“That’s not what I mean,” Jimmy said. “You won’t get away with this because you won’t make it out of here alive.”
The clowns giggled. “You still think you’re a threat, Little Bozo?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Nah. I was just trying to make as much noise as possible.” He chuckled. “You know, so I could attract the locals.”
The Juggler Brothers looked around. They didn’t realize how many of The Sideshow natives had come out of the surrounding buildings, attracted to Jimmy’s screams. There were dozens of the deformed shadowy figures. All of them giggling in their warped, gurgling way.
“You’re not getting out of here alive, jugglers,” Bozo said, a big bloody smile on his face.
As the figures closed in, the Juggler Brothers looked at each other with panic on their faces.
“Rot in Hell, you son of a bitch,” the noseless brother said, raising a machete at Jimmy.
Before the machete went down into Jimmy’s neck, Vinnie fired at him. The noseless clown was forced to dodge. The laughing bullet missed. Vinnie fired twice more, but he didn’t go for the clown. He aimed for the street below the juggler’s feet. The bullets shattered on impact, spraying tiny pieces of shrapnel at the juggler’s ankle. The noseless clown’s leg was nicked with the tiniest sliver of metal, but it was enough to inject him with the laughing chemical.
The noseless clown raised his machete again. Then he chuckled. He paused in midair, laughing at Jimmy. Then he looked at his brother and laughed at him. Then he looked at the shadowy figures staggering toward him. He couldn’t stop laughing.
“You filthy Bozo scum,” the noseless clown shouted to Vinnie, choking out the words between laughs.
He tried to finish the job, but he was cackling so hard he couldn’t even hold the machetes. He dropped them to the ground and then fell to his knees, laughing at the top of his lungs. He wasn’t able to dodge when Vinnie put two more bullets into his chest.
“François!” the skinny juggler cried as his brother fell to the ground.
Vinnie fired two more rounds at the ground near the other brother’s feet, but the skinny juggler leapt up in the air as the bullets hit. He grabbed on to the power line, pulling himself and his unicycle up.
“You will die,” the skinny juggler yelled. “All of you Bozos will die!”
He looked at his brother’s body just one last time, then the skinny clown fled the scene, riding the power line like a tightrope over the horde of figures below. But those ancient cables weren’t designed to hold the weight of a clown, even one as skinny as the remaining juggler brother. The wire snapped and the clown fell. Vinnie and Jimmy were too far away to see what happened to him.
“We got them,” Jimmy said, looking over at Vinnie. “We actually took out the Juggler Brothers!”
But they both knew they wouldn’t live long enough to celebrate the victory as the giggling figures closed in on them. When they came into the moonlight, Vinnie got a good look at their faces. With their twisted smiles and bulging muscular bodies, they looked like reflections in a fun-house mirror. They were The Sideshow Freaks—deformed, mutant clowns with the minds of depraved psychopaths. Everyone feared The Sideshow Freaks. Even the cops. Even the clownfellas. Even Jimmy Bozo.
“Trespassers…,” said one of the freaks in a hissing voice. He looked like a clown-shaped tyrannosaurus with his hunched back and tiny clawed arms dangling from the center of his chest. “Wicked trespassers…”
The mob closed in around Jimmy.
“Get away from him,” Vinnie yelled, firing his last bullet at one bulbous blob of a clown that didn’t even feel it.
All Vinnie did was bring their attention to him. The mutant clowns surrounded the overturned clown car.
“Tuna in a can! Tuna in a can!” A stubby clown with eyes the size of grapefruits giggled at the clown trapped in the driver’s seat. “Tuna in a can!”
The last thing Vinnie remembered was a rock-sized red fist breaking through the windshield and colliding with the center of his face.
Chapter 41
A lot of people were afraid of taking Happy Juice because it didn’t always go well. Nine out of ten humans injected with the stuff became normal clowns like Vinnie Blue Nose, but for that unlucky 10 percent things would go horribly wrong. Their minds and bodies would become malformed and distorted. They would become Sideshow Freaks.
