Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (9 page)

For a moment Eddie actually felt sorry for the battered, alcoholic wolf-man. But then Franny cleared his throat meaningfully, and Eddie reasserted his professional demeanor. “So, the big guy, the one who was ordering the others around. Was he white? Black? Chinese?”

“Joker.” Lupo nodded definitively. “His skin was kind of gray and slimy.”

“All right.” Eddie bit his lip. This would make his job easier in some ways, a lot harder in others. “How many eyes?”

They talked for half an hour before Eddie laid pencil to paper. It was always a good idea to get the subject thinking, forming a good strong image in their own mind, before beginning the actual sketch. He drew vertical and horizontal guidelines, dividing the page in equal fourths, then began to rough in the shape of the suspect’s face. “You said his head was kind of narrow. Like this?”

“I dunno.” Lupo stared uncertainly at the oval. “Maybe a little pointy on top.”

“And the eyes, big and wide-set.” He lightly sketched in a couple of ovals.

“Bigger. Wider.”

Another half hour and the general proportions of the face were sketched in. The suspect was an ugly sonofabitch, no question, with no nose to speak of and a wide mouth full of pointy teeth. Now it was time to crack open the binder of reference images.

Most sketch artists used one of several standard reference books of facial features; some even used computer software. But in this, as in so many things, Jokertown was different. Eddie’s binder, based on one Swash had loaned him when he was studying for his exams, included plenty of photos of actual jokers, but also animals, sea creatures … even plants, fungi, and rocks.

Eddie licked his thumb and flipped through the binder until he came to a page showing dozens of pairs of eyes. “Any of these look familiar?”

Lupo studied the page for a long time, tongue tip sticking out. “Could be any of ’em.” He poked vaguely at one pair. “Those, I guess.”

“Uh huh.” Eddie’s pencil scribbled in the eyes, big and black and dead, then began to sketch in the structures around them.

It went like that for a long time. Usually a sketching session would be over in less than two hours, but Lupo had gotten such a poor glimpse of the suspects, and his mind was so scattered and fogged by alcohol, that the process was slow and frustrating for both of them. Franny had excused himself before the first hour was up, asking Eddie to call him when he was done. Lupo slurped cup after cup of vending machine coffee; Eddie drank Coke.

Finally, some time in hour four, Lupo’s replies to Eddie’s questions had turned into little more than a mumbled yes or no, and Eddie’s back, hip, and shoulder were screaming from hours in the cheap plastic chair. “All right,” he said at last, tearing the final drawing from his sketchbook and tacking it to the wall. “Last chance. Is there anything in any of these drawings that does
not
match your memory of the suspects?”

There were three of them. The big guy, the leader, was a fish-faced joker, all eyes and teeth; the other two were nats. To Eddie the sketches all looked pretty generic—even Fish-Face could have been any of a hundred jokers Eddie had seen on the Bowery in the last year—but they were the best he could do with the information he’d been given. There may or may not have been a fourth snatcher, but Lupo’s recollection of him was so hazy Eddie hadn’t even attempted a sketch.

Eddie-the-commercial-artist itched to tear these preliminary sketches up and do finished, polished drawings. But Eddie-the-police-sketch-artist knew that composite drawing had its rules, and one of them was that whatever came out of the session with the witness had to be used as-is, with no subsequent cleanup, revision, or improvement.

“They’re okay, I guess.” Lupo scratched behind one ear, then shrugged. “I’ll let you know if I remember anything else.”

“Uh huh,” Eddie grunted noncommittally, and used the phone on the wall to call Franny. He’d probably never see Lupo again; it might be months before he got another call from the police department. And the way his back and hip felt right now, he might wind up having to spend this whole paycheck on chiropractic. Maybe he should take his name off the list for police artist work?

But no, he realized … as frustrating as it was to work with random, unobservant idiots like wolf-boy here, and as humiliating and painful as it was to haul himself out of his comfortable little apartment, it did his heart good to help track down crooks.

It kind of balanced out his karma. He hoped.

A knock on the door, then Franny entered. “So … how did it go?”

Eddie gestured at the sketches tacked to the wall. “We got three of ’em, anyway. Lupo didn’t get a good enough look at the fourth.”
If there really was one
, he didn’t say.

The detective looked over the sketches, then turned back to Eddie and Lupo. “These are great,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be a big help.”

“Thanks.” Eddie began collecting his scattered reference materials, pencils, erasers, and sharpeners.

“So what happens now?” Lupo asked, not unreasonably.

Franny shrugged. “You’re free to go. But you’re a witness, so don’t leave town. We’ll leave a message at the White House if we need to contact you.” Eddie knew the White House Hotel, one of the Bowery’s few remaining classic flophouses. Fifty jokers sleeping on sagging beds in one big room.

“I thought I might, y’know, go into a safe house?”

The detective shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

Lupo looked back and forth between Eddie and Franny, the whites showing all the way around his big brown doggy eyes. “I told you before, they might’ve seen me! I know what they look like, and they know it! As soon as I’m back on the street, they’ll snatch me too!”

