Pilo Traveling Show (Pilo Family Circus #2)

13. ABOVE

As all this went on below, Jamie and JJ returned to the sleeping circus above, where JJ went digging to see the size of Gonko's stash (and likely to help himself to some of it, which gave Jamie a relieving break from his "new pal"). Jamie roused Dean, took him beyond earshot of the camp, over by the edge of a little stream. "This looks like the end for the show up here," said Jamie. "From what I overheard, George is finished down there after tomorrow. They'll have a new boss, and Gonko won't need all this up here."

"And what happens to us?" said Dean.

"I guess we'll be taken below, made part of their circus."

"You guess. That's the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"This up here is a big secret for them, right? And all of us know about it. Would the clowns like everyone running loose below with the chance to talk?"

"It shouldn't matter," Jamie said uneasily. "The only one who'd care down there is George, and if he's gone . . ."

Dean waved it away. "Yeah, maybe. We'd better hope that's how it is. From what you told me, the guy in charge isn't really the guy in charge. So, what's next for us? Can we do the same thing these guys did and starve out the circus?"

"Not right away. Like you say, too many people would know exactly what was happening. And there's really only three of us who'd do it, if you include JJ. Who I don't entirely trust just yet. So we'd have to bide our time, find people down there who aren't content, and recruit them. It might take years."

"No fucking way." Dean grabbed Jamie's arm and held it roughly. "I'm not giving a decade of my life or more to these cunts, this circus or whatever it really is. I want to get back to living my life or get taken out quickly. Don't you?"

Jamie sighed. "Your life won't be the same either way, believe me. And maybe some things can't be helped, and maybe we have a chance to do something more important than get a mortgage or get laid on the weekend. I'd wait it out for the ideal chance, even if it took years. But if you think of a better idea, I'm all ears ."

Dean released his grip. Some night creature cried eerily from the block of silhouetted trees around them, and they both jumped, looked at each other, and laughed. Dean said, "Anyway. There's four of us, if you include Jodi. I haven't been able to speak to her. Every day they take her makeup off as she sleeps and usually put it back on before she can wake up and freak out. We need to talk to her, and see if she can be any help."

"No better time than now," said Jamie. Dean nodded, rushed off, and returned some minutes later with one arm around Jodi's arms and a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and she was wrenching herself around, fighting against his grip. Dean whispered soothing things into her ear until he was sure she wouldn't scream. "Me and Jamie are thinking of ways to get us out of here," he said. "Listen to me. Stop being scared, okay? Yeah, it's all weird, but don't be scared."

When his hand came off her mouth, she laughed without humor. "Oh, now why wouldn't I be scared? Aren't we all being held captive by a bunch of—"

"Yes," Jamie whispered fiercely. "So get pissed off! These freaks took you out of your life. What right did they have to do that? Get angry for fuck's sake." This struck a chord with her—she met his eyes and nodded.

"We can't just run away," Dean said. "We can't, I dunno, fistfight our way out of this. We're going to take them out from the inside. Tell us about what happens to you when they put the makeup on."

Jodi shut her eyes and looked like someone trying to remember a dream. "She's . . . Emerald is just above it all. She loves herself so much she's hardly even aware of anything else, I've never felt anything like it. You heard of narcissism, but hers is off the charts. Thinks she's queen of the world. It's ridiculous. She kind of likes you, Dean, the same way a kid likes a toy, but she liked you better when you were a clown. She's getting bored with you now. She's getting a bit of a crush on the clown leader. So if you want Emerald to help in any way, I frankly don't see how you'll convince her."

They were quiet for a while, each thinking. "But we have you," Jamie said. "I don't think they'll be doing consecutive show days when we go to the main circus; that's only being done because we're starving them out. So they won't keep you in makeup all the time. Are you willing to help us, if we need you? Even if it involves risk?"

Distantly the thin wail of a baby Goshy reached them: "Help, help . . ."

"Not much choice, is there?" said Jodi, and her look told Jamie that the blame for all of this was still squarely on him. He guessed that didn't much matter.

