ClownFellas Read online

  The arm fell out of the clown’s sleeve and plopped onto the floor. It was made of cloth and plastic. It was a fake—a gag arm used for practical jokes. Earl had no idea how he hadn’t noticed it before. He could have sworn the clown was using both hands when making the balloon animals. But there it was, lying there before him. The clown must have switched it out when he wasn’t looking. But it didn’t matter anymore. He failed his mission. He failed his family. He never should have taken this job.

  Earl shook his head as the big man got to his feet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Bozo’s real arm slipped out of the baggy sleeve. His fingers curled into a fist. “You no-good rotten prick.”

  The last thing Earl saw before blacking out was a row of white knuckles coming at him like a brick.

  Chapter 12

  When his eye opened, Earl Berryman found himself tied to a dusty carousel horse in some kind of storage room. He couldn’t open the other eye on account of it being swollen shut like a liquor store on Sunday. There were others in the room with him but he was too dizzy to make out what they were saying. He faded in and out of consciousness. When his vision cleared, he saw Captain Spotty’s menacing grin inches away from his face.

  “You awake, Doc?” Spotty asked.

  Earl mumbled out the closest thing he could to a “Yeah.”

  “Good,” Spotty said. “I was waiting until you could feel this.”

  The clown punched him in the gut so hard the vet puked up the corned beef hash he’d had for breakfast.

  “You think you can come in here and put our boss on ice?” said Hats Rizzo, splitting the vet’s lip with a punch to the kisser. “You got a lotta nerve for a dead man.”

  Hats punched him in the mouth again. Then he kicked him in the stomach with his club-sized shoe.

  “That’s enough,” said the man in the back of the room, tossing his cigarette to the floor.

  Vinnie Blue Nose stepped into Earl’s field of vision as the other two clowns backed away.

  “Who are you working for?” Vinnie asked.

  He didn’t threaten to hurt Earl. He didn’t have to. One look in those piercing clown eyes of his and Earl knew he wasn’t the kind of guy you dared lie to.

  “I don’t work for anybody. I’m a veterinarian.”

  “Then why’d you try to kill the boss?”

  “I didn’t want to.” Earl drooled blood. “I got a call. Just after I got here, some guy called me and told me to do it. He said he’d kill my wife and kids if I didn’t.”

  “Is this true?” Spotty asked.

  “I swear.” Earl looked at Vinnie. “You heard my phone ring.”

  “Who was it?” Vinnie asked.

  Earl shook his head. “I don’t know. Some guy with a French accent.”

  Hats and Spotty looked at each other.

  “Le Mystère…,” Hats said.

  “Those motherfucking frog-eating bastards!” Spotty yelled, then he kicked the side of the carousel horse.

  “Who’s Le Mystère?” Earl asked.

  “French clowns,” Vinnie said, pulling a new cigarette out of his pack. “They’re a rival family who’s been trying to muscle in on our territory for the past year.” He paused to light his cigarette and take a drag. “Real nasty pieces of work.”

  “They’re the ones who have my wife and kids?”

  Vinnie put a cigarette in Earl’s mouth and lit it for him.

  “I’m sorry,” Vinnie said. “If it’s Le Mystère behind this, your loved ones are already dead.”

  Chapter 13

  “Cut him loose,” Vinnie said as he returned to the storage room where they were keeping Earl Berryman.

  Captain Spotty pulled his candy knife out of his bow tie and did as he was told. Then the two clowns left the vet alone with the capo.

  “The boss agreed to cut a deal with you,” Vinnie said.

  Earl looked up at him, rubbing his wrists where his bonds had cut off the circulation. “What kind of deal?”

  “He still needs you to operate on his lion,” Vinnie said. “Save Happytooth and he agrees that we’ll save your family.”

  “But you said my family’s already dead.”

  “Not necessarily,” Vinnie said. “There’s a chance they’re still alive.”

  “But not for long,” Earl said. “The Frenchman said he was going to kill them if I didn’t send a picture of your boss’s dead body. I’m not going to be able to perform an operation before the time runs out.”

