Lowball

No Parking Mon-Fri 7-9am 3-5pm Except Buses No Loading Except Authorized Commercial Vehicles Mon-Fri 9am-3pm Except Wednesday With Pass-1 Hour Limit Snow Emergency Route/No Parking Odd Side During Snow Emer. No Parking 3-5am March/November No Standing Other Times

by Ian Tregillis

Wally Gunderson sighed when he saw the conglomeration of parking signs. They were bolted to a single streetlight, like a profusion of fungus on a steel tree. His steam-shovel jaw creaked up and down as he read each line to himself, trying to decipher Jokertown’s byzantine parking regulations. He scratched his forehead. It sounded like a railroad spike dragged across an iron skillet.

No standing? What the heck did that mean?

The blare of a car horn broke his concentration. A hairy lizard leaned from a window of the delivery truck idling behind Wally’s rusted and battered ’76 Impala.

“Hey, Tin Man!” she yelled. “Move it!”

He glanced at his watch. Crud. He’d be late picking up Ghost again. The adoption committee got sore about stuff like that.

He didn’t have time to cruise around for a different spot. But Wally wasn’t very good at parallel parking-it would take just as long shimmying the car back and forth to ease into the spot. Plus, he felt pretty badly when he scraped the other cars. So he used a shortcut.

Wally hopped out of the Impala. The lizard lady lay on her horn. He waved at her. Crouching alongside his car, he reached underneath to grip the frame in one hand. He paid careful attention to his hands, knowing from experience that if he wasn’t careful he ran the risk of accidentally rusting through the chassis. Then, after wrapping his other arm over the trunk, he gave the car a solid shove.

It skidded sideways seven feet and slammed against the curb. It went straight into the gap, but Wally overshot. The Impala bounced over the curb, cracked against the parking meter, and scraped a Toyota on the rebound. The Toyota’s car alarm shrieked. The parking meter toppled to the sidewalk with a crash.

“Nuts,” said Wally. “Not again.” The delivery truck sped past him.

He surveyed the damage. The meter had been felled like a tree in high winds, complete with a little clump of concrete at the base like the root ball. The LCD window in the meter blinked nonsense patterns of static hash before fading to black, like the last gasp of a dying robot. He couldn’t open the Impala’s passenger door, which now sported a large dent. He’d have to pound it back into shape later.

From the glove compartment, he fished out a notepad, pen, and roll of duct tape. Wally scrawled a note of apology on the pad, tore off the sheet, folded some money into the note, and taped the package to the broken meter. Duct tape worked better than masking tape. This he’d learned through trial and error.

People were staring. Wally gave a guilty shrug, then headed at a fast walk toward the Jerusha Carter Childhood Development Institute. He glanced at his watch again. The fast walk became a jog. The pounding of his iron feet left a trail of cracks in the sidewalk.

Things would have been so much easier if he could take the subway. But sometimes it got crowded, and when that happened people got shoved up against him, and when that happened the seams and rivets of his iron skin could hurt folks. Didn’t matter how careful he was.

As he passed the Van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic, a flash of yellow caught Wally’s attention. He paused at the entrance to the Institute, his hand resting on the door. A boxy three-wheeled cart turned the corner a few blocks up. It was painted blue and white like a police car and had a yellow strobe on top. The cart puttered along the row of parked cars. It eased to a stop alongside a Volkswagen. The driver strutted out, brandishing a ticket pad. A dishwater blond ponytail poked from the brim of her hat.

Wally sighed. “Aw, rats. Not her again.”

Ghost hadn’t yet finished her counseling session when he arrived. She sat cross-legged on the floor in one of the glassed-in side rooms along the courtyard, talking to one of the Institute’s child psychologists. The doc saw Wally but kept her attention on Ghost. Wally’s foster daughter didn’t see him. He tiptoed away.

Ghost had resisted the counseling for quite a while; it had been a relief for all involved when she started engaging with the teachers and staff at the Institute. For the longest time she trusted only one adult, and that adult was Wally. He’d rescued her from the life of a child soldier in the People’s Paradise of Africa, where she had been an experiment: infected, traumatized, brainwashed, trained to kill. But she was also a little girl who liked Legos, Dr. Seuss, and peanut-butter-and-mango sandwiches.

More and more, she was a little girl. But traces of the soldier remained. And probably always would.

A few of her classmates played in the courtyard. They shouted and waved at Wally. He knew most of them; he and Ghost had been coming here since before the Institute opened. There was little Cesar, whom he’d known as long as Ghost, and who faced similar counseling issues; Moto, the boy who exhaled searing gouts of flame when he got excited, or frightened, or a case of the hiccups; Allen, whose mother and father were both in jail; Jo, who always wore the top half of a cow costume and refused to say anything except “Moo” and “Dickwad.” Some of the children had come from Africa, like Moto and Cesar, though not with Wally. Others had come to the Institute in the intervening years.

The world was full of troubled kids. But you couldn’t save them all. Wally had learned that the hard way. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t forget the smell of the mass grave in Nyunzu, where his pen pal had been murdered. Failing Lucien was the worst thing he had ever done. The shame made Wally so sad and angry that sometimes he wanted to punch the whole world.

He swallowed the stone in his throat and waved to the kids. “Howdy,” he said.

An immense baobab tree shaded the sandbox. Wally laid a hand on its bark. “Hi, you,” he whispered. The surrounding building shielded the tree from wind, but sometimes it seemed as though the leaves rustled in response to his greeting. The baobab smelled of rain, and jungle, and a lost friend. It made Wally smile, but it also made him feel lonely. Sometimes it felt like his ribs were still shattered, pushing spurs of bone to pierce his heart. But he tried not to let it show.

Wally knelt in the sandbox. “So what kind of trouble are you guys getting into today?”

“Moo,” said Jo. Her cotton cow ears flopped up and down. “Dickwad. Moo.”

“She says she’s glad you’re back,” said Cesar. “I’m moving to Brooklyn!” he added. “I’m going to have a room and my own bed and everything. And they even said I could have a birthday party! You’ll come, right?”

“Heck yeah, pal. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Moto sniffled. His tears wafted across the courtyard like smoke from an extinguished candle. Wally put an arm around him. The heat from his breath seeped into Wally’s skin, conducting through the metal across his back and sides, to soothe an old surgery scar/weld. It felt good.

The poor kid didn’t get many hugs. Wally also knew, from what Ghost told him, that Moto had been bounced from his third foster home. Another accidental bedroom fire. His foster parents lacked the patience to sleep in shifts.

“Hey,” he said. “You know what Ghost asked me the other day? She asked if we could throw a party for your birthday. Would you like that?”

The sniffles trailed off. “Really?”

“Well sure, why not?”

Moto hugged him again. Wally made a mental note to buy another fire extinguisher.

When Wally sifted his fingers through the sand they came back covered with random phrases: “The joy a.” “A rainbow it axe.” “Shadow the the running barn to under.” A few days earlier another foster parent had brought a set of refrigerator poetry magnets for the kids’ message board. At least half of these were already scattered in the sand.

Wally didn’t understand poetry. He didn’t read much.

Allen saw the magnets stuck to his iron fingers and tossed the letter “H” at his chest. It stuck with a muted click. Wally could feel the tug of the magnet through his coveralls, like a faint buzzing in the rivets of his sternum.

“Gosh,” he said. “That tickles.”

Moto saw what Allen had done and flung a handful of magnets and sand at Wally’s shoulder. He blinked the sand out of his eyes to see the letters “R,” “G,” and the word “cattle” stuck to his forearm. Moto covered his mouth when he giggled; little tongues of flame fluttered through his fingers. Then Jo got into the act. Wally lay sprawled in the sand while the kids climbed over him. Laughter and the stink of melted plastic filled the courtyard.

Wally had to pluck the magnets from his scalp a couple of times. They made his head feel funny, like he had a mild fever, or as if his brain were stuffed with cotton. The game went for a few more minutes until Ghost’s session ended. Her therapist followed her into the courtyard.

“Moo,” said Jo.

“Hi, Ghost,” said Cesar.

“Huh,” Ghost said, and shrugged.

The therapist beckoned to Wally. He rolled gently to his feet, careful not to pinch little fingers or toes under his bulk. He hugged Ghost just as gently, but more firmly.

“How was your day? I broke another parking meter.”

She shrugged, and then became insubstantial to pull away from his hug. She floated to the sandbox, toes dangling an inch above the ground, before settling to earth alongside Allen. It had been a while since she’d been so withdrawn. Wally wondered if he’d find her standing over his bed in the middle of the night with a knife in her hands, like the haunted little girl he’d met in the jungle.

