Chapter Four
9:00 a.m.
Jennifer picked up the phone on her desk and dialed a number she’d used only half a dozen times in the past year, but had committed to memory. It rang three times before it was picked up and a rich, cultured voice with a Brooklyn accent still lurking in it said, “The Happy Hockey.”
“Hello, Gruber.”
The voice took on a new tone, deepening and becoming unctuous with unwanted solicitousness. “My dear Wraith.” He called her by the nom de guerre Jennifer had adopted. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”
“Fine.” Jennifer kept her answers to a minimum. She didn’t like Leon Gruber, though he continually let her know his all-too-evident feelings toward her. He was a pudgy, pasty faced cokehead with a master’s in fine arts from Columbia. He worked out of the pawnshop he’d inherited from his fatherunder, from what Jennifer had heard, rather suspicious circumstances. He was her fence. He never stopped hitting on her, despite the cold politeness with which she carried out all their transactions.
“Do you have something for me?” he asked.
He made the question sound salacious. Jennifer could almost see him licking his pouty lips.
“Postage stamps,” she replied briefly.
“How much?” There was something of a sigh in his voice as he resigned himself to talking business.
“Nearly two .million catalog.”
There was a long silence, and when Gruber finally spoke his voice had changed again. There was something behind his words that Jennifer had never heard before, something that made him sound even more cold and calculating than usual.
“You do astonish me, my dear. Tell me, are these from a dealer’s stock or a private party’s collection?”
“None of your business.”
“Well, we do like to keep our little secrets, don’t we?”
“My secrets are my own,” Jennifer said firmly, more than a little irritated. “If you’re not interested in the stamps I can always find someone who is.”
“Oh, I am interested. I am. I’m interested in everything about you, my dear Wraith.” Jennifer grimaced at his words. She could almost imagine the scenes flickering through his coked-up brain. “You are a very, um, intriguing person. You appeared from out of nowhere and in less than a year became the city’s finest thief. I feel very fortunate to be, um, associated with you and I’m very, very interested in the stamps. I have something on for this morning, though. I’m expecting some people. Can you come by elevenish? Perhaps we can do lunch after I take a look at the merchandise.”
“Perhaps.” There was no sense in antagonizing him before he looked at the stamps. “Eleven. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll be waiting, dear.”
His last sentence echoed oilily in Jennifer’s ear as she hung up. There was more avid anticipation in it than was usual. She decided that she had to find a new fence. She couldn’t take Gruber’s leering comments much longer. Maybe he was sliding too deeply into his cocaine habit. He does so much of the stuff; Jennifer thought, one of these days his heart’ll explode.
Fortunato checked his watch. He had to bring his arm up along his side and then across his chest to see it because of the crowds. It was a little after nine. When he looked up again the world was like a kaleidoscope. Shards of bright color surrounded him, shifting constantly into new patterns, unpredictable but not quite random.
When Caroline had said it was Wild Card Day it had meant nothing to him. He should have known better. Now he was trapped in the crowds with Brennan, committed. Every couple of minutes he thought again about breaking his rule about public displays. It would be nothing for him to levitate himself out of the crowd and sail back to the peace of his apartment.
Then he thought of the Astronomer, maybe just a few yards away, maybe on the verge of killing again and making himