The Pilo Family Circus

by Elliott, Will

  He let out half a scream, half a sob. His hands shook with rage. ‘Too far this time,’ he whispered, delighted by the menace in his voice, wishing only there was an audience to see him. ‘Way too far now, Jamie.’ He crushed the bags in his palm and tossed them away. He had a feeling that the missing powder and the missing memories had something in common, perhaps a cause-and-effect relationship. How could Jamie do such a thing? To JJ of all people … he tried to fight back the tears but it was no good; he bawled into his pillow.

  Someone opened the door. JJ peered through the tears and saw Gonko, who smiled and said, ‘Good to have you back, JJ.’

  ‘GO AWAY!’ JJ screamed. Gonko smiled wider and left.

  After a while he stopped crying and tried to work out the hows and whys of it all. One name sprang instantly to mind: Winston. At once JJ got up and stormed over to Winston’s room. Outside the door, arms locked at his sides à la Goshy, fists bunched and shaking, he fought to keep his voice as polite as possible. ‘Oh, say, Winston old bean?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said a sleepy voice.

  ‘Might I pop in for a chin wag?’

  ‘Jamie?’

  ‘More or less.’

  Winston groaned. ‘JJ. What do you want?’

  JJ had to quell an explosion of anger. ‘You know very well,’ he said in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘No, I don’t. Just open the damn door would you?’

  JJ flung it back and stood in the doorway, trying to look threatening. He judged he succeeded, even if the old clown was hiding his fear. ‘You!’ he cried.

  Winston watched him carefully. ‘Get in here and shut the door if you got something … personal to discuss.’

  JJ slammed the door behind him and stood watching Winston, licking his lips.

  ‘Well then,’ said Winston. ‘I see you have something on your mind.’

  ‘Actually, no, I don’t. That’s the problem,’ JJ replied. ‘What would you know about that, buddy?’

  Winston frowned, his eyes never leaving JJ’s. ‘You ain’t making much sense. Want to slow down there and tell me plain what the problem is?’

  JJ spluttered: ‘I can’t remember —’ Then he stopped as his mind did a few very quick sums. Winston didn’t know what he was talking about, which meant as far as Winston knew, JJ knew everything, whatever dirty secrets Jamie had wiped from the files. Maybe he could ad lib a little, glean some of the missing info …

  ‘Out with it,’ said Winston. ‘You come in here, wake me up, now what’s the story?’

  ‘You,’ said JJ, changing tack from menacing to hurt and sad. ‘How could you do that, yesterday?’

  Winston blinked. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about. Yesterday. The stuff. What’s the deal?’

  ‘What specific part of yesterday got you upset?’

  ‘How could you involve me in all that stuff? How could you put Jamie at such a risk?’

  ‘You’re being mighty vague there, young feller,’ said Winston, sitting back. ‘And it’s a little early to be caring about games like this. How about you haul your arse back to your own room —’

  ‘No! Something happened yesterday. We both know it. What was it? Why can’t I remember any of it?’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ A faint smile touched Winston’s lips. ‘What happened, you woke up with a blank head?’

  ‘Yes! Was that your idea?’

  ‘Nope. I’d say Jamie had that idea before bedtime. Not sure why he did it, he had nothing to hide, really. Waste of powder, if you ask me.’

  JJ scowled and took a step towards the old clown. He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. ‘It must have been big, whatever it was. Oh yes, I’ll find out. And I’ll tell. You hear me? I’ll squeal. Just to get square. Even if I go down with you, I’ll make sure you are in the fucking stew, Winston. You got me?’

  Winston raised his eyebrows. ‘I get your drift, but I don’t know what beans you’d spill. Only one around here with beans to spill is … well, me. But I know how to keep my mouth shut. How about you?’

  JJ stood caught between words for a moment, glaring at the baggy eyes and crow’s-feet and smile lines he so detested. Finally he turned to leave, searching desperately for a venomous parting shot, but he came up empty. He slammed the door behind him.

