Lowball

The Big Bleed
Part Four

“It looks like our terror plot is stalling out,” Jamal said.

They had returned to the Bleecker after a Holy Roller speech in Harlem, a mercifully brief and trouble-free event, if you ignored the reverend’s disconnected ramblings and his signature “roll-up,” which never failed to win laughs … and lose votes.

Roller had gone to ground, and the SCARE team had been released. Upon returning to their ops center, after a slow, nasty drive through the apparently never-ending rain, Jamal had found an update from the Analysis Team at Riker’s.

“We didn’t find ammonium nitrate?” Sheeba said, collapsing her tall frame into her desk chair. No matter what he thought of the Midnight Angel’s leadership style or personal habits, these maneuvers still fascinated Jamal. It was like spying on a whooping crane or some other long-legged bird bending to snatch a fish from a lake … improbable, a bit awkward, but endlessly watchable.

Especially when you happened to be bored and exhausted-and eager for any kind of distraction. “Oh, it’s am nitrate,” Jamal said. “A dangerous amount, too.”

“So, good for us, right?”

“No. The shipment doesn’t connect. Homeland Sec has no lead on a source for it, and more to the point … no buyer. It’s an orphan.”

“Would they know every buyer or potential terrorist in and around New York City? I mean, look at our watch lists.…” They bore hundreds of names, Jamal knew.

“That’s what took a few days. They did a big search and crosscheck, and found no one who seemed to be in the right place to get hold of the shipment.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question. What about the guy DHS doesn’t know?”

“They’ve got an analysis staff that interfaces with every agency on the planet-”

Sheeba suddenly stood up-another impressive physical display. “Are you working for them or us? You’re defending these guys and their lack of information!”

“I’m just telling you what they’re telling me!”

Sheeba had started to pace. “Maybe I should call Billy Ray.” Another surprise: on the infrequent occasions when Sheeba admitted that she spoke to her husband Billy Ray, aka Carnifex at SCARE HQ, she usually said “the home office” or “our nation’s capital.”

Never his name. Maybe Sheeba wanted to go home, too. Back to a normal life. Whatever that was, for aces. “We have other options,” Jamal said. “New Jersey State Police were at the site. I do know that the body somehow wound up here in Manhattan, Fifth Precinct.”

“I suppose we could call them,” Sheeba said, clearly unenthusiastic about either.

“It’s end of day and we’d just get run around,” Jamal said, struggling to his feet. “Fort Freak’s not far from here. Why don’t I just go over there?”

Sheeba blinked. “Now. In the rain.”

“I have an umbrella,” he said. He glanced toward the window, and, not particularly caring about the truth, said, “And it’s letting up.”

And, what the hell, he might actually learn something at Fort Freak.

To his amusement, his ruse about the weather turned out to be true. The rain had let up, which allowed him to dangle the umbrella from its wrist strap … and use his free hand to hold his phone.

It was the end of the workday, when lower Manhattan’s buildings released their daily captives. But Jamal found the sidewalks blessedly empty … perhaps the threat of additional downpours was keeping people inside. Even the traffic seemed lighter.

No matter-Jamal was free to walk and talk to Julia, the one activity in his day that gave him pleasure, even though it had become increasingly difficult to arrange of late.

Part of it was the time difference, of course. Jamal was three hours ahead. Then there was the SCARE schedule along with its mandatory group dinners.

The real problem, however, was Julia’s schedule. If she was at the club, she was unavailable from nine P.M. Jamal’s time until two or three in the morning-and those were the times he could talk.

She would sleep from five A.M. his time til early afternoon. Her physical situation required that amount of sleep.

So in the past couple of weeks they had taken to saying hello during a brief window between five and six P.M. New York time.

It was a hell of a way to run a relationship.

