puzzled frown, like a man in a room full of laughing people, suspecting but not certain the joke is on him. Gonko sidled up to Kurt — Gonko was, JJ noticed, the only one who dared approach Kurt at this juncture. The pair of them exchanged a few words. Kurt’s voice was mellow and calm. Gonko came back to the clowns and gave a low whistle. ‘He’s
not
happy,’ he said.

Doopy pawed at Gonko’s shirt. ‘
Gonko
. Who done it, Gonko?’

‘Shh. Later.’

Kurt loped over to the freak show entrance and cleared his throat. ‘Friends,’ he said, ‘we have suffered more mischief. I do believe this was no accident.’

‘You don’t say, Kurt,’ Gonko murmured.

‘It hurts me to think,’ Kurt went on, ‘that amongst my beloved employees … and friends … the perpetrator is hiding and feasting on the hurt he has inflicted on our beloved freaks. Feasting on hurt is
expressly
forbidden — how many times must I say it? Let’s remember, we are family here. I am the Pilo, you are the family, this is the circus. This kind of violence is fine amongst friends, but not
family
. I will conduct interviews in the coming days with each team leader.’

Kurt said all this in a voice that was almost gentle while his bestial eyes roamed over the crowd’s faces. JJ could feel the sweep of his gaze like a beam of hot light, but the fish lips still curved upwards, the cheeks were still red with cheer. ‘Two other things,’ said Kurt. ‘Whoever has Shalice’s crystal ball, we’d like it back, please. Anyone who knows where it is … There’ll be a reward, I suppose.’ As an afterthought: ‘Oh, a
reward
if
you tell me where it is. And lastly …’ Kurt’s smile widened, and for a moment the fire left his eyes. ‘Although my brother George was first on the scene, and although he was, shall we say,
lurking
in the area during the crime — before
and
during the crime — in fact,
standing at this very spot as the crime occurred
— and even though he couldn’t name a culprit, though it was broad daylight, I would prefer to hear no gossip suggesting that he himself did it. In fact, I would prefer it if his slanderous, intimate
proximity
to the crime were not known at all, much less talked about. God bless!’

Gonko and Winston traded an amused glance. JJ breathed a little easier. Now he could busy himself with refraining from murder every time he looked at Winston. It wasn’t going to be easy.

The clowns were due to rehearse, and JJ was cornered and dragged to the gym mat before he could escape. He was told of his first routine: the rolling pin gag. ‘Just like in your bedroom that time,’ said Gonko. ‘Classic. You came down the stairs like a grumpy housewife with sand in her pussy. Remember?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ JJ said bitterly.

‘I got that very same rolling pin. Swiped it that night, along with your driver’s licence. Those come in handy once in a while. Here ya go.’ Gonko tossed the rolling pin. JJ caught it with a pout on his face. ‘Now,’ said Gonko, ‘Goshy, stand opposite. Hold that face, that’s perfect. JJ, throw it at Goshy.’

Goshy’s surprised left eye blinked; the right one seemed to narrow …
I dare you
.

JJ’s face crumpled. Tears were coming. ‘I … don’t wanna …’

‘
JJ!
’Gonko roared. ‘
THROW THE FUCKING ROLLING PIN!
’

JJ whimpered and threw. Goshy gave a surprised toot as the rolling pin struck his belly and bounced off, sailing up at JJ’s head. He ducked aside in time but it was a near thing. Goshy’s mouth flapped mutely; both eyes locked on JJ.

‘I’m sorry,’ JJ gasped, dropping to the floor at Goshy’s feet. ‘I’m
sorry
. Following orders. Didn’t want to … He made me …’

Goshy peered down at him without blinking. ‘Come off it, JJ,’ said Gonko. He sounded disgusted. ‘Goshy’s a professional. This ain’t personal. Jesus, I been kicked in the balls onstage by Ruf almost every show. Never fazed me. Get up and throw it again.’

So he threw the rolling pin, over and over, ducking aside each time, each time a near miss. Goshy’s belly seemed to be aiming for him, directing the pin towards where he’d ducked the previous throw. Tears streamed down his face and he whispered apologies all the while, but there was no telling if Goshy even understood them. His right eye didn’t blink, never leaving JJ’s face, while the left followed the movement of the rolling pin.

When rehearsal finally ended JJ calmed his nerves by watching the crystal ball, which he was beginning to love more than life itself. He scouted around for clues to this ‘freedom’ thing. He watched Fishboy climbing up the ladder to take the banner down, his head still bandaged from the stage tent collapse. The freak show floor was littered with
broken glass. Suddenly Kurt Pilo ambled into the tent, and JJ hurriedly panned away. When a look at Winston didn’t reveal the whereabouts of the damning photograph, he spied on Goshy and Doopy, both in Goshy’s room with the plant which still had its engagement ring stuffed on a stem. It was hard to tell, but it looked like Goshy and the plant were having some kind of lover’s tiff, and Doopy seemed to be playing mediator. ‘Sick
bastards
,’ JJ whispered and panned over to the woodchoppers. They were crowding around one of their comrades, who seemed to have fallen from a great height and now had an arm bent at an odd angle. JJ shook his head — they had to be the unluckiest sons-of-bitches in the whole show. Every time he checked in on them, someone was tripping, catching fire, or getting brained by a flying axe head.

He sighed — just not a lot going on today. Even Mugabo was fairly placid in his potion lab, concocting brews. It was only when the ball’s vision swung past the funhouse that something caught his interest. A figure was creeping out the front door over the cart tracks, on all fours. JJ zoomed in close and grunted in surprise — it was the apprentice, last seen fleeing the tent with his clothes aflame. Damian the funhouse guardian didn’t move a muscle as the apprentice passed him in a shuddering crawl. He looked like he’d just escaped a concentration camp; thin and starved, clothes hanging off withered limbs. His skin was blackened and burnt, peeling from his face. His eyes, once shifty and full of sullen malice, were now wide, unblinking and terrified. Smoke drifted from his clothes in white puffs. He dragged himself to a spot of shade and sat there, shivering.

JJ whistled. So this was what happened when you crossed Gonko. That begged the question: What happened when you crossed JJ?

AS predicted, George Pilo was in a foul temper when it came time to hand the clowns the night’s assignments. It wasn’t that George had expected the assassination attempt on Kurt to succeed — what got to him was the lazy ease with which Kurt had seen it coming and repelled it. Merely seeing him in some kind of distress would have been a triumph for George; seeing that dopey fish-lipped smile waver in front of the performers would have kept him as happy as a clam for months.

The sabotage of the whole
tent
, now that had come as a surprise. When the surprise wore off, George was livid — but then, he was always livid. Since Kurt Senior’s will had left 70 per cent of the show to Kurt Junior some 470 years ago, the wounds ripped open had never stopped bleeding. Half an hour after making that will, Kurt had bitten Papa’s face in half like a piece of fruit.

As for the sabotage, the idea of someone striking against his show was so utterly insufferable that George felt anger oozing through his skin, evaporating in heated waves and fouling the air around him. And this afternoon, what do you know — sabotage number two. George had seen it coming,
or more accurately Shalice had. She’d had one of those future empathy bullshits and warned him straight away. He’d been loitering by the freak show, saw Fishboy and his troupe go walkabout, saw Winston pop in and out, saw nothing was going to happen, then set off to give the fortune-teller a hiding for wasting his time. Then he heard the glass breaking.

Those were the ingredients of George’s bad mood. When the clowns showed up at his trailer door at eleven, he slammed it open so hard the carnies in Sideshow Alley thought they’d heard a gunshot. ‘What do you want?’ he screamed at the clowns, momentarily forgetting in his rage they were here on his orders.

‘Only to serve, George,’ said Gonko, bowing low, a twinkle of good humour in his eye. George remembered the odd jobs, scowled bitterly and went to fetch the instructions.

On the doorstep, Gonko turned to his troops and made a hush-hush gesture. ‘Georgie’s had a bad day,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll handle him. Everyone be nice.’

George returned, slamming the door behind him with the same violence, and saw the clowns smiling at him sympathetically. He made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. ‘Simple job,’ he snapped. ‘Get out there, burn down the house at this address.’ George threw an envelope at Gonko. It bounced off his forehead into his hands. ‘Then beat up the man you see walking down this street at the time listed.’ He threw a second envelope at Gonko’s forehead, but Gonko caught it in midair. ‘Then steal this car. Trash it, come back. Three jobs. Simple.’ He tossed the last envelope after a baulk and it hit Gonko on the chin. ‘Got that, you useless cunts?’

‘Yes, George, clear as day,’ said Gonko pleasantly.

George slammed his door.

Gonko cleared his throat. ‘George?’

‘
WHAT?
’

‘The pass-outs would no doubt prove helpful.’

The door opened and shut again in a flash, during which a small bag was tossed out, hitting Gonko in the chest. He rifled around inside it and pulled out a bunch of plastic cards, each connected to a loop of string. There was one for each clown. ‘Pass-outs,’ said Gonko as he handed one to JJ. ‘Can’t pass out without a pass-out. Put it on and if you lose it I skin you. Let’s go.’

‘I don’t
like
going, Gonko. I don’t
like
it!’

‘That pygmy is the exact reason you should never give short people authority,’ said Gonko, jerking his thumb at George’s trailer. He led the clowns — Rufshod alone was absent, still nursing his crushed ribs — through the deserted games and stalls of Sideshow Alley. Taking paths JJ hadn’t yet explored, they came to a network of dark streets that resembled a London slum. There was no carnival glitter here; it stank and it was filthy, and broken glass crunched under their feet. Dwarfs with mean faces peered at them from windows and alleys. JJ scowled at them, and they scowled back; he’d earned a little infamy in these circles, and none dared get close.

