A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) (24 page)

Seeing where he was looking,
Mills pointed, helpfully.

"Their tongues. I couldn't
take the lies they were telling me anymore, so I shut them up. It took years
for me to learn how to do that without letting a person choke on their own
blood. Practice makes perfect. I didn't know that I'd have an audience for this
part. Here I thought I was lucky to get these two. I don't have another chair.
Would it be rude to offer you a place on the floor?"

Jason thought about that, looking
at Daniels and McNab. They were both alive, but bloody. Clearly having been
taken like he had, if with more of a struggle. If Mills was hurt, he couldn't
tell at all. He didn't sound like it. The darker agent looked over at him, his
eyes wild, but Daniels didn't, as if he really didn't care about him.

"Mind if I stand? I'm not
feeling all that great. Some a-hole drugged me the other day. Rohypnol. That
stuff is
not
healthy." He let his voice slip into character, as if
that would protect him. It got a laugh, but nothing else was visible, the mask
in the way. Neither of the agents made any noise, their mouths taped shut with
strips of silver that went all the way around their heads many times.

"Suit yourself. It looks
like daddy here is about to wake up. You got that part, didn't you? The old one
here said that you'd mentioned that to them. Better than I figured you'd do,
really. You always seemed smart, and Alexis spoke highly of you. She's a good
kid. I kind of wish-" He looked at the others, focusing on Lynn at the
end. She wasn't coming around, not yet. Too much trauma, probably. Carl Morse
was however, and he screamed when it happened so that Mills was distracted.

It was enough that, if Jay had
been a black belt and didn't have his hands cuffed behind his back, he might
have taken the killer then. Instead he just watched him walk away, wondering if
the man was going to kill them all in the same piecemeal fashion. He picked up
something that looked like a bent ice pick and rammed it under Carl's
fingernail. The index one on the right hand. The man screamed, his body
fighting to get away from the horrid pain. The new one.

"Tut-tut, Sheriff. I expect
you to be stronger than that. Isn't that what you told me when I signed on to
work with you? That you expected all your men to be hard, like you were? This
isn't setting a very good example. You're embarrassing me in front of my
friends here.
Dad
." Moving one finger over, he did it again.

The reaction was about the same,
pep talk or not. Watching, tied in place to heavy metal chairs, Daniels looked
on with dead eyes, and McNab seemed ready to lose it, even if he couldn't move.
Jay cringed away, since it was a horrible thing to watch. Even his worst enemy
in the world didn't deserve to be unmanned and have his tongue cut out. Much
less this freak show. It kept going on for a while, until the man passed out
again. That was a relief, if only from the screaming.

Mills turned, the brown of his
eyes shining a bit when he looked at Jason. For a second he wondered if it was
his turn yet. Then the man spoke, his voice nearly jovial.

"I waited for years to do
this. Do you know, before I came here, I'd almost decided to just let it go. To
turn myself in and let them live. Chalk up what they'd done to me as a youthful
indiscretion. They couldn't have known that my dad would die in a car wreck
when I was four, leaving me with that...
woman
. When I could, I'd dealt
with her personally. My rage had nearly run its course, until I met them.
They're
really
awful people, you know that Jay? Sheriff Morse here
didn't just ruin my life, but he regularly frames people for things, just so he
can take their property. It was how he got this place. It's practically a game
at the station. Richmond is the king of that kind of thing too. Lynn Davies, my
sainted mother..." He turned to her. She looked up, panicked, opening her
eyes as he closed with her, screaming a little in fear. She'd only been faking
being unconscious then? To save herself some pain.

Mills patted her cheek, almost
lovingly.

"I had to do some searching
to find everything out about her. She's incredibly good at hiding what she
really is. What she and Carl here had done to you, making you think that Alexis
was yours, using you like a slave, for years. A cuckold in a grand fashion. I
would have blamed you, once, for leaving your little girl, but in this case, I
really don't think you stood a chance. You were picked for the job, selected
carefully and groomed, without knowing it. Carl's idea? You'd
think
that, wouldn't you? That the corrupt Sheriff would be behind it all? It isn't
the case. She was the brains all along. It wasn't just you either. Tony, my
dad. Four other men, over the years, that she used for extra cash, when she
thought you weren't giving her enough. Maybe even more than that. It makes
perfect sense, for a pretty, but soulless person."

