Lowball

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.

Sometimes he told himself that the sick, exploitative, sexist situations his characters got into were okay because they were only ink on paper. Just drawings, not hurting anyone. Sometimes he even believed it, a little.

None of Eddie’s cast of characters had ever been or would ever be published. But in some ways they were all the family he had.

Eddie’s mother had been killed by the same wild card virus outbreak that left him a joker. His father had died of a stroke-or the strain of caring for a hideous, deformed child as a single parent-just a few years later. But thanks to his cast of characters, one of the teachers in the group home had spotted and nurtured his artistic talent. Eventually his work brought him enough money to move out of the group home and live independently.

But independence for a freelance artist was always a precarious thing, and he really needed this paycheck if he was going to keep the wolf from the door. So once he had taken care of business in the bathroom and swallowed another Percocet, he gathered his tools and materials, threw on some clothing-keenly aware of the stink of his unwashed body-and hauled himself down the two flights to the street.

With his hunched, diminutive stature, Eddie’s view of the heavy Canal Street pedestrian traffic was mostly butts and thighs. But he could still feel the pressure of eyes on the back of his neck, see the small children who pointed and gaped, hear the disparaging comments … he couldn’t fail to know just what his fellow New Yorkers thought of him. Even his fellow jokers. Did they think the virus had left him deaf as well as ugly, malformed, and in constant pain?

Yes, ugly, even by Jokertown standards. Though he’d been hearing that Joker Pride crap for his whole life, he couldn’t buy into the idea that “everyone is beautiful in their own way” applied to him. His head, one arm, more than half his torso, and both legs were hideous masses of deformed flesh, with lumpy pink skin like an old burn scar and tufts of black hair sprouting here and there. Even his bones had been warped and twisted by the virus into a parody of the normal human form.

And yes, despite his best efforts, he did have an odor. Thank you very much for noticing, ma’am. Was it his fault his warty, craggy, twisted body was so hard to keep clean? Bitch.

As if he needed a reminder of why he got all his groceries and other purchases delivered.

Grimly Eddie stumped onward. His right hand, the good one, gripped his four-footed cane, bearing more than half his weight on every other step. Every few minutes he paused to rest.

Finally he reached the station house, Fort Freak itself. Three labored steps up to the door, which opened even before he’d begun to fumble with his portfolio and cane. A massive pair of legs stepped aside, and a deep voice rumbled, “Morning, Eddie.”

Eddie tipped back his hat and looked up at a furry face, the smile inviting despite its fearsome fangs. “Morning, Beastie.” Beastie Bester was one of the few people in the precinct who didn’t seem to mind Eddie’s appearance.

“Haven’t seen you in a while. What brings you in today?”

“Dunno. I got a call from a Detective Black.” He shrugged. “It’s work.”

After signing in with the winged desk sergeant-and enduring the indignity of standing on a box to reach the desk-Eddie clipped a temporary badge to his lapel and waited. Officers in blue polyester bustled in and out, their belts crowded with guns and handcuffs and other cop equipment.

Daniel in the lions’ den, Eddie thought, and loosened his tie.

The first time he’d come to the police station he hadn’t slept a wink the night before. But he’d come anyway-no one knew what his characters got up to at night, and his fellow freelance artist Swash had insisted that the job was easy and the money good. And, indeed, he’d gotten nothing from his occasional forays into cop territory but a few modest paychecks and a paradoxical sense of civic pride. He could even boast that his work had helped to put away some very nasty characters.

If, that is, he had anyone to boast to.

“’Scuse me,” said one of the cops, a shapely redheaded nat with a detective’s badge clipped to the waistband of her skirt, and Eddie shuffled out of her way. But despite her surface politeness, as she pushed past he saw that her nose wrinkled in distaste. Eddie thought about what Mister Nice Guy might do with a redhead like her and a leather strap.

“Eddie Carmichael?” Eddie jerked his eyes up to see a pale nat in a cheap suit. “I’m Detective Black.” He was young, even younger than Eddie, and had a soft voice that Eddie recognized from the earlier phone call. “You can call me Franny. This is my partner, Detective Stevens.” Stevens was a tall, black nat in a dark suit. He was slim, with prominent ears …

Jesus Christ. It was Mr. Trio.

“Whoa,” Franny said, catching Eddie’s shoulder with one slim hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I…” He swallowed hard. “I just had a tough time getting here this morning.” He wiped his face with his handkerchief. “I don’t deal well with crowds.”

“Maybe you should sit down.”

Franny helped Eddie to a seat, then fetched him a paper cup of water. He took it with shaking hands, trying not to look at Stevens. “I’ll be all right.”

If the situation weren’t so terrifying it would almost be laughable. Called in to sketch his own creation! But there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to connect him to Gary Glitch. As long as he kept calm and did his job-maybe not too good of a job, but not so bad as to attract attention-he could just collect his paycheck and that would be the end of it. The hardest part would be pretending that he’d never seen Stevens before.

No, the hardest part would be not drawing Gary Glitch as though he’d drawn the character ten thousand times before.

“What’s the case?” Eddie asked, struggling to keep his voice level.

Franny shrugged. “Missing persons. Sort of.”

“I, uh-oh?” Eddie fumbled with his portfolio and cane to cover his confusion and relief. “What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

“It’s not much of a case,” Franny admitted.

