Their plan required patience. Their first task was to get to the twins. All three of them were certain that Dandy had taken them back to his house and was holding them captive there, so first thing the next morning, they made the trip to where they assumed they would find Dot and Bette. Getting into the grounds was easy, staying out of sight and managing to attract their attention was the hard part.
The trio spent hours sitting in the bushes in Dandy's garden until, finally, Dot and Bette appeared. They looked thoroughly miserable as they wandered across the perfectly manicured lawns and sat heavily on the carved, marble bench not too far from the bush where their friends were hiding.
"I'm gonna go and talk to them." Jimmy announced in hushed tones.
"Don't be a fool." Desiree argued. "You'll be in plain view of the house. We just gotta get their attention and get them to come over here."
Calling their names softly, the expressions the twins pulled were almost enough to make the three figures in the bushes laugh as they looked around in confusion. Calling them again, they managed to signal well enough that Dot and Bette spotted them. Their eyes widened and the stood, walking towards the flower bed in front of the bush without drawing attention to themselves.
"I don't think I've ever been so glad to see anyone in my life." Dot told them, teary eyed.
"Me either." Jimmy agreed, smiling. His smile faded quickly. "We're the only ones left. Desi and Greta managed to hide from Dandy and I only went back to the camp after it had all happened."
"He's gonna pay for what he done." Desiree said coldly. "We gotta make him pay."
"We have got a plan." Greta informed them softly. "It involves you… you are going to have to act like you have never acted before."
"What do we need to do?" Bette asked at once.
"You play along with him." Jimmy told them. "You make him think that you're in love with him. You hire Desi to be your housekeeper, to get her into the house so she can keep an eye on things from the inside. I don't think he'll recognise her, but he probably would recognise Greta and me."
"Then what?"
Desiree smiled. "Then we get our revenge. There's an old water torture escapology tank that Dell stole when he worked with Hardeen Houdini in the storage tent back at the showground. We wait until he thinks he's got everything he wants and then we take it all away. We drug Dandy and put him in the tank… he can perform his final act on the stage that he killed our family for." She glanced sideways. "That part was Jimmy's idea… I was all for cutting his balls off and stuffing them down his throat so he choked on them."
"Girls?" Dandy's voice sounded from somewhere behind the twins and, in the bushes, the trio of fugitives sank back instantly. "There you are! What are you doing out here?"
"Oh… we were just admiring your beautiful garden." Bette told him quickly. They turned and walked away from the shrubbery, drawing Dandy's attention in a safer direction. "You have such a lovely home."
"I keep telling you, this is your home too."
"You are so generous."
"Anything for my girls."
Still hidden from view, all three of the former performers curled their lips up in absolute disgust for the man who was escorting their friends back towards the house. They waited until they had disappeared inside, before slipping out of their hiding place and leaving the grounds.
As arranged, Dot and Bette hired Desiree as their housekeeper and they started on the preparations to move their plan forward as quickly as they could as neither of the twins wanted to be around him for a moment longer than they had to. Dandy was playing right into their hands, proposing to Bette and announcing that he wanted to have the wedding as soon as possible. Greta shook her head at his idiocy, wondering how he could possibly believe that the twins could ever love him. Apparently, though, love was stupid as well as blind.
They had also been making preparations for their future after Dandy had been dealt with. There was no question of them staying on at the showground; even the bare minimum amount of time they spent there was painful enough. Jimmy and Greta had made enquiries with other circus troops and managed to sell off most of the tents and caravans and props. They wouldn't get much money for them, but it would be enough to set all of them up with new lives and fresh starts. Then it had been a case of sorting everything out ready for the new owners to come and collect their purchases the day after they took their revenge on Dandy.
The hardest thing had been going through the personal belongings of their family. They had tackled it together, strategically doing a caravan or tent at a time. Greta, though, had refused to let Jimmy and Desiree help her sort through Eve's things. She couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of any of it, so the woman's meagre belongings had been packed up in a box with Greta's things, ready to go with her when they left.
Finally the date Dandy had picked as his wedding day had arrived. Each of them felt excited anticipation building up inside them as they counted down the minutes until he would finally pay for what he had done. None of them could wait to see the look on his face as he realised that everything he held dear was being ripped away from him and there was nothing he could do about it. Dandy would finally know how they felt.