Vinnie had a friend named Bernie Malcolm who was a part of his crew. He was a good guy, a reliable associate who should’ve been on the up-and-up. But he was human. And he refused to take the Happy Juice.
“You should be a made man by now, Bernie,” Vinnie told him. “You’ll never get promoted until you take the Juice and become a full clown.”
Bernie wiggled the clover hanging out of his hat. Although he wasn’t a clown, he still dressed in clown clothes when working for the Bozo Family. He wore green baggy pants, checkered shirts, and sometimes a pair of sparkling red shoes that were two sizes too big. But no matter how he dressed, he always had a clover in his hat, maybe due to his Irish heritage.
“I’m not doing it,” Bernie said. “It’s not worth the risk.”
“Succeeding in this business is all about taking risks,” Vinnie said. “You’ll never be respected if you stay vanilla.”
“I’m making enough money as an associate. Really, it’s fine. I have too many nightmares about becoming a freak and getting sent out to The Sideshow. I think it’s some kind of omen.”
“Everyone has those dreams before they take the Happy Juice, Bernie. It’s normal you’d be afraid. But it’s worth the risk.”
Bernie shook his head. He was convinced taking the shot was a death sentence.
“I’m sorry, Vinnie. It’s not going to happen.”
Vinnie knew the man’s mind was made up, but it was his job to persuade him whenever he could. Bernie had a good head on his shoulders and Vinnie knew he’d make a good clown. He wished half his soldiers were as reliable as the vanilla Irishman.
When Jimmy Bozo needed new people for his crew after the disappearance of Tickles and Spanky, Vinnie gave him Bernie Malcolm. Vinnie wanted people he could trust working under Jimmy. Bernie was perfect. Unfortunately, the clown prince was none too happy about it.
“Are you kidding me?” Jimmy yelled at Blue Nose the second he found out. “You want me to work with that vanilla?”
“He’s a good earner,” Vinnie said. “Any of my other guys would kill to have him on their crew.”
“Fuck your other guys. I only work with purebred clowns. That prick isn’t even a clown at all.”
“You’re letting your pride get in the way of business,” Vinnie said. “How many times do I have to tell you to keep that ego of yours in check?”
“Give me somebody else. Anybody else. I’m not working with no vanilla.”
“You’ll work with who I tell you to work with.”
And that was that. Jimmy didn’t argue any further.
Although Jimmy still complained and disrespected his capo at every opportunity, he would succumb to Vinnie’s authority once the blue-nosed clown put his foot down. Vinnie’s plan to get rid of Tickles and Spanky worked perfectly. Without his own guys to back him up, it was as if Jimmy’s balls were cut off. He didn’t have the confidence to stand up to Blue Nose like he used to. So Jimmy had to do something he never liked to do: compromise. Unfortunately, when Jimmy figured out ways to compromise he usually made things a hell of a lot worse.
“What the hell did you do?” Blue Nose yelled at Jimmy two days after Bernie was assigned to his crew.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. “How the hell was I supposed to know that was going to happen?”
They were at Bernie’s apartment. It was the night before they were supposed to do a job together.
“Where is he?” Vinnie asked.
“Upstairs.”
Vinnie followed him up to the bedroom. Bernie was barricaded inside. It sounded like a rabid beast was in there, tearing up the
furniture and slamming itself against the walls.
“He took Happy Juice?” Vinnie yelled. “How the hell did you get him to take Happy Juice?”
“I didn’t get him to take it. I injected him with it when he was asleep.”
“Are you insane?” Vinnie roared, pushing the Bozo against the wall.
“I told you I wouldn’t work with no vanilla. The only way I was going to allow him in my crew was if he became full clown.”
“You don’t inject people against their will,” Vinnie said. “That’s seriously messed up, even for you.”
“How did I know he’d be part of the unlucky ten percent?” Jimmy said. “Had it worked out it would have been perfect. You’d be happy. I’d be happy. Even Bernie would finally get made.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t work out, did it?”
The beast on the other side of the door screamed and threw lamps and bottles across the room.
