The Pilo Family Circus (18 page)

Stealing the car came next, a flashy BMW they’d taken for a spin out in western Sydney. They smashed it up nicely and ran it into a house. The car belonged to an up-and-coming ALP man, one day destined for parliament. Gonko wasn’t told what the purpose of it was, only that it was part of a far longer chain of events, the results of which wouldn’t manifest themselves for more than a decade. ‘We’re just doing that skag’s work for her,’ Gonko said as the clowns
went back home. ‘No tricks around? Give it to the clowns. Fucking sickens me.’

JJ didn’t mind the chance to stretch his legs back in the real world. He’d snatched a newspaper from the ALP man’s front lawn. Back in the clown tent he unrolled it and saw the headline:

P
ENRITH SHOW DEATH INQUEST

‘I’ll be,’ said JJ. ‘Guys! We’re famous. We made the papers.’

JJ showed Gonko the article. ‘Thought they might notice that,’ said Gonko. ‘Nine dead tricks. Dead ones are better off, if you ask me.’

‘What do you mean?’

Gonko gave him a smug look. ‘Tricks are like cows, JJ. They come in here, we milk ’em. Only difference is they can’t get their milk back. You dig?’

‘No. What the fuck are you talking about? What do we milk them for?’

‘You should know, my pet. I give you a small bag of the stuff every week.’

JJ fell silent and Gonko dealt out a hand of poker. ‘But this isn’t fame, JJ,’ he said. ‘We’ve been involved in shit
wa-a-ay
bigger than nine dead tricks. Try fifty fucking million dead tricks. Try that on for size, JJ. That’s famous. That’ll get you the front page. More than once.’

‘
What
?’

Gonko squinted at him with a thin smile. ‘Let’s put it this way. A failed Austrian painter owes his political success to Kurt Pilo. He wasn’t known for his paintings, but you have most certainly heard of him.’

JJ was tired of this conversation. He went to his room and opened one of the velvet bags — he had three, as George had reluctantly paid the clowns when they returned tonight — and tipped some grains onto his palm, staring as the light glinted off them in tiny rainbow flashes. ‘What
is
this shit?’ he muttered.

Soon the other clowns went to bed and the showgrounds were silent. JJ took out the crystal ball, not expecting to see anything at this time of night. He figured he’d check out the dwarfs to see what they got up to when they emerged at lights-out. After a few minutes of watching them squabble on the rooftops he swept the ball through the parlour and was surprised to see something else: a figure blending with the shadows was creeping into the tent. JJ panned in as close as he could, but whoever this invader was, he could sneak in the darkness as well as the clowns; JJ saw only an outline with slumped shoulders and a bad limp. Suddenly he knew who it was — he’d seen this same wretched figure crawling out of the funhouse earlier today, skin charred and body spewing smoke. As the apprentice passed a lantern in the
parlour JJ saw his face, pink, white and purple with burns. There was steel in his gaze, the look of a man whose last straw has been well and truly snapped. In his hand was a lead pipe.

Fear clawed at JJ as he understood he was the target; after all, it was he filling the apprentice’s shoes, taking his wages, occupying his room. Whimpering, he propped a chair next to the door to buy himself an extra second or two. His hands were already shaking. He rummaged around in the boxes for a weapon and found the rolling pin, then went back to the ball and watched closely. The apprentice stumbled forward with clumsy but relentless steps.

JJ tried to hold the rolling pin steady as he cocked back his arm. He would throw it with everything he had; his aim was spot-on, and with a good wind-up he could break the bastard’s face. Eyes flickering from the ball to the door, the apprentice came into view … But he passed JJ’s door without giving it a glance.

JJ switched emotions like he was changing socks — all fear left him. Suddenly eager for bloodshed, he set the rolling pin down and crept out the door. The apprentice staggered up ahead like a zombie fresh from the grave. JJ followed. Movement caught the tail of his eye; he turned and saw Doopy creeping up the hallway. They locked eyes for a moment then both moved without a sound.

Four feet ahead the apprentice’s neck was a scorched, blistered patch of seething purple. His clothes were sooty, speckled with white ash, with patches burned away to reveal hideous weeping wounds. Only a single printed daisy remained visible on his shirt.

