Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (4 page)

As a special agent for
SCARE
, Jamal could have taken his problem to a facility higher up the scale than the Jokertown Clinic. Two things argued against that move, however: a visit to, say, Columbia Medical or Johns Hopkins or especially the New Mexico Institute would have surely come to the attention of Sheeba and the higher-ups at
SCARE
. And Jamal Norwood wasn’t eager for that.

Besides, Doc Finn and the Jokertown Clinic had more experience dealing with wild card–related matters than anyone on the planet. They were likely Jamal’s best bet to find out what was wrong with him.

He had just received a promise from Finn for a follow-up report within forty-eight hours when his phone beeped. Sheeba the Midnight Angel herself. “Jamal,” she said, her Southern accent and perpetual air of exasperation stretching two syllables to three, “where are you?”

“A personal errand,” he snapped. “Does it make any difference why I’m off duty for an hour? If you need me somewhere, now, I’m on my way.”

“Yeah, well … we have a
DHS
incident in New Jersey. Some kind of toxic spill.”

“Why is that our mission?”

“They don’t tell me why, Jamal, they just tell me.
DHS
is shorthanded today. Tell me where you are and we’ll pick you up on the way.”

He improvised. He was still largely unable to visualize lower Manhattan—had they been uptown, say, Seventy-second Street, it would have been easier. But here? “Uh, corner of Essex and Delancey,” he said, naming the only two major streets he knew.

“See you in ten minutes,” Sheeba said.

Jamal grinned. It wouldn’t be ten minutes. The Midnight Angel’s metabolism ran hot, requiring at least half a dozen meals every day. (What would it be like when she hit menopause? he wondered. Would she slow down? Or would she blow up like a fat tick?) The moment she hit the street, she would see some food cart, and that would add ten minutes to the trip. And beat hell out of Sheeba’s per diem.

Which would allow Jamal Norwood to find the corner of Delancey and Essex.

Jamal liked to run, as long as he was in gym gear, wearing sneakers and on grass or at the very least a track. Running down a hard and broken Manhattan sidewalk in suit and dress shoes was not only far from his idea of decent exercise, it was too damned slow, especially with the afternoon crowds.

It was also too damned public. He caught a startled double take of recognition on at least two faces, and heard one construction worker hollering, “Yo, Stuntman!”

He pretended not to notice. He kept hoping that his exposure on
American Hero
would fade. No luck, alas.

It took him thirteen minutes to reach the corner of Essex and Delancey from the Jokertown Clinic. And when he did—

He was on the northeast corner, about to cross with the light, when something flashed in his peripheral vision. A battered white van made a hard left headed south, so close to the corner that Jamal and the other pedestrians could feel the slipstream. “Shit goddammit!” a young man shouted.

Jamal glanced at him—a mistake. What he saw was an African-American joker, his upper half human-shaped, his nether regions more appropriate to a giant snake … if a giant snake adorned itself with rings of yellow, red, and black.

The social protocols required Jamal to say something. “Hey.”

He hoped to disengage at that point, but it was too late. “Hey, you’re Stuntman!”

Busted for the second time in a few minutes.
American Hero
had fattened Jamal’s bank account, undeniably a good sign, and had led to his meeting Julia, a jury-is-still-out sign, but in most other ways had proved to be a disaster.

Especially when it came to anonymity. Working in Hollywood had exposed Jamal Norwood to the perks and the price of fame, and it had quickly become obvious that the price far outweighed the perks. “Guilty.”

“Marcus!” the kid said, indicating himself. “What are you doing here, man?”

“Just … going from point A to point B.” This joker wasn’t likely to be satisfied with that, but it was all Jamal was offering. Maybe an autograph, if really pressed.

“Oh, wait,” the kid said. “Yo, Father!”

Christ, now what? Jamal had barely formulated the thought when Father Squid appeared out of the crowd. Jamal realized that, in addition to cooking food and auto exhaust, he had been smelling the sea. Father Squid was the source: big, tentacle-faced, wearing a black cassock, he also reeked of brine. The good father turned to Jamal. “Stuntman himself! What are you doing here? Thought you were working as a secret agent or something.”

“Something like that,” Jamal said. “Protection for candidates.”

The priest laughed long and loud. “Shielding the Holy Roller! What a task that must be!”

“Maybe that’s why they don’t know shit about anything going on in the streets,” Marcus said.

“Charity, Marcus,” the priest said.

Jamal was annoyed. “What’s he talking about?”

One of Squid’s tentacles uncurled in the direction of the nearest telephone pole. In addition to the usual long-past concert and job postings, the pole held three different homemade posters, the most prominent showing a joker named John the Pharaoh under the heading,
Have you seen him? Missing since May 1!

“What’s going on?” Jamal said.

“A bunch of jokers have disappeared,” Marcus said. “I can’t believe
SCARE
doesn’t know about this.”

“
SCARE
might,” Jamal said. “My
team
doesn’t.”

“That sucks,” Marcus said.

Squid placed a calming tentacle on Marcus’s shoulder. “The local police aren’t stepping up. We can hardly expect the Feds to do what Fort Freak won’t.”

“How many have there been?” Jamal said. After five years with
SCARE
, he was finding it easy to slip into an investigative role.

“At least half a dozen,” Father Squid said.

“That’s a big number,” Jamal said, feeling alarmed.
SCARE
should know about this—

Suddenly Marcus started. “Who’s that?”