  “You have plenty of time. We already sent them this.” Vinnie held out Earl’s phone. It showed a picture of Don Bozo, lying on the ground with the syringe poking into his gag arm. It was staged, but looked real enough. “We also texted them a message saying that you got out of The Show alive.”

  “So you think they’ll let my family go now?”

  Vinnie shook his head. “Not a chance. But since they think you got out alive, you’ve become a loose end. They’ll be waiting for you back at your place. And if they’re smart, they’ll keep your family at hand just in case they need to lure you in.”

  “So there’s a good chance they’ll make it? You’ll be able to rescue them?”

  “First things first. You got a surgery to perform. If it goes smoothly, then we’ll talk about your family.”

  Earl’s eyes lit up with hope. “I can’t believe it…I thought I’d never see them again…”

  “Hold up.” Vinnie grabbed him by the shoulder. “I never said anything about you seeing them again. I said we’d save your family. You, on the other hand, are dead either way.”

  The vet heard what Blue Nose was saying loud and clear. He didn’t want to die, but Earl knew he was a dead man. He had to suck it up and move forward. If he didn’t want his family to die with him, the surgery had to be a success.

  Chapter 14

  This time, the boss didn’t attend the surgery. Two clown women who ordinarily took care of the animals dressed up like nurses and assisted the vet. They batted their long blue eyelashes at him and honked their red noses every time they handed the doctor a tool. The vet told them it was unsanitary to touch their noses like that, but they seemed to do it impulsively.

  As he performed the operation, with the lion’s face peeled back, the meaty tumor exposed, it reminded him of the time his oldest daughter cracked her head open on the driveway. It was one of the most frightening days of his life. For a moment there, when he saw her lying in a pool of blood, he thought he’d lost her.

  “This is why I told you to wear a helmet!” Earl’s wife yelled at their teenage daughter as she lay in the driveway. “I told you this was going to happen. Didn’t I tell you?”

  Sarah was trembling. She gripped her father’s hand tightly as he examined her scalp.

  The mother hovered over her daughter, blocking out the sunlight. “I never should have let you get that skateboard! Only boys can ride skateboards. You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck!”

  Earl looked up at his wife. “Laurie, calm down. She’s in shock.”

  Laurie ignored him. “This is going in the trash.” She picked up the skateboard and tossed it in the garbage can.

  Sarah reached out. “My skateboard…”

  “And I forbid you from hanging out with those spike-haired friends of yours. They’re responsible for this.”

  “Can you drop it already?” Earl said. “Help me get her inside.”

  The wife huffed at him. She was so furious he didn’t want to go near her. Complaining was the only way she knew how to deal with situations like this. It was the only way she could keep her mind off the seriousness of what was happening. She did the same thing to Earl when he broke his leg in a car accident a year after they were married.

  “Come on,” Earl said.

  Laurie took her daughter’s legs and helped carry her into the house. She groaned when Sarah’s blood got all over her. “Eww, there’s blood everywhere…Don’t get any on the carpet.”

  Inside, they pu
t Sarah on the couch. She was able to sit upright, but was visibly dizzy.

  Laurie looked down at the blood on her clothes. “Damn it, you ruined my dress.”

  Earl got a better look at his daughter’s head. The bottom half of her scalp was shaved, so it was easy to see the wound through her hair. A flap of skin dangled open. He could see a pink skull behind the flesh. “She’s going to need stitches. We should take her to the emergency room.”

  “We can’t afford that,” Laurie said. “You can fix her up.”

  “I’m a veterinarian.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s illegal. I could lose my license.”

  “Just do it. Who’s going to find out? You’d probably do a better job than the ER doctors anyway.”

  Earl didn’t want to argue. “Fine. Get my stuff.”

  Earl’s youngest daughter, Mandy, stood behind her older sister. Staring at the gaping wound on Sarah’s head, her expression was that of amazement instead of worry.

  “Sarah, you have another mouth on your head!” Mandy said, pointing at the wound. “Can you talk through it?”

  “Mandy, go play with Vicky,” Earl said.

  “But I want to see her talk through the mouth on her head,” Mandy said.