“It’s the best you deserve,” Stevens muttered under his breath, so low that Franny couldn’t have heard it. Oh, really?

“We aren’t even really sure anyone has actually gone missing,” Franny explained as he led Eddie through swinging doors and across the crowded, noisy wardroom, where too many desks were crammed together under harsh fluorescent lighting and a miasma of stale vending machine coffee. “Very few of the supposed missing persons are, you know, anyone that anyone would miss. But now we’ve got a witness-someone who claims he saw some of the missing jokers getting snatched off the street.” They paused outside an interrogation room and looked through the one-way glass. “For all the good he does us.”

Slumped in a plastic folding chair on the other side of the glass was one of the most pathetic-looking jokers Eddie had ever seen. His head resembled a wolf’s-a mangy, flea-bitten, ragged-eared cur of a wolf. The fur was matted and patchy, with a lot of gray around the muzzle; the watery, red-rimmed eyes stared wearily at nothing; and the lolling tongue was coated with gray phlegm. The rest of him was essentially human, with a stained and tattered Knicks T-shirt stretched across a swollen beer gut. Dandruff and fallen gray hairs littered the shoulders of his filthy denim jacket.

Stevens crossed his arms on his chest. “His name’s Lupo. Used to tend bar at some swank joint, he says, but that was a long time ago. Now he’s just another denizen of No Fixed Abode.”

“He was passed out behind a Dumpster,” Franny continued, “and woke up just as the supposed kidnappers were leaving the scene. Didn’t get a very good look at the perps, but maybe enough for a sketch.”

Eddie was dubious. “I’ll do what I can.”

Franny sighed. “I sure hope so, or else this case is just going to fizzle out.”

At the sound of the door, Lupo’s head jerked up like a spastic puppet’s, his eyes wide and feral. Eddie let the detective precede him into the room.

“It’s just me, Lupo,” Franny said.

Lupo’s muzzle corrugated as Eddie entered, his eyes narrowing and his ears going back. Though the wolf-headed joker was no rose himself-he stank of garbage, cheap wine, and wet dog-his beer-can-sized muzzle probably gave him a keen sense of smell. “What’s that?”

Love you too, Eddie thought.

“This is Eddie Carmichael, the forensic artist,” Franny said. “He’s going to draw some sketches of the men you saw last night.”

With some reluctance Lupo pulled his eyes off of Eddie and stared pleadingly at the detectives. “I tol’ you, it was dark. And I don’ remember stuff so good anymore.”

Stevens gave Lupo something that Eddie figured was supposed to be a reassuring smile. “Mr. Carmichael is a professional, Lupo. He’ll help you to remember.” He looked sidewise at Eddie, his hard glance saying Right?

Eddie froze for a moment, remembering those cold cop eyes looking over the barrel of a gun at him, then shook away the memory. “That’s, uh, that’s right.”

“Well then.” Stevens stood. “I’ll leave you two to this oh-so-important case while I get back to some real detective work.” He looked pointedly at Franny. “If you need any help … don’t call me.” And then, without a backward glance, he left.

Eddie swallowed, his heart rate slowing toward normal. There was something weird happening between the two detectives, but as far as Eddie was concerned, he felt like he’d dodged a bullet for the second time in twenty-four hours.

Hauling himself up into a chair, Eddie unzipped his portfolio. He pulled out a sketchpad, a fat black 6B pencil, and a battered three-ring binder of reference images, but to begin with he just laid them all flat on the table. “There’s nothing magic about this process,” he said, beginning a spiel he’d used a hundred times. But this time he was trying to calm himself as much as the witness. “I’m going to ask you some questions, but you’ll be doing most of the talking. All right?”

Lupo’s ears still lay flat against his head, but he nodded.

“So, just to begin with … how many of them were there?”

“Three, maybe four. They had this poor asshole with four legs all tied up carrying him toward a van. I only saw the front, couldn’t get no plate-”

“Um, actually,” Franny interrupted, “he doesn’t need to know about the crime. That’s my department.”

Eddie nodded an acknowledgment at the detective, then returned his attention to Lupo. “All I want to know is what they looked like.”

A wrinkle appeared between Lupo’s eyebrows, and the pink tip of his tongue poked out. “Well, they were all guys … or really ugly women.” He smirked. “This one big guy seemed to be ordering the other ones around.”

“Tell me about him.”

Lupo spread his hands like he was describing the fish that got away. “Big.”

Eddie sighed. “How big? Six feet tall? Bigger?”

“I dunno. Six four, maybe?” The lupine joker squeezed his eyes shut and clapped his hands over them, bending his head down. “I used to be good at this,” he muttered into the table’s scarred Formica. “When I was tending bar at the Crystal Palace, I knew every regular customer. What they liked, how they tipped, everything.”

The name of the bar struck Eddie like a lightning bolt. “You tended bar at the Palace?”

Franny just looked at Eddie. He was a nat, so he couldn’t possibly understand how important the Crystal Palace was. Eddie himself could only dream of what the place had been like-he’d been only five when the place had burned in ’88-but here was someone who’d actually worked there!

Lupo raised his muzzle from the table. “Yeah. I was the number two guy in the whole place-I was in charge whenever Elmo wasn’t there.”