A black Ford Explorer pulled up across the street. Jamal’s phone buzzed.

“My team.” He turned to the priest. “I’ll make sure someone looks into this.”

“You can reach me at Our Lady of Perpetual Misery.”

“I know the place.” As he turned to cross the street, he hoped he had gotten away without making too many promises. Squid and Marcus made him nervous.

He would not have believed that the sight of a black Ford Explorer with the Midnight Angel in the front seat would ever have made him happy.

Galahad in Blue

by Melinda M. Snodgrass

Part One

OFFICER FRANCIS XAVIER BLACK—
known to his fellow officers as Franny—came whistling through the doors of New York’s 5th Precinct ready to defend truth, justice, and the American Way in Jokertown. Only to be viciously elbowed by Bugeye Bronkowski.

The blow was so hard and so unexpected that it sent Franny stumbling into the chairs lining the walls of the waiting room. Mrs. Mallory reached up and stopped his tumble before he landed in her lap. Louise Mallory was a diminutive woman whose hulking joker son Davy ran with the Demon Princes. But Davy wasn’t too bright, and he certainly wasn’t very lucky. He was constantly getting arrested.

Franny righted himself and looked at Sergeant Homer Taylor, currently manning the front desk. But Wingman didn’t say a word. Bugeye stomped through the gate and back into the precinct. “What’s up his ass?” Franny asked Homer.

Wingman gave his drooping wings a shake that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a dying bat. “Couldn’t say,” he said, in tones that indicated he knew exactly what had precipitated the assault.

Franny let it go and turned back to his rescuer. “Thank you, Mrs. Mallory, sorry I … stumbled. Here to bail out Davy?”

“Yes, that boy just keeps getting into hijinks.”

“He does that.”

“
CO
wants to see you in his office,” Wingman grunted.

It was never a good thing when a patrolman was called into the brass’s office. Franny’s stomach became a small, hard knot against his spine. He wished he hadn’t eaten such a big breakfast.

As he moved through the bullpen Franny became aware of the eyes. Everyone was staring at him. There were a few disgusted head shakes and several people looked pointedly away.
God, what have I done?

Beastie, all seven feet of him, fur, horns, and claws, stumped up to him, and laid a hand on Franny’s shoulder. The brown eyes gazing down at him were sorrowful and sympathetic. “Oh, Franny, dude.”

Nothing else was forthcoming. Beastie mooched on. Franny made his way to Deputy Inspector Maseryk’s office. At his knock the nat yelled a
come in
. Franny obeyed.

“Sir.”

“Sit down, Black.”

Franny took the proffered chair, but found himself perching on the edge as if preparing for flight.

“You took your lieutenant’s exam.”

“Yes, sir, I know I’m not technically eligible to be promoted, but I figured I could get in some practice.”

“Well, you aced the damn thing.” Maseryk’s tone didn’t make it sound like a compliment.

“Good?” Franny said diffidently. When there was no response he added an equally uncertain, “Thank you?”

“The damn brass down at One Police Plaza have decided in their infinite wisdom to promote you early.”

Franny sank against the back of the chair. It was all becoming horribly clear. This was why Bugeye had hit him. Resentment curdled his gut—how was it apparently everybody in the precinct had known about this before
he
did? He gave voice to none of that however. “That seems … ill advised,” he managed.

“To put it mildly.”

“So, why—”

“Because we’ve been taking a beating over the corruption that’s been uncovered in the two-oh.”

“Oh.”

“The damn press just won’t let up so the brass decided to give them a new narrative. All about
famous captain’s son steps up
.” His tone underscored the irony. “But a story about a flatfoot isn’t news. A promotion, that’s news … and fortunately the media vultures all have
ADD
. They’ll stop writing about the two-oh and write about
you
until another scandal comes along.”

Franny’s first impulse was to refuse, to not be a hand puppet for the Puzzle Palace, as the plaza was sometimes called. Balanced against that was the drive to live up to his father’s memory. To be not just a good cop, but maybe a great one. He had always wanted to make detective. His work thus far didn’t involve much investigation. It involved a lot of intimidation and running after people. Plainclothes, no more walking a beat; that’s when he realized he’d miss his beat and the people who depended on him—Mr. Wiley who ran the mask and cloak shop, Tina who managed the Starbucks, Jeff the bellman at the Jokertown Hyatt who spent most of his day out front carrying luggage and parking cars so he watched the world go by, and often reported what he saw to Bill and Franny.

Bill!
Shit! How would his partner react to this?

He also had to acknowledge that he was ambitious.
You aced it.
The captain’s words danced through his mind. Damn right he had. He’d gone to law school, passed the bar on the first try. No, he couldn’t refuse. Franny stood and held out his hand. “Thank you, sir. I’m honored. I’ll try to live up to your expectations.”

“You’ve already failed in that regard. I thought you’d have the good sense to turn it down.” Maseryk shuffled through papers. “Okay, I’m pairing you with Michael Stevens.”

“But he’s a nat too.”

“I’m aware of that, but his partner just got transferred, and nobody else was willing to be broken up just to accommodate you. I’ll fix it as soon as I can, but for right now you’re with Stevens. Next, we’ve got a situation. Jokers have gone missing. Mostly loners, people without family or roots in the community. I think it’s a tempest in a teapot. People like that drop off the radar all the time, but Father Squid is busting my ass over it, and we don’t need another media feeding frenzy. So, as of now you’re in charge of the joker investigation.”