The apprentice paused at Gonko’s door, unaware of his audience. He swayed on his feet. JJ wondered whether or not
to warn the boss; he felt no concern for Gonko. Asleep or not, any leader who couldn’t repel an attack by this wretched wounded figure should probably not be leading.

The apprentice reached a mauled blistered hand to Gonko’s door, wrapped his fingers around the handle, splitting the skin on his knuckles. JJ heard him hiss through his teeth, then he opened the door and went in. Doopy and JJ rushed up behind him and stood in the doorway.

A single candle burned in Gonko’s room, the tiny flame almost extinguished in a pool of red wax. The clown leader lay under a sheet, breathing deeply in his sleep, his shins and clown shoes hanging over the end of the bed, the blanket over his chest and face. The apprentice raised the lead pipe and stepped close, one step, two steps, his fingers tightening around the weapon. Then he stood, gazing down at his helpless enemy, either working up the nerve or savouring the moment.

There was a sudden loud ringing noise, and it came from Gonko. Rather, it came from one of his pockets, where an alarm clock was going off violently in his pocket. The apprentice froze as Gonko whipped off his blanket and his eyes shot open. In one violent wrench he was on his feet, rolling backwards, putting the bed between himself and his enemy. He glanced at the apprentice and at the lead pipe and his lip curled up. Though Gonko’s face was the same rough mask, to JJ’s eye he looked delighted.

The apprentice recovered from his surprise and raised the pipe, crouching down as though to leap onto the bed. Gonko’s eyes narrowed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the alarm clock, still ringing shrilly, clicked it off with his thumb and tossed it aside. His eyes flickered past the apprentice’s shoulder to JJ and Doopy. He reached into his
pocket again and in his hand was what looked like a rolled- up sock. Like a baseball pitcher he drew his hand back and threw it; the apprentice ducked aside and it landed in Doopy’s hands. JJ caught a whiff of something chemical. As though he’d been instructed by Gonko’s glance, Doopy crept behind the apprentice and pressed the cloth roll to his face. The apprentice snorted, dropped his pipe and swooned to the ground.

Gonko strolled over to the prostrate figure, picked up the lead pipe and pulled another rolled-up sock from his pants. He waved it under the apprentice’s nose, and again JJ caught a hint of chemicals. With a spluttering cough the apprentice opened his eyes, waking to the sight of Gonko standing over him, tall as a god, the lead pipe in one hand, a smile on his face which was almost fatherly. The clown leader blew the apprentice a kiss then raised the pipe over his head, and slammed it down, raised it, slammed it down, raised it, slammed it down. Each blow sang out a dull chiming note, singing in sick harmony with the crunching of bone. Doopy watched with a look of mild curiosity as blood spattered up onto Gonko’s shins, spouting in a ring on the ground around the dying clown.

JJ watched his master strike at the thrashing and utterly defenceless body below. The sights and sounds of murder touched him, titillated him in a spot no sexual craving could, though the feeling was not dissimilar. His mouth hung open, his eyes sucked in every spatter of red, every dent. The lead pipe thundered down steadily long after the limbs had ceased thrashing.

Gonko finally stopped swinging. He muttered, ‘Clowns take some killing, JJ. Clowns don’t die easy’. He tossed the lead pipe aside and folded his arms, nodding once towards the corpse.
As though part of a long-rehearsed drill, Doopy kneeled down and grasped it by the feet. JJ crouched down and took it by the shoulders, badly dented and soft in his hands. The broken ruin that had been the apprentice’s sullen face rested against JJ’s chest as he and Doopy carried the body out into the night, through the deathly silent showgrounds to the tall wooden fence, gravel crunching under their shoes. They swung the body to and fro, gaining momentum and heaving it over the fence. A streak of red drops splashed against the fence in a vertical line as the corpse fell to the other side.

Without speaking the two clowns returned to their tent. Eyes peered from curtain cracks as they passed the gypsy huts. Death was never far away; it paid to peer through the curtains on nights like this when footsteps crunched by on the gravel paths. It paid to lock the door.

The night was not over yet.

