huffing and puffing about "mean old George," but on the whole Gonko was left to his thoughts: namely, what to do with his aboveground carnies when all this blew over. Would it be safe to let them back here, in Kurt's show, where they'd be paid a lot less than they'd lately got used to? What if one day they decided to pull the old competing show routine again? Certainly Fatso could not be allowed to return, lest the Matter Manipulator find out what had happened . . . but what of the others? Maybe they had to be permanently retired . . .
For the second time that night, a white bunny rabbit hopped past their tent's entrance. Two lumberjacks followed it, the big dumb bastards drunk with power and loving their new role as circus cops. One of them looked in, saw the clowns sitting idle, and with a cowboy strut, in he came. "What's this?" he cried, opening his muscled arms in outrage.
"What's what, pal?" said Gonko, eyes narrow.
"I see one, two, three, four slackers all sitting down for an unauthorized rest break. Did I hear Mr. Pilo say in tonight's meeting that we'd be resting and lounging? George warned us about you clowns."
The clowns looked to Gonko for a cue. He stared at the lumberjack for a moment, wondering which way to do this. Direct takedown? Nah, too obvious. Doopy sounded like he needed to blow off some steam anyway. Gonko stood. "Yeah, about that. A quiet word with you, sir?"
"I'm listening."
Gonko bowed low, took the chump aside, whispered: "You see that big sack of clay with the lash mark? He's the trouble. Been messing up the act all night. I was wondering. Maybe you could give him a hiding? Few little pops to the jaw should do it. Owe you a bag for your trouble."
The lumberjack scoffed. "Can't manage your own crew?" But at the promise of a bag, he rolled his sleeves over fat biceps, planted his feet before Goshy, shoulders squared. "Slacker!" he barked. "You don't like rehearsing? Don't like orders from George himself? You better answer me."
Goshy blinked with one eye, boggled around the room at the others, whimpered. He turned side-on. The lumberjack moved in front of him, so Goshy kept spinning. "Slacker!" the lumberjack yelled. "Tough guy! What, is this funny? This a joke to you? Stand still. Hey!" Two punches connected to the back of Goshy's head, causing an unseen bell to ring.
"Big meanie," Doopy whispered. "Big . . . meanie. big meanieeeee!"
Gonko grabbed the lumberjack's arms and pinned them behind his back. Doopy did his thing. The big chump's head was already flopping around limp when Doopy got a good grip on it, wrenched, pulled, twisted. With the sound of meat being split, the pop of a vertebrae coming loose, the neck stump was encumbered no more and spat blood. Gonko dropped the body at his feet, pulled from his pocket a shovel. "Out back, Ruf," he said. "Dig quick." Gonko drop-kicked the head from their tent door, admiring the arc as it sailed high, to land in Sideshow Alley. More bunnies hopped past outside.
That was the first misfortune to befall George's muscle men. Maybe the head that fell among the exhausted and pissed off carny rats was taken as a heavenly signal to tolerate no more, or maybe it would have happened anyway. But it began to happen right then.
Certainly in Mugabo's tent, patience was already spread thin. The magician needed rest, a dose of powder, and maybe a kind word more than most in the show. On his stage he stood before an upturned top hat on a table. Every minute or so he jammed a gnarled fist inside it, pulled free a white bunny rabbit. "Oh, look, preety bunny," he'd say, tossing the creature to the ground before him. "Mugabo, great power. Big time wizard. But now he make the bunny. The bunny. the bunny!" Interspersed with bouts of weeping, growling, and entreaties to the gods who continued to ignore him.
The bunnies now numbered in the hundreds, exploring their new world for food. It got the attention of George's henchmen. Two lumberjacks now stood at the front row of seats, arms folded, watching the culprit set more rabbits loose. "Hey, you," said one as they advanced on him. "Is this your idea of a joke? What you think you're doing?"
"Bunny treek," Mugabo said slowly for the benefit of these stupids. "I do bunny treek. Mugabo has the special magics." The magician spat.
"No more bunnies," said the second lumberjack. "Do different tricks. That's an order."
"Oh no. Mr. Pilo want rehearse? Then Mr. Pilo have the bunny. Lots bunny, more bunny. Here." He produced another and tossed it at them, striking the nearest in the chest.
"I'll give you bunny," the lumberjack said, raising a two-by-four.
"No, no, I geev you bunny," said Mugabo, tipping his hat and spilling a dozen more rabbits out. They fled in a blur of white and brown streaking in all directions.
The lumberjacks had bullied Mugabo before, even given the odd shove, but never had they manhandled him the way Gonko used to, with magic pockets to counter the magician's wrath. But the night's events had made them feel rather important and very self-confident, so the two-by-four swung. Mugabo shrieked, blocked the blow with his forearms, fell sprawling across his stage. Pain blasted through his arms. He examined the broken skin with hurt and surprise—in his scrambled brain, the two men and he had been having a friendly chat about the finer points of his magic act; the attack had come from nowhere.
Something happened and Mugabo passed out after, with no actual memory of sending sheets of winding red and orange flame through his fingers. The two piles of ash smoldering on his stage were a great surprise to him; he only knew he had grazed and bruised forearms and that a commotion was brewing out in the showgrounds. He even forgot the idea of rehearsing and wondered why the heck he was still awake. He stumbled to bed, prayed his usual sarcastic prayers of thanks to the gods, and then slept.
•
So it was that only nine lumberjacks now stood between George and many thoroughly disenchanted carnies. Soon it was eight lumberjacks—the flick of a knife as one blustered through Sideshow Alley saw to that, the killer lost among the crowds with no witnesses inclined to report him. Another lumberjack sipped delightedly at a cup of poisoned broth, handed him by a grandmotherly-looking gypsy woman, who had for many days been earning his trust reporting minor transgressions at every chance. The remaining six, one by one, did the rounds in search of their brothers, who'd not returned from patrols. So eager were the carny rats to do in wrongdoers of late, and so dimly did the lumberjacks perceive the hostility all around them, they were certain that word of any true foul play would have already reached them.
Gonko was not without concern for reprisals—having had one of the big fuckers decapitated—but he noticed that fewer and fewer lumberjacks were happening by on rabbit clean-up detail. He took a stroll through Sideshow Alley, wary of the murderous looks he got from those running rides and stalls. But he also spied with his little eye the occasional body left only partly concealed by old blankets. One of the few remaining muscle men loped through the stalls now, calling the names of his friends with profound confusion on his face.
A rather public demonstration was called for, it seemed to Gonko, one that expressed both solidarity with the murderous carnies to draw the heat off, and reminded them of an old circus tradition: don't fuck with Gonko the clown. From his pants came a baseball bat with jagged metal spikes. The carnies who'd been eyeing each other off to see who'd do the honors this time, saw some first rate clubbing-to-death, with the legs and arms pulverized to goo first, and some theatrical hollering Gonko assumed would hit the spot for these folk. "For too long has your lash fallen on the backs of these, my people! They may smell bad, but they are true carnies, and no longer shall blah, blah, blah!" Crunch, crunch, thump.