Not that it was like any relationship in Jamal’s undistinguished history. He had had several long-term arrangements, including one that was headed toward marriage until Jamal booked a film shooting in Mexico, where the combination of insane hours, high stress, unnecessary amounts of tequila, and an actress named Mary-Margaret had contributed to some relationship-toxic behavior on Jamal’s part.

Even his bad long-term relationships were a long way in the past … thank you again, SCARE. He wanted to keep this one alive. More precisely, he wanted to follow this one wherever it was going. But his first call went straight to voice mail, which was annoying.

Two blocks later-deeper into Jokertown now, where, given the surging population on the sidewalks, the freaks did not seem deterred by the nasty weather-Jamal tried again. Still nothing.

Julia never went anywhere without her phone. It was her one piece of essential gear. In the four months that they’d been seeing each other, she had never ignored two calls in a row. At worst, the second attempt resulted in a “Busy, call u in a few” text. Which she always did.

What could be wrong? Worse yet, what could he do about it?

“Something I can do for you?”

The Fifth Precinct desk sergeant-Sgt. Homer Taylor according to the oxidized nameplate-was a joker. On the short side, lighter-skinned than Jamal, as if that had mattered since 1946, with droopy wings shaped like those of a giant bat. He also possessed a bland, possibly even pleasant expression, so it was hard for Jamal to get a read on his tone. Was that a genuine question, or some kind of challenge?

Jamal elected to play it straight, displaying his badge. “Special Agent Norwood, SCARE.”

Taylor’s wings fluttered-a sign of recognition? The joker cop turned to the ancient assignment board. “Crash in New Jersey … we have a DB in New Jersey that belongs to our Detective Black.” There was something in Sergeant Taylor’s voice that Jamal could not quite identify … a hint of scorn, perhaps, or, to be charitable, possibly just amusement.

“Okay, I know this is risky, but is Detective Black available?”

Taylor shot him a look; his turn to wonder whether Jamal was zinging him. “Actually, not at this moment. If you’d like to leave a number-?”

Jamal was already sliding his card across Taylor’s desk. “So, as we used to say in the ’hood, I’m SOL.”

Taylor waggled the tiny piece of paper. “Right now. But I will personally see that he gets your name and number. Best I can do.”

“There’s no officer or sergeant who could talk to a Federal agent?”

“It’s mid-shift, Mr. Norwood. If people can be on the street, that’s where they are. And it’s been a busy day in Jokertown. Detective Black will respond, just not this five minutes.”

Jamal suddenly felt tired and angry, never a good combination. He turned away, suddenly unsure of his next move. Which allowed him to consider Fort Freak.

The ancient brownstone was like a police museum. The phones were thirty years old at least; even the rings sounded analog, not digital. Even weirder was the joker-heavy nature of the few staffers he could see, from a human-sized rat to a big tabby cat-

“Not one of these officers has any information for me.”

Taylor sighed. He was big in girth-Bill Norwood would have called him a perfect lineman, except for the wings. “Normally, yes. But incidents in New Jersey are outside our jurisdiction. I understand it’s a bit unusual for even Detective Black to be involved.”

Jamal knew he was being slow-rolled, and fairly skillfully. “Thank you, sergeant,” he said. As he turned away, his cell rang-Julia!

No.… “Is this Jamal Norwood?” a voice said. It took Jamal a moment to realize that it was Dr. Finn from Jokertown Clinic.

Jamal did not want to have a conversation inside Fort Freak, so he hustled out the front door. The instant he emerged he was assaulted by the gamy, fishy, and oily smell of the East River. How had he missed it earlier? Probably because the rains had cleared the air, however temporarily. “Hello, Doctor,” he said, hoping his voice sounded stronger than it felt. “What’s the word?”

“The best I can say, Mr. Norwood, is confusing.”

“Help me out with that.”

“I’m sorry.” Jamal could easily imagine the joker medico pawing the carpet with his hooves. He himself was pacing, as if sheer movement could make a bad thing better. “You are showing symptoms of what, for lack of a better term, I would have to call a degenerative … situation.”