They came to a small outdoor latrine in a dark narrow alley. Gonko opened the door. There was a small slit by the back wall. He swiped his pass-out card through it and a small red light flashed. The other clowns did the same. JJ went in last, pressed uncomfortably against Goshy, whose breath smelled like rotting fruit. Gonko pulled a lever on the roof which looked like a gearstick, setting it against a notch marked ‘City 4’. There was a creaking sound from above as
the lift rose. The ascent was long, and JJ didn’t know how much longer he could stand it — Goshy’s breath was getting worse by the second, creeping like snails into his nostrils. When finally they came to a halt he pushed open the door, stumbling out into the night air, hacking and spitting.

He blinked and looked around — they were in the middle of a construction yard, and he was astonished to find he recognised the surrounding streets. This was Brisbane, not one mile from the place Jamie had called home. Around them were cement mixers and heavy machinery, still as fossils of mechanical animals around a half-grown apartment building. ‘Here we are,’ said Gonko, stepping out into the yard, gravel crunching under his shoes. ‘Good ol’ Brisbane,’ he muttered. ‘Festering stink hole. Thinks she’s grown up now into a city. Horse shit. Nowhere near enough murders here to call this a city. First job’s here, next two jobs are in Sydney. The larger festering stink hole.’

JJ followed Gonko as he marched to the fence, and to JJ’s alarm Goshy was following
him
, marching right behind him with shuffling steps in hot pursuit, close enough to head- butt. JJ squealed in panic and nearly wet himself. Doopy spotted the trouble and ran over, grabbing his brother by the shoulders. ‘No, Goshy … It’s
JJ
, Goshy, it’s
JJ
. He does the
rolling pin
, Goshy. He does the
pin
.’

Goshy regarded Jamie with alien coldness. His mouth flapped. JJ shuddered and thought,
He’s either King of the Headgames or the dumbest bastard on the planet
.

‘He’s a
clown,
Goshy,’ Doopy assured his brother. ‘Now c’mon, we got stuff to do.’

Gonko was by the fence, reading George’s instructions by the flame of a cigarette lighter. Once Goshy was a safe
distance away, JJ looked back at the latrine sitting inconspicuously behind a bulldozer. He pointed to it and said, ‘Gonko, is that how tricks get into the show?’

Gonko glanced up. ‘Huh? No one told you how we get tricks in the show? No, not through the lift. What do you think, a hundred people simultaneously walk into a goddamn portapotty? Winston, you tell him.’

‘Ticket collectors bring in the tricks,’ said Winston. ‘They find circuses happening here in the real world, like those once-a-year bashes they have in the capital cities. They set up their gate in there, in a spot where no one would notice anything amiss — sometimes in the places of the actual entrance. The gates are like spider’s webs. The tricks just wander through into our show.’

‘How’s that work?’ said JJ.

‘The gates? I don’t know how they work. They were part of the gadgets Pilo Senior collected in his worldly travels. Some say he robbed the pyramids of a lot of stuff. That’d be the least he did, let me tell you. Collected all kinds of arcane stuff, Pilo did. Would’ve had to, to make the show the way it is today. Probably the biggest thief the world’s ever known. But I don’t know how the gates work any more’n I know how the face paint works. Tricks walk through, they end up in the show. They don’t even notice. Maybe it ain’t even their actual bodies that come to the show, you know? Just … that part of ’em that makes ’em tick, makes ’em alive. The mechanics of the circus are strange.’

‘Why don’t they just set up the ticket gates in a city then?’ said JJ. ‘In a busy street. Tricks’d walk through all day.’

‘Secrecy,’ said Winston. ‘We get tricks already on their way to a show. They go out to see a carnival, so that’s what they see. Pilo Senior was paranoid about discovery, which is why
he made us rehearse the language of our host country whenever we moved base. Pointless if you ask me, but I don’t make the rules. The tricks come home from the circus with foggy memories, but not knowin’ what’s up. Probably only wonder why they didn’t take any pictures. Now, if people off the
street
have foggy memories of going to a carnival, when they thought they’d spent the day at work, and if thousands said the same thing, well, probably wouldn’t change a whole lot, if it came to it. But that’s how it’s always been run and it ain’t changin’.’

‘Shut it, you two. Let’s go,’ said Gonko, stuffing George’s instructions back in his pocket. He rocked back on his heels and with one lunge leapt to the top of the fence and over it, making the wire rattle. Doopy shoved Goshy into the fence and ducked down, poking his head and shoulders under Goshy’s legs. With much complaining he climbed up for the pair of them, his brother straddling his shoulders and making confused whistles. Winston was last over, puffing and panting.