Franny spread his hands, palms up. “There’s no budget for it.”

Now Lupo was really panicking, ears laid flat against his head. “Can’t I get
some
kind of police protection?”

Franny laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lupo, really I am, but we just don’t have the people for it. I can put in a request, but…” He shrugged. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Oh man…” Lupo put his head in his hands.

Eddie felt bad for the mangy wolf-man, but there was nothing he could do about it. He cleared his throat and held out his time card and pen to the detective.

“Oh. Sorry.” He scrawled a signature across the bottom of the card. “Thanks, Eddie. You’ve been a big help.”

“You’re welcome.” He leaned in closer to the young detective and spoke low. “Say … I know it’s no business of mine, but is there something wrong between you and Detective Stevens?”

Franny swallowed, and at that moment he looked nearly as miserable as Lupo. “It’s nothing you can help with. Thanks for your concern, though.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sorry.” Eddie struggled to his feet, taking one last look at the sketches on the wall. “I hope you get those guys soon.”

“Me too.”

After the long day he’d had, Eddie wasn’t even up to ordering dinner from the New Big Wang Chinese Restaurant down the street. He opened a can of soup and heated it up on his tiny two-burner stove, meticulously washing and stowing the pot, bowl, and spoon when he was done.

Then he rolled his chair over to the drawing table and began to work.

Sometimes he did four-panel strips, sometimes book-length stories. Tonight it was a single large panel, Mister Nice Guy disporting himself across the page with a collection of anonymous, pneumatic women. Eddie worked rapidly, sketching the characters’ forms loosely in pencil before dipping his ink brush and bringing them to detailed black-and-white life.

One of the women resembled the redheaded detective from that morning, only with much larger breasts. Mister Nice Guy had her tied up. She smiled around a full mouth, looking up at him as he patted her head.

Eddie’s fingers tightened on his brush and his mouth twisted into a sardonic grin as he detailed the woman’s thumb-sized nipples.

After Eddie had finished the panel, cleaned his brushes, and taped the new pages up on the wall above his bed, he settled down in his chair with a small sketchpad and a black fine-point felt-tip.

Eddie tapped his fingertips together, pondering options and possibilities. Then he began to draw. With just a few quick lines, a familiar form began to take shape on the pad in his lap.

As Eddie sketched, something like white smoke began to swirl in the air, condensing and thickening, spiraling downward into a hazy bowling pin shape about seven feet tall. Bulbous arms and legs coalesced from the mist, a small head, an enormous cucumber schnoz.

Eddie looked up from his completed sketch of The Gulloon to see the same character looming over him in person, his big clodhopper boots pigeon-toed on the scuffed vinyl of Eddie’s floor. He raised one hand and gave Eddie a little three-fingered wave. The Gulloon didn’t talk.

Through The Gulloon’s eyes Eddie saw himself, a hunched warty excrescence of a joker, but that didn’t last long. The Gulloon turned away, clambered up onto the kitchenette counter, and squeezed through the finger’s-width gap that was always left open at the bottom of the window. With an audible
pop
he reappeared on the other side, pausing a moment on the fire escape to mold himself back into his usual shape. Then he ambled down the fire escape ladder toward the street.

Eddie himself remained in his chair, conscious and aware, but he closed his eyes to block out the view of his apartment. It was easier that way.

The Gulloon wasn’t a rooftop peeper like Gary Glitch; he liked to lurk in the shadows until he saw a pretty girl, then follow her home and look in her window. The big guy was surprisingly quiet on his feet. But tonight there was little foot traffic in Jokertown, and what there was all seemed to be heading in one direction. Curious, he joined in the flow.

Their destination was the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, at the door of which Quasiman stood handing out flyers. The Gulloon took one. “
HAVE
YOU
SEEN
US
?” it said, above a grid of sixteen photos. Every one of them was a joker.

The Gulloon, one of Eddie’s first creations, was kind of funny-looking even for a joker … smooth and round and, frankly, cartoonish. But this crowd seemed preoccupied enough that he felt he could step out of the shadows without attracting too much attention. And, though he did get a few curious glances, no one in the crowd of winged, tentacled, and scaled jokers seemed too perturbed by his appearance. He entered and descended the stairs to the community hall.

The room was filling up fast. The Gulloon stood at the back of the crowd, between a bull-like man and an enormous joker who seemed to be made of gray rock, and edged back into the corner so nobody would touch him. The strange material that made up Eddie’s characters’ flesh and clothing felt kind of like Styrofoam, stiff and light and fragile.

As The Gulloon shifted around, peering around the heads of those even taller than himself, he spotted the snake-man—Infamous Black Tongue, that was what he was called—in the crowd. But though even the easygoing Gulloon tensed at the sight, Eddie reminded himself that the snake was just as welcome in the church as any other joker, and he had no reason to suspect The Gulloon of anything. Still, The Gulloon kept one eye on him as the crowd took their seats.