Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (7 page)

“You think they’re related?” Gallo’s whole manner suggested skepticism, but, then, he could barely see over the hill to the next site.

As patiently as possible, Jamal explained the mystery of the crash-spill sequence. Perhaps because he began to concentrate on crime scene matters, or possibly because he had already made it clear he didn’t like a) Feds or b) aces or c) both, Gallo began to unbend. “We’ve got a
DB
here, male, joker approximately thirty years of age. Found here early this morning.”

“Cause of death?”

“Now, that’s an interesting question. First cut is, hit by a vehicle.” Gallo nodded toward the coroner’s unit. “But they say, not so fast. Indications are he was dead before that. Autopsy will tell us, I imagine.”

“And the time?”

“That we’ve got: twenty hours ago, give or take a couple.”

“But last night.”

“No question.”

“We don’t have two crime scenes here. We have one in two parts.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

Jamal thought about it. Have
SCARE
take it over? Their team numbered two and not only had to beg for any resources beyond an extra cell phone, but was at the mercy of
DHS
for its schedule: they would surely be detailed to a political event tomorrow. “Leave it where it is,” he said. “We’ll take custody of the ammonium nitrate. You figure out what happened with our dead joker.” He reached for a business card and found one in the clip where he carried his driver’s license and a single credit card.

Gallo took it, but didn’t offer one of his own. Which was fine with Jamal. Then, possibly realizing that he had been less than helpful, he said, “Agent Norwood, you got any ideas what this might be?”

At that moment, rain began to fall.

“We get reports of wiretaps or signal intercepts about vital ‘deliveries’ about five times a week,” Jamal said, wondering how long it would be before the gentle drops turned to a downpour. He could hardly expect Gallo to offer him a ride up the road. “They never amount to much.”

“Until the day they do.”

That sounded serious. “You heard anything?”

Gallo was shaking his head. “It is a little strange, though. Dead joker in the road, nasty shit spilled.”

“Well, let us know if the autopsy turns up anything we need to know.”

Gallo never turned back. Maybe he was eager to get in out of the rain, too.

Jamal retreated up the hill, back to the
SCARE
team. As he walked, he called Sheeba to report what he’d seen, trying to leave out Gallo’s bored unhelpfulness. What else did he expect from the New Jersey State Police, anyway?

Naturally, Sheeba told him they were about to leave, could he hurry? Apparently coming to pick him up wasn’t part of the plan. The instant he hung up and prepared to pick up his pace … with the Explorer and the Warren County team in sight … he suddenly felt weak, as if hit by a blindsided tackle.

He actually had to stop and bend over, trying to catch his breath. What the hell was happening to him? Blood loss, that was it. He had had blood taken—you were supposed to eat when that happened, or just take it easy.

The weak moment passed. It was only when he was feeling better and walking that he allowed himself to remember that the warning about weakness after blood work was for people who had been transfused … who had given a pint of their blood.

Not a few ccs.

Cry Wolf

by David D. Levine

GARY GLITCH SCURRIED ACROSS
rooftops, the evening air cool on his face as he bounded from one roof to the next across alleys and streets, unnoticed by the people below.

If anyone had seen Gary, they might think he was strange-looking even for a joker. Four feet tall, with skinny arms and legs and huge ears, he resembled an animated sock monkey more than a human being. And if they should happen to see him leap twenty or thirty feet, landing with a muted clang on a fire escape or access ladder and continuing without pause, they might really start to wonder just what sort of creature he was.

Gary tried hard to keep that from happening.

Tar paper, concrete, and shingles flew past beneath his boots as he made his way quickly uptown, heading for the ritzy residential neighborhood north of Houston Street. The pickings were usually pretty good there on a weekday night.

Reaching a fancy apartment building where he’d often had good luck, Gary scrambled up the fire escape to the roof, then quivered on the parapet, peering down into an air shaft. There was a lesbian couple here who could be counted on for a good show. Alas, tonight their window was dark and silent.

Three more of Gary’s usual perches yielded nothing, even after many long minutes of watching and listening. Finally, frustrated, he decided to take a bit of a risk. Dashing four long blocks to an apartment building on St. Marks Place, Gary crept quietly down the downspout to a ledge near an open rear window.

Gary didn’t really like this spot. There was only one place where he could perch and see into the room, and it was illuminated by a streetlight and in full view of a dozen nearby apartments. But the view was worth the risk: the Trio were in full flagrante delicto.

The man—black and lanky—rocked enthusiastically behind the raised ass of the skinny brown woman, whose face was buried between the thighs of the other woman. The one whose entire torso was covered with writhing pink nipples. All around the three of them whirled a nimbus of light, gold and orange and red. It pulsed in time with their gasps and moans. Gary’s throat went dry and his own breathing quickened, matching the rhythm of the three on the bed.