“Okey-dokey. You guys just hang out for a sec,” said Wally. He followed the doctor into a cloister alongside the courtyard. “What’s going on, Doc?”

The psychiatrist wore her hair pulled back, and the scarf around her neck matched her earrings. She looked fancy, like somebody on TV. Her name tag read “Dr. Miranda.” She shook her head.

“Yerodin threatened a classmate with a pair of scissors today.” Yerodin was Ghost’s real name. All the adults at the Institute used it, but she hated it when Wally called her that.

“Awww, cripes,” said Wally. He ran a hand over his face and added “new bedspread” to the mental shopping list, just under “fire extinguisher.” “How come?”

“She’s been acting up all week. Since we told the children that Mr. Richardson was ill.”

Wally remembered Richardson. Ghost talked about him a lot. He taught math, and sometimes he gave the kids rides on his carapace. He could fit three or four of them on the flat of his back, between pairs of detachable legs. He kind of reminded Wally of Dr. Finn, except more like a bug than a horse. He also told really corny jokes, which Ghost loved.

“Well that’s a bummer. What’s he sick with?”

Dr. Miranda lowered her voice. “That’s what we told the children, but he hasn’t called in sick. N-nobody has seen him since last Friday.”

Wally said, “She’s been doing real good at home, you know. Real good.”

“Well, she wasn’t today. She still reverts to using sharp objects when she feels angry or frustrated.”

“Okay. I’ll have a talk with her.” Wally frowned. “Will this affect the adoption?”

She started to answer, but then her face crumpled into a scowl a second before Jo started to bawl.

“DickWAAAD!”

Wally turned just in time to see Ghost, scissors in hand, stuffing a trophy in her pocket: a cotton cow ear from Jo’s costume. The sobbing girl didn’t pull away when Ghost pulled the second ear taut and opened the scissors.

Wally vaulted the cloister railing. He crossed the courtyard in one hard stride. But rather than pulling Ghost away, or lifting Jo out of reach, he gave the blades a gentle flick of his finger. They dissolved into a fine orange mist. Ghost floated away.

“Cripes, kid,” he called after her.

Wally spent a few minutes consoling Jo. “Don’t you worry. We’ll fix your ears right up. You’ll hear good as new, okay?” Wally couldn’t sew. But maybe he and Ghost could learn together. That sounded like a good idea.

“Moo,” said Jo between sniffles. “Moo … moo…”

Wally found Ghost with Dr. Miranda. Silently, they packed up her teddy-bear backpack, plastic bag of dry cereal, and Dr. Seuss book. The doctor gave Wally a Look as he led Ghost down the corridor. His feet left deep imprints in the carpet, but not as low as Jo probably felt.

He said, “That was a pretty crummy thing you did.”

“I don’t care,” said Ghost. “She’s dumb. I hate her.”

“No you don’t. She’s your friend. Remember the time I forgot to pack your juice and she shared hers with you?”

“No.”

“Really? I know a guy, an ace like us, and he can tell if somebody is lying or not. But when he does it to you, it feels like having a hundred spiders crawling all over your body.” Ghost shrugged. She’d spent a lot of time in the jungle. Creepy-crawlies didn’t bother her. “But they don’t bite like normal spiders. No. You know why? Because … they … tickle!”

Wally reached for her, careful to miss as she squealed and danced away. She took his hand as they stepped outside. Good. Maybe she’d open up a little bit.

Ghost stopped to stare at the flashing lights when they reached the street. The meter maid’s cart flanked Wally’s dented Impala. She pointed at Wally’s car, then at the parking meter, while two more police officers listened.

One of the cops was a petite woman. Her tag read “Officer Moloka.” Her partner was a huge hairy guy who towered over Wally. With his wolf snout and long black claws, he looked like a drawing in one of Ghost’s books.

“Uh-oh,” said Wally.

The hairy guy, Officer Bester, nodded to him. “Hi, Rustbelt.” Ghost giggled at his deep voice.

Most of the 5th Precinct knew Wally by sight. NYPD sometimes provided security for Committee events in the city. Wally didn’t recognize the officers, but he waved anyway. “Howdy.”

The meter maid wheeled on him, red-faced and sweating. “You! Why can’t you park like a normal person?”

“I’m real sorry about that meter. Did you get my note?”

“Your note? This is-” She pointed at the broken meter so strenuously that she had to grab her hat with her other hand. “-destruction of city property!”

“Yeah. Those things aren’t cheap, Rusty,” said Officer Moloka.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t you know it’s illegal…” The meter maid trailed off. “What is that on your face?”

Wally’s fingertips scraped along his jaw and forehead. He found a blue plastic “E” stuck to his left ear, and the word “barrel” over his right eyebrow.

“You really want us to take him in, Darcy?” asked the furry cop.

The parking lady seemed ready to choke. Ghost hid behind Wally’s legs. “He-the-it’s-city property, and he’s a repeat offender! This is how it starts, the death of the city. First it’s jaywalking and littering, then it’s people ramming parking meters just for fun, and then it’s a short slide to lawless anarchy. This,” she said, again gesticulating at the destroyed meter, “is the bellwether of the decline of a civil society!”

The policewoman sighed and crossed her arms. Her partner leaned over to look at Wally’s license plates. “Diplomatic plates. If we issue a citation they’ll just appeal and have it rescinded.”

“He does this on purpose. He’s hiding behind his job!”

“Oh. You mean them fancy plates? I didn’t even want those,” said Wally. “But Lohengrin insisted.”

He was trying to agree, but that only seemed to make the meter maid-Darcy-more angry. Or, at least, the color of her face turned a darker red.

She said, “Do you see what I mean? Practically boasting about his ability to flout the law. And he does! Broken windshield, broken taillight, parking beyond the allotted length of time at a broken meter, destruction of city property.”

“Write him up if you want,” said Officer Moloka, “but we can’t walk him down to the precinct. First, I don’t want to be the one who has to explain to the chief why the UN is breathing on the mayor who’s breathing on him. And second, he’s got his kid with him.” She winked at Ghost.

The meter maid flipped open her pad and clicked her pen. Officer Bester said, “Your funeral, Darcy.”

“I’m doing my job.” She started to fill out the ticket, paused, and waved her pen at the cops. “And I’m going to find that van, too.”

“Whoa, whoa. No.” Officer Moloka shook her head and waved her hands as if trying to fend off somebody with bad breath. “Those guys are dangerous. They won’t balk at hurting a meter maid-”

“Parking enforcement officer!”

“-and they won’t be intimidated by a parking ticket.”

“Yeah,” said Officer Bester. “If you see them, call the cops.”

“I am a cop.”

The other police officers waved good-bye to Ghost and returned to patrolling their beat. The hairy one turned around and made a face at Ghost. She giggled.

“I won’t try to get out of this ticket,” said Wally.

Darcy wrote out the citation, tore a carbon copy from her pad, took the magnet from Wally’s hand, and used it to stick the ticket to his chest.

“You’d better not,” she said. Wally waited until her cart puttered away to haul the Impala out of its parking spot. He really needed to learn how to parallel park.

“That was funny,” Ghost said when the coast was clear.

The run-in with the parking lady caused Wally to forget all about Ghost’s trouble at school until he saw the severed cotton cow ear on the floor alongside her bed when he tucked her in. Wally was too heavy to sit on the edge of her bed without causing her to flop onto the floor, so he knelt beside it. Ghost handed him Green Eggs and Ham.

“Read it, Wallywally. With voices,” she said.

“Tell ya what. I’ll read a little bit if you tell me about what happened at school today.” He picked up the scrap from Jo’s costume. “This wasn’t very nice.”

“I hate Jo. She’s dumb.”

“No you don’t. Tomorrow you’ll forget all about it and want to be pals again. But she won’t forget it, because you hurt her feelings real bad. She’ll remember you as a mean person. You should tell her you’re sorry.”

Ghost looked away. She went insubstantial, as she sometimes did when she wanted to run away from trouble. But she didn’t float away through the ceiling. Good kid.

Wally asked, “Is this about Mr. Richardson?”

She rematerialized. “He’s gone. He didn’t say good-bye.” Her voice broke; her accent grew thicker. She sounded much more like the girl she’d been when she first arrived in New York when she added, simply, “He was nice.”

Ghost still didn’t trust many adults, but she talked about Richardson from time to time. That counted for a lot.

Wally read to her. He did the voices.

Later, he took out the telephone book. Richardson, unfortunately, wasn’t an unusual name. There were several Richardsons in and around Jokertown. But one of those had to be Ghost’s teacher. A guy like that, if he worked in Jokertown he probably lived nearby, too.