  “Leave her alone. She hurt herself.”

  When he was done sewing up his daughter’s scalp, he gave her a bowl of ice cream. Even though she was practically a woman, she could still be cheered up by ice cream.

  “Don’t let Mom throw away my skateboard,” Sarah said.

  Earl poured caramel sauce on his daughter’s sundae. It was her favorite. “Do you really want to keep skating after this?”

  “Everybody falls down when they first start,” she said.

  Earl smiled at her. He couldn’t believe how much she’d grown up. “I’ll tell you what. Once your head heals and your mother calms down, I’ll buy you a new skateboard. As long as you promise me you’ll always wear a helmet.”

  He brushed the lock of green hair out of her face.

  “Get me a helmet that’s not embarrassing and you’ve got a deal. This never would have happened if Mom didn’t force me to wear her ugly old cyclist helmet instead of buying me a new one.”

  She smiled and took a big bite of ice cream. The caramel turned her lips sticky and tan.

  When Laurie entered the kitchen and saw her daughter eating the ice cream, she rolled her eyes and said, “You shouldn’t be eating that junk. You’re going to get fat.”

  “Are you kidding?” Earl said. “She’s the scrawniest kid in her school. A few extra pounds would be good for her.”

  Sarah laughed and took another bite. “I’m not the scrawniest.”

  Laurie put the gallon of ice cream back in the freezer and left the room. She always resented the fact that Sarah was a daddy’s girl.

  As Earl patched up the lion, he realized Sarah wouldn’t be able to be a daddy’s girl anymore. Even if she forgave him for all he put her through, even if she didn’t blame him for the strange men that broke into her house and kidnapped her at gunpoint, even if she got through the whole ordeal unscathed, she was never going to see her father ever again.

  Chapter 15

  When it was over, Earl dropped onto the heart-shaped bed and closed his eyes. He had never put so much care and attention into an animal in all his career as a veterinarian. He was satisfied with the procedure and couldn’t be more confident that Happytooth would recover just fine.

  “I got to thank you, Doc,” Don Bozo said, after he saw his pet’s face was back to its regular shape. “Putting aside the fact that you tried to kill me, you’re a real lifesaver.”

  “So are you going to uphold your side of the bargain?” Earl asked.

  “Of course, Doc. I’m a man of my word. I’ll send Vinnie and the boys out to your place as soon as possible.”

  The boss turned and wobbled toward the door.

  Earl looked back at him, “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to kill me?”

  Bozo replied, “Not yet. I’ll keep you around until Happytooth makes a full recovery. I can kill you another time.”

  Earl stood up. “In that case, can I go with them?”

  “What?”

  “Can I ride along with Vinnie when he goes to save my family? I just want to make sure they’re safe with my own eyes.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather not know for sure?”

  “I have to know. I’m the one who got them into this.”

  Bozo nodded. “I’ll talk to Vinnie about it. If he doesn’t mind babysitting you, I don’t mind you seeing your family one last time.”

  “Thanks, Bozo.”

  “No. Thank you, Dead Man. Thank you.”

  Chapter 16

  Blue Nose gathered the men together. “Hats, Spotty, Jackie, we’re heading out. Get your gear together.”

  Earl and the boss stood behind the capo, watching the three buttons as they dove into the arsenal, grabbing all manner of clown weaponry. The room was filled with items that Earl had never even heard of before. They looked more like the kinds of things he’d find in a novelty toy store—slinky bombs, bladed Frisbees, chain-saw yo-yos, an assortment of weaponized pies and cartoony handguns. They appeared more ridiculous than deadly.

  “We’re taking the doc with us,” Vinnie said as he grabbed two clips of laughing bullets. “Any of you got a problem with that?”

  “I’m fine with the doc, but do we have to take Hats?” said Captain Spotty, loading a pink plastic shotgun with gumballs. “The guy’s a jamook. He’s gonna get us all killed.”

  “Who you think you’re calling a jamook?” Hats said, leaning an automatic squirt gun over his shoulder.

  “We need every clown we can get,” Vinnie said.