  Winston watched the door rattle on its hinges, then sat back, deep in thought. Jamie had been right about one thing — JJ was changing. He was more aggressive and getting bolder. Winston understood what must have happened last night: Jamie would have looked in the eye all that could go wrong if JJ really wanted to play dirty. Must have used the powder to blank out the day’s events from his mind … Good thinking, although Winston was a little surprised the request had worked. It was risky as hell for one thing, and that it worked only meant ‘the demon bastards’, as Fishboy would call them, weren’t paying much attention to their charges these days. There were times past when the oppressive presence, intense but undefined, was very real and inescapable. Memories from those times had often kept Winston from using his powder, just in case the higher powers ever had cause to wonder about him, just in case they looked at him a little closer.

  And Winston had discovered something new: he was pretty damn scared of JJ. He would not show it; it would be curtains for him if JJ knew. But there it was — Winston was scared as hell.

  Another nasty thought occurred: what happened when JJ got his hands on more powder and started making requests of his own?

  That brought a sinking feeling to Winston’s gut and he cursed himself for giving in to his soft side, taking Jamie under his wing in the first place. Life at the show was hard enough without dangerous enemies under his own roof. His eyes fell on the door with its weak little chain lock, and he wondered if he’d have time to wake and arm himself should someone boot it down during the night.

  JJ threw a tantrum in the parlour, kicking things and thrashing his fists in the air. He remembered Gonko’s tantrum, which had destroyed all the furniture out here, but try as he might JJ didn’t have the same in him. Eventually Gonko heard the fuss and came out. ‘What’s new, JJ?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ JJ replied, invoking Mr Don’t Hurt Me from force of habit.

  ‘Someone put a bee in your bonnet,’ said Gonko. ‘Got something that might cheer you up. Want to see what we got for Kurt’s birthday?’

  JJ did want to see that. He followed Gonko to one of the storage rooms. Some boxes had been pulled out into the hall to make way for the body bag, which lay on the floor. The lumpy bag gave a twitch. JJ poked it with his boot. A quiet moan came from inside. Gonko reached down and unzipped the bag with a noise like metal squealing in pain. Inside it was a barely conscious man in his fifties, balding, fattening around the chin and jowls. He was wearing a black robe with a white collar. ‘You got him a priest?’ JJ said, amazed.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘He’ll love it!’

  ‘He’d better. Catching him was easy, but making him get dressed before we took him was hassle city.’

  The priest’s eyes peeled open and he squinted from the sudden light. His voice was thick and confused. ‘What’s happened? Where are we?’

  ‘Night, night, Father,’ said Gonko as he zipped up the bag again. The priest moaned and struggled weakly before lying still.

  ‘Great present!’ said JJ.

  Gonko winked and shut the storage room door. ‘Keep this hush hush, JJ. Don’t want the other crews to get wind of it.’

  JJ went back to his room feeling a little better about things. A nice long stretch of spying on people would just about heal his wounds.

  All seemed to be as normal around the showgrounds. JJ panned in on the acrobat tent and saw Randolph convincing the others to go on an outing. Then, to his surprise, Winston snuck into their tent a minute later. ‘Hello hello, what’s all this then?’ JJ murmured. Winston had a suitcase in hand. He peered around to make sure he was alone then went into one of the back rooms where the acrobats stored their props. Th
e trampoline JJ had borrowed was leaning against a wall. Winston took it down and pulled a knife from his back pocket. He gouged a long rip in the mat. Once done, he moved on to the tightrope, hanging from a hook on the wall in a giant thick coil. He took it down and dropped it to the floor, then pulled from his suitcase a jar of clear liquid. He soaked the tightrope then lit a match, dropped it, and flame soon twisted over the rope. There were some spare sets of tights hanging up on coat hangers, which Winston took down and laid on the fire.

  In the suitcase were more bottles of liquid. Yellow liquid — urine. Winston opened one of these bottles and splashed it over the other equipment in there: dumbbells, exercise gear, medicine balls and skipping ropes. He opened a second bottle, drenching everything in sight, before taking the remaining three bottles back to the acrobats’ parlour. Next to get a soaking were the suede couches and beanbags. Once Winston emptied the bottles over these, he took one more thing from his suitcase: a red plastic clown nose. To JJ’s puzzlement, he placed the plastic clown nose on a urine- soaked cushion. Then he grabbed his suitcase and ran out of the tent with one nervous glance over his shoulder.

  JJ suddenly felt very mixed emotions about all this. Maybe Winston wasn’t all bad. Yet there was something fishy about the whole deal, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Had Gonko given Winston secret orders for this attack?