It took half an hour to work his way down the list of telephone numbers. The first number he called belonged to a man-or a woman, it was hard to tell-whose voice sounded like two people speaking not quite in unison with each other. They (he? she?) didn’t know any schoolteachers. The second number rang fifteen times with no answer. When Wally called the third Richardson on the list, he got an earful from a lady whose telephone number was apparently quite close to that of a popular Chinese takeout place and who was pretty sensitive about wrong numbers. The fourth number belonged to Mr. Richardson-the-teacher’s cousin, but she said she didn’t keep in touch and hadn’t spoken to him for a while. She gave Wally her cousin’s telephone number, apologizing that it might be out of date. It was the number that rang without answer. Wally gave her his name and number and asked her to please have Mr. Richardson get in touch if she happened to hear from him.

Ghost floated through the wall from her bedroom just as he was hanging up. She mumbled to herself in a language Wally didn’t understand; it was spoken only in the PPA. Her fingers curled as though clutching a knife hilt. He had to wake her because his hand passed through her shoulder when he tried to lead her back to her bedroom. She yawned. He carried her back to bed, wondering about her dreams.

It seemed part of Ghost would always dwell in the dark jungles of the Congo, in a land of mass graves and Leopard Men. Some wounds healed; some turned into scars.

She had enough of those. He wanted to be a good foster dad for her. That meant protecting her from new scars and new traumas when he could. He couldn’t always be there; the world was a big place. You couldn’t protect everybody all the time. But the way he saw it, this meant it was important to save Ghost from the little hurts of life when he could.

He thought about it while preparing for bed. He took a fresh pad of steel wool from the box under the bathroom sink. As he scrubbed himself, Wally decided it wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to stop by Richardson’s place. He’d find him before picking up Ghost tomorrow.

He touched the photo of Jerusha Carter on his bedstand. It wasn’t a real photo-he’d printed it from the American Hero web site. It was all he had. But it was something.

“Miss you,” he said, and turned out the light.

On weekday mornings, Ghost took the subway to school with Miss Holmes, their neighbor across the hall. Miss Holmes was a bat-headed physical therapist who worked at Dr. Finn’s clinic, next door to Ghost’s school. Sometimes she let Ghost ride on her shoulders, and when she did Ghost practically disappeared between the enormous hairy ears.

Before they set off, Wally said, “Remember our talk last night? About Jo?”

Ghost looked down, scowling at the thin fuzz atop Miss Holmes’s head. “Yes.”

“You’re a swell kid. See you later, gator.”

“Not now cacadile!” Her English was pretty good, but sometimes Ghost had trouble remembering rhymes.

Wally stood in the hallway, watching and waving until they got in the elevator. Then he went back inside and called the Committee offices in the UN building up near Forty-second Street. He had plenty of vacation built up, so taking a day off was easy. They were happy as long as he wasn’t running off to a remote corner of the world on a personal mission.

After copying Mr. Richardson’s address from the phone book, he retrieved his fedora from the coat closet and headed out. The hat had been a gift, so it actually fit. And it looked snazzy. Wally had watched enough black-and-white films to know how detectives dressed. A good detective also knew where to go for information. Nero Wolfe had Archie, Nick Charles knew all sorts of guys … But Wally could do them both one better. He knew Jube.

Jokertown existed in a perpetual state of frenzy. It had been an exciting but difficult adjustment when Wally moved here, until he accepted that venturing outside the apartment inevitably meant navigating a scene of low-level chaos. The cacophony of traffic-idling delivery trucks, car horns, a siren in the distance-washed over him. Sometimes, when she was nearby, he could barely hear Miss Holmes’s echolocation, like a high thin screech just at the edge of his hearing. He stepped into the street to make room for a lady pushing a walker and towing a little girl who floated like a balloon on a string tied to her mother’s wrist. She gave him a grateful nod. He must have been getting better at it, because he didn’t find himself dodging and jostling as many people as usual.

A sheen of thin, high clouds cast a faint haze across the sky. It was early June, so the garbage cans waiting for pickup along the sidewalks weren’t quite as ripe as they would be in high summer. His stroll took him past the Italian bakery a couple streets down; he bought a bag of bombolone pastries dusted with powered sugar. They reminded him of eating beignets in New Orleans. He munched as he walked the few blocks to Jube’s newspaper stand.

He could have driven, he supposed, but a good detective beat the pavement. A good detective had a feel for the streets and could read the city’s mood through the soles of his feet. Weren’t they were called gumshoes for a reason? He stuffed the wax paper from his breakfast into an overflowing garbage bin that smelled of sour milk. The odor faded, masked by the more pleasant scent of buttered popcorn as he approached the newspaper stand across the street.

“Howdy, Jube.” He waved at the walrus sitting behind the counter.

“Wally Gunderson. You’ve been a stranger.” The tusks made it sound like he was speaking around a mouthful of food. Or maybe it was the cigar doing that. “I ever tell you the one about the two Takisians who walked into a bar? The third one ducked.”

Wally scratched his chin, trying to remember. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard that one. How does the rest of it go?”

Jube blinked. His cigar paused in mid-roll from one corner of his mouth to the other. Little puffs of ash wafted down to dust his bright Hawaiian shirt with spots of gray. “You know what? Never mind. Anyway, you haven’t been around much.”

“Yeah. It’s lots of work, raising a kid. Hardest thing I ever did.”

Jube’s stand normally did a brisk turn of business. He had a trickle of customers, but it wasn’t busy as usual. Was it Wally’s imagination, or were there fewer people on the streets? Jube made conversation while unwrapping a bundle of tabloids and making change for customers. “How is she?”

“So-so. She’s pretty upset. One of her teachers stopping coming to school. I was kind of wondering if maybe you knew him? You know everybody around here.”

Folds of blubber jiggled when Jube used a penknife to cut the twine on the bundle. He unwrapped the papers and plopped the pile on a corner of the counter.

“Not everybody,” he said. “But could be I know him.”

“Philip Richardson? He’s the bug guy with six legs, kind of shaped like Dr. Finn, but not a horse. Kind of a strange-looking fella, but real nice.”

Jube fell silent for a moment, that awkward kind of silence that people sometimes got when Wally said something. Then he said, “‘Strange-looking,’ he says. Uh-huh. You do know this is Jokertown, right? Two fifty.”

The last part he said to a translucent shadow in the shape of a woman; she was wrapped in what appeared to be twinkling Christmas lights. They chimed. Three one-dollar bills appeared on the counter, and then a tabloid floated up, folded itself, and disappeared into the silhouette. “Keep the change, Jube,” said a whispery voice. The ethereal woman faded into the play of light and shadow on the street.

“Anyway, you ever seen him?”

“Sounds vaguely familiar. You sure he’s missing?”

Wally told Jube about what they’d said at school.

Jube adjusted his hat (Wally thought it was called a porkchop hat, though he couldn’t figure out why) and shook his head. “Guess they got another one. Getting so nobody’s safe anymore.”

“Who got another what?”

“The fight club. What else could it be?”

“The what club?”

For the second time in a few minutes, Jube just stared and blinked at him. He seemed to do that a lot. Wally wondered if it was a walrus thing.

“You know, the joker fight club? Videos, death matches. That one.”

Something about what Jube said, or the way he said it, momentarily reminded Wally of the PPA. The humidity, the sting of rust eating his skin like slow acid, a line of rippling V’s in the water as a crocodile cut across the river … Death matches?

He shook off the chill. “I don’t read much.”

Jube made a pained sound, a cross between a rumble and a sob. Here it comes, thought Wally. People always got real judgmental when he admitted that. Except Jerusha.

“Wally, Wally, Wally … You’re killing me here. How can you say that to a poor newspaper vendor? ‘Doesn’t read,’ he says. Gah.”

“Sorry. Maybe you could fill me in a little bit?”

Jube asked, “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”

Wally shook his head. It didn’t take long for Jube to fill him in on the basics. Learning about the cage match videos put Wally back in Africa again: the flapping of buzzards, the hum of mosquitos, the smell of quicklime and rot as he excavated a mass grave … So many dead kids, black queens and jokers stacked like firewood.

“Wally? Wally!” The cigar stub came flying out of Jube’s mouth. It left a trail of ash and slobber across the counter.

The front of his stand had crumpled. Wally looked down. His hands had curled into fists, each containing a chunk of wooden newsstand. Rats.

He said, “Hey, I’m real sorry about that.”

Jube waved it off. He fished the cigar stub from between two stacks of newspapers and shoved it back into his mouth. “Don’t worry about it. Occupational hazard, serving this community.”