Then a slithering crunch came from above. So unusual was the sound that Gary pulled his attention away from the Trio.

Gary’s eyes literally popped out of his head, extending a good three inches, as he saw just what had interrupted him.

A huge black snake-man was racing down the fire escape toward him, well-muscled arms reaching out to snatch him from his ledge. Twenty or thirty feet of black-and-yellow-striped snake tail extended behind his human upper body.

Gary shrieked and scrabbled away, barely avoiding the snake-man’s grasp. Fingers clinging to the gaps between bricks, he scampered right up the wall.

But the snake was nearly as fast. “You’ve peeped your last, peeper!” he called as he climbed, his colorful snake body doubling back on itself.

Just before the snake could snatch him from the wall, Gary reached the parapet of the roof and clambered over it. But a loose bit of metal on the parapet’s flashing caught his foot and he went down, falling face-first onto the tar paper. He lay stunned, expecting the snake to catch up with him at any moment.

“Freeze!” came a new voice, echoing up from the alley. “
IBT
, what the fuck?”

And the snake did not arrive.

Hauling himself to his feet, Gary risked a glance down into the alley. The black man from the Trio, still naked and glistening with sweat, was leaning out of the window Gary had just vacated, training a handgun nearly as impressive as his God-given equipment on the snake-man.

The snake put his hands up as ordered. “I’m on
your
side, man! I was on patrol, and I saw
that
little fucker peeping in your window!” He pointed right at Gary.

The man turned his attention to Gary, followed by his gun. Their eyes met over the gunsight. But then both of them were distracted by a lightning-fast motion.

Taking advantage of Mr. Trio’s momentary diversion, the snake-man launched himself into the air. A moment later his whole coiled body landed with a meaty thud on the roof.

“Gotcha!” he cried, lunging inescapably at Gary.

Gary shrieked and vanished.

Back in his apartment, cartoonist Eddie Carmichael clutched his misshapen head and moaned. He preferred to bring his creations back to the apartment before erasing them; making them disappear where they were gave him a horrendous pain behind his eyes. But it was better than the alternative. If Gary had been killed—and the descending snake-man would certainly have smashed him to bits—Eddie would never be able to manifest him again.

Shivering with pain and adrenaline, Eddie took a Percocet and a sleeping pill and dragged himself into bed with his clothes on. But, despite the drugs, he lay awake for a long time.

He’d tried to quit peeping so many times. It was wrong and sick and twisted and disgusting, and someday it might get him into real trouble, but no matter how hard he tried he always started doing it again.

It was the only good thing the wild card virus had ever done for him.

The next morning Eddie was awakened by the bell of his cheap-ass landline telephone. “Hello?” he bleated, once he managed to get the receiver to his ear the right way around. The headache was still there.

“Eddie Carmichael?” A male voice, young and hesitant. “The artist?”

“Yeah…”

“This is Detective Black at the Fifth Precinct. We need a sketch artist right away. Are you available?”

“Uh, yeah.” The response was automatic. As a freelance artist, he couldn’t afford to turn down work, and forensic art paid well as contract assignments went. He hauled himself upright. It was ten minutes after eight in the morning. “I can be there by nine.”

“Could you make it eight-thirty?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Eddie hung up the phone, then cursed with great sincerity as he hauled himself from the bed into his rolling desk chair, which he used to scoot himself to the bathroom.

Eddie’s chair was the single most expensive thing in the whole apartment. It had seventeen different points of adjustment, and over the years he’d tweaked them all until the chair fit his twisted, asymmetrical body perfectly. It was the only place on Earth he could be truly comfortable.

The rest of the apartment, all three hundred and twenty square feet of it, was little more than an extension of the chair. He could roll from one side of it to the other with a good hard kick, all of the work surfaces and most of the storage were reachable from a seated position, and even his child-sized bed was higher than normal so he could lever himself in and out of the chair with a minimum of effort.

And then, of course, there were the drawings.

Every single square inch of vertical surface—walls, doors, cabinets, even some of the windows—was covered with Eddie’s drawings in pencil, colored pencil, charcoal, and Sharpie. He added, subtracted, and rearranged them nearly every day, to reflect his latest work and current mood.

Not one of them had anything to do with the endless round of single-panel gags, greeting cards, advertisements, and other illustrations he did to pay the bills. Those lived only on the drawing board, and only long enough to satisfy the client. Once they’d been mailed off, he forgot them as quickly as possible.

The drawings on Eddie’s walls were all of his own cast of characters. Twitchy little Gary Glitch; slick and sleazy Mister Nice Guy; The Gulloon, a bowling-pin-shaped gentle giant; voluptuous LaVerne VaVoom; hyperactive Zip the Hamster; and many more cavorted across every surface. They were crude in every sense of the word, executed quickly with Eddie’s trademark shaky line and generally engaged in activities that would shock most people’s sensibilities.