  JJ decided to find out. Covering the ball, he went in search of Gonko. He found him kneeling by the body bag, splashing the unconscious priest’s face with water from a bottle. Gonko glanced around at JJ, dropped the bottle inside the bag and zipped it up.

  ‘Say, Gonks,’ said JJ, ‘when are we gonna get square with them acrobats?’

  ‘They’ll get theirs, like I told you,’ said Gonko. ‘Don’t do anything yet. Wait till I give the word. I ain’t forgotten them, my sweet, you believe it. They’ll get it, and good. Now ain’t the time, what with all these mystery vandals running around.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said JJ, frowning.

  ‘JJ, in three hours come back and give this guy more water. Don’t want him dead before tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ JJ went back to his room, wondering what to think. Winston was disobeying Gonko’s orders — but he supposed he was a little proud of the old guy. Why should they wait for payback? The acrobats had had it too good for too long.

  As he made his way back to the clown tent, Winston was confident no one who mattered had seen him. Then he saw JJ waiting by his bedroom door and his heart thumped reluctantly. Oh great. What now? he wondered, his nerves already worn out from the raid.

  ‘Hi, Winston,’ said JJ, smirking.

  Winston had decided casual nonchalance was the best bet with JJ; be unafraid, but don’t challenge him. He said, ‘What do you want, JJ?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing. Nice job. That’s all I wanted to say.’

  Nice job? Winston thought, then he realised: the ball. Of course. ‘Yeah well,’ he said. ‘They had it comin’. Now excuse me, JJ, gotta have a rest.’

  ‘Sure, sure. Hey, Winston. Sorry about this morning. Didn’t mean to come across as … you know. Pushy.’

  ‘No problem, JJ. But wanna keep this just between us?’

  JJ’s face darkened, yet his voice held the same jocular tone. ‘Sure. Wouldn’t want to spill any beans, would I? Neither would you.’ JJ left.

  Winston shut his door and fastened the chain. He sighed. No way could he let JJ keep the crystal ball, no way at all. Having JJ aware that something was going on was dangerous enough, let alone making him Big Brother. And maybe, just maybe, Fishboy’s hardline stance on JJ would have to be acted on, though it sickened Winston to think so. Until now they’d supposed it was better the devil they knew — bump off Jamie and who knew what kind of replacement would be brought into the show? But the devil they knew was getting out of hand. There might be no way around it: Jamie might have to die to kill JJ.

  Chapter 20

  Lighting Fires

  WINSTON wasn’t the only one busy on the sabotage front. Around the showgrounds, several performers were discovering nasty surprises in their homes.

  Mugabo had just been to visit Kurt Pilo. Kurt intimidated and infuriated him; when the magician lay awake at night, most of his time was spent picturing Kurt as a giant mound of steaming ash, for it was Kurt who sent instructions as to what degrading stunts were to be performed each show. The bunny trick, pulling coins from behind the ears of children in the front row, the connecting and disconnecting of silver rings, the ten feet of bright fabric pulled from his sleeves … All done on Kurt’s orders. Those who enforced Kurt’s orders were just as bad, and Mugabo made confused, muddled vows of revenge against each one: Gonko, Shalice, the woodchoppers, even Fishboy — although Fishboy had been decidedly more polite to him than the others.

  That afternoon he’d meant to give Kurt a nice big glowing-red piece of his mind, and he’d kept his rage burning long enough for a brazen knock on the trailer door. When Kurt’s gentle answer came from within, ‘Hmmm?’, Mugabo’s hands tensed into rigid sticks, his lip quavered, and his rage fled him. Had Mugabo an undamaged mind, he would have remembered the same thing happening scores of times before.

  In the trailer Kurt had heard him out, although Mugabo hadn’t been able to make much of a case for himself. Under Kurt’s gaze he became a shivering mess. ‘Can’t do ze bunny treek,’ he’d stammered. ‘Can do ze f-fire treek?’

  ‘Ah, Mugabo,’ said Kurt, cheerful as ever, ‘we’ve discussed this before, haven’t we? Your act isn’t changing. Those are lovely tricks, the ones you do. If we let you do the fire trick, you will scare the audience. It would be coming on far too strong, mmm yes. They need but a hint of your mighty powers. Just a taste.’