Wally barely heard him. He was thinking about Ghost, and Jo, and Cesar, and Moto, and Miss Holmes, and Allen, and Lucien … All the folks everywhere who couldn’t defend themselves. He’d seen plenty of that working for the Committee. Guys like Mr. Richardson, decent folks just trying to get by. Dying, or forced to do horrible things, just because they were jokers.

Forced to fight and kill. Just like Ghost.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. The seed of an idea sprouted in the back of Wally’s mind.

“How many of them videos are there?”

“Beats me.” Jube shrugged. “I won’t sell that filth.”

“Who all have they taken?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Some folks, like your kid’s teacher, might disappear for any number of reasons. We’ll never know unless somebody spots him in a video.”

“Oh.”

“But others … I hear they got Infamous Black Tongue. And you know Father Squid? He’s missing, too.”

“Gosh.” Even Father Squid?

“Yeah, the creeps. Shining Moira, Charlie Six Tuppence, Nimble Dick, Morlock amp; Eloi, Glabrous Gladys…” Jube leaned forward, whispering, “I hear they even tried to snatch the Sleeper, but they botched it and now he’s looking for them.”

Looking for them. Wally’s seedling idea grew.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where folks are getting snatched, would you?”

“Not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?”

“I just want to see what’s going on.”

“These people are dangerous, Wally.”

“I can be, too. Breaking stuff is just about the only thing I’m good at.”

“You’re not a killer.”

“Don’t have to be.” Wally looked around, over both shoulders, as he said, a little loudly, “I’m a real good fighter, though. Pretty tough.”

Jube sighed. “Yeah, I hear things. It’s happening all over. But maybe, I don’t know, this is just street talk, maybe there are some places that folks try to avoid these days.” He gave Wally a rundown of the rumors.

“Thanks, Jube. This is swell of you.” Wally bought a paper, tipped his hat, and turned to leave. He stopped. “Hey, by the way. Do you know where I can buy a fire extinguisher?”

Richardson lived in an apartment building on the north side of Jokertown. Kind of a long walk, but Wally was glad he chose not to drive. Every minute he spent outside was a better chance of getting snatched. He tried to look like a potential victim.

It was a tough sell. Few people thought it was a good idea to mug a guy made out of iron.

The way Wally figured it, if the fight club bums were snatching regular people from the street, they weren’t accustomed to dealing with somebody who had lots of experience fighting for his own life, and defending others’. He’d be back by the time school let out this afternoon.

But just in case … He called the school, and left a message saying he might be late picking up Ghost. They arranged to have Miss Holmes bring her home.

A good private eye knew disguises, too. Wally decided that he’d be an old friend of Richardson’s. What kind of person would be easy to snatch? He thought about this long and hard before deciding that maybe they belonged to a crossword puzzle club together. That seemed like a good fit for a schoolteacher. And maybe Richardson missed their last meeting, and so Wally was going to his house to collect his membership dues so that the club could buy more pencils. Yeah, thought Wally, that’s pretty good. Mechanical pencils, really sharp ones, and separate clicky erasers. Crossword people probably went through lots of those. Oh, and newspaper subscriptions. Maybe they got a bulk discount or something. Jube could help with that.

It was a good fake identity. Lots of detail. The creeps running the fight club would probably get a kick out of snatching somebody real brainy like that.

He stopped to loiter on several street corners along the way, talking loudly to himself. “I’m nervous,” he would say. “I don’t like being out on the streets by myself,” he would say. And then, with a sigh that he hoped conveyed both fear and weakness, he’d sum it all up: “I sure hope I don’t get kidnapped.”

There were no takers.

The walk to Richardson’s apartment took Wally past Squisher’s Basement, a joker-only place Jube had mentioned. It was situated under a clam bar, so Wally decided to stop in for an early lunch. The place had just opened but it smelled skunky, like bad beer, and fishy, like the bottom of a Styrofoam cooler after a long camping trip. The bartender stared at Wally through shafts of mustard-colored sunlight leaking in from the dingy windows at sidewalk level.

“Wow. Rustbelt? Never seen you in here before.”

Wally shook his head. “You must have me confused with somebody else. I don’t think that Rustbelt fella, whoever he is, wears a hat like mine. I’m just here to eat lunch and do the crossword puzzle. I’m real good at those.”

Wally ate a mediocre hamburger, washing it down with a bottle of skunky beer while he pretended to do the puzzle. A few folks, regular customers, drifted in and out.

“Gosh,” said Wally. “I’m having a hard time with the puzzle today. Probably because I’m so nervous about getting kidnapped.”

He cast furtive glances around the room, checking to see if this projection of vulnerability caught undue attention from anybody. But most of the other customers seemed to ignore him. One fellow got up and shuffled to a table farther away. Wally found that promising. As his gaze followed the guy across the room-he made squelching sounds as he moved, and his body jiggled like a water balloon-he thought he might have glimpsed somebody staring right back at him. A big gray guy covered in round nodules of stone, sort of like a concrete wall frozen in mid-boil. But Wally spent another forty-five minutes writing random words in the crossword grid, and the stone man never looked once in his direction.

He wasn’t far from Richardson’s apartment when a yellow flash caught his eye again. A parking enforcement scooter idled alongside an expired meter.

Officer Darcy finished her ticket before he caught up with her. So he trotted down the street, waving and taking care not to dig gouges in the sun-softened asphalt with his hard feet. He made eye contact with her in the rearview mirror. Her cart puttered to a stop.

“Howdy,” he said. “I just-”

She gave him a nasty look. “Save your breath. You’re not getting out of those tickets.”

“What? No, I-”

“But if you keep trying, I can cite you for interfering with a police officer in the course of carrying out her duties.” She put the cart into gear and started rolling forward again. Wally walked alongside her. It was easy; she didn’t go very fast.

“I didn’t come over here to do any of that. I know I deserve those tickets. I just, well, I feel real bad about the whole thing. I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Darcy’s cart jerked to a halt. The suspension creaked as it rocked back and forth. “What?”

“I know I’m real bad with parallel parking. I swear I don’t break those meters on purpose, okay? And I’m going to talk to folks and get it straightened out with them fancy license plates. I never wanted ’em anyway.”

Wally wasn’t sure, but her eyes looked a little wider. Her lips made a little “o.” Like she was frightened or surprised or something. He hoped this didn’t count as interfering.

“Wow,” said Darcy. “Nobody has ever apologized to me for getting a ticket before. Not once.”

“Well, probably nobody breaks as much stuff as I do.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. Wally strolled alongside while she studied meters. They had to wait for a giraffe-necked lady in a convertible to pull out of a parking spot.

Darcy squinted at Wally. The bridge of her nose crinkled up when she did that. “Are you wearing a fedora?”

“Yeah. Pretty nifty, huh? I saw it in a Humphrey Bogart movie.”

“Nobody wears fedoras anymore. Not since forever.”

“Private detectives do.” Darcy twisted her lips in a little moue of doubt. “Anyway,” said Wally, “I like hats. I used to have a really neat pith helmet, but I lost it.”

“How’d you lose it?”

“Not sure,” said Wally. “But I think it was the crocodile.”

Darcy cocked her head. “You are very strange.”

“I’ve heard that. Usually they use the term ‘weirdo.’”

She snickered at that, but saw the look on his face and looked guilty. “Anyway, what’s this about being a detective? We both know you work for the UN.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but I took the day off.”

“Well, at least you’re not driving. Or parking.”

“Nah. A good detective pounds the pavement.”

“And why, I ask entirely out of idle curiosity even though I’m sure to regret it, are you a detective today?”

Wally tapped the side of his nose with a finger. Clang, bang. “I’m working the case of the missing jokers,” he said quietly.

“Do you know what the term ‘vigilantism’ means?”

“No. But it sounds like a real good crossword puzzle word. How do you spell it?”

“Are you for real?”

“What?”

They went down the street, crossed an intersection, and kept going. Darcy didn’t say much. She was pretty focused. At one point, when they encountered a double-parked two-seater with its blinkers flashing, she muttered to herself, “Look at this clown. Why do people think that turning on their hazard lights will make them immune to tickets?”

Darcy opened up a little more when he asked her how she liked being in the police. It meant the world to her; he could tell. Justice meant a lot to her, too. Her eyes went a little wide when she said that word, “justice.”

And she said it a lot. She had this whole long thing about justice and civil society and police as guardians of order. It was pretty interesting, though Wally didn’t catch all of it, and it all came out in a smooth rush like she’d said it a hundred times. Secretly he was a little glad when she trailed off.

A white van eased past them on the narrow street. Darcy lifted her sunglasses to watch it. Her gaze followed as it rolled away.