“Is that better or worse than a disease?”

“It could be better. You could be suffering from the ace equivalent of an injury, even an allergy, that might be treatable.”

“But I could also be suffering from, what, ALS? Parkinson’s?”

“Those terms don’t apply.”

“But the analogy-”

“Fits, yes. What we need are more tests.”

Standing in the lonely entrance to Fort Freak, with the drone of New York all around him, awash in the vibrations and smells of Jokertown … and feeling much as he had felt all his life … Jamal found it difficult to know what to say next. Beyond the initial churn of his stomach when he realized that Finn’s message was not, “Found it. Antibiotics for a week and you’re good.”

“More tests … that’s never good.”

“Let’s concentrate on the positive, Mr. Norwood. I would like to see you as soon as possible, however.”

“I’ll call your office first thing to set up an appointment,” he said. “Thank you, Doctor.” He hung up … and then, like the delayed blow of a tackle, it hit him.

He could die. Worse than that-if anything would qualify-he might fade away slowly, horribly, first losing mobility … then hands … bodily functions.

Finally unable to breathe, helpless. No bounceback from that shit, right, Stuntman? He really wanted to talk to Julia … why hadn’t she called? Maybe it was best that she hadn’t; they were hardly in a stable, long-term relationship. She didn’t need to deal with this-not while it was so uncertain-

“Agent Norwood?”

Jamal turned. It took him a moment to remember that he was at Fort Freak … getting stiff-armed. Now, here was a good-looking young man, late twenties, in a white shirt and loosened tie, out of breath. “I’m Franny Black.”

“Oh, Detective Black. Call me Jamal.”

Franny held up Jamal’s card. “Sergeant Taylor just gave me this. I’m glad I caught you.”

If not for Finn’s call, you wouldn’t have. “What do you need?”

“What else? Information.”

Ten minutes later, Jamal had heard enough bizarre information about missing jokers and phony dog-training academies in New Jersey that he had been able to wrap Finn’s news into a small box and put it high on his mental shelf. “That must have been tough,” he told Franny. “Having to tell the Heffers about their kid.”

Franny sat back. They were at his desk in the corner of the second-floor squad room, a space so low rent it made SCARE’s nasty hotel-room ops center seem state of the art. “It was. Especially because … I didn’t have anything good to tell them. No reason. Nothing.”

“So you don’t get used to it.”

“First time I’ve done it.”

Jamal was surprised. “You’re a detective!”

“Pretty much just happened. I only had a couple of years in uniform, and my partner usually took the lead … on everything.”

“What’s a nat doing at Fort Freak, anyway?”

“The more I think about it, the more it feels like unresolved father issues.”

Jamal had to laugh. “Copy that.”

“So what does SCARE want with my dead joker?”

Jamal hauled out a hard copy of the DHS report on the ammonium nitrate, and his own notes on the crash site. Franny nodded at the DHS paper, but sat up when he read Jamal’s material. “This sounds familiar,” he said. “The unusual wheel base, the lack of treads…” He turned to his crusty keyboard and fat old computer monitor.

“Is that thing steam-powered?” Jamal said.

“I’m lucky I have one at all.” As he clicked through various documents, Franny nodded to the other desks in the squad room. Sure enough, Jamal realized: maybe a third of them had computers.

“How the hell do you catch anyone?”

“Sometimes they show up at the front door and beg to confess.” Franny smiled, then turned the monitor so Jamal could see it. “Maybe this is your guy.”

Jamal looked at the screen, which showed a page from a typical police profile of a suspect. A black-and-white picture showed what struck Jamal as the strangest-looking front end of a vehicle he’d ever seen. “His name’s Chahina, aka Wheels. He’s a joker built like, and apparently able to move like, a truck. Early twenties, new to our shores.”

“What’s Wheels done?”