He said, "Good. I guess we'll talk again when we have a better idea what we're going to do."

"One thing," said Dean. "Just a test. It may achieve nothing, but it might be worth a try."

"What?" said the other two together.

"The music box. Let's do an experiment tomorrow, when the show's on. Let's see what happens when the music stops playing, even for just a minute or two."

"Take out the dwarf who spins it, is that what you're saying?" said Jamie. "How do you think Gonko's going to like that? Which one of us gets that job?"

Dean smiled. "Let's see if JJ's really on the team or not."

•

JJ lay in some dreamy fantasy state next to the hole where he'd dug up Gonko's huge stash of powder. Jamie and Dean were lucky enough to find him before anyone else did. They refilled the hole, carried JJ into the tent and tossed him on a mattress, along with the clay bowl he'd used to make his wishes, whatever they were.

The show around them went about its business more relaxed than usual without Gonko's storm cloud temper hovering above. Dean and Curls went with their gates to the same train station as yesterday, unconcerned that some of the same tricks may come through their show again. It wouldn't matter if those tricks had been "harvested" already; sending them below, unable to be harvested again, was the whole point. The crop was a fresh one, however; when the show began, powder fell in its usual amounts. Jamie did a final patrol for Gonko, who did not come, but on his way back to try to finally rouse JJ, he came face-to-face with Emerald. Only her eyes showed above the veil, and she gave him a look he did not like at all.

Oh shit—he suddenly realized that she was privy to everything they'd said to Jodi. Double shit . . . He could not tell by her stare whether it was accusing, angry, or just her usual regard for the surrounding world—irrelevant unless it confirmed her beauty. To that end he blew her a kiss and bowed low; she faintly nodded before Jamie ceased to exist in her private universe. Or so he hoped.

"Shoo, clown, don't bother the real star in this dump," one of her minders said. He gladly obeyed.

JJ was at last stirring on his mattress. Jamie had tried cold water, slaps, and loud noises to no effect, but this time a few slaps did the job and earned him a kick across the tent in the bargain. "What the hell happened to you?" said Jamie. "We need you."

"Wished I was in a coma. Kind of like being dead, but it's nicer, with no one to bother you."

"We have a mission for you. As part of the grand plan. You have to steal the music box and keep it away from the dwarf for a little while, once the show has started."

JJ listened to the details, and shook his head. "But why?"

"We're just gathering intel for future plans. This will either give us something to build on or it'll rule it out and we can look elsewhere. And . . ." he'd debated whether or not to say it, "Dean isn't totally sure we can trust you yet. But this will prove to him that you're on our side."

JJ's face could hardly have better imitated a chastised puppy. "Aw. You trust me, don't you, Jamie? We're amigos, aren't we?"

"You seem okay to me."

"I seem . . . ‘okay' . . . to you," JJ whispered.

"Don't take it personally! Look at it from my perspective, yesterday you tied me up, bashed me, then threatened to kill me with an axe. Come on, do you accept the mission or not? Gonko's not here to bust you. Just five minutes of your time."

"Eh, all right."

Jamie wasn't sure he'd do it. There was a new sullenness about JJ after that conversation, and he muttered one or two things about Dean. The tricks arrived, the music box began its song, and Jamie waited til Dean returned with Curls, before telling JJ, "Now.

Go!"

JJ had acquired a thousand-stitch headband adorned with a rising sun. "Bonsai!" he yelled, and rather than sneak in to take the music box, he pretty much advertised the deed to all carnies in view, his shrieking war cry reminiscent of Goshy's finest. He held the music box aloft and ran, crying a number of slogans like, "Viva resistance!" and "You may chase the revolutionary, but you may not chase the revolution." Chase they did, four enraged dwarfs moving quick on stubby legs, yet with precisely no chance of catching JJ, who made a wide hollering circuit of the park.