“What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer, too busy squinting at the van as it dwindled in the distance. “You want me to stop that van? I can, you know.”

For a second there, it looked like she was considering it. “Nah,” she said.

The van turned a corner. She shrugged, put her sunglasses back on, and went back to work. Wally asked, “What was that all about?”

“Probably nothing,” said Darcy. After a tired sigh, she said, “There’s a van I kept citing. I’d written well over a dozen tickets. It was always illegally parked … double-parked, or blocking a hydrant, or in a loading zone…”

“Do they bust up parking meters?”

“No, they’re not like you. You don’t tear up your tickets and toss them on the ground.” Veins pulsed in her neck and forehead. Just talking about it got her upset. “Once I found a pile of shredded tickets in the gutter.”

“I guess you have to mail them, huh?”

Her voice went flat. “Can’t. Fake plates. They’re not in the system. No registration, no address. They even filed the VIN off the dash.”

“That’s strange.”

“Illegal is what it is.”

They crossed another street. Wally poked a finger under the brim of the fedora to scratch his forehead. He tried to think like a detective. It was hard.

“I guess I don’t get it. Why go to all that trouble of having a made-up license plate just to avoid parking tickets? He could learn to park better and then he wouldn’t get them in the first place. Or why even bother with the plates at all?”

Darcy’s nose crinkled up again when she stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“It’s not about the parking tickets, Wally. The plates look legit because they don’t want to get pulled over. Probably because they don’t want anybody to see what’s in the van. I wouldn’t be surprised if it belongs to the same people who are kidnapping jokers.”

He stopped. “Really? That’s super!” But then he thought about it a little more. This detective thing was hard. “Uh, I still don’t get it.”

Darcy sighed. “If they stop to grab someone, or drop something off, they have to do it when and where the opportunity arises. So they park illegally.” She explained it patiently, and didn’t make him feel dumb. He liked that.

This was great. He’d been on the case less than a day and already he’d made his first major break in the case. Granted, it was really Darcy who’d made the breakthrough, but Wally didn’t mind. Good detectives always forged a relationship with the police. He’d managed that much.

“Wow. You found the kidnappers!” He frowned. “How come you haven’t arrested them?”

“Last time I ticketed the van was before we recognized the probable connection to the fight club. Before those aces busted it up … and half of Jokertown.” She shook her head, mumbling, “Right through my fingers … Could have stopped them way earlier … some police officer…”

All of a sudden, she looked really sad. Wally said, “You’ll catch ’em.”

“I’m not so sure. I followed it once, after I realized the plates were bogus.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It turned down an alley. Narrow, dead end. But when I came around the corner, it was gone. Where the hell did it go? But people still keep disappearing so they must have gotten a new ride. I keep looking, but.…”

Darcy sounded so dejected that Wally tried to hide his disappointment. “Huh. Well, better luck next time.”

She fell silent after that. Not entirely sure why he kept at it, other than that it seemed Darcy was pretty neat, Wally tagged along while she checked meters and wrote tickets. One guy who received a parking ticket got pretty steamed and called Darcy all sorts of mean things. Wally didn’t like that at all and told him so. Darcy seemed even sadder after that, so he walked with her for another half mile, until she demanded that he buzz off and leave her alone. It was demeaning, she said. “Chauvinism masquerading as chivalry,” is what she called it.

But she also said, “Thank you.”

Mr. Richardson’s place was a bust. Wally rang the bell a whole bunch, and circled the block about ten times, each circuit beginning and ending with Wally sitting on the stoop in case Richardson went out or came home. But Wally never saw him. No mysterious vans, either.

Each day, Wally visited another spot on Jube’s list. Each day, in spite of his disguise, and much to his disappointment, he wasn’t kidnapped. And Ghost grew more sullen with each day Mr. Richardson didn’t return to school.

Wally had decided to pack it in for the afternoon, and was turning his thoughts to the weekend and fun places to visit with Ghost, when he noticed somebody following him. Well, not really following. More like keeping pace with him across the street. The big gray guy across the street paused every time Wally did. He hurried when Wally hurried; he dallied when Wally dallied. Wally pretended to start to cross the street before turning the corner instead. Behind him, the blare of a car horn told him somebody had darted through traffic. Wally stopped to study his reflection in a storefront window but it didn’t work as well as it seemed to in the movies. He bought a hot dog from a jellyfish with a street cart, and took his time scooping relish and mustard on it. The other fellow drew steadily closer. He was covered in chunks of rock like a walking fireplace. Wally had eaten most of the hot dog before he recognized the guy from Squisher’s Basement.

This is it! thought Wally. They’re coming for me.

He tried to hide his excitement. It was difficult pretending to not notice as his kidnapper drew closer and closer. Wally concentrated on looking vulnerable.

“Gosh,” he said aloud. “I don’t feel so good. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I feel pretty weak.”

But the stone guy never made his move. Was he waiting for the van to arrive? Wally walked slower and slower. He faked a couple of sneezes. Even that did no good. Finally, feeling impatient, he decided to pretend to be lost. He gazed up at a street sign and made a show of being confused. Then he looked around, as if needing directions.

“Gosh. Where am I?” he said.

The gray rock guy approached him. He held something that resembled a little digital voice recorder. It seemed pretty sinister, he decided. Wally wondered what that thing really was, and what it really did.

“Hey,” said the rock guy. “Can I talk to you?”

It’s working! thought Wally.

“Sure, fella. I hope you can help me. I’m pretty lost.” Wally looked around. Maybe it would be easier to kidnap me if we weren’t out in the open. “How about we step into that dark alley over there and talk?”

The stone man stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh, I’m not falling for that! I know who you are. And I won’t let you take anybody else!”

“Hey, pal, I just want directions-”

The stone man punched Wally in the face with a boulder fist.

Sparks rained on the sidewalk as Wally stumbled backward, toppling a streetlight. It hurt like heck. The gray guy was strong. Wally shook his head, dazed, while the streetlight clanged to the ground and other people on the street quickly scattered.

“You can’t hurt me!” yelled the other guy in a voice like an earthquake. With his other fist, the one that hadn’t clobbered Wally, he waved the recorder in Wally’s face. He jumped up and down, gibbering, “You can’t even touch me!”

Uh oh. Had the kidnappers seen through Wally’s disguise? If he was going to get taken to their secret hideout, he needed to impress them, make himself irresistible. He’d show them he could fight pretty well before letting the other guy win.

“No, please, I don’t want to go with you,” said Wally. He leaped to his feet, and blocked another punch with a wide sweep of his forearm. With his other fist he landed a jackhammer blow to the kidnapper’s stomach. There was a loud crack and another burst of incandescent sparks like the dying embers of a Fourth of July firework. It knocked the wind from the other guy; his breath smelled like hot ash.

“Oof.” The rock guy fell to one knee. He glanced at the recorder. “Lying alien bastard,” he groaned. It crumpled in his fist, and then he sent the pieces whistling over the rooftops.

Wally wound up for a kick, but the other guy lunged. The tackle threw Wally against a mail truck. It crunched like a soda can and toppled over, blocking the street. They wrestled atop a mangled heap of metal and glass. Each punch and kick threw sparks like a Roman candle as iron scraped against stone. A chorus of shrieking car alarms echoed up and down the street.

“I know you’re one of them! Following me everywhere, reporting everything I do,” said the rock man. His eyes darted around really fast, like he had trouble keeping still. “Bribing my dentist, eavesdropping through my fillings! Poisoning my thoughts with fluoride!”

He kept up a steady stream of paranoid ranting, even as Wally slipped in a pair of incandescent jabs to the chin and chest. The kidnapper grabbed Wally by the shoulders and kept slamming him against the flattened truck until it felt like his rivets were coming loose.

Wally got a knee up. One hard flex sent the other guy skidding down the sidewalk with a fingernails-on-blackboard screech. He pulled free of the twisted wreckage of the mail truck and got to his feet just as the other guy wrenched a big blue mailbox from the sidewalk with the groan of tortured metal and popping of broken bolts. He swung it at Wally. Wally slapped the blow aside with an open palm. The mailbox exploded into a cloud of rust and fluttering envelopes. The bright orange rust eddied into his opponent’s eyes. He flinched, coughing. Wally used the opening for a solid roundhouse to the jaw.

The kidnapper’s head snapped around. The shower of sparks ignited a pile of mail.

The other guy kept twisting, and took advantage of the momentum from the blow to land a high spinning kick to Wally’s ribs. It sent Wally sprawling across the street. He landed on a compact car. Pain lanced down his side from shoulder to hip. A shiny dent now creased his old surgery scar. He didn’t feel like fighting much more.

“Oh, no,” said Wally. “I’m feeling pretty woozy now.” Which he was. It didn’t require any acting to make a show of stumbling to his feet. His ears rang. The ringing turned into sirens.

The kidnapper ran away. Wally tried to give chase but tripped over the flattened mail truck.

He was still laying there when the police arrived.

It was a tight fit in the squad car, but this time they did take Wally to the precinct. The kidnapper was long gone, but they hauled Wally in on charges of disturbing the peace, destruction of city property, mail tampering, and reckless public endangerment. He wondered what would happen when the adoption committee heard about this. At least the police let him call Ghost’s school, to arrange to have Miss Holmes take her home again.

The booking officer, whose name sounded like Squint or something like that, kept a large dollhouse on her desk. That seemed strange. She wasn’t very interested in Wally’s side of the story. She didn’t appear to be listening at all until Wally mentioned that the whole thing happened because he was defending himself from one of the fight club kidnappers. And suddenly the police were very interested in Wally’s story. Particularly in his description of the kidnapper. They put him in a room and left him waiting.

The room had two chairs, a wooden table, and a water cooler with a little tube of paper cones hung alongside it. A window with broken venetian blinds gave him a view of the station house. The precinct was a busy place. All sorts of people-uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, lawyers in suits, criminals and suspects-passed back and forth outside the room. Wally even glimpsed Darcy at one point. He knocked on the glass and waved at her; she seemed disappointed, but not surprised, to see him.

Wally pressed a paper cone full of cold water against his bruises. It helped to numb the ache. He wondered what Ghost and Miss Holmes were eating for dinner. He drank the water, laid his head on the table, tried to ignore the rumbling in his stomach, and closed his eyes. He hadn’t quite fallen asleep when a voice roused him.

“I’ll be goddamned … Wally Gunderson.”

The voice was vaguely familiar. Wally sat up. And then he blinked. There were two men in the doorway. One he recognized.

“Cripes,” he said. “Stuntman?”

The man standing across the table wore a suit. Moving like a man in pain, he flipped open a thin leather case about the size of a wallet. “It’s Agent Norwood now. I’m with SCARE. More or less.”

Heart sinking, Wally stared at the badge. He couldn’t remember what SCARE stood for but he knew it was a pretty big deal. “Gosh.”

The other guy leaned across the table, extending a hand to Wally. He looked tired too, but in a different way from Stuntman. “Mr. Gunderson, I’m Detective Black.” He glanced at Stuntman. “And shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Yes. But I’ve got to hear this story.”

Stuntman closed the badge case hard enough that the breeze tickled Wally’s face. He tucked it back into a breast pocket.

“Howdy.” Detective? “Is this about the mail truck?”

The men shared a look. Stuntman rolled his eyes and shrugged.

“Uh, no,” said the detective. “Agent Norwood is helping me investigate the Jokertown kidnappings.”

From his suit pocket Stuntman produced a narrow notebook. The kind with a spiral wire along the top. Clicking a pen he pointed it at Wally. “I’m just dying to hear how you of all people got mixed up in this mess.”

Wally told them about Ghost’s teacher, his conversation with Jube, and his decision to infiltrate the fight club by letting himself get kidnapped.

“This is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard,” Stuntman said.

The detective frowned at the agent, then said to Wally, “What you were trying was very dangerous, Mr. Gunderson. People are dying in that ring.”

“That’s why I’m doing it. Somebody has to stick up for them folks.”

Stuntman rolled his eyes. “You’re moderately famous, and apparently well liked,” he said, “for reasons I’ve never understood. Did it never occur to you that they might choose to avoid nabbing a minor celebrity?”

“Father Squid is way more famous than I am. Everybody in Jokertown knows him.”

Wally imagined he could hear the grinding of Stuntman’s teeth. “We’re aware of that.”

“And anyway,” Wally continued, “I was undercover. With a special hat and everything. So they didn’t know who they were grabbing.”

“You’re made of metal and covered in rivets. What kind of disguise did you think-”

“Tell us about this disguise,” prompted the detective.

Wally explained the made-up crossword puzzle club, and how they needed to find Mr. Richardson so that they could afford more pencils.

Stuntman laughed. It wasn’t a friendly laugh. “You know, I used to wonder if the rube thing was just an act. I’ll never wonder again.”

Detective Black shot another sharp look at Stuntman. “Please continue.”

“No, wait,” said Stuntman, struggling to get the laughter under control. “Let me make sure I get this down.” He clicked the pen again and jotted something in his notebook. “Crossword puzzles. Genius.”

“Zip it,” Detective Black snapped. He turned back to Wally. “Keep going, Mr. Gunderson.”

Wally did. When he got to the part about the botched kidnapping, the detective sighed. He said, “Big gray guy? Covered in stone? Fists like boulders?”

“Yep.”

“Ranting and raving?”

“Uh huh.”

The detective ran a hand over his face. To Stuntman, he said, “That wasn’t a kidnapper. That’s Croyd Crenson.”

Stuntman stood. He and the detective conferred in the corner, whispering. Wally caught the words “sleeper” and “Takisian.” Stuntman came back a moment later, and sat with a sigh of disgust. He glared at Wally, shaking his head. Finally, he said, “I swear to God. You make hammers look smart.”

Wally said, “Well, I don’t know about this Croyd fella, but he sure seemed suspicious to me.”

“Of course he did,” said the detective. “He’s blitzed out of his mind on speed.” He shook Wally’s hand again. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Gunderson, and please leave the police work to the police. You could get hurt.” He walked out, muttering, “Paranoid delusions, fists like sledgehammers, and now he’s blaming me. Wonderful…”

Stuntman closed his notebook, and threaded the pen through the spirals. “Thanks for wasting our time.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“That is a question.”

“I was just wondering if you ever get tired of always blaming other people when things don’t go the way you want. I mean, that must be a pretty lonely way to live.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I turned my short turn with celebrity into a good career.” Stuntman spoke with a hollow pride that didn’t touch his eyes. He still looked tired. “I was smart about it.”

“I dunno. You still seem like a pretty angry guy.”

“Holy shit. Did you just call me an angry black man? You, of all people?”

“No, I think you’re a mean person who is also black.” Wally remembered a conversation he’d had with Jerusha. It seemed like yesterday. They were piloting a boat down a river in Congo, and talking about their time on American Hero, which even then had seemed like a jillion years ago.

I didn’t say that stuff.

I know, Wally. Everybody knows it.

“You never fooled anybody,” said Wally.

Stuntman made another show of checking his watch. He yawned. “Let me know when you get near a point.”

Wally thought about that. What was his point? He hadn’t thought he had one; he was just curious, because it seemed like a crummy way to live. But then he realized maybe he did have something to say. “If you hadn’t done what you did all those years ago, my life would be a lot different. Actually, maybe lots of lives would be different. Because of you I went to Egypt, and then so did some other folks, and that’s how the Committee was formed. And then I got to know Jerusha and I met Ghost and now I’m adopting a kid and everything. I miss a lot of folks-” Wally struggled to force the words past the lump that always congealed in his throat when he thought about Jerusha. He thought about Darcy, too. “-And it hasn’t fixed everything for everybody. But, I dunno, I think maybe my life would be a lot lonelier if not for you. So, thank you.”

Stuntman stared at him as if he’d just grown another head. He stood. “We’re finished here.” He left without another word.

“You know what?” Wally called after him. “You’re still a knucklehead.”

“Gosh,” said Wally to nobody in particular in his loudest speaking voice, “those joker kidnappings sure do worry me. I hope those cage match guys don’t decide to make me fight because I’m so strong. I have a kid at home.”

He pitched his voice so that it carried over the music; past the rotating stage where a bored-looking lady covered in goldfish scales half danced, half strutted around a fireman’s pole; and even into the darkened corners where ladies danced privately for solitary drinkers.

Early afternoon at Freaker’s was one of the most depressing things he’d ever witnessed in Jokertown. Nobody here looked particularly happy.

The bartender, a man with tattoos covering both his arms and most of his neck, wrapped a dirty dishtowel around the lid of a jar of pickled pearl onions. The tattoos shifted as he heaved on the jar.

“Do you need help with that? I’m pretty strong.” Wally studied the room from the corners of his eyes, adding, “Strong enough to be a wrestler or something, probably.”

He gave Wally a Look. “Thanks, tough guy. I’ll manage.” The jar lid came loose with a wet sucking sound. Wally caught a whiff of vinegar.

“Can I have another beer please?” And then, to cover up the “please” he added, “I don’t know how many I’ve had.”