  “Give me five minutes and I’ll get Pinky and Bingo over here,” said Spotty. “I’d rather have those two backing me up any day.”

  “Forget it, Hats will do fine,” Vinnie said.

  “Yeah, Hats will do fine,” Hats said, filling his gun with a blue fluid.

  Once the men appeared ready, Vinnie said, “Let’s head out.”

  Jackie the Grump left the arsenal with so many weapons you could hardly see his face. “Those surrealistic pricks don’t know what they got coming to ’em.”

  Before they left, Don Bozo stopped Earl Berryman. “I want you to take this with you.”

  The big man inflated a yellow balloon, twisted it into the shape of a gun, and handed it to the veterinarian.

  “Just in case,” the boss said, patting him on the shoulder.

  Earl looked at the balloon in his hand. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it.

  “You sure you want to give that guy a piece?” Vinnie asked when he saw the vet holding the gun balloon. “He just tried to kill you not thirty minutes ago.”

  “He’s got no reason to whack me anymore,” Bozo said. “His beef’s with the Frenchies now.”

  Vinnie Blue Nose nodded and moved on.

  “Here, take a knife, too,” Bozo said to Earl, twisting a red balloon into an upside-down T.

  The vet put the knife-shaped balloon through the belt loop of his pants, then shoved the top half of the gun balloon in his coat pocket. He assumed the big man was just messing with him. He was a clown, after all. But he decided not to question it.

  Chapter 17

  The clowns piled into Captain Spotty’s little red car. There should have only been enough room for two people in the backseat, but somehow Vinnie, Hats, and Jackie the Grump all fit back there without a problem. When Earl looked back, the three clowns seemed to be occupying the same space. They overlapped one another, like a hand of cards.

  “It’s how so many clowns can fit in a clown car,” Spotty said when he saw Earl’s confused expression.

  “How does it work?”

  “How should I know? I don’t even know how a microwave works. But if we had a dozen guys with us they’d all fit back there as well.”

  They left Little Bigtop a
nd headed out to Earl’s house in the suburbs. The vet prayed they’d get there on time. He didn’t care what happened to himself anymore, but he didn’t want to die knowing he’d brought about the demise of those he loved most in the world. At one moment, he realized the clowns didn’t scare him anymore. The thought of what was going to happen to his family was far more frightening than some irrational phobia. These clowns weren’t monsters. They were his only salvation.

  “So what are these French clowns like?” Earl asked the driver. “I’ve never even heard of Le Mystère before today.”

  Captain Spotty tensed up when Earl mentioned their name. It was then that the vet realized these clowns were just as nervous to go into this fight as he was. Spotty squeezed the steering wheel tightly as he spoke. “Le Mystère isn’t like the Bozo Family. These guys are kind of a new wave of clown. They do things different—let’s just leave it at that. They don’t respect the clowning traditions that our people value so dearly.”

  “Have you been at war with them long?”

  “We’re not officially at war. Not yet, anyway. There’s been a truce between the two families ever since they arrived in Little Bigtop five years ago. But they’ve been pushing us, trying to elbow in on our territory. And now they make an attempt on the boss’s life. After this, those avant-garde bastards are gonna have to make amends or I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “Hey, Spotty,” Hats said from the backseat. “Why are you talking to a dead man?”

  “None of your business, that’s why,” Spotty said.

  “Well, why don’t ya keep your fat mouth shut.”

  Spotty and Hats were the same rank, so the putz couldn’t tell him what to do. Still, when Spotty and Earl looked at the clowns in the backseat the expression on Vinnie’s face said that the lot of them oughta keep quiet and get their heads in the game. They had no idea what they were about to walk into.

  Chapter 18

  As they drove in silence, Earl wondered how his children were doing. He wasn’t too worried about Sarah. She was tough. As long as she didn’t get too tough and try to stab one of the clowns in the throat when the others weren’t looking, he knew she’d be fine. He also wasn’t too worried about his youngest, Mandy. She probably didn’t even know they were in any danger. In fact, she was probably having the time of her life being surrounded by clowns. But his middle child, Vicky, was the fragile one. She was the one who was easily scared.