In bed JJ’s mind replayed each swing of the lead pipe, not missing a detail. He saw clearly each speck of blood flying, heard each sound of breaking bone and the dull metallic chime ringing to the steady beat of Gonko’s swings, and discovered something new — a new emotion.

Almost without thinking JJ rose from his bed. He distantly remembered Jamie, remembered the attack on the freak show and the fat carnie Jamie had seen as he fled. Any excuse would do; this would certainly do. JJ had forgotten why Jamie betrayed him, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was teaching him not to do it again. What mattered was covering his tracks.

Out he went again, not bothering to quiet his footsteps on the gravel. In the quiet stillness of night the sound was large and lamplights flickered on in the gypsy slums as he passed.
Death was never far, and the new clown had learned how to make it. He found an axe leaning by a woodpile. He picked it up and kissed it.

Jamie woke around midday, his face paint rubbed over the pillow as usual. His bed felt hot and stuffy and stank of sweat. Sweat, and some other smell, not dissimilar. There was something sticky on his fingers so he held them up to his bleary wet eyes. At the sight of blood his heart kicked into gear before his mind understood what he saw. Blood covered his hand, coating every finger, down to the wrist.

The dim grisly memories returned like a nightmare: kicking open the hut door. Lighting a lantern while the gypsy man lay sleeping with an empty flask at his feet, beer gut hanging over his pants, dripping with sweat like a big glistening pot roast. Lifting the axe, whispering:
Watching, Jamie? This is your mess.

Up. Down. Up. Down. The flat of the axe into his skull. The calm emotionless ease of the swings, not a moment’s hesitation, the small grunt the gypsy made as his skull was crushed. That had been the moment of death but the beginning of JJ’s fun. Something had happened while he killed. He’d been clear-thinking, calm, almost detached from the physical act, but his blood had felt heated as it flowed through him. There was an intoxication that was almost sexual. He’d gripped the axe so tight it felt like part of him. After the wounds stopped pumping their blood he’d kept swinging, oh yes, oh fuck yes, up down up down, faster, intending to keep going until he could swing no more but his arms just didn’t tire. He’d been panting like a wolf,
spattered so thick with blood it was a second skin. Finally he’d slipped in a puddle of it, dropped the axe, and the swinging stopped. He’d dragged the body to the fence, not troubling himself to haul it over. Instead he’d set it upside down, propped on the stump of its neck.

Jamie recalled all this, done with his own hands. He remembered Gonko’s pipe work on the apprentice. Nausea flushed through him. He got up from the bed and collapsed. His sheets were drenched in blood; he’d slept in it all night.

Now that’s a wet dream
, his mind babbled sickly. He threw up and retched on his knees, saliva running from his mouth in long strings.

And there was more. JJ had left him a message, painting it in blood with a perfectly calm hand. Up on the cupboard door:

its coming jamie

It was coming; yes, Jamie remembered now. JJ owed him one. Last night he’d just been tying up loose ends. The party wasn’t even started yet.

He forced his head to go blank.

I’m a killer
.

But only for a moment.

Time passed and the shaking fits and vomiting stopped. Gonko poked his head in to announce a rehearsal at two. He took a look at the blood-soaked sheets, smiled, said ‘Hot date, JJ?’, then left.

Jamie stood up, the fourth time he’d attempted it this morning, but now there was enough strength in his legs. His
head was spinning like he’d smoked too much pot. These thoughts kept repeating:
I killed someone. But it wasn’t me in control. But I put the face paint on knowing it wouldn’t be me in control. I never asked to be here.
Round and round they went, cutting to images of the kill and that single grunt as the gypsy died. In dizzy shambling steps he made his way to Winston’s room and knocked on the door. ‘What?’ came the muffled answer. Jamie went in. The blood was still on his hands.

‘What the hell happened?’ said Winston, sitting up and taking him by the shoulders.

He tried to say it, swallowed, then tried again: ‘I killed someone.’

Winston’s voice was sharp. ‘What? Who? Who did you kill?’

‘I don’t know. A gypsy. The one who lives — Jesus,
lived
— next to the freak show.’

Winston sat back and sighed. ‘You had me worried there.’