“He’s been stopped for an amazing number of moving violations in the boroughs and in New Jersey. All dismissed.” Franny smiled. “For a truck driver, he seems to have a great lawyer.”

“Really.”

“It’s the ACLU, apparently. Wheels keeps getting cited, the ACLU gets him off because they contend vehicular laws apply to vehicles, not-”

“Automotive jokers.”

“It’s a funny old world sometimes.”

Jamal held up his phone. “Is there somewhere-?”

“Don’t tell me you want to link this data? Or have me e-mail? You’re in Fort Freak, Jamal.” Franny pressed several keys. Across the room, a printer wound itself up. “But we can get you a hard copy of the file. We have indeed reached 1994 here.”

“Looks as though he’s worth talking to. Does it say where he lives?”

Franny clicked to a different page. “Where else? Jokertown.”

Julia finally called. “Sorry, sorry, have I said I’m sorry?”

“I sense that you’re feeling a bit apologetic.”

It was four hours after Jamal met with Franny Black at Fort Freak. He had returned to the Bleecker and used the hotel’s business center to scan the papers on Wheels, then e-mailed them to Sheeba before meeting her upstairs.

Dinner had been substantially more interesting, with Sheeba popping up from the table to talk to her husband Billy Ray in Washington, then to connect with other federal agencies in the New York area. Finding out that Wheels was a foreign joker just changed everything, but the excitement of the discovery had worn off for Jamal. Finn’s news-or lack of good news-played like a heavy-metal bass line through his every thought.

Now Jamal was flat on his back, unable to sleep, counting the potential good days he had left to his life, when his phone buzzed.

“Did I tell you my parents were in town?”

“You did not.” Julia was not a Los Angeles native: she had grown up in rural Idaho, which could not have been a treat for a joker girl.

“So you’re off tonight?”

“Heck, no.” One of Julia’s many charms was her choice of profanity, which was so tame it could have come from a 1940s movie about hot rods and malt shops. “I just ducked into the office here. The folks did keep me busy earlier, though.”

Jamal tried to picture them, but his brain conjured up the grim farmer and wife from American Gothic, so he judged that a fail. He wasn’t even sure of their names. “Are they staying with you?”

“Oh, God, no.” Julia laughed. And Jamal should have known better.

In a weak moment, in conversation with his mother, Maxine, Jamal had let it slip that he was “seeing” someone, and uttered her name, Julia Jackson.

But Maxine had pressed for information, as moms will. So Jamal had let it slip: “She’s a joker.”

Silence on the line. “She looks perfectly human,” Jamal said.

“That’s a relief,” Mom had said, laughing. “I thought you were going to bring home a white girl.”

Needless to say, the meeting had yet to take place.

Jamal hated that memory. It wasn’t just that it demonstrated how tricky any relationship with Julia would be …

It also reminded him of his own problems on American Hero, the mess with Rustbelt.

Put it away!

Yes, Julia Jackson was a joker … the size of a Barbie doll … maybe a bit taller. (“All my friends kept wanting me to kiss their Kens, but he was just too short.” “Did the word ‘creepy’ ever enter into that?” “Not then and not much since.”)

Jamal had met her, he liked to say, “between Riyadh and New York,” which suggested something out of a romantic novel-meeting on the QE2, perhaps-but was really only a joke: they had met when Jamal took leave in Los Angeles after the SCARE-up in the Middle East.

Whether it was the long absence, or some yet-to-be-understood sense of real accomplishment, he returned to his home city feeling like King Shit. Well, why not? He was fit, good-looking, well-spoken, well-dressed, and, best of all, famous.

Which was better than being rich, because everyone assumed famous people had money.

With his friends Brett and Roland, he had gone to Gulliver, a new club on Ventura Boulevard. “Can you believe this?” Roland had said. “Going out in the Valley!” Roland was an over-the-hill snob who lived in a new, retro-fitted tower in the heart of Hollywood. Jamal, who still had a condo even deeper into the Valley, had no such reservations. In the relatively short time since American Hero, Ventura Boulevard had sprouted all kinds of new restaurants and clubs, and Jamal was happy to sample them, especially since he had limited time at home.