“Jimmy!” Bernie cried from the other room, growling like a rabid dog. “I’ll kill you, Jimmy! I’ll rip you to shreds!”
Vinnie didn’t recognize his friend’s voice anymore. It was deeper and garbled as if he had something in his mouth. As if his tongue and teeth were too large to speak through.
“What are we going to do?” Jimmy asked.
“Get Spotty. Tell him to knock out Bernie and then haul him out to The Sideshow.”
“I think you should just put him out of his misery,” Jimmy said. “That’s what I would do.”
“Just shut up and get Spotty.”
Then Vinnie looked at Jimmy as if he imagined himself choking the clown to death. Those weren’t the kinds of thoughts that usually went through Blue Nose’s head, but Bernie was a good friend of his. He couldn’t stand that he was taken out this way: shot up with a bad dose of Happy Juice just because some spoiled brat had a prejudice against non-clowns.
“If you were anybody else…,” Vinnie said.
Jimmy didn’t argue. Even if he hated Bernie, he knew he’d fucked up. He went downstairs without saying another word.
When Vinnie opened the door, he saw what had become of his former friend. Bernie was twice the size he used to be. His legs were short and stubby, but his chest and upper arms were like those of a gorilla. His head was lumpy and his chin stretched all the way down to the bottom of his neck. He looked like a cartoon made flesh.
“Bernie…,” Vinnie said.
The mutant was crying, sitting on the collapsed bed with his hands in his eyes. When he looked up, Vinnie saw the distorted mess that his face had become. He had one tiny red eye and one large green eye. His hair was a curly yellow mess that grew more out of his shoulders and chest than the top of his head. His nose was so large it looked like a blood-filled water balloon. His lips were the size of sausages. All that was left of the Bernie that Vinnie knew was the green clover sticking out the top of his hat.
“It happened…,” the mutant clown grumbled. “Vinnie, it happened…”
Then Bernie said a bunch of nonsense that Vinnie couldn’t understand. All those in the unlucky 10 percent retained a little of their minds after the transformation, but for the most part they became untamed psychopaths that could no longer function in society. There used to be asylums for the freaks, but the feds could only afford to take care of so many. It was easier to just send them out to The Sideshow, where they would be cast out and forgotten.
“I’m sorry it ended up this way,” Vinnie said.
The mutant no longer acknowledged him.
“I knew it would happen…,” Bernie said.
Then Vinnie took one last look at him and closed the door. He wasn’t Bernie anymore. His old friend was dead. All that was left was a deformed monster that would soon disappear into the shadows forever.
Chapter 42
Vinnie Blue Nose woke in some black moldy basement, chained to a wall, rusty water dripping on his head. The only light was that of the moon shining through cracks in the ceiling. Three other men were chained to the wall next to him. There was also a body on the floor.
“Jimmy,” Vinnie said to the clown next to him. “Jimmy, wake up.”
Little Bozo was next to him, moaning in his sleep. The blades had been removed from his body, but his wounds had not been treated. Streams of blood were like red zebra stripes down his white chest. If the wounds weren’t cauterized soon the clown would surely bleed to death.
“Jimmy, come on. Wake up.”
Jimmy’s head rolled to one side, but he didn’t regain consciousness.
“Fuck him,” said a voice on the other side of Jimmy. “The salaud deserves to die.”
Vinnie recognized the French accent. It was the skinny juggler brother. The freaks had kept him alive. There was a large gash on his bald head, but otherwise the clown was in good shape.
“I’m glad to see you’re still alive,” Vinnie said to the French clown.
The skinny juggler laughed. “Me? You’re happy I’m alive? That’s funny because all I’m thinking about is how to kill you before the freaks get a chance to.”
“Don’t you want to get out of here?” Vinnie asked. “We’d have a better chance surviving this if we work together.”
The juggler laughed louder. “There’s no getting out of here, Blue Man. The best I can hope for is killing you before I die.”
“But what if there was a chance to live? Wouldn’t you rather live today and kill me tomorrow?”
“You think I would really help you after what you did to my brother?”
The juggler pointed at the body lying in the center of the room. It was the noseless brother. He was facedown in a pool of blood.
