George still has nightmares about how close he'd come that night to a bullet in the back of his neck, just after it seemed the danger had passed with Kurt dropping to the depths of the Funhouse basement. A clown, one of Gonko's own men, plugged two shots into the trailer door right beside him. A lumberjack—no fool, a real forward thinker who saw the lay of the future ahead and sought at once to curry the new boss's favor—crash-tackled the old clown, named Watson or Winston or something, and wrestled the gun away. "Shoot!" George had cried, his pants wetted. The lumberjack obeyed, and the old clown became just another casualty of the night, while the lumberjack earned George's trust, gratitude, and the privileged position he now enjoyed. He was, of course, George's ride-on goon.
The goon stomps clumsily to Gonko, lash in hand. George dismounts, marches over, the typewriter paper bunched in his fist, but something in Gonko's shocking forced smile stops George short of assuming the position (head pressed into Gonko's navel, eyes glaring up.) Gonko's smile spasms, twitches, seems ready to blow steam out his ears, so determinedly is it being held in place. But the eyes don't lie. Out it comes, raked over his teeth: "Hello there, George. I've missed you real bad."
George scoffs, tosses the bunched up paper from the typewriter, aiming for that smile but hitting Gonko's red clown nose instead. It makes a small ding like the shoot-a-duck game when a bullseye lands. "Your orders," George shouts at him.
Gonko spasms again, all over.
"That list has names on it. Get it? Names! You go up there and fetch like a good doggy. Priority one: fortuneteller. Get her back here. Then do whatever to the rest." George tosses a pass-out at him next, hits the clown nose again: ding. "No rush either," says George, backing toward the safety of his goon as Gonko's eyes go blood-red. "No clowns needed in my show. You're gonna run errands, you're gonna cook and clean, do outside jobs. No performing for you. Not til you earn it. Other clowns are buried out by the dung pit. Be careful who you bring back, Gonko. No room for traitors in my show."
George expects a pleasing outburst, maybe even some grovelling, but a thoughtful look comes to Gonko instead. "You name it, George," he says. "My clowns will just work themselves stupid to make this the finest show you'll ever run." And he bows, then topples over, collapsing.
"Eh, that works," says George, content enough, and rides his goon back to the trailer, working the controls to flip the lash at any carnies who get close.
•
When Gonko rouses from slumber, the taste of hot dog with mustard sings in his mouth, so sweet and good he chews down hard and bites off something a little more bony than expected. A shriek of pain follows and the dwarf falls back, clutching a hand which now drizzles blood everywhere. Gonko knows the dwarf, one of his old contacts from Sideshow Alley who used to report to him now and then with intel on the acrobats, back in the feud days. He's called Curls, after the fire-red beard obscuring pretty much all his face apart from eyes and nose, the bushy eyebrows just an extension of the beard. Beside Curls is a plate of hot dogs, donuts and a paper cup of fizzy drink.
Gonko finds even the finger rather succulent, but he has no beef with Curls—he nibbles just a little meat from it and spits it out onto the dust. "You made it through the mess?" says Gonko, by which he means Kurt's rampage.
"Oh, yep," Curls grunts, pocketing the finger and wrapping a handkerchief around the stump. He grimaces but lays not a word of blame, which Gonko notes with approval. A decent dwarf, is Curls.
"So why you stuffing food in my mouth?"
"George's say-so. You were out nearly a whole day. George says you got stuff to do for him." Gonko's burst of George-rage wakes him up better than coffee. Curls reads his look. "Got something in mind?" he whispers, shifting back a little.
"Listen. How many chums you got? Trusted chums. Keep their gums stapled shut no matter what?"
Curls attempts a finger count, grimacing. "Nine," he ventures. "More if, you know, you dropped a nice thing in their pocket. George cut back pay from half bags to quarters, now he's paying by the grain. By the grain! But them lumberjacks is getting paid good, so they bust whatever heads George tells 'em to." Curls leans close. "Why, I tell you, if the shows wasn't about to start again, why, half of 'em would up and—"
"Shh," says Gonko, devouring the remaining donuts and hotdogs in a few wolfish gulps. "Gonko gets the picture, Curls. You get in their ears, my chum. Whisper this or that about secret missions up there." Gonko thumbs toward the sky. "Fresh air. Full-grown ladies all over the place. The techno marvels of whatever fucking century this is. Only to some real savvy trusted carny rats, you dig?"
Curls digs. "Will we get to see the ocean?"
"All five of 'em. Better pay too. I'm talking happy pockets here, chum. But first, go get us some shovels. We're going treasure hunting."
Curls runs off. Gonko feels the thing taking shape in his mind, going from an indiscriminate lust for payback into an actual plan. It'll be risky, it'll be bold, but it'll be curtains for George Pilo if it all comes off. Curls soon returns with picks and shovels in a wheelbarrow larger than he is.
All night they dig around what George called the dung pit, the patch of earth the gypsy cooks somehow get their meat from. There are hot dog plants and cotton candy shrubs, popcorn bushes and little sizzling pools of fizzy drink, burbling up like oil. It is some time before Gonko's pick strikes through what feels kind of skull-like. Up comes the pick, pulling a mound of soil along with Goshy's corpse. The head is preserved enough, the torso too, but below the waist there's liquefied mush that reeks of swamp gas. They scoop up all they can into the wheelbarrow, gagging, coughing, puking. Goshy's face, still as stone, looks surprised. "Ugly, ugly bastard," Gonko whispers at the quivering flesh pile. He wheels it to the Funhouse, spills the lot just outside the door, unmindful of the liquid gluey mess across his shoes, then slowly takes the wheelbarrow back to fetch the others.
•
By morning it is done, or close enough. He finds most of Rufshod, the top half of Doopy, and speaks to them while he wheels each one across the turf to the Funhouse, saying nice things about the days to come, how they'd frolic on stage like dolphins at sea. Their bodies join Goshy's in a hideous pile spreading across the ground at the Funhouse door.
Gonko does not go back for Winston—that there is trouble he doesn't need, he knows that without George's warnings. Nor does he search for JJ—according to the typed list, JJ is up on the surface world, hiding out. He remembers JJ's treachery in the trailer too, and although the resulting rage does not hold a candle to the supernova George has ignited inside him, there is no question a solid beat-down is called for. If JJ survives it, whatever of him is left will make a useful clown in the new act.
Gonko pounds the Funhouse door four times. Slowly it creaks open and an eye peers out the crack. "Yes?"
Gonko pokes the clown parts with his shoe. "Bring 'em back."
The door opens wider and Gonko shoves his way in. The Matter Manipulator's beak-like nose constantly sniffs, and his eyes betray the kinds of thoughts he has. He is taller than a dwarf but not by much, moon pale with a slicked-back wedge of greasy black hair. He has never had the chance to punish Gonko, so Gonko has no fear of him. The reddish light of the studio glows upon furniture made of human beings, all of them so preserved and lifelike Gonko wagers some of them are in fact alive. He wins his wager when the chair he pulls up—its legs actual legs—gives a soft groan of pain as he slumps down on it.