Eddie felt as though he were in the presence of one of the Founding Fathers … or, at least, the decrepit, wasted shell of one. “Did you know … Chrysalis?”

Lupo’s leer was an amazing thing, the long black lip curling up to reveal an impressive array of discolored fangs. “Yeah, I knew her.” He sat up straighter, his eyes seeming to focus for once, though what they were focused on was something beyond the walls of the interrogation room. But after only a moment, he slumped in his chair again. “Not that she ever gave me the time of day.”

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.

The murmuring crowd quieted as Father Squid rose and stood at the lectern. “Thank you for coming tonight,” he said, the tentacles of his lower face quivering with each consonant. “As you know, Jokertown has been suffering a series of disappearances. It’s said that some jokers have been snatched from the street. Others have simply vanished.” He looked down at his hands, which rested on the lectern before him in a prayerful attitude. “Sadly, this is not unusual in our community. But the numbers are higher than usual, and many suspect that these disappearances are related.”

Father Squid raised his head, and there was fire in his eyes. “We will not stand for this any longer.” Though the joker priest was old, his muscles going to fat, Eddie didn’t envy anyone who got in his way. “We will band together. We will be vigilant. And, if necessary, we will fight!” The crowd applauded. “Now, not all of us are fighters.” A few in the crowd chuckled at that. “But all of us have a part to play. You have seen the flyers with the photos of the disappeared. If you have any information as to their whereabouts, or any clues as to what has become of them, call the number at the bottom. And if you should happen to observe a kidnapping in progress, or even anything vaguely suspicious, call the same number. Better to raise a false alarm than to let even one more joker vanish.” He looked out sternly at his congregation, and a few “Amen”s were shouted. “We will now open the floor for testimony, remembrance, and ideas.”

Joker after joker now took the podium, telling tearful stories about the vanished ones, or proposing strategies that seemed to Eddie completely ineffectual, or expressing fear and concern for their own lives. But The Gulloon kept his eye on Father Squid, who stood to one side with his still-powerful arms crossed above his substantial belly.

Eddie wasn’t a religious man, and he wasn’t a member of Father Squid’s congregation. But he was a joker. And watching Father Squid standing there, looking over the crowd, he knew that the old pastor would do anything in his power to protect every joker in Jokertown.

Even him.

No matter how much of a worthless little shit he might be.

Eddie got an assignment from the J. Peterman catalog drawing men’s shirts for their incredibly fussy art director-a royal pain, but the job paid really well.

He didn’t peep at all; he didn’t draw any salacious cartoons; he tried hard not to even have any impure thoughts. Instead, he drew a long, hallucinatory fantasy story involving Gary Glitch and Zip the Hamster on a cross-country road trip. But after a couple of days without peeping he woke up from a lucid, lurid dream of The Gulloon peering into basement windows, only to realize that it wasn’t a dream. Eddie hustled his character back to the apartment and dispelled him immediately.

It was far from the first time he’d manifested his characters while sleeping. In fact, that was how he’d started. He hadn’t realized the dreams of his characters wandering his own neighborhood had been the manifestation of a wild card talent until one of the other group home residents described a really strange-looking joker she’d seen peering in her window. But ever since he’d started peeping consciously it happened only rarely.

But now it was starting again. As Eddie stared at the spot on the floor where he’d dismissed the easygoing Gulloon, he wondered what Mister Nice Guy or LaVerne VaVoom might get up to if he couldn’t keep control of them.

For that matter, what if they’d already gotten up to something? He didn’t always remember his dreams.

He spent the rest of that night staring at the ceiling and worrying.

“Morning, Eddie,” Beastie said, strolling up to the station house door. It was exactly eight in the morning and Eddie had been nervously shifting from foot to foot on the sidewalk for twenty minutes. If he’d been built for pacing, that’s what he would have been doing. “So Lupo convinced Franny to call you in again?”

Eddie took off his hat to get a better look at Beastie’s face. “No, I’m-I’m here as a concerned citizen. I was wondering if there had been any other sightings in the, uh, the monkey-faced Peeping Tom case.”

Beastie shrugged. “Haven’t heard of any such thing.”

That was a relief, but something else Beastie had said nagged at Eddie’s mind. “Wait, what was that about Lupo?”

Beastie rolled his eyes. “He’s been in here every damn day, hoping for some kind of protection, but after a while he figured out that wasn’t going to happen. Now he’s telling anyone who will sit still that he’s remembered more details about the snatchers and demanding another session with the sketch artist. Some of us are starting to wonder if he really saw anything in the first place.”

Eddie considered the question. “I think he really did. He was a little fuzzy on the details, but I don’t think he was making it up or hallucinating.”

A rough, growling voice interrupted the conversation. “Oh, thank God you’re here!” Eddie looked up to see Lupo running down the sidewalk toward him. Beastie spread his hands in a see what I mean? gesture. “I mean that, Eddie,” Lupo panted as he came to an unsteady halt, hands on knees, before the station house steps. “I literally thank my Higher Power that you are here. I was beginning to think no one was listening to me.”

Eddie shook his head. “I’m not here because I got called back for you. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten called back on the same case. Memories fade with time. You have to get them when they’re fresh.”

“This is fresh, Eddie. I saw him again! The fourth snatcher!”