Vinnie said, “It was nothing personal. It’s my job to keep Bozo’s son alive. You two left me with no choice.”
“Be quiet!” cried a voice on the other side of the juggler brother. He spoke in a loud whisper. “He’s going to hear you.”
Vinnie squinted to see the other prisoner in the room with them. It was a male clown in a faded pink suit. His red hair was long and dreadlocked with mud. His green eyes were youthful, but his skin was withered and saggy, like he was a kid in his twenties who’d done enough drugs to give him the body of a fifty-year-old.
“Who’re you?” Vinnie asked.
“My name’s Bobo,” said the trembling clown. “You’ve got to be quiet or he’ll come back. Seriously. You don’t want him to come back.”
He was obviously some junkie who wandered into The Sideshow after dark. People disappeared in and around The Sideshow all the time. Nobody ever knew exactly what happened to them. Based on the multiple layers of blood caked on the concrete floor below him, Vinnie assumed this was where all of those missing people ended up.
“Who’ll come back?” the French clown asked.
“The Butcher.” The clown flinched as he said the name. “He doesn’t like noise.”
“How long have you been here?” Vinnie asked. He kept his voice down, but he didn’t stop talking.
“I don’t know.” The junkie clown’s whisper was so low Vinnie could just barely hear him. “A few days. Maybe a week. I was with a friend. We were squatting in an abandoned garage, just trying to get out of the rain, you know? We didn’t have any idea we were so close to The Sideshow. If we knew we never would have stayed there.”
“What happened to your friend? Did he get away?”
The junkie shook his head and then closed his eyes tight. He obviously didn’t want to think about what had happened to his friend.
“What are they planning on doing with us?” Vinnie asked.
“What do you think they’re planning on doing?” Bobo said, pointing at his lower body.
Vinnie didn’t realize it before, but the junkie’s legs were missing from the knees down.
In the dark, he assumed the clown was just sitting on his legs. He didn’t notice the bloody wounds on the ends of his thighs.
“They’ve been eating me one piece at a time.” The junkie broke down in tears. “I watched them eat m
y friend.” He didn’t even care about keeping quiet anymore. “They’re not freaks. They’re monsters.”
Vinnie wasn’t at all upset by this news. In fact, he was more relieved than anything. It meant they would be kept alive longer. It would give him more time to come up with a plan.
“How many are in this building?” Vinnie asked.
Bobo shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“How many come down here?”
“Just The Butcher,” Bobo said. “He’s the one who cuts you up.”
“Does he—,” Vinnie began, but a loud noise interrupted him.
The body in the center of the room started coughing and gagging on blood. The noseless juggler wasn’t dead. His arms twitched and his eyes blinked open.
“François!” his brother cried.
“He’s still alive?” Vinnie asked.
The skinny juggler leaned in as close as he could to his brother. “François! Get up. You have to get up.”
“Stop yelling,” Bobo whispered. “He’s going to hear you!”
The juggler didn’t care. “François!”
Vinnie said, “He’s not chained down like the rest of us. He might be able to get us free.”
The skinny brother’s expression was completely different from a few moments ago. He was now in a panic, desperate for his brother’s survival. “I’ll call a truce if you help me save my brother.”
“Deal.” Vinnie had no idea how he’d be able to save the half-dead clown, but turning his enemies into his allies was the first step in getting out of there.
“François!”
The noseless clown continued coughing and shaking. He didn’t respond to his brother. He didn’t seem aware of his surroundings.
“Please, be quiet,” Bobo said. “He’ll hurt all of us if you make him mad.”
“Noise makes him mad?” Vinnie asked.
“François!”
“He’s sensitive to sound,” Bobo said. “He can hear everything we say, even when we whisper.”
“François!”
Bobo was right. The noise they were making soon brought a mutant clown down the stairs. He was four times the size of a normal clown—seven feet tall and about five hundred pounds. He had one massive arm and one normal-sized arm. His eyes, nose, and mouth were tiny on the center of his flat red face, but his ears were like those of an elephant.
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