Gonko appears at the top of the street in a snazzy fake beard, glasses, a new trench coat, and has no cops on his trail. Doopy jogs on the spot for a moment, nervous and undecided. Being alive is hard without the boss to think for him. He waves until he has Gonko's attention then points to JJ, who ducks around a corner.
Gonko herds the other clowns together, absentmindedly swats them both, but their target is close: the compass is working properly and has them on his tail. Fifteen minutes later the clowns have found Jamie's building. "The nerve of this guy, living it up like a normal trick," Gonko says as they stare up the rows of windows. There, that place: a light goes on right as they watch, and a redhead stands at the window with binoculars briefly trained on the opposite building.
"We goin' up there, Gonko? We just gotta get JJ back."
"Tomorrow, after we find Rufshod. Then JJ will get his beat down."
***
3. ABOVE
The front door burst in and footsteps scuffed on the carpet. Doctors, nurses, police. Dean frowned, probably wondering for a fleeting moment why the hospital people didn't just knock, wondering why they would spook a mentally ill and violent patient with such an entrance. For he had indeed told them on the phone that the violent clown they were after was Jamie.
Meanwhile Jamie was still reeling with an unbelievable sense of betrayal, so shocked that the appearance of the clowns hardly surprised him. The thinnest clown was tethered to the fattest by what looked like a dog chain around both their necks. "How ya been, JJ?" said the clown with the wide pants, a tinkling-bell hat and a mean face.
Dean looked from them to Jamie with his jaw hung loose. Dean's look of shock was so sweet and intoxicating for Jamie, and so intense was his anger at that moment, that he felt not quite in control of himself. One more second to pause and assess the situation and he'd have done something entirely different. Instead he pointed at his roommate and said to the clowns, "Get him."
"Sure, we'll start there," said Gonko with a shrug.
The clowns rushed Dean. He swung the baseball bat, nailed the clown leashed to it with a flush strike. The tether snapped. Baseball stadium home run music briefly filled the room as Rufshod sailed across into the kitchen bench. After he'd swung, Dean was off balance and easy prey. The bat was plucked out of his hand. The other clowns laid on a fairly conventional beating aside from Goshy, who invented a kind of full-body head-butt without even bending at the waist, up and down like a ninepin in fast motion. Jamie felt a weird sense of inertia. He looked around the room, unsure if he was really seeing this or not. Next thing, his roommate's face was a sheen of blood. "Stop it," he said. "Don't kill him. Stop!"
"Make up your fucking mind!" Gonko screamed. In a moment of eerie quiet as Jamie and the clowns stared at each other, Dean's bedroom door's lock clicked. Jodi—apparently she'd heard enough to know something serious and uncool was going on in the living room. The clowns left Dean in a battered heap and turned to Jamie. Suddenly there were axes, crowbars and lead pipes in their hands.
"Why are you here?" Jamie said, backing away.
"What's with you, JJ?" said Gonko, actually confused. "You don't remember us?"
"I've never seen you before in my life." It was a lie of sorts; he did not know their names, but he knew he had seen them all before, and that they knew him.
Rufshod whispered in Gonko's ear, got a nod. A white tub of face paint appeared and they wrestled Jamie down, slopped it on, and held up a mirror so he could see his reflection. The weapons came again to hand and were raised over him. "Now what say you, JJ?" Gonko said. "Do I hear the beginnings of a ‘Sorry, Gonko' for what you did in that trailer?"
"For the love of God," Jamie yelled, thrashing under their hands. "Would you tell me what the hell is going on? Who are you people?"
"He really doesn't remember, boss," said Rufshod.
"By George, that's weird," said Doopy, looking sidelong at Gonko.
Gonko pondered things for a moment, said "‘Scuse us," and pulled the other clowns into a huddle. They whispered back and forth. Doopy cried out, "But that's telling fibs, boss! You shouldn't oughta—" till Gonko thwacked him, and more whispering ensued.
In that time Jamie lay on the tiles, gingerly touching his face and examining the white smear on his finger. There was something peculiar about the face paint they'd put on him. It had to be a drug of some kind, for rushing through him was a similar but far more intense sensation than the feeling the clown clothes had given him last night. The shoulder he'd tweaked doing push-ups on awakening suddenly didn't hurt. A giddiness came over him and he felt like cavorting around the room. He had to actually remind himself he was in some danger here. It helped when Dean moaned, rolled to his side and burst a blood bubble from his smashed nose. But even then Jamie marveled to note he was suddenly not all that scared. He said to the clowns, "Look, you obviously know me. And we've had some kind of disagreement by the look of things, what with all the weapons and violence. Maybe we could just talk things out peacefully then all go have a jam donut together, how about that?"
"Just a sec, we're getting our stories straight here," Rufshod snapped at him.
Gonko said, "All right, go. JJ—Jamie, whatever. This is gonna maybe be hard to believe, but we are superhero clowns who help people in need. We come from a superhero circus, and you are one of our special agents. Now we need your help because our circus has been overtaken by our archenemy, a total shitbag named George. Do you believe? Are you with us?"
Jamie let this ridiculous explanation sit in the air. Is it even remotely possible this is true? he thought. He thought back to the mall clown—yes, that solid flabby looking thing staring at him now with weird eyes—and the things it had done, how its belly had blown out, its shrieking noise. He knew at the time and knew now those were not special effects. More like magic. Actual magic.
"I think I'll need some convincing," he said at last. "But that would certainly explain a few things."
"You'll get all the proof you need and then some, sweet cheeks."
"You want to start by making sure my roommate lives through the night? You superhero clowns kind of beat the living shit out of him."
"Eh?" The clowns took a moment to remember Dean.
Rufshod crouched down, peeled an eyelid back with his thumb. "Look, he's probably gonna be dead in fifty, sixty years anyway right? So what's the big deal if it happens now?"
Gonko kicked Rufshod across the room. "Bad taste joke there, Ruf," he said. His voice caught with emotion. "Can't you see we're talking about a trick's life here? We need him to thrive and prosper and make baby tricks, and be all happy and to know joy and stuff."
Doopy applauded gustily. A tear was in his eye.
"Of course we'll save your trick buddy," said Gonko. "We beat him up only because you told us to, special agent Jamie. It seemed he musta felt you up or done some other perverse evil."
"It looked like you were going to beat me up too for a minute there. All those axes and lead pipes."
"Now see, that's an example of thinking too much. Ruf, help me here." The two of them carried Dean to Jamie's bedroom.
•
Gonko twitched, lashed out a fist at Jamie's stereo but held back his punch with visible strain. Veins throbbed in his forehead. He raised a boot to smash the bed but kicked an imaginary cat instead with a whoosh of air. "What gives?" he whispered. "Where's JJ? Why the face paint ain't worked?"
"It ain't JJ the clown, boss," said Rufshod. "But it's for sure the same chump trick we auditioned."
"He ain't lying neither. Don't remember us. Something weird musta happened that night when Kurt lost his shit."