Eddie and Beastie looked at each other. “When?” Eddie asked.

“Just this morning.”

“Really?” Beastie asked, not quite condescendingly. “The timing is awfully convenient.”

Lupo raised a hand. “Swear to God.” The raised palm was scrubbed and pink, though lines of dirt remained ground into its creases. “I saw him on Bond Street, just around the corner from my hotel.” The whites showed all around his eyes. “They’re looking for me, Eddie! They know I saw them, and now they’re going to snatch me too!”

Beastie didn’t seem convinced. “You’re absolutely sure it was him?”

“Look, I know I haven’t always been the most reliable witness. But my mind is much clearer now. I haven’t touched a drop in two days.” Lupo crouched down, bringing his head to Eddie’s eye level. “You gotta give me another shot, Eddie.”

“It’s not my decision.” Eddie looked to Beastie. “But for what it’s worth … I believe him.”

Lupo’s heavy, lupine head swiveled between Eddie and Beastie. “I can give you a good description of the fourth snatcher now. Please.” His big brown eyes were impossibly sad and soulful. “Please?”

Beastie sighed. “I’ll pass the information up the line.”

Lupo and Eddie sat on a hard bench outside the wardroom door while Beastie went in to talk with Franny. This wasn’t exactly how Eddie had planned to spend the morning, but if he could get another few hours of composite sketch work out of it he wouldn’t turn the money down. Anyway, pulling himself away from the desperate, pleading wolf-man would have seemed rude.

“I’m a new man, Eddie, I swear. You’ll see. I was all messed up last time.”

Eddie had to admit that Lupo was not only cleaner, he seemed more alert. And his voice, though still sounding a bit odd because of the shape of his mouth, wasn’t at all slurred. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. There’s nothing like the fear of getting snatched to make a man sit up and take notice of what’s going on around him.” He sighed. “Or what’s going on inside him. I’ve made a mess of my life, I admit it. Maybe this is the wake-up call I’ve needed. I hope it isn’t too late.”

“It’s never too late,” Eddie said, though Lupo looked to be sixty or seventy … not an easy time of life to make a fresh start. “Even for people like us.”

“People like us?”

Eddie winced, sure he’d crossed a line. Not even jokers liked to be equated with an ugly lump of flesh like him. “Sorry…”

“No, no, I’m not insulted. Just surprised to hear you say it. You’re an artist, a professional … I figured you for an East Village type, not a J-town boy like me.”

At that Eddie snorted. “Hardly. I live in an efficiency about a mile from here. Heart of Jokertown.”

“No shit? Why haven’t I seen you around the neighborhood?”

“I don’t get out much.” Not in person, anyway. Eddie cleared his throat. “I hear things, though. Rumors. Some kind of monkey-faced Peeping Tom, looking in windows at night. Maybe a whole gang of Peeping Toms. Have you heard about anything like that?”

“Not lately.” Lupo’s lip drew back, exposing yellowed fangs. “But two years ago … I was staying at my sister’s place, and she came screaming out of her bedroom saying that some big-eared little bastard was on her fire escape watching her undress. I couldn’t get the window open, but I got a look at the guy before he escaped.” His hairy hands balled into fists. “I might be a joker, I might be an alcoholic, I might even have sold a few things that didn’t exactly belong to me, but I’d never stoop that low. If I ever catch that little asshole…” He smacked a fist into the opposite hand, and Eddie realized there was still some serious muscle under the ex-bartender’s fat. “He’ll be sorry.”

Eddie was ashamed to admit that he had no idea which of the many women he’d peeped in on had been Lupo’s sister. The incident didn’t stand out from so many similar ones in his memory. “Sorry to hear about that,” he said aloud.

“You wouldn’t believe the shit that goes down in Jokertown.” He blinked. “Or maybe you would. How long you lived here?”

“Almost ten years.”

“So you never saw the Palace before the fire?”

“No. I’ve heard about it, though. Was it really as crazy as they say?”

“Crazier.” He grinned, an evil thing full of yellow teeth. “One time I was damn near killed by a panda bear. A panda bear! In a bar! Where else but the Palace?”

He went on like that for a while, sharing fascinating anecdotes about people and places that were nearly legends to Eddie, until the wardroom door opened and Franny emerged. “Beastie tells me you saw the fourth snatcher?” he said to Lupo. He seemed half hopeful and half dubious.

“It’s true! Swear to God!”

Franny didn’t look convinced. He turned to Eddie. “You’ve been talking with him. Do you believe him?”

Eddie nodded. “I do, actually.”

“Would you be willing to do a few more sketches?”

“Sure, if you’re paying. But I don’t have my stuff with me.”

The detective set his jaw and did his best to look decisive. “All right. Come back in an hour and I’ll try to find you an interrogation room.”

After Franny left, Lupo said, “Thanks for standing up for me.”

“You’re welcome. And thanks for the stories.”

The second session went much more smoothly than the first. Sober, Lupo turned out to be as keen an observer as he’d claimed to be, and in less than an hour they had a good sketch of the fourth snatcher, a hulking blond nat with a broken nose. Lupo also remembered some more details about the other two nats-one had a badly scarred ear, the other a tattoo on his left wrist that Franny identified as a Russian gang mark. “This will be very helpful,” he said. “It might not hold up in court, but if we can use it to pull in a suspect, that’s a start.”