He picked up a scalpel, and held
it out to Jay, his face warped by the mask he wore. Brightly colored and
creepy. The red pointed hair connected to white plastic at the scalp.

"Do you want to take a turn?
No one will blame you. It's cathartic. I know that I really feel better now.
For a while I didn't think it would work. That it would be like the other times.
Fun, but empty. This is really different though. Like therapy. Here, give it a
go." He pretended to pass the sharp little blade over. It already had
blood on it, even if it had clearly been wiped off at some point.

"Sorry, no. I try to never
stab people with tiny knives." His voice was cool, but high pitched. As if
he weren't worried, but rather playing with the man. Having his own bit of fun.
"Now, if you have a
gun
I can borrow?"

That got a laugh at least. The
man wasn't a fool, just insane.

"Good plan! I always liked
you, you know? Carl here, he hated you. Do you know why?"

"Never did. Not at
all."

The voice behind the mask husked
at him, but cheerfully. It made him sound completely deranged.

"Because you told everyone
about Lynn. That meant
he
had to pay for her, and they couldn't just
trap some other sucker to do the job. It made the national news, you know. The Sheriff
and his whore, who had pulled the ultimate love con. No one could touch them,
but you exploded the whole scam. You made their little scheme unworkable. He
told all us deputies that you'd beaten her you know. It's why Richmond was
always such a prick to you. He knew it wasn't true, but it was enough of a
reason to go after you. I think Pensley actually bought it. She isn't the
sharpest tack in the pudding, if you get me."

Jason did. That was also a good
turn of phrase. The sharpest tack in the pudding. Insane and funny at the same
time.

"Can I use that one? In my
act? That's not bad." He did the voice and Daniels finally stared at him,
like
he
was the crazy one.

The former deputy and current
funhouse "B" movie monster, turned to him and nodded, but his words
weren't half as polite. Still cheery however.

"You really think I'm
letting you go?"

"Oh, sure. Me and the FBI
men here. You've done what you came for, and killing us will just have you
hunted that much harder. If you run now, well, you can vanish. Stop killing and
go live in some tropical paradise. There's nothing left to stop you."

It sounded like what
he
would have done, but the mask shook side to side, going big, so that everyone
could see it.

"Oh, I'm not done yet.
There's the big finish yet to come! Then..." He stopped and stared, first
at McNab and then the still bored seeming Daniels, turning to Jay at the end,
his eyes nearly even with his own. "You know... You said something once.
Why
.
If you can tell me why I did this, then I'll let you go."

Jay shrugged.

"You'll let us all go?"
He didn't really know the answer anyway, and was stalling. That was the only
plan he had, even if no help was coming. If he could hold things up long
enough, maybe something would appear, and let him escape. Survive in a
situation where, if things went the way they seemed like they should, he simply
wouldn't.

The man shook his head.

"No, just you. You're
innocent in this."

It was... true, actually. He
hadn't wronged Mills at all. Ever. Even when the man had stopped him, to harass
him for the Sheriff, on orders, Jason had always been polite and even friendly
toward the man.

"Like McNab and Daniels
aren't too? What did they do? Try to find a killer? We
need
people like
that, Mills. No matter how much they annoyed you personally, you can see that
they were really doing the right thing."

"No. Some people deserve to die.
They have no place in their philosophy for justice. Just the law. It's a
crippled thing, that kind of thinking. They die too." He sounded adamant
about it, as if his mind were made up. Neither man had been cut however, and
they were both left alive. Witnesses, but that didn't matter, everyone would
know who'd done it anyway. They'd been calling in information all day. The boat
of anonymity had sailed away, leaving nothing but ripples in its wake for the
killer.