That wasn’t true. He’d nursed that first bottle for an hour and a half. But he wanted the kidnappers to think he’d be easy to grab. He didn’t like to drink alone. But it was important to blend in. All part of being a detective. Still, it was embarrassing, picking up Ghost from school with beer on his breath. Even worse when it was beer from a place where ladies took their clothes off. He was glad his mom and dad couldn’t see him now.

“Yeah,” said the bartender. “That higher math is hard.”

The bartender set another bottle in front of him. The crinkled edge of the bottle cap made a screeching sound against the pad of Wally’s thumb as he flicked it off. The cap tinkled on the bar. The bottle foamed up.

One of the dancers sidled next to him. She leaned on the bar. She had a feline face, and wore a bikini that didn’t cover very much.

“Neat trick,” she said.

“Oh, sure. I do that lots. It didn’t hurt or anything-” He looked around the room again to see if anybody was listening, which is how he noticed she had more lady parts than he assumed was normal. The rest came out in an embarrassed cough: “-Because my skin is so tough.”

The dancer purred. “Really?”

She ran a finger down his arm; the purring got louder. “Tell me. Is your skin this hard all over?”

“Well, yeah. It’s-” And then he realized she was doing that thing where somebody appeared to be talking about one thing but was actually talking about a totally different thing. Wally blushed so furiously that it actually hurt his face. She watched him, waiting for an answer, but he focused all of his attention on his beer. He took a swig, clutching the bottle so hard that it cracked. The dancer sighed, rolled her eyes at the bartender, and walked away.

The beer ran over his fingers. He flicked them dry, earning a dirty look from the guy sitting a couple barstools down. Wally hadn’t seen him come up to the bar. Now his shirt was stippled with dark spots where flecks of foam had soaked into the fabric. Great.

“Oops. Sorry about that, fella.”

The guy glared at him with huge iridescent eyes like those of a housefly.

Wally said, “Here, I’ll buy your next one.”

The other guy shrugged. “Won’t argue with that.” He took a stool closer to Wally. Wally caught the bartender’s eye and put another bottle on his tab. The dancer lady returned not long after that.

It was a long, embarrassing afternoon, and by the end of it Wally was no closer to finding the fight club.

Somebody knocked on their door just as Ghost was nodding off for the night. Wally placed the Dr. Seuss book he’d been reading to her on the bedside table next to the sippy cup of water, tiptoed to the door, and turned off the light. Another knock came while he stood just outside Ghost’s bedroom, listening for the long slow breaths that told him she’d fallen into true sleep. Only when he was certain she’d stay asleep did he go to answer the door.

Darcy stood in the hallway. He didn’t recognize her right away because she wasn’t dressed like a police officer.

“Cripes,” he said. “I mean, howdy.”

She shrugged, more to herself than to him. She said, “Do you have a minute?”

Wally beckoned her inside. “I just put Ghost to bed,” he said in a half whisper, “but we can talk in the kitchen.”

Darcy shook her head. “I’m sort of in a hurry here.” Wally paused. She said, in a rush, “I think I’ve found the fight club kidnappers. Do you want to come and help me catch them?”

Wally straightened up so quickly he nearly ripped the doorknob off the door. “Holy smokes, yes!”

It took another half hour before they were under way, and Darcy fidgeted the entire time. First, he had to put Ghost back to sleep, and then he had to go across the hall to speak with Miss Holmes. Wally didn’t know what he would have done without her willingness to watch over Ghost. He made a mental note to buy her a cake or maybe cook a casserole for her to say thank you. He wondered if she liked eating Tater Tots. He knew a good recipe for Tater Tot casserole.

But eventually he and Darcy were under way. They took his car. She directed him west, to the very edge of Manhattan.

“How’d you find these guys?” he asked.

“I’ve been spending my off hours reviewing footage from traffic cameras.”

“Gosh. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

“It is a thing. But it took about two hundred hours before I found a pattern.”

Holy cow. Two hundred hours? That was … Wally tried to do the math in his head, but he couldn’t do that and drive at the same time. Anyway, it was a lot of days.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s pretty neat.”

“It wasn’t as fun as it sounds,” she said. But she sat a little straighter, puffed up by the fact of his amazement. “You have no idea how many vans drive through this borough every day. But only one that can disappear and reappear. Turn here.”

He did, saying, “I’m real happy to lend a hand. But I thought you weren’t real keen on my acting like a detective. You had the fancy word for it. Vigil-something.”

“Vigilantism.” Darcy sighed. “Yeah. Well, once I uncovered a possible lead on the van, I realized I had two problems. I knew I needed help. But maybe you remember what my colleagues said a few days ago: ‘If you see them, call the real cops.’ If I tell anybody about this, I’ll get shoved aside, and if it turns up anything useful they’ll forget I was ever involved.” She practically vibrated with irritation. “The second problem is that this place we’re approaching is, technically, outside of my precinct’s jurisdiction. The right way to do this would be for me to notify Detective Black, but that would kill hours because he insists on doing everything by the book.” Wally remembered the detective. He seemed pretty nice, all things considered. Darcy continued, “Franny would contact the other precinct, and explain the situation, and then they’d have to come to some agreement. And maybe the captains would have to talk. They’d have to do some handshake deal to let us come in and do a bust inside their precinct, or more likely they’d insist on having their own guys do it. But you can imagine how much enthusiasm this case receives outside of Jokertown. Missing jokers? Ha.”

Wally said, “So you called me instead.”

“I’m bending the rules a little, yes.” She paused. Fidgeted again. “I’ve never done that before.”

Wally smiled to himself. “How does that feel?”

“Like I want to write myself a ticket with a big fine.”

Wally stopped smiling. “You, uh … I guess you must really want to catch these guys.”

“Yes.”

Darcy directed him to a junkyard situated partially beneath a section of the old elevated West Side Highway, right on the Hudson. West Side Auto and Scrap, according to the sign over the entrance to the yard. The sun had just set past the New Jersey refineries when Wally parked his car outside the tall fence surrounding the property. The residual glow of sunset turned the underside of a low cloudbank pink and orange, casting enough ruddy light to turn Wally’s iron skin the color of rust, and to show him that the junkyard was quiet.

A breeze whistled through the Slinky-curls of barbed wire atop the fence. Much of the yard inside was given over to stacks of smashed-up old cars, some of which were five or even six high in places. The ones at the bottom were a little older, and more pancaked than the ones on top. Few were car-shaped; many had been crushed into squares. Once in a while a stack creaked, or groaned, or rattled. Wally chalked that up to wind, or maybe rats. But aside from the wind, and the constant thrum of traffic along the highway, the yard was still. The dying firelight of sunset silhouetted a tall crane deeper in the yard. The front offices of the junkyard appeared to be housed in an old double-wide mobile-home trailer. Nobody came or went. And as the salmon-colored glow of sunset faded from the clouds, turning the sky a mottled violet gray, no lights came on in the trailer.

The shadows felt heavy. The weight of Darcy’s focus gave everything a hard edge.

Wally wasn’t sure how big the yard was. Maybe the secret club was deeper inside. Or maybe there was a secret entrance, like a trapdoor, and it was underground. The junkyard would be a swell place to hide something like that. The entrance could even be in one of the cars, maybe the trunk. That’s what he would do. He decided to keep an eye open for big cars that hadn’t been squeezed into boxes.

They eased out of Wally’s car. Wally threw the driver’s-side door closed a half second before noticing Darcy had been careful not to make any noise with her door. She winced at the noise.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

They tiptoed to the gate, which was chained and padlocked. Wally pinched a chain link in both hands and gently twisted it open. But the squeal of tortured metal wasn’t much quieter than it might have been had he simply snapped the chain apart. Darcy winced again.

The gate creaked. Wally tiptoed into the deepening shadows of the junkyard with Darcy right behind him.

Within the warren of crushed cars and scrap metal, the sporadic breeze smelled like gasoline, mud, and the river. His feet clumped against the earth where the passage of heavy machinery had compacted bare soil. They kept to the shadows, slowly circling behind the trailer until he could approach it from the side with the fewest windows. Along the way, he did see a number of cars that hadn’t yet been crushed into boxes, but they were so banged-up anyway that the doors and trunks didn’t want to open unless he heaved on them or rusted out the hinges. He found no secret passages.

Darcy was light on her feet. He couldn’t even hear her footsteps and she was right next to him. She whispered something about misguided chivalry, but he still insisted she stay behind him. Wally figured he made a pretty good shield for her.

They crept up to the trailer and crouched beneath a window. Darcy was too short to see over the sill. The pane was too grimy and the interior too dark for him to see anything when he peeked inside. But if there was any evidence connecting the junkyard to the joker kidnappings, surely it would be in the office. Wouldn’t it?