Behind the detective’s back, Lupo gave Eddie a thumbs-up.

Eddie didn’t even want to admit to himself how good that small gesture made him feel.

That night, instead of peeping, Eddie sent Mister Nice Guy out to prowl the streets on foot, peering at faces. Eddie had not been allowed to keep a copy of the sketches he’d made, but after so many hours with Lupo he knew the snatchers well, especially Fish-Face.

Mister Nice Guy had no trouble blending in with the street traffic in the shabby joker neighborhood near where the snatch had taken place. Pale and big-nosed he might be, but he was humanoid enough to pass for a joker as long as no one bumped into him.

It felt weird to just be walking around on the sidewalk like a normal person, not skulking and sneaking, and not the subject of stares and comments. By comparison with Eddie a cartoon character was normal, at least in Jokertown.

The people on the Jokertown streets at this hour were a mix of types, fashionable bohemians as well as drunks and thugs. A joker couple strolled down the sidewalk tentacle-in-pincer, their clear affection for each other making them cute. A trio of teenaged nats crept about, hesitant and frightened, pointing and giggling when they thought no one was looking. A muscular joker strode past them, heads high and chins up, his four-eyed glare forcing them to silence. But none of them resembled any of the snatchers.

As he walked, Eddie tried to think himself into the snatchers’ shoes. Where might they have taken the struggling joker after tying him up? Where else might they be hanging out right now, preparing for another snatch? Were they even now closing in on Lupo, the only witness?

There were so many places to watch.

Fortunately, Eddie could be in more than one place at a time.

Back in the apartment, he opened his eyes and sketched up Zip the hyperactive hamster. A vibrating football-sized furball of nervous energy, Zip barely paused after being created, immediately bounding to the countertop and through the gap in the window. He tore across rooftops in the direction of the White House Hotel, hoping to catch Lupo there or nearby.

It took effort to maintain two characters at once, but it felt good, like the stretch he felt during an intense chiropractic session.

And he was doing it to help other people, for once. To try to catch the snatchers, prevent another snatch, protect his friend.

No. Protect an important witness.

No one could consider lumpy, ugly Eddie a friend.

Zip dashed through the night under a cloudless spring sky, the wind cool on his fur.

Saturday night. Eddie was out in force, with Mister Nice Guy barhopping and The Gulloon wandering back alleys. Gary Glitch was keeping an eye on Lupo, who sat on a bench in Chatham Square chatting with some of his buddies.

It had been three days that he’d been patrolling instead of peeping, staying up until two or three A.M. every night, but what sleep he’d gotten had been deep and dreamless. At night he felt alive, moving his characters around Jokertown like chess pieces, scanning and searching the crowds for the snatchers’ faces.

Switching his attention among three different characters, all of them moving and active, was a challenge. Sometimes he realized that he’d left one standing stock-still, unobservant, defenseless. When he discovered these situations his heart pounded, but so far none of his characters had gotten into any serious trouble because of it.

It seemed that just about any kind of appearance or behavior was acceptable in Jokertown at night. If only it wasn’t so hard for Eddie to move around, he might even …

Suddenly something tugged at his attention. It was Gary Glitch, hidden under a bush a few yards from Lupo’s bench.

One of the passing faces seemed familiar. In fact, that same face had passed this spot a few times recently.

Eddie sent Gary scampering across the cold sidewalk, through the soft spring grasses, and up a tree to where he could get a better look at the burly, frowning pedestrian loitering on the far side of the park’s play structure.

He seemed to be keeping a covert eye on Lupo as he paced the sidewalk behind the playground, sucking on a cigarette.

He was a nat, big and muscular, Caucasian with an ash-blond buzz cut.

He had a badly scarred ear.

Gary clambered down the tree and crept across the grass to another bush, just a few feet from the guy. He didn’t exactly resemble the sketch that Eddie had made of the second snatcher, but then again he didn’t exactly not resemble it. The sketch was pretty generic-it had been drawn while Lupo was still under the influence-and though the scarred ear was a strong identifier, in this part of town knife scars weren’t that uncommon.

Eddie wasn’t sure what to do.

There was little he could do, anyway. Eddie’s characters didn’t have a lot of physicality to them; they could make noise, maybe lift a few things as long as they weren’t too heavy, but they were too fragile for fighting.

He’d keep an eye on the situation. Maybe if it seemed that Lupo were in danger he could have Gary shout a warning.

With another part of his attention, Eddie started Mister Nice Guy and The Gulloon moving toward Chatham Square. But neither of them was as fast as Gary; it would be half an hour or more before they arrived.

A burst of chat and laughter from Lupo’s bench drew Gary’s attention. Gary saw Lupo stand up, shaking hands and high-fiving his friends, then zip up his jacket and set off in the direction of the White House.

The muscular stranger took a drag on his cigarette, ground it out under his boot heel, and moved off in the same direction.

Keeping out of sight as much as possible, Gary followed.

As the stranger walked-loitering, in no visible hurry, but nonetheless managing to stay within a block of Lupo-he pulled out a phone and muttered a few words in what sounded like Russian. A few minutes later Gary saw him nod to another man across the street.

Fish-Face.