The city was quiet except for the honking of traffic a few blocks away. The night sky above the CBD was a pink-white glow on the belly of thick clouds. The clowns jogged through the dark streets, passing only the odd drunk wandering home. On those occasions Gonko signalled everyone to stay in the shadows, something the clowns had down to a fine art despite their bright colours; they blended into the dark as though a light had been switched off around their bodies and they were never seen. ‘What’s this place we’re doing?’ Winston asked Gonko as the clowns paused to check their location.

‘Interesting one, this one,’ said Gonko. ‘This house has a one-month-old baby inside named Louis Chan. This baby, according to Shalice, will grow up to be a researcher of
some kind, who will discover some miracle cures. Georgie doesn’t want that shit to go down. So here we are.’

‘And we’re burning the house down?’ said Winston, and JJ heard a hard dark edge to his voice; he was outraged and trying not to show it. JJ sneered.

‘Yes we are, Winston,’ Gonko said cheerfully. ‘We are going to burn down the house, with fire and flame and cinder and ash and whatnot. Three blocks from here, step lively, you shits.’

The clowns came to a house at the bottom of a hilly street, two storeys, half brick, half wood. In the front yard the crown of a mango tree hid them from the streetlight. Gonko dug into his pockets and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with petrol. He produced half a dozen of these and passed them around. Winston was grave-faced, and JJ was strongly tempted to provoke him into some kind of emotional outburst. He sidled up to him and said, ‘I’m scared, Winston. I’ve never smelled cooked baby before. I —’

Winston eyes flashed in a way JJ hadn’t seen before; he backed up a step, sensing he was about to be struck, and fell silent.

‘On three,’ said Gonko. ‘Three. Go!’ Gonko ran down the side of the house, leaping the fence. A German shepherd emerged from the shadows, growling fiercely. With a kick Gonko sent its head jerking at a grotesque angle and there was a
crack
as its neck broke. He poured petrol over the side of the house, digging more bottles from his pockets. Doopy ran down the other side, doing the same. Goshy peered at his bottle, standing perfectly still. JJ poured his petrol over the porch, adrenaline rushing through him. He had to fight not to whoop and laugh. Gonko vanished under the house, dousing the supports. While down there he lit the first flame.

Winston threw his bottle at the house and it crashed into the window, loudly smashing it.

‘Who threw that?’ said Gonko, emerging from below the house.

‘Me. Sorry, Gonks,’ said Winston.

‘Hope it didn’t wake ’em up,’ said Gonko, wiping his hands on his pants. ‘Ah well, not my problem. Back to the lift. Go, go, go!’

The clowns rushed back through the dark streets, their footfalls smacking the pavement and arousing a chorus of barking from neighbourhood dogs. Behind them the orange glow of the fire was spreading. JJ paused at the top of the street to admire the flames embracing the house like a demon’s arms;
I did that,
he thought giddily as a sense of power rushed through him. Suddenly he felt like he was onstage being applauded by a huge crowd, praising him, chanting his name … Or booing, what did it matter? Inside, he kicked up his heels, strutting, laughing maniacally. It felt sublime.

Winston had paused to catch his breath just ahead. JJ passed him and gave him a beaming smile. The old clown stared straight ahead, hot tears in his eyes.

You’ll get yours
, JJ thought, and a shiver ran down his spine.
You’ll get it real nice. It’s coming.

Back at the construction yard they sprang over the fence and ran to the lift as the first sirens wailed. Goshy paused at the door, staring off in the distance as though he’d heard the cry of some kindred spirit. ‘Come
on
, Goshy!’ said Doopy, pointing to the portaloo door. Goshy turned a full circle and let out a low whistle, a look of childish excitement on his face. He stared meaningfully at his brother and pointed back over his shoulder as more sirens sounded from another
direction. ‘I
know
, Goshy,’ said Doopy, holding him by the shoulders, staring into his eyes. ‘I heard it too, I really did!’

JJ squirmed against the door as the lift descended, and finally could hold it in no longer. ‘What fucking
planet
are you two from?’ he cried.

Doopy and Goshy answered him with silence.

The clowns completed the rest of their duties in Sydney. Gonko set the lever inside the lift to ‘City 2’, making it lurch for seven minutes. When it stopped they found themselves in another construction yard in a city with cooler, more polluted air. They began by beating up the pedestrian on his way home, a nightclub bouncer with organised crime connections. They’d really laid into him, silhouettes lashing and kicking at a writhing shape in the dark by the roadside to the backdrop of passing headlights. According to the fortune-teller, this beating would be the first blow in what would become a major gang war, complete with public shootings, car bombings and civilians caught in the crossfire. JJ asked why George wanted the gang war started, but Gonko shrugged and warned him not to ask that question again, as George was probably following orders himself.