Darcy whispered, “Wait!”

But the lock was flimsy, and Wally had already twisted the handle right off the door. Darcy crept back, pressed herself against the trailer. Wally eased inside.

It was even darker here than outside. A flashlight, he realized, would have been a very good idea. He was debating whether to go back for the one in the glove compartment of his car-did it have batteries? — when the click of a desk lamp replaced darkness with sterile white light. In the moment before Wally tumbled from the trailer, squeezing shut his dark-adapted eyes, he glimpsed a few cots.

Darcy had disappeared.

Wally tripped. There was a thud as somebody leapt on him and smeared Wally’s face with goo.

The darkness that swallowed him smelled like cough medicine.

He awoke outside. He knew he was outside, and not still in the trailer, because his face was coated with slime and dirt. His arms didn’t work right when he tried to roll over; he flopped around like a walleye gasping for air on the bottom of a canoe. Everything tasted like an overdose of cough drops. He almost managed to sit up, but then the ground shook with the rumble and rattle of heavy machinery starting up, so he toppled over again, head spinning.

Spotlights, like big construction lamps, now flooded the junkyard with silvery light. More dirt, he noticed, was caked into greasy handprints on his lower legs and ankles.

“Can’t believe he’s already getting up,” somebody said. “That dose would’ve put a rhino into a coma.”

“Yeah, well, better luck next time,” said a woman’s voice. “Let’s just get-” She was interrupted by the sound of sporadic gunfire. Wally knew that sound.

“Shit,” she said. “The Iron Giant brought friends. Screw this noise.”

Wally managed to lever himself up to his knees, swaying like a ship on high seas. He glimpsed a short woman with curly auburn hair sprinting toward a white van. But then a slippery foot on his back shoved him down again. A cloud of dust went down his throat. He coughed.

“Hey!” the other guy called after her. “You can’t take off until I’ve taken care of this.”

Somebody else was yelling now, too. It sounded like Darcy’s voice. She had a pretty voice.

The rumble of machinery grew louder. Shadows slid across the ground, dark tendrils skimming across oil puddles and weedy slabs of broken concrete. Then there was a clink, and the rattle of chains. The crane, Wally realized.

A weird but somehow familiar tingly sensation took root in his belly, spreading through his chest to his arms, legs, and head. It differed from the medicinal wooziness; this felt like somebody had pressed a tuning fork to the roof of his mouth and it was vibrating his brain to pudding. He tried to roll over to see what was happening, but his arms and legs refused him. He couldn’t think straight.

He’d felt this sensation before. Where?

For a moment he felt lighter … almost like he was floating. But then the ground fell away, all in a rush, and somehow he was falling up until his head and back and arms clanged against something large and flat. His body rang like a gong. Then he remembered.

Oh, yeah. When the kids stuck those magnets to my head. This felt the same, only times a million. Probably because they used this magnet to pick up cars. It made his brain feel cottony, like he had a bad fever.

The crane whined and whirred as the magnet retracted. Wally dangled high above the junkyard, splayed against the magnet like a fly on flypaper. His view of the yard bobbed back and forth, like the carnival rides he and his brother used to take on the midway at the Minnesota State Fair. Back before Wally’s card turned.

It took most of his strength merely to bend his elbow, straining and contorting just enough to press his fingertips to the surface of the electromagnet. But he didn’t touch metal. The working surface was laminated with a thin plastic coating. He couldn’t make it rust. His arm slammed back against the magnet.

Oh, crud.

The crane arm lurched. Wally left his stomach behind. And then he was soaring across the yard: over Darcy, who crouched behind a car, reloading her gun; over a half-naked man with a towel around his waist, running away from her; past the trailer and the van parked behind it. He remembered there was something important about a van … But the magnet scrambled his brain and made everything feel gauzy and surreal, like dream logic.

The woman he’d glimpsed on the ground leaped into the driver’s seat of the van. A cloud of exhaust coughed from the tailpipe. She must have floored it because the tires kicked up large clods of mud. The van spun around the trailer.

“You bastards!” screamed the little Gandhi guy.

Wally watched helplessly while somebody pulled him through the van’s open side panel.

Wally became aware of a new sound, a thrum and a whine, like the groaning of a giant hydraulic press. Wally wondered where they were taking him. The crane swept him past more stacks of crushed cars.

Crushed cars.

Oh.

But he couldn’t get smushed. Who would take care of Ghost?

The fright and worry hurt worse than any punch, any gunshot, any crocodile bite.

His struggles caused the magnet to swing like a pendulum. But each time he managed to wrench one arm or leg free of the magnet, it banged back when he went to work on another limb. He didn’t have any leverage.

The crane pivoted. The maw of a giant press came into view. It was large enough to hold a big car, like Wally’s Impala. The lid was a thick slab of steel on massive hinges, and the sides of the empty crusher comprised thick steel plates on massive hydraulic arms. That steel had been laminated, too. The whole thing stood on a pair of retractable legs, so that it could rock back like a dump truck to tip out the crushed cars. A generator rumbled off to the side. Wally caught a whiff of diesel fuel.

Another gunshot crack echoed through the junkyard. The crane jerked to a stop, which sent the magnet rocking wildly on its chain. Wally’s head spun. Between the magnet, the spinning, and the diesel fumes, he felt like he might puke.

The van picked up speed. But it wasn’t heading for the gate. Instead, it was barreling straight toward a wall of cubed cars. The magnet spun. Wally glimpsed Darcy again, now creeping to the other side of the crane. When his vantage spun around again, the van had almost reached the wall, but … Wally wasn’t sure because the magnet made his brain all fizzy and he really wanted to puke and also he was dizzy. But he watched while something that sure looked like a tunnel or hole opened up to swallow the van. He expected a big crash, but instead the van just disappeared as though the wall of cars was fake, like a hologram in a movie. The magnet spun. He blinked. When he opened his eyes again, the van was gone.

Somebody shouted. The crane lurched back into motion, once again leaving Wally’s stomach behind. The press drew closer. There was another crack, closer this time, followed by the ping of ricochet.

The crane stopped again. Somewhere, a distant voice said, “Wally!”

He thought about that. Oh. That’s me.

“Uh, hello?” His voice sounded weird, like it was full of marbles. The magnet tugged on his jaw, making it hard to shout. “Up here.”

The tingly sensation stopped as abruptly as somebody turning off a light switch. But before he had time to think about what that meant, the ground leaped up to hit him in the face. He belly flopped on the edge of the compactor. He bounced, crashed against a car cube, and skidded to a stop with one arm wrenched under his back.

“Ouch,” he said.

It took a bit of work but eventually he managed to lever himself into a sitting position propped against one of the car cubes. The metal felt sticky, somehow, which was a little weird. The residual effects of the magnet and the goo crammed up his nose left him woozy. His eyelids made a weird clicking sound when he blinked. He was still sitting there, trying to clear his head, when Darcy walked up a few minutes later. She knelt beside him.

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so.” His voice came out slurred. It felt like his teeth were trying to jostle each other out of the way.

Darcy sat with him while his head cleared. When he could think a little better, he asked her what happened.

“They got away,” she said. “Again. And I’m probably going to be fired.”

“Gaaagghhh-” It was hard to talk because his jaws kept repelling each other. He tried again. “Gosh, I don’t know. I’d be in a real jam if not for you. I bet the Committee could help you out.”

Darcy stood. She stared at the fence gate where they had entered the junkyard on their failed secret errand.

“You found the fight club,” said Wally.

She frowned. “I’m not so sure. We found a few folks and a van. Big deal.” She made a twirling motion with one finger in the air. “And anyway, they’re all gone now. Where the hell did they go?”

“Oh, I saw the whole thing from up there. They drove away through the magic tunnel. Have you seen my hat?”

“I think that magnet scrambled your brain. You should probably see a doctor.”

“Oh.” Well, at least he wasn’t getting smushed into a bloody cube.

She helped him to his feet. He tried not to lean on her, but she was stronger than she looked. “I think I should take you home.”

Wally said, “But my car.”

“No way. You are in no condition to operate heavy machinery. Not even yourself.”

“Oh. Okay.” They stumbled toward the outer gate. The door on the trailer hung wide open, and a pair of tire tracks had cut deep furrows in the dirt. They led straight to a wall of cars, which struck Wally as weird, though his head was too fuzzy to figure out why.

Darcy noticed the tracks, too. She stopped to study them. She stared, unblinking.

Then she said, “When you’re feeling better, I want you to tell me exactly what you saw.”

“Okay,” he said. “Do you like kids?”

She shrugged, which made him wobble. “I guess. Why?”

“Good. I think you should meet Ghost,” he said.