He wore a black leather jacket, scarred and torn at the elbows, and the streetlight gleamed on the silvery, slimy skin of his bald head. His eyes were big, black, and dead, exactly as Lupo had described, though Lupo had failed to mention the fin-like ears and had, if anything, underestimated the toothy horror of the fishy joker’s mouth. He was bad news, no question.

Fish-Face and Scarred Ear stayed on opposite sides of the street, leapfrogging each other as they moved along in Lupo’s wake. Lupo, oblivious, was enjoying the cool spring air, ambling along, stopping from time to time to chat with friends on the street. He had a lot of them.

Eddie didn’t know what to do. The snatchers were big, strong, and probably experienced fighters, there were two of them, and they had the advantage of surprise. If Gary let Lupo know he was being tailed, whether quietly or by shouting, Eddie didn’t doubt that Lupo would turn and try to fight them-and get himself snatched.

Could he defuse the situation by attracting the attention of passersby? Hardly. It was nearly two in the morning, on a side street in the Bowery, and the few passersby were most likely as plastered as Lupo on a bad day.

Back in the apartment, Eddie opened his eyes and looked at the phone that sat near his bed. All he had to do was dial 9-1-1.

But Eddie’s voice and phone number would be recorded, and sooner or later he’d have to explain how a crippled stay-at-home joker could be an eyewitness to a crime-a potential crime-more than a mile away.

Gary Glitch could pick up a pay phone, if he could find one, or dash into an all-night convenience store and raise the alarm. But Gary Glitch was wanted for peeping, and with his distinctive face and build Stevens would recognize him immediately. If Gary ever came to the attention of the police, Eddie might have to retire him permanently.

While Eddie fretted, Lupo continued to make his way home. He was now a block from his hotel; the two thugs following him were now on the same side of the street. Half a block behind Lupo and closing in fast, they were no longer making an effort to conceal themselves. Lupo was oblivious, whistling an old disco tune as he strolled along.

If Eddie was reading the situation right, there probably wasn’t much more than a minute before Lupo got snatched. Something had to be done, and fast.

Mister Nice Guy was just a couple blocks off, The Gulloon a bit farther away, but they were moving too slowly to offer assistance in time. Only Gary was close enough to do anything, and Lupo hated him.

Eddie had an idea, but it was going to be tricky.

As Mister Nice Guy hurried to meet up with the snatchers before they reached Lupo, The Gulloon lumbering along as quick as he could, Gary Glitch scrambled down a fire escape and dashed across the silent street to tug at Lupo’s sleeve. “Hey, dog-breath!” he sneered. “Remember me?”

Lupo’s hackles literally rose at the sight of the little cartoon. “You’re that big-eared asshole who peeped in my sister’s bedroom!” He raised a fist, murder in his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s me!” Gary said with a smirk. “And I bet you can’t catch me this time, either!” He turned and scrambled away, leading Lupo away from the two snatchers.

With an inarticulate growl, Lupo took off after him.

Two blocks away, Mister Nice Guy rounded a corner. He saw Gary running away, Lupo following him, and the two thugs running after Lupo.

Mister Nice Guy set off after the two goons. He wasn’t as fast as Zip or Gary, but like them he was capable of inhuman feats. He lengthened his stride, his legs stretching to ten or twelve feet long as he hurried to catch up with the thugs. The pace was tiring but he wouldn’t need to do it for long.

Gary scrambled on hands and feet down the cold gritty sidewalk. He could easily escape by scurrying up the side of some building, but if he did that Lupo would give up the chase and then get caught by the thugs. So Gary hurried along with frequent glances over his shoulder, fast but not too fast, carefully keeping himself in Lupo’s sight. It was even more exhausting than running full-tilt.

Back in his apartment, Eddie sat in his chair with fists clenched and sweat running down his sides. With everyone moving so fast it was hard to keep track of who was where. Feet shuffling on the linoleum, he maneuvered his chair across the floor and pulled a New York street map from a shelf.

Meanwhile, The Gulloon plodded along. Eddie couldn’t spare much attention for him so he just kept going in a straight line.

Loping with his impossible stride, Mister Nice Guy soon caught up to the two thugs. They didn’t hear his cartoonish footfalls coming up behind them.

Three more giant steps and he was well past them.

Then he brought himself to a sudden boinging halt, extending one ten-foot leg across their path.

This was going to hurt. Eddie knew Mister Nice Guy’s fragile material would crumble like paper under the impact of two thundering brutes, but he hoped it would stall them. He braced for the impact.

But as soon as he saw Mister Nice Guy’s extended leg, Fish-Face shouted, and tried to stop himself. Big and strong though he was, Fish-Face’s reflexes were merely human, and in trying to stop he stumbled and fell, tripping Scarred Ear in the process.

Mister Nice Guy pulled back his leg like a retracting tape measure, a fraction of a second before the thugs fell across the place where it had been.

“Gotcha!” cried Lupo.

Eddie jerked his attention back to Gary Glitch, who stood frozen like a scared rabbit in the wolf-man’s path. Eddie had forgotten to keep him moving while Mister Nice Guy was dealing with the thugs. With a squeak Gary jumped up, barely dodging Lupo’s grasp, and ran at top speed down the street.

But Eddie couldn’t afford to ignore Mister Nice Guy for long … Fish-Face and Scarred Ear were disentangling themselves and in a moment they would be all over him.

