They were on their way to Isabella’s apartment when Bingo noticed somebody was tailing them. Whoever it was, they were terrible at being inconspicuous. Likely, they were the same group that had tried to whack Bingo. They probably got word that he was spotted alive and walking around town, and were coming after him to finish the job they’d started. That was exactly what Bingo hoped for. It only appeared to be two or three guys in the car. No problem.
As Bingo looked in the rearview mirror, he saw the two cleaners in the backseat covered in cream and confetti. They tried wiping off the pie from their faces but only managed to wipe off more of their clown paint. They looked like messes.
“Don’t get any of that crap on the upholstery,” Bingo said. “I just had this thing cleaned.”
The two men looked around. The seats were filled with bullet holes and burn marks. They couldn’t figure out why the clown would bother keeping the thing clean.
“We’ll see what we can do,” Red Wig said.
“Who the hell are you guys anyway?” Bingo asked.
“We told you,” said Red Wig. “We’re the cleaners.”
Bingo nodded as if he only just remembered. Then he asked, “What’s your names?”
“I’m Clyde,” Red Wig said. He pointed at his partner. “This is Caesar.”
“What are you doing telling him our names for?” Caesar whispered to his partner.
“Those are some funny names you got there,” said Bingo Ballbreaker. “Clyde and Caesar? For real?” Then he laughed.
When they got to Isabella’s apartment, the place was cleaned out. The only sign of his girlfriend was a few strands of her sunshine-yellow hair. Bingo picked one of them up and held it between his rubbery white fingers, wondering if it was the closest he’d ever be to her again.
“What are we doing here?” Clyde asked. “The place is abandoned.”
Bingo was worried about what could’ve happened to Isabella, but he felt a little relieved. After seeing her stuff missing, he assumed she was likely still alive. Either they let her go and she left town in a hurry—she was smart enough to know the Bozos would come looking for her after Bingo and five of their guys turned up dead—or somebody packed up her things and moved her out against her will. She was a beautiful woman. If the people who were after Bingo were from some other family, their boss could’ve taken a liking to her and promised to spare her life if she moved in with him. Anything was possible. Either way, she wasn’t going to be easy to find. There was a good chance he’d never see her again.
“She’s gone,” Bingo said. “We’ll just have to wait for our visitors to arrive and ask them what happened to her.”
“What visitors?” Caesar asked.
The cleaners didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the hall, but Bingo could hear them clear as day. Only there weren’t a few men coming for them. It sounded like an army.
“You might want to get into the back room if you don’t want any blood on your hands,” Bingo said.
“What do you mean blood on our hands?” Clyde asked.
When the door smashed open, the two cleaners hit the floor and crawled into the back room. But Bingo just stood there and watched as the twelve armed men raced inside. They carried MP5 submachine guns and pussy little Berettas, but there were far more of them than Bingo wanted to deal with.
The men all wore derbies and matching black suits with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows to show off their arm tattoos. Judging by their trashy demeanor, Bingo knew exactly who they were.
“Carnies?” Bingo said. “What are Carnies doing on this side of town?”
He didn’t move as the Carnies surrounded him, pointing their weapons at his chest.
“You’re supposed to be dead, Bingo,” one of the Carnies said. Bingo assumed he was the lead Carnie because he had the biggest beard and the stupidest tattoos of the bunch of them, including a Celtic knot around his neck and a shamrock on the side of his forehead.
Bingo shrugged. “I guess the bullet wasn’t big enough.”
“You deserve a lot worse after what you did,” said the lead Carnie.
“And what did I do?”
“It’s too late to deny it, sonny jim,” said the Carnie, scratching his scruffy chin with the barrel of his Beretta. “I’m glad I’ll be the one who gets to finish the job. Personally, I thought a single shot to the head was too merciful for the likes of you. It should’ve been a lot slower, more excruciating.” He growled with excitement. “Oh, I can’t wait to do all the things I plan to do to you.”
Bingo just stood there, unimpressed by the threats. “You talk too much, Beardy.”
“You really oughtn’t be rushing me to what comes next, sonny jim.” The Carnie scratched his beard with the barrel of his gun again. He did it so much that Bingo wondered if it was a nervous tic. “Once I’m done talking, the pain is going to begin and when I’m through with—”
His words were cut short as Bingo’s fist collided with his throat. A loud crack echoed through the empty room as the Carnie’s voice box was smashed through the back of his neck. When he turned to his friends, they saw the shape of Bingo’s massive fist imprinted in his neck, and that little pistol he’d been scratching his chin with was now embedded deep in his esophagus.
“I said you talk too much.”
As the lead Carnie dropped to the ground, choking on his own crumpled voice box, the others raised their weapons and opened fire. And once they started shooting, the Carnies didn’t stop—too afraid of the unarmed clown to halt the barrage of bullets for even a second. It sounded like a train racing through the room. But no matter how many shots they put in the big clown, he didn’t fall. He just took them. Every single one of those tiny peashooter rounds. And once they finished and their clips were all empty, Bingo was still standing.
“Are you done?” Bingo asked.
The Carnies responded with the clicking of their pistols, desperately hoping that more bullets lay hidden in their chambers.
Bingo wiped the slugs sticking out of his chest, most of them only partially breaking the skin. Then he cracked his neck and his knuckles.
“So you’re the pricks who stole my violin, are you?” Bingo stepped over their choking leader. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
The Carnies lowered their weapons.
When he was on the other side of the room, blocking the only exit, he turned back to them with a smile. “You see, I have a deep need to be creative at all times. That’s why my violin is so important to me. When I play my violin, it relieves the pressure. It burns off all that pent-up creative energy.”
The Carnies looked at one another. Although there was just one of him and almost a dozen of them, they couldn’t help but cower at the sight of the giant clown with the maniacal grin on his face. The stupidest among them gripped his gun like a club and the others didn’t know what else to do but follow his lead.
“But when I don’t have my violin,” the clown continued, “I have to burn off my creative energy in other ways—violent ways. I like to think that I’ve turned hurting people into an art form. And I’m sorry to say, boys, but I’m going to have to use your sorry hides as my makeshift canvases.”
The Carnies charged and the room filled with the sounds of tearing meat and breaking bones. Bingo had been itching to express himself all day and was thankful these men were so forthcoming as to donate their bodies to his craft. He showed them firsthand how, when it came to causing pain and dismemberment, Bingo Ballbreaker was a true artist.
Clyde and Caesar couldn’t believe their eyes as they came out of the back room and stepped through the collection of twisted broken bodies. They didn’t see Bingo as an artist at all. They only saw him as a deranged clown-shaped madman.