Meanwhile, Dean and Jamie watched carefully. Those carnies by the games stood dumbfounded, utterly unsure what to do. They stopped trying to lure tricks to their games with their diamonds and gems. As for the tricks, they came to a standstill, but they didn't quite seem woken yet; it was more like everything had paused, tricks and carnies both.

Dean stood before one of them, a man in a business suit of middle age, whose white beard would have looked at home on a mall Santa. Dean snapped his fingers in the guy's ears. "Wake up," he said. "Wake up! Look around you. You shouldn't be here. Where are you?"

The man blinked, rubbed his face as he looked around. "Must've . . . fallen asleep on the train," he said thickly. But he was waking up now and staring about with growing alarm. As were one or two of the others.

"That's enough," Jamie told Dean. Now it came down to whether JJ remembered their prearranged signal, because no one was going to catch him. "Ouch! My foot," Jamie called on JJ's nearest orbit.

JJ remembered. He placed the music box down and kept sprinting, whooping like one of the Three Stooges, arms flapping like a chicken trying to fly. The dwarfs tripped over each other in their desperation to grab the music box and twist the handle. The calliope moaned, the music tinkled down in a thick mist of sound; gradually, the awoken tricks resumed their sleep. "What are you supposed to be, some kind of clown?" the bearded man said to Jamie with drunken good cheer. The traveling circus had missed a beat or two, but now resumed like nothing had happened. Glittering dust continued to fall to the grass.

The last phase of the plan was marching JJ visibly past the vengeful carnies, making a big show of his "arrest" so that ideally no one would report all this to Gonko. "Trying to ruin our show?" Jamie yelled. "You're a disgrace to all clowns."

"Come here and get what's coming to you," said Dean.

"But it was just an overly zealous prank," said JJ, "with no actual intent to undermine the show with any broader view to exploiting and or learning about its vulnerabilities! The shame I feel is surely punishment enough."

They took him into the clown tent, made some convincing sounds of a thrashing—thumping the mattresses with wood while JJ squealed and begged for mercy. Tomato sauce was liberally applied. Curls popped his head in to see Dean and Jamie standing over a shivering bundle beneath a blanket. "You kilt him?" said Curls.

"Not quite," said Jamie, "but he won't pull that stunt again."

"No, sir, I won't," JJ said, coughing. "I have learned via savage beating that there are limits to the ways in which one should express one's devil-may-care attitude, and music box theft is a big no-no."

Curls grunted. "Don't tell Gonko about it, all right? I'm in charge here; he'll have my nuts. And I need 'em!"

"You got it."

Dean and Jamie exchanged a look that served as a high-five. "Happy with how that went?" said Dean.

"Food for thought," said Jamie. "Talk to you later."

Without a clown show—Jamie didn't attempt a one-clown act, and JJ had to recover from his "thrashing"—there wasn't quite as much harvested as yesterday's show, but the other attractions made the difference negligible. Emerald filled several buckets herself as her gypsy minders crooned their approval (and handled her sulks.) The freak show outdid itself—in fact overdid itself: Fatso ate his way into retirement.

His depression had grown, since no one bothered to tell him why he was no longer with his friend Wallace the Walrus and could no longer hear the mermaid song he'd come to love. His act was not ever intended for several consecutive show days; he needed days off to munch protein powder and heal the bites. Well, after the last trick had been sent below, Fatso ate, and ate, and would not listen to a word anyone said. He twice bit at hands that reached in to stop him. His eyes were bright with hunger; blood flushed from his cage. His legs were soon gone, bones and all. His left arm was no more, his right remained in place only to help scoop the meat from his torso. Soon he'd consumed himself up to the waist. Panting, lunging forward with growing eagerness for one more bite, he gasped, "People always tell me I got bad taste." He ripped a chunk off his chest. "Now, I can prove 'em wrong." Fatso swallowed, sending the morsel plopping out the other end of his severed torso where it joined the pile of red chewed lumps and spilled-out organs. And those were his last words. Fatso shivered, fell back, and was no more. Those who were witness to the last bite staggered away, retching.

"Fiddlesticks," said the severed head.

***