That was exactly what Eddie wanted. He put Mister Nice Guy’s thumb to his nose and blew an enormous raspberry.

Enraged, Fish-Face leaped up from the sidewalk. But his grasping hand closed on thin air as Mister Nice Guy swerved out of the way, his body curving into a parenthesis. Scarred Ear growled and tried to grab him in a bear hug, but he ducked that too, bending like a balloon animal.

The two snatchers weren’t as dumb as they looked. They charged him simultaneously, from opposite directions. But Mister Nice Guy leaped straight up in the air at the last minute, grabbing onto the horizontal bar of a streetlight as the two thugs collided where he’d been.

That bought Eddie a moment to look in on his other characters. Gary was still running full-tilt with Lupo in hot pursuit, and The Gulloon was still plodding along, so far away from the action that he might as well be on another planet.

Eddie couldn’t just keep his characters running forever. They might be cartoons, but they still tired … or maybe it was just Eddie who was getting tired. Either way, he had to find a place to stash Lupo pretty soon. The thugs had intercepted Lupo on the way to the White House, so they must know he roomed there. Fort Freak was too far away, and anyway the cops wouldn’t take Lupo seriously.

There was only one place in New York City that Eddie knew was safe.

No. He couldn’t possibly.

But he had to do something.

Eddie bit his lip and redirected Gary on a southbound trajectory.

Toward his own home.

Even as Gary ran, though, Eddie realized none of this would make any difference if the two snatchers lost interest in Mister Nice Guy and took off after Lupo again. Lupo wasn’t that far ahead of them, and they could easily catch him before Gary reached Eddie’s door.

Eddie returned his full attention to Mister Nice Guy, who was still hanging on the streetlight. Below him the two thugs had recovered their feet. But instead of either giving up on Mister Nice Guy or screaming at him, Fish-Face was just smiling up at him-the most disturbing toothy grin Eddie had ever seen. Meanwhile, the other thug was talking in Russian on his cell phone. What the hell?

Then Fish-Face reached out and grasped the lamppost in one gray, slimy hand.

And a horrible, juddering electric shock surged through the metal and into Mister Nice Guy.

Mister Nice Guy shrieked, his body vibrating and his bones becoming visible through his flesh. His hands clenched the lamppost in an uncontrollable spasm. The pain was incredible. Eddie gasped and curled up like a prawn in his rolling chair, and Gary and The Gulloon both collapsed where they were.

But pain was something Eddie dealt with every day. When the electric shock stopped, Eddie was still alive, still conscious, and still in control of all his creations.

And really pissed off.

Fish-Face seemed disappointed that Mister Nice Guy hadn’t dropped off the lamppost like an overripe fruit. He reached for the post again.

Before he could touch it, Mister Nice Guy stretched out his arms, legs, and torso like a striking lizard’s tongue, socking Fish-Face right in the jaw with both feet.

It wasn’t much of an impact-it probably hurt Mister Nice Guy more than it did Fish-Face-but it was such a surprise and came from such an unexpected direction that it sent the joker tumbling over backward. Mister Nice Guy landed on the sidewalk beyond him, his extended legs coiling like springs, and bounced away into the night.

The other thug just stood there agog for a moment, until Fish-Face snarled something at him. He put the phone in his pocket and began running after the escaping cartoon.

Exhausted and stunned from the electric shock, Mister Nice Guy wobbled on his boinging, Slinky-like legs. But he couldn’t slow down now. He headed north … back the way he’d come, and directly opposite the direction Gary was leading Lupo.

He risked a look over his shoulder. Both thugs were following him. Good.

Eddie switched his attention to Gary Glitch, who still lay where he’d fallen when Fish-Face had shocked Mister Nice Guy. Gary looked up from the pavement … to find headlights and a blaring horn bearing down on him. He yelped and scuttled away, fingernails tearing on the asphalt … reaching the curb just in time. But before he could catch his breath, Lupo was in the crosswalk and closing fast. Gary shook himself, looked around, and scrambled off toward Eddie’s apartment as fast as he could.

Now Eddie, still dazed from the shock, was running two characters just fast enough to keep ahead of their pursuers. It was an incredible strain. Even with two fingers on his map he was having trouble keeping track of them. But he couldn’t just make them vanish … he had to lead Lupo to his apartment, and at the same time he had to keep the two thugs as far away from him as possible for as long as possible.

God, he was tired.

By now Gary was only two blocks from Eddie’s apartment door. He looked behind to make sure Lupo was still following.

Lupo was. But there was also someone following him, and gaining. A big blonde with a broken nose. The fourth snatcher.

How the hell-? But then Eddie remembered that the bald thug had made a phone call not long after Lupo had gotten away. Gary ran faster, hoping Lupo could keep up.

But even if he could … they were all heading straight for Eddie’s home. He needed help, and fast. If only he had Zip in play … Could he handle four characters at once?

Eddie opened his eyes and reached for his sketchpad.

It wasn’t easy drawing Zip while also keeping his other characters in motion. But finally the hyperactive little hamster coalesced into existence on Eddie’s kitchen floor. He shook himself, then squeezed out through the window and shot off across the city toward Fort Freak. Zip had no criminal record, and with his speed he could plausibly claim to be a witness to the situation going down near Eddie’s apartment.

