"Thank you, Mr. Pilo," says the now hundred-year-old crone, curtseying from a seated position while George bustles away. She too takes a deep whiff of the popcorn-scented air, but unlike Steve her face sours as if she has scented pure death.
•
It is five days before Rufshod returns triumphant, dragging with him a tire, an empty box of ice cream cones, a computer monitor, and all manner of other bits and pieces, most smashed beyond recognition. Gonko is too busy scheming to be pissed at him. While naturally someone has raided Gonko's main stash of velvet bags full of wish powder during his long absence, they haven't found the secret compartment holding his smaller emergency stash. Nineteen bags sit in a happy pile, probably more loot than George himself has got these days. He first wishes himself a quick S&M session with a virtual Marilyn Monroe, gets his rocks off, which keeps the George-rage at bay a little, then commences doling out bribes. As instructed, Doopy starts a war of words followed by a war of head-butts with the acrobats to distract George, who is soon popcorning his way through another "Reconciling Our Differences" therapy session (although judging by how little mirth George gets this time, it sounds like Doopy is just sitting there confused, agreeing to whatever is said to him and babbling about Mr. Bigbad.)
Gonko visits Curls. "How close does George watch your crew?" Gonko asks, none too subtly wiping his forehead with a velvet bag.
Curls watches its every move. "He don't care about us," he says. "We look busy and it's all right. We go to him if there's a problem. We're just carny rats; we don't matter none."
"Here's the deal, Curls. You're a ticket collector now." He tosses Curls the bag. "I'll go chat to the other collectors and tell 'em what's what. What's what is that you're their boss. And don't do nothing without seeing me first." Curls makes the velvet bag vanish into his pockets like magic. Gonko can feel the envious eyes beaming out from hidden places; powder has never been scarcer.
Which helps Gonko set things up nicely: instructions for smugglers, with maps pointing to the upstairs show site. Using Doopy's pass-out, they sneak up— slowly, and with great care—tent canvas, pegs, crates of costumes, and other supplies. It takes two full bags of powder to convince a gypsy who keeps the Ferris wheel working to knock on the Matter Manipulator's door and distract him—no fun job, admittedly—and also a promise that he can join Gonko's operation "up there." The Matter Manipulator clearly sniffs a rat by the way he looks around upon leaving his house to follow the gypsy.
Gonko dashes in, steals two tubs of clown face paint, a chair made of living human parts and from a back room swipes a head in a glass case, presumably an unfinished freak show creation in progress. It's a fifty-something-year-old professorial head with severe eyebrows, fat cheeks, and an impressive glower. "Buh, hm, what? What's all this? Preposterous!" it grumbles as Gonko covers it in a towel.
Not much of a freak show yet, he knows, but it's a start. When night falls, he takes it all up to the surface world with Doopy's help and checks in on the carny rats up there. The caravan has arrived and is assembled; all is in order. The carny rats each get an other full bag of Gonko's stash, which ought to keep them sweet til it's just about show time.
•
A week has passed and it's time to head surface-wise for the JJ hunt. Gonko figures the clowns ought to stick tight since they're all still a little sludge-brained, which works fine til Rufshod spots a Super Geek PC repair van with a cartoon nerdish version of Superman painted on it, then he's off into the night with a war cry of "Not this time you don't, Super Geek." Thankfully, Gonko got a trench coat on him in the lift so the only clownish thing about him is the face and shoes. The other clowns are similarly obscured, but the trench coats sit uneasy on them, eager to slide off or tear and spill clown out into the cool evening.
A leash for Rufshod seems to be in order next time, Gonko decides. On the plus side, a check of the three compasses—Doopy's, Goshy's, and his own—shows the arrows agreeing on the direction of "J," give or take the odd flicker. Gonko leads them through the city. They thread through crowds of shoppers, students, commuters, and tourists, people who don't seem to really see them. The only ones who do are a few homeless men, presumably whacked out on some kind of perspective shifter, given how they cringe back and in one case run away at a fast hobble.
The compasses point them around the block a few times, indicating JJ is on the move. Goshy waddles along behind, bowling people over who don't quite see him and causing a grappling match between two young hotheads in the process. That aside, it's uneventful until they come to the corner of Adelaide and George Street, where Doopy grabs Gonko by the shoulder and says, "Gee-whiz, wow! Look, Gonko, George has got his own street up here, up here where tricks come from. Ain't it swell?"
When below, Gonko can emotionally prepare for interactions with George so this kind of thing doesn't happen. Right now his guard is down, and as he stares at the george st sign, it turns into George Pilo's sneering face, laughing with popcorn spilling out its gob, before everything goes red with flashes of white lightning. Suddenly little Georges are all around him. "George," he says quietly. "George . . . george. georrrrrge!"
Doopy and Goshy observe Gonko stampeding over the pedestrians to get at a couple of rather swish cars which evidently remind him of George, since he proceeds to stomp them. Expensive car alarms blare in panic. The passing people suddenly see Gonko crystal clear. "george! george!"
Doopy leans close to his brother. "Goshy, we gotta help the boss, we just gotta! Let's go find JJ, coz Gonko, he's just, he . . ."
Goshy makes a low whining whistle—a sad sound.
"I know, Goshy, I know. I don't wanna wear the not-clown clothes no more neither." So off come the ponchos and the two of them leave Gonko (now on the run from some police who'd cruised by) and head towards Queen Street, where JJ used to have his old job when he was just a trick they were stalking.
"Just wait here, Goshy," says Doopy, going to some length to shove his brother into the exact right spot, right in the middle of the mall. "I'm gonna climb that building and bring back JJ, so Gonko won't be so shouty-breaky. You remember JJ, don'tcha?"
Goshy's left eye narrows.
"Now, don't be mean! Aw c'mon, shucks, don't you be mean when I fetch him, you gotta promise! Gonko's gonna beat him up, beat him up real bad, so don't be mean, okay?"
Off goes Doopy, leaving his brother startled and confused, turning on the spot and forgetting to keep hidden in the shadows. It is not long before he acquires a crowd of drunk and tipsy Friday night revelers who stand in a ring about him. They laugh and point, all of them shouting things he doesn't understand. He tries to shut the sound out with his fists, spins about, looks for a way to escape, but there are just faces, faces, faces, laughing, laughing, laughing . . .
•
Doopy is up on a windowsill of the Wentworth Gentleman's Club when the scream rings out. His grand plan was to pry open the window, sheepishly call, "Hey, JJ?" then climb back down, but that will have to wait. His descent is a comet strike into alleyway garbage cans. He bounces over the fence. And there, a crowd of people are holding their ears, some writhing around after having been trampled. "Hey, you, you shouldn'ta ought not done did it," Doopy yells, barreling into them and laying several people flat in a human traffic pile up. His fists windmill about, his boots thud down, his buttocks are swung like a club. It's a weird but effective way to pound a lot of people, but someone manages to brain him with a rock or brick, which snaps him out of attack mode. There ahead Goshy waddles fast, fists firm at his sides, kettle noise steaming "mmm, hmmm, hmmm," and beyond him at the top of the mall the redheaded JJ makes a running escape.