Jay forced a small smile onto his
sad clown face, then forced it to grow. It took work, with the horror show that
used to be his wife not fifteen feet from him. For a second he felt bad about
not helping her more, but really, other than force the man to tie him down too,
what was he planning to do? On his best day Jay wasn't a match for the killer.
This was far from his best day too.

That didn't mean he had to be a
coward.

"Nope. If you want to know
what I do, then you have to agree to let them go too. Alive and unharmed. The
same with me."

That got Mills to go silent and
pace for a while, squeaking with each step. The floor had old carpet, done in
long strand pumpkin orange. If it was ever vacuumed, the machine was broken,
because it looked like heck. The whole place did. It wasn't so much a love shack
as a back alley that happened to be inside. Complete with urine scent, though
that was fresh. Who'd done it, he didn't know, and at that moment didn't care.

His shoes, big and red, with fake
yellow patches on them, marched back and forth on the dirty floor. On the feet
of a man that didn't own them. The walls had warped fake wood panels too. In
all, it was the sort of place that seemed like Sheriff Morse. Cheap and shoddy.
Uncared for, because it was impossible to have anyone else in to do the work for
free. Lynn actually followed her son with her eyes, and then, in desperation
looked over at him, imploring. As if Jason had any reason in the entire world
to help her. Pity, however, won out. Or would have, if he hadn't been a
prisoner too.

Finally Mills moved to him, his
mask not three feet from Jay.

"Right then, a deal. You
tell me why I did this and if you get it right, or close enough, I'll let you
three
go. The other two die. They probably will already, just from the damage
done so far. We can make a game of it. Every time you say the wrong thing, I'll
cut a bit off of one of them. You get to pick, just to add to the charm of the
game. If you don't, then
I
will. I hope you're wrong a lot. Not because
I want to kill you, but to help you. These people deserve it. Everything we do
to them. Shall we start?" There was far too much happiness in the words.

Craziness. It was tempting to ask
how he could trust the man, but that answer was both simple and two fold. The
real answer was that he couldn't trust anyone. Lynn had taught him that one,
well enough. The streets had too, but he didn't have to learn it too many times
before the idea sort of sank in. Give people a chance, but expect little of
them. The other answer was that when Mills could have killed him, he hadn't. He
might now, however.

Maggie had been executed just to
frame Carl... For framing him. That was convoluted, and complex. Meant to buy
the killer clown time for... Well,
this
probably. What had ruined it was
his decision to leave Jay alive, knowing who he was. Foolish, if pretty nice of
the guy, as far as he was concerned. The point was, he wouldn't hesitate to
kill good people, to get at what he thought he wanted in the moment.

"Agreed then. Though with
the caveat that I can't already know some things that might be important to
you. I can only guess at what the information has told me. I don't know your
secret thoughts, or dreams, for instance. It may play into what's happened, but
how would I know that?" They would be that, too. Guesses. Things pulled
from minimal information, and a basic understanding of human psychology.
Hopefully that would be close enough for the man not to torture anyone in his
name. That probably wasn't the case, however.

Daniels looked at him, with hard
eyes, and so did Lynn. Then, the deal he'd made could have her being cut up
shortly, if he made too many mistakes. It didn't do anything to protect her at
all, either. That was the most horrifying part of it. Sitting there, tied to a
chair, not able to move, no tongue in her mouth to speak with, she glared at
him with anger over that. Not fear for her life, but a sense of superiority
that had, he saw now, always been a part of her.

That didn't mean she deserved to
die, however. Or be tortured. Locked up, maybe.

The crazy bozo in front of him
nodded, but didn't speak. Probably so he could get out of keeping his word
later. As if words would be enough to keep things from happening.

"So, mon professor, let's
get with it. Why did little Carl kill all those nice people?"

Jason shrugged.

"That part isn't too hard.
You were traumatized as a child. That woman... your step-mother, who raised you
after your father died young. She... wasn't well. Some kind of mental
condition? Schizophrenia? That one is a guess, but it was both delusional and
impossible to live with. Showing up in her mid-twenties or so, just after your
dad died?"