Assuming he could make himself understood, and that the cops would listen to a football-sized manic hamster with a squeaky machine-gun voice. Eddie had to hope that Jokertown cops were prepared to handle a crime report from anything.

Then Eddie’s attention was jerked back to Mister Nice Guy, as Scarred Ear picked him up by the neck. Fish-Face was there too, grinning a vicious, toothy grin. Electricity began to crackle …

… and The Gulloon, who’d been plodding along unattended this whole time, slammed into all three of them. He wasn’t going very fast, and he didn’t actually weigh very much, but he was big, and he sent the whole group tumbling like bowling pins.

Eddie took the opportunity to direct his attention to Zip, who had just arrived at Fort Freak. Even at this hour the station was brightly lit. Zip careened in the door, past the desk sergeant, and into the wardroom, looking for Beastie, or Stevens, or …

There! Detective Black!

“Franny!” Zip squeaked, waving his little paws. The detective looked around, his gaze passing well over the hamster’s head. Zip stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing, almost supersonic whistle. “Down here, fuckhead!”

That got his attention.

“It’s the snatchers!” Zip squeaked like a CD on fast-forward. “The snatchers! They’re chasing Lupo! You have to come right away!” He gave Eddie’s address.

And Mister Nice Guy looked up to find Fish-Face’s heavy boot coming down toward his head.

Eddie swore and made both Mister Nice Guy and The Gulloon vanish. Clutching his head from the pain, he returned his attention to Gary Glitch and the wolf at his door.

Gary had just reached Eddie’s apartment building. With a great effort he squeezed his way under the front door and collapsed, panting, inside.

Lupo came charging up. Seeing Gary through the glass, he pounded on the door with both fists. Eddie paused with his finger on the door buzzer. What the hell was he doing?

“You peeping asshole!” Lupo yelled, his voice muffled by the thick security glass. “I’m gonna get you if it’s the last thing I…”

Behind Lupo, Gary saw the fourth kidnapper.

Eddie pressed the door buzzer and sent Gary scrambling away, up the steps.

Lupo snarled and snatched the door open, tearing after Gary.

Gary paused for just a moment on the first landing, looking back, hoping against hope …

… but the door, swinging gently closed on its hydraulics, did not click shut. A moment later it slammed open again, revealing the big nat. Lupo, hearing the noise behind him, turned.

And then the whole scene was flooded with red and blue lights and a voice on a bullhorn. “You! At the door! This is the police! Stop and put your hands up!”

The man stopped in the doorway. But he didn’t put his hands up. Instead he turned and ran, vanishing into the night. “Halt!” cried the bullhorn. But the pounding footsteps kept going. The flashing lights followed.

All was quiet and still for a moment. Then Lupo turned back to Gary, who still stood stunned on the landing. The wolf-man’s lips curled back and his fists clenched.

Eddie pressed the intercom button. “Forget about him, Lupo!” he shouted. “It’s me you need to be talking with.”

Lupo looked around, then noticed the intercom grille behind him. The door was still easing shut. “Eddie?”

“Yeah.”

“You know this little fucker?” It hurt Eddie’s already-throbbing head to hear Lupo’s grating voice simultaneously through Gary’s ears and, with an echoing delay, through the intercom.

“In a manner of speaking.” Eddie swallowed. “Please, just listen to me.”

Lupo gave Gary a vicious glare, but he stepped to the closing door and stopped it with one foot. “I’m listening.”

“Look, the situation’s kind of complicated and I’m not proud of it, but right now the important thing is this: the snatchers are real, and they’re after you. But I … but my friend here”-he made Gary wave-“he led you away from them, while some of my other, uh, friends, distracted the thugs and called for help.”

“How do I know you aren’t in cahoots with the snatchers?”

“If I were, would I have given Franny those sketches that looked just like them?”

“Urr…” Lupo growled, looking uncertain.

As Gary looked down the stairs at Lupo, Eddie wondered what the hell he was doing. How could he let this alcoholic, wolfish joker into his own home? He might work with the police sometimes, but he wasn’t a cop-he wasn’t sworn to serve or protect anyone.

But still … saving Lupo from the snatchers had felt so good. He’d never dreamed that an ugly, twisted little joker like himself could have such a big impact on the world.

And Lupo was, if not a friend, at least someone who had treated Eddie like a human being. Eddie pushed the intercom button again. “I swear I am not a snatcher, Lupo. But the snatchers are still out there.” He released the button, paused, swallowed, pushed it again. “If you come upstairs, I’ll … I’ll keep you safe for a while, until we can get this mess sorted out.”

Lupo blinked, his big brown eyes shining in the vestibule’s harsh fluorescent light. “You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah.”

Lupo considered the idea for a bit, then stepped inside and let the door close behind him. “Okay.”

Gary led Lupo up to Eddie’s apartment. Lupo regarded the little cartoon with clear suspicion, but followed quietly, trudging heavily up the stairs. It was only now that Eddie realized just how exhausted Lupo must be after that long chase.

What a pair they were.

Finally the cartoon and the joker stood outside Eddie’s door.

Eddie hesitated, the brass doorknob cold in his hand. He hadn’t let another human being into his apartment in over five years.

He turned the knob.