The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott Read Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t Steve’s idea for an audition? It almost worked for banality alone. Shaking his head, Jamie knocked on Steve’s door. No answer. He barged in.
    And stood dead still.
    There was blood on the bed. Blood on the pillow. Blood on the floor. On the walls. A hand streak of red down the wall.
    Jamie tottered and nearly fainted. His belly gave a heave. Blood … He had never seen so much blood .
    On the pillow was a little piece of paper, folded just like the other notes. He tried to walk over, pick it up, but his legs refused to take him any closer to the red nightmare. He coaxed them to back away from the door slowly, and he shut it quietly behind him.
    Don’t worry, he told himself. There’s still time. Plenty of time. I can pass the goddamn audition.
    From up the hall he could hear Marshall wailing about the drug bust, oblivious to what lay in the room beside his. Jamie glanced at the clock, and wondered how his life had come to such ruin in so short a space of time. A week ago, hadn’t things been normal? Not particularly blissful, maybe, but … normal?
    He was supposed to be at the club in an hour. Somehow he didn’t think that would happen, one way or another.
    ‘Let’s settle this,’ he whispered.

Chapter 5
Jamie’s Audition
    ‘WHAT’S the time, Gonko? Gonko, what’s the time?’
    Gonko, clown leader, waited a minute or two before answering Doopy. Doopy got worked up in those two minutes, till he was whining like a dog. These little worry- fits didn’t bother Gonko. Doopy’s whiny voice was like wallpaper; it felt like home.
    ‘C’mon, tell me Gonko, it’s not funny !’
    Gonko took a watch from his pocket, letting its silver chain dangle around his wrist. The chain was fashioned like a tiny hanging noose. The watch said young Jamie had twenty minutes left to pass his audition.
    ‘Gonko, it’s not —’
    ‘Twenty minutes, Doops,’ Gonko said quietly.
    The three clowns, Goshy, Doopy and Gonko, sat in their tent on the showgrounds of the Pilo Family Circus. It was the grandest show on Earth, although, apart from Jamie, not a person in the living world knew its name.
    ‘Where’s Rufshod, Gonko? Gonko, where’s Rufshod?’
    Doopy knew very well. He was only asking to be denied an answer, so he could fret and fuss and shit bricks. Gonko obliged by not answering him — if he did, another questionwould follow moments later. The answer would have been that Rufshod was in bed, for Gonko had beaten him unconscious. Rufshod had thoroughly enjoyed the beating, but that was beside the point — he had to be punished for his prank. It was Rufshod who had put the bag of powder in Goshy’s pants right before Goshy wandered outside and got himself lost.
    Once the powder was recovered, the plan had been to fuck with Jamie for a while, then kill him, but the rolling pin gag had had Gonko in hysterics, or as close as he was likely to come to hysterics (which amounted to a slight sideways tilting of the straight line of his hard lips). He’d taken a closer look at Jamie, with the reluctant help of the fortune-teller, watching him in her crystal ball, and he’d liked what he’d seen.
    Gonko looked at his watch again and muttered, ‘Where is that fucking clown?’ He was referring to the apprentice.
    ‘Uh, gosh, I’m not sure,’ said Doopy, who was busily wiping Goshy’s mouth with a handkerchief. Goshy was blinking contentedly while Doopy groomed him, arms locked to his sides, hands loose. ‘I think I saw him, um, at Shalice’s. That’s what I think I saw, Gonko. And who I think, I think.’ Doopy frowned. ‘Remember when you asked me where he is, Gonko? Remember? You just did before. You just —’
    ‘Shh.’
    ‘Sorry Gonko, I just, I …’
    Gonko looked at his watch a third time and sucked at his teeth with displeasure. It had cost him a fortune in bribes to borrow the crystal ball to watch this audition — he was not on the fortune-teller’s Christmas card list.
    Doopy turned to him