And word was that Gulliver had exotic joker flavor to its staff or design. Since Brett was sure, at some point in the evening, to suggest a follow-up trip to a joker-staffed gentleman’s club, Jamal hoped this place would satisfy his friend’s urge, and allow them to experience the ideal night out: which meant staying in one place.

The first phase of any night out, ideal or less than, meant checking out the women who were entering or already present when the trio arrived at Gulliver.

“Thursday night is ladies’ night,” Roland kept saying.

“Meaning it’s Jamal’s night,” Brett said. He was the white guy in the trio, a friend from high school. Like Jamal, he had been a good athlete who, thanks to lack of height, got no respect or opportunity. Unlike Jamal, he had not been hit by the wild card.

Of the three, Jamal was the most likely to come out of any club with a number, if not an actual woman on his arm. Jamal had realized long ago that he needed Roland and Brett, or two guys a lot like them, to make this happen. Women were warier around a man alone.…

The bar was filled with actress wannabes and some never-weres busy posing and chatting, along with any number of middle-aged hotties celebrating birthdays.

The only men in the place-aside from those obviously attached to various women-were huddled at the bar like nervous teenagers at a school dance. “I’m not seeing the joker angle,” Brett said.

“Well, maybe you’re not looking at it the right way,” Jamal said. The interior of the place was done up like a medieval village, with “stone” walls, battlements, wooden chairs and tables … all of them scaled in such a way to make even Jamal feel like a giant.

Confirmation arrived in the form of the hostess, a beautiful blonde in some kind of medieval-style dress with a pretty-definitely-not-medieval-style hemline. She possessed flawless milky skin and had eyes so blue they were almost purple. As they say in Hollywood, she was actress pretty, not just girlfriend good-looking.

He would have been attracted to her in any case: any male who could fog a mirror would have. Her only flaw, if the word applied, was that she was about a foot and a half tall. “Dinner or bar?” she chirped. Her voice was pitched a little high, but no worse than Betty Boop.

Brett grinned, thinking he was perhaps forty percent cuter than he actually was. “Both.”

“Any particular order? Or shall I surprise you?”

“Surprise us,” Jamal said.

“This way.” To Jamal’s amazement, the tiny waitress hopped onto a ramp behind her podium, then fluttered across the floor. Of course: the inverse square law (which Jamal knew from the Tak World movies), which doomed giant aliens invading Earth to muscle failure and early death, worked in Julia’s favor. She could practically fly … like a cartoon fairy.

Within seconds they were seated, giants in a Lilliputian village. Menus arrived via a joker doing a creditable impression of a troll. But Jamal and his friends were watching Julia flutter away. “I hope no one steps on her,” Brett said.

The meal passed with the usual amount of chat and teasing, most of it aimed at Jamal and his adventures in Africa. When they had paid and were heading out, Julia called to them from her stand. “Don’t tell me I scared you?”

“What are you talking about?” Jamal said.

Julia indicated a couch in the corner of the crowded library-bar. “It’s been waiting for you for fifteen minutes.”

“We already ate,” Brett said.

“I know, darling,” she said. “It was dinner first, then bar. Surely you remember.”

“Actually,” Jamal said, “we hadn’t. But we do now.”

And they proceeded to spend two more hours in Gulliver, having one of the most enjoyable evenings Jamal had had in years … laughing, meeting half a dozen new people, including four women. “A new low,” Brett said, grinning. He had not only gotten a phone number, at one point Jamal had spotted him kissing a woman he had just met.…

“Julia’s good,” Roland said as they were leaving.