  ‘My tricks are …’ Mugabo made a spitting noise. It was as close as he dared come to arguing with Mr Pilo.

  ‘No, you are too hard on yourself,’ said Kurt, his fish lips frozen in that grin. ‘Far too hard. Dangerously so. There’s a reason we make you do the bunny trick. You are to woo and seduce the audience with wonder and amusement. You aren’t to frighten and overwhelm them with pyrotechnics.’

  Mugabo wanted desperately to disagree, but Kurt was standing up from behind his desk. Kurt was approaching him. Mugabo tried to square his shoulders, hold his gaze level, but to no avail. Kurt popped something small and white into his mouth; there was a crunch as he chewed and swallowed. ‘Mm. Speaking of bunnies … lovely mandibles … mm. Lovely. Where were we?’ His eyes had misted over. ‘Ah yes. I’ll tell you what, Mugabo. How would it suit you to do a private show for the carnival staff? Then you could do whatever tricks you like. How does that sound?’

  To Mugabo it sounded repugnant — he hated nearly everyone, and had no desire to be put on display for their amusement and catcalls and jeers. But Kurt was towering over him … ‘That be okay,’ he whispered, defeated yet again.

  ‘Lovely!’ said Kurt, clapping him on the back with one giant paw. ‘I’ll schedule it for one week’s time. Now off you go and get your act ready. Show day approaches and you must pluck the bunny from your hat! Pluck like there’s no tomorrow. The adorable little bunny, Mugabo. Good man, good man. Off you go, God bless.’

  On the walk back home each step raised Mugabo’s rage one notch. Soon he’d be blind with it, unable to see for the hazy white-hot glare behind his eyes. Think he so big, Mugabo thought bitterly. Problem was he was right — Kurt was so big.

  His hands were shaking when he got back home. Behind his stage was a small laboratory where he spent his leisure hours dabbling in potions and medicines. It saddened him greatly that no one came and asked for a draught once in a while, for he had something to cure everything — or so he assumed. Right now he felt a tonic was in order to calm his nerves, so he could get through the afternoon without exploding. The bubbling purple batch could well be the ticket — if it wasn’t a nerve tonic, he had no idea what it was.

  He scowled at the vacant plastic seats as he walked past them, but stoppe
d cold when he got to the stage. Over the floor, someone had written in white paint: CALL USEFUL MAGICIAN? DO BUNNY TRICK U SCUM.

  Stammering, Mugabo fell to his knees as he read then reread the writing. From the back of his throat came a rasping cry. Here was the proof in block letters: the world was against him, laughing behind his back. The only thing he couldn’t work out was whether the vandal was calling him names because he did the bunny trick, or because he didn’t do the bunny trick very well?

  Not that it mattered. He held an arm over the paint and with the same rasping cry shot fire at the message, his palm acting as a hose for a jet of orange flame. The words blackened and smoked and were soon an illegible burnt patch of floor. With massive effort he checked himself before he torched the whole stage. He picked up one of the many sacks he kept on hand and beat out the flames.

  It would be some time yet before Mugabo headed out back to find his potion lab in ruins, with bottles smashed, potions spilled and written formulas ripped to shreds. The same message was written on the walls in there — CALL USEFUL MAGICIAN? along with, U CANT EVEN TELL FUTURE U SCUM.

  In her bath, Shalice was quite aware she was being gazed at through the stolen crystal ball. As could Kurt, she was able to feel its presence, like a cold shadow from above.

  She was still patiently waiting for the thief to slip up. The Pilos seemed unaware of how rare and precious a thing the ball was, for both Kurt and George had ignored her requests for help. Perhaps another attack by the mystery vandals would stir the venerable Pilo siblings into action. Perhaps she should arrange such an attack herself.

  She lifted her leg above the suds, letting hot water run down her shin. Her eyes were closed and a lazy smile played on her face. ‘Keep watching, you pig,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll find you.’

  As she lay back, trying to decide what she’d do with the thief when she found him — God knew her options were extensive — something came to her. It was a powerful vision indeed, an image clear and urgent. It was Mugabo, entering her hut with his eyes and hands ablaze. She saw herself turning to face him just as a stream of orange flame poured over her.