"You ready, babies?" Desiree asked as they waited in the kitchen for their cue.
Both Greta and Jimmy nodded wordlessly, grinning at the older woman as they heard Bette making a toast in the dining room. They had already done the deed and drugged the champagne. Dot and Bette knew not to drink even a sip, but Dandy had no idea what was in store for him.
Nodding once, Desiree pushed lightly on the door and slipped through out of sight, the drugged champagne bottle in her hand, ready to top up Dandy's glass. Greta and Jimmy fought childishly to take the spot she had recently vacated, finally deciding to share the space and pressing their ears against the wood to listen. All they could make out was a low mumble, but they knew that Desiree would make sure they heard her calling them.
A gunshot made them both jump and they stared, wide-eyed at each other. The only thing that stopped them rushing into the room was the fact that the agonised cry that followed it was most definitely male.
"Butler!" Desiree called moments later and they exchanged grins.
"Showtime!" Jimmy muttered.
Carrying the silver platter in his new, wooden hands Jimmy strode purposefully into the dining room. Greta followed behind more slowly. While he went to the other end of the table, she stayed back and walked to stand beside the twins at the foot of the long dining table, glaring at their new husband. Putting her hands on their shoulders, Greta squeezed reassuringly. Dot, who was not aiming a gun at the man sitting opposite them, placed her hand on top of her friend's on her shoulder in a mutual display of affection and comfort.
"You!" Dandy gasped, looking between the two newcomers. "How did you get in my house?"
"We had some help."
"What is this?" Dandy demanded breathlessly, struggling to focus his gaze on anyone in particular.
"You're finally gonna be a part of the show." Jimmy told him.
"The goddamn star attraction." Desiree added.
"It is going to be breath-taking." Greta said with a dark chuckle.
"Night-night, Dandy."
No sooner had the words left Bette's mouth than he slumped sideways and crumpled in an unconscious heap on the floor. Putting the gun shakily down on the table in front of her, the woman looked at it as though it had just appeared from thin air.
"I've never shot anyone before." She murmured.
Greta squeezed her shoulder again. "You could not have chosen a better person to start with."
"Come on… let's get him out of here before he wakes up." Desiree suggested hurriedly.
While Dot and Bette went upstairs to change out of their wedding dress and gather up some things they wanted to take with them, Jimmy and Greta heaved Dandy across the floor and out into the hallway. Between them, they dragged him out of the house and stuffed him into the trunk of his own car, trapping him inside.
Desiree drove them quickly back to the showground and went on ahead with the twins to set up the escapology tank, while Greta and Jimmy lifted Dandy out of the trunk and pulled him inside the big tent. They grunted with the effort of heaving him up the steps to the stage, before stripping him down to his underpants and attaching the manacle around his right wrist.
Satisfied that he wasn't going anywhere, Desiree, Jimmy and Greta went to change out of their uniforms and into their own clothes. They had all returned to the tent before Dandy regained consciousness and they made their final preparations for the performance they were all looking forward to seeing.
"Let me out of here! Immediately! I do not like confined spaces!" Dandy was shouting when Greta returned to the tent with four boxes of popcorn she had picked up as an afterthought on her way back from her caravan.
"Don't you know where you are, baby? This is Hardeen Houdini's famous escape tank." Desiree informed him theatrically. "Once you're in, the only way out is to escape."
Jimmy looked down at him from above, itching to start filling the tank with water. "You wanted to be the star of the show… here's your chance, big shot."
"I'm not an escape artist… I'm a song-and-dance man!"
"We shall have to agree to disagree on that." Greta told him irritably, clutching the back of the chair in front of her so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "Aside from that, you are a vile excuse for a human being."
"You're a murderer!" Jimmy exploded. "You killed our family… shot 'em dead in the dirt. Those were good people!"
"I'm good people, too! I was just doing what God put me on this earth to do. You ca– you– you can't punish a man for fulfilling his purpose!" He turned in the tank, focusing on the twins and laying his palm flat on the glass between them. "Please… please, my darlings… I forgive you for all of this. Marriage is hard, but I love you. Please just let me out of here and let's go home. Please… I want to go home."
