They hit the road just in time to get caught up in morning traffic. It took them the whole hour just to get to The Carousel on the other side of Little Bigtop. Hats’s blood-alcohol level didn’t help pick up the pace.
“Mr. Pogo will be coming for us any minute now,” Hats said. “Even if we get Bowtie, there’s no way we’ll be able to get the hit called off before Pogo gets us.”
Pinky had a determined look on his face. “I just have to live long enough to save Taffy.”
“I texted Blue Nose a ton of times, but he’s not replying. Either he’s too worried about Jimmy’s condition or he just doesn’t care enough to bother.”
“Or he lost his phone,” Pinky said.
When they arrived at The Carousel, Pinky was amazed that it was so big. He’d never seen it in person before. It was big enough to be a department store. As the two clowns stepped out of the station wagon, they looked through the cracks between the boarded-up windows. Every booth in the place was its own mini carousel. Back when the place was open, customers were able to eat in the center of their own carousel as the animals circled their table. They were known for having the best clown cuisine in all of Little Bigtop. It was a big attraction for vanilla tourists. But that was a long time ago.
“It’s kind of a dump,” Hats said.
He wasn’t exaggerating. The restaurant was closed less than a year ago, but this damage looked a lot older than that. The carousel figures were splintered with faded chipped-off paint. The floor was covered in trash. It looked like homeless clowns had been using it as a bathroom.
“You sure he’s in here?” Hats asked. “The place looks deserted.”
“Yeah.” Pinky pointed at the entrance. “Look.”
Planks of wood lay on the sidewalk by the front door. Somebody recently broke in.
“He’s here all right.”
As they went through the front door, they scanned the dining room. It was a massive area to search, but they didn’t see or hear anyone. Hats took off one of his caps and retrieved a retractable sniper rifle that was stored underneath. After he searched the area with the scope, he said, “I don’t see anyone.”
“He’s probably on the roof,” Pinky said. “There’s supposed to be a miniature theme park up there.”
As they walked through the restaurant, Pinky looked down at the rifle Rizzo was carrying, then up to the hats on the stubby clown’s head. “How the heck do you store all that weaponry in all those hats anyway? I’ve never really understood that.”
Hats knocked on the side of his hat. “I’ve got a strong head.”
When they got to the roof, Hats realized that Pinky was right. There was a small run-down theme park up there with a massive carousel in the center of it. Tied to one of the horses was Taffy Bozo, and standing next to her, pointing a handgun at her head, was Nicky Bowtie.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Pink,” Nicky yelled across the rooftop. “I thought you actually loved your girlfriend enough to stay away.”
“Let her go, Bowtie,” Pinky said. “If you let her go and confess to the family that you’ve been working with the feds we’ll let you live.”
Nicky scratched his head with his gun. “And how does that work out well for me in the end?”
“You have time,” Pinky said. “You can leave town. Get help from the feds. You’ll at least have a chance. If you don’t comply then you’ll have no chance at all.”
As Pinky spoke, Hats got into position with his sniper rifle, trying to get a clear shot at the clown with the bowtie.
Nicky laughed at Pinky’s demand. “I’m calling your bluff, Pink. If we get into a firefight, Taffy will not survive it. I’ll make sure of that. And I know you’d rather die than let that happen. Go ahead and make your threats. I’m not backing down.”
Hats adjusted the scope, trying to get Nicky into focus.
“Almost got it,” he whispered to Smiles.
“Yeah, but you forgot one thing,” Pinky said.
Nicky chuckled again. “What’s that?”
Pinky pulled out his revolver and pointed it at Nick. “Your gun is loaded with depressing bullets. You can’t kill her. You can only make her sad enough to kill herself.”
“So?”
“So how is she going to kill herself when you have her all tied up like that?”
When Nick saw that Pinky was right, his eyes flooded with panic.
“I’ve got the shot,” Hats said.
Pinky nodded at him. “Take it.”
But once Hats had the rat in his line of fire, he saw something over Nick’s shoulder. On the roof of the building across the street was a clown just standing there on the ledge, staring at him with an expressionless face. The clown wore a jester’s cap with bells on each side. His skin was bone-white, with deep-blue circles around his eyes and a blue mouth that seemed to be slanted to one side of his face.
Even though he needed a scope to see him, the clown with the slanted mouth required no special equipment to peer deep into Hats’s soul.
“Shit…,” Hats said.
He saw something else in his scope coming at them. It looked like a small blue baseball attached to two springs like legs. A slinky bomb.
“Mr. Pogo found us!”
When the slinky bomb bounced off the roof of the Carousel, it exploded in midair between them and knocked all three of the clownfellas off their feet.