And so she was. But Jamal had not tried to get her number that night-indeed, had not considered it-even though Roland had noted his interest at beer round number three. “Jamal’s got tone,” he said. Roland liked military technology. “Tone” was a cockpit signal that told a fighter pilot he was locked onto a target.

“Get serious!” Brett had said. “You are … not a match.” He made a face and pantomimed a big finger penis bumping up against his scrunched fist.

“Relationships aren’t always about the act, my friend.”

As they left, Jamal made sure to pass by the hostess station, where he was rewarded with a Julia smile, and: “Come back soon.”

“We just might,” Brett said.

“Not you, big boy,” Julia said, her smile dazzling. “You seem nice,” she said to Roland, and here she looked directly-eye to eye, thanks to the height of the podium-at Jamal. “I meant you.”

He went back the next night … with Roland. And came away with Julia’s number. “Call me between one and four,” she had said.

And he had done that. They had talked for two hours, until Julia said, “Oh my God, you charming, distracting bastard, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

They had spoken again the next day-and the next-and three more times, before seeing each other in person again.

When they did have their first actual date, to see some English movie about another star-crossed couple in love, Jamal had driven to Julia’s address in Studio City. It was on a side street behind Republic Studios. In their first extended conversation, Julia had said she lived in a “treehouse.”

It turned out to be the literal truth: the address drew Jamal to a tiny A-frame built into a notch of an ancient oak tree, six feet off the ground.

There was an access ramp winding around the trunk. And a rope. Jamal wondered again at Julia’s strength: he was in shape and there was no way he could have climbed the equivalent height.…

She emerged and, mercifully, took the ramp. Jamal had wondered about the protocol of walking with Julia-let her go at her own speed, two of her steps for every one of his? Or-

“You may pick me up,” she said. Which, most carefully, he did, allowing her to rest in the crook of his arm.

“Shouldn’t you be calling this a dollhouse instead?”

She slapped him on the arm with surprising effect. “Don’t start with the short jokes.”

“A serious question, then.” They were almost at Jamal’s car.

“One serious question.”

“Don’t you worry about…?”

“What?”

“Hawks.”

Fortunately, she laughed. “I have Mace, baby! So don’t get any ideas.”

He had helped her into the passenger seat. “The belt-” Was as likely to crush her as protect her, he was about to say.

“It’s okay.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“This is not my first date, correct.” He had the car in motion when she said, “Not to get ahead of ourselves, but, sexual relations are likely to be nonstandard.”

“Not a problem.”

“So you say. Now.”

“As you said, we’re a little ahead of ourselves.”

She smiled over at him. “I have some work-arounds.”

The work-around turned out to be the phone.

It was just a natural extension of their soon-to-be-daily catch-ups, almost always between the hours of two and four Pacific Time, when they talked work, books, movies, people, SCARE, and sleep schedules and then-

What they would like to be doing with each other, to each other. How it would feel. How it would look. Taste.

It turned out to be surprisingly easy … and even more surprisingly, satisfying.

Which was the big reason why Jamal hated missing Julia’s calls.

This one turned out to be a huge fizzle, however, mostly because Julia started it by saying, “How are you doing?”

Now was a perfect time, and Julia was the perfect person, for Jamal to unburden himself about his health problems. Instead, he offered a curt “Fine.”

“Now I know something’s wrong,” she said.

“Work is what’s wrong.” This had the virtue of being true while avoiding her question.

“Tell me.”

So he gave her the short version-his boredom with the campaign, his Sheeba fatigue, the ammonium nitrate shipment, joker truck mystery, how they were going to grab Wheels later tonight. “Isn’t some of that, what do you call it, classified or special access?”

“Probably,” he said. “If they’re bugging us-”

“-Hah! We’re already in jail!” They both laughed. And then she said, “They need me-”

“I know,” he said. “Thanks-”

“Now listen,” she said. “Because I was so hard to reach, you get a pass this time. You can lie by omission. But next time we talk-tomorrow-tell me what’s really wrong, okay?”