"Well, you're about to go home… right down to hell." Dot snarled.
"Bette, you of all people know my heart."
They took a step forward, tears streaming down their faces as they glared at him. "I hate you. I hate you! For taking my friends from me! I felt so blessed to finally have friends… and you took them all."
"A lot of freaks died on these cursed grounds… some by your hand and some not. A man came through here and started putting our kind in glass jars… filled up a museum with our kind… saw it with my own eyes!" Desiree told him angrily, replacing Jimmy on the stepladder and holding the hose in place, ready to fill the tank with water. "That's where you think freaks belong… powerless, behind glass, a human car crash to stare at and remind you how lucky you are. Well, maybe that's true. Maybe that's all we are… but let me tell you this, pretty boy; you may look like a motion picture dreamboat, but you are the biggest freak of them all."
Setting her face into a mask of grim determination, she twisted the lever and allowed the water to cascade down on top of him. They all watched with a terrible furious satisfaction as the water level began to rise and Dandy started to thrash about desperately. The twins moved closer to Greta, Bette grabbing the blonde's hand tightly in her own and clinging on. The tidal wave of emotion rushed through each of them as they watched, tumbling and swirling inside them, a mixture of different feelings battling for dominance.
"Please! I'll give you money." Dandy bargained helplessly. "I have so much money."
Jimmy glared at him for even suggesting that they could be swayed with the offer of a cash payoff. "Assholes like you think you can get away with anything."
"But I can't die! You see, I'm immortal!"
"You are going to die!" Jimmy told him furiously. "We sentence you and your whole rotten world to death. Look at us… we will always win, because we'll always defend each other to the death. You want to know why? Because we have no one else to turn to. The freaks shall inherit the earth."
Desiree was the first to leave the stage, followed by Jimmy. They took seats in the front row of the audience to watch the show. Greta gently tugged Bette's hand and the three younger women made their way down to join their friends. Before sitting down on the end of the row, Greta passed out the popcorn she had brought.
"Nice touch, baby." Desiree told her with an approving nod, quickly returning her gaze to the scene unfolding on the stage.
Dandy continued to struggle and splash around as more and more water cascaded down on him. He pleaded and begged and threatened and finally screamed that he hated them, but his audience remained unmoved. They watched with morbid delight as he grew weaker and weaker the more water was added.
When Dot and Jimmy chuckled as they watched the show, Greta could hear Eve's laughter in her mind. She could see her face and she could feel her touch. Hot, salty tears escaped from her eyes, making trails down her cheeks and splashing into her popcorn. The young woman made no attempt to wipe them from her face, setting her jaw and feeling her pain and fury being washed away by the water as it slowly drowned the man who had taken away the things she loved most.
"Heck of a show." Jimmy murmured as it finally came to an end.
"That boy is a star." Desiree breathed.
They stayed in their seats for a little while longer, watching as the lifeless body bobbed under the surface of the water. Finally, as the tank began to overflow, Jimmy got up to turn the water off and the women followed him up onto the stage. They stared in at closer proximity, gawping at the corpse.
"I think I like him better like this." Dot announced with a grin. Her sister giggled and nodded in agreement.
"I still do not like him." Greta muttered as she helped Desiree to drain the water.
They waited until the tank was empty, before dragging the body out. Carrying him as far away from the grave they had dug a week or so before, the twins and Jimmy set about building a bonfire, while Desiree and Greta hacked the body apart in order to get rid of it more quickly.
There were no words said as they threw the limbs and other parts into the flames. Desiree got her wish, cutting off his balls and pushing them into his mouth with a ferocious snarl. The head was the last part to be thrown into the bonfire. They stood together, watching with sick satisfaction as the flames licked around it, reducing it to an unrecognisable mass.
"Come on…" Greta murmured quietly as the flames began to die down. "Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. We need to get some rest."
Nodding, the others followed her back to the camp. They all piled into Ethel's caravan where they had taken to sleeping, none of them wanting to be on their own, trying to relax enough to sleep. Somehow the events of the evening had helped to deaden the pain and soften the sadness and each of them felt better than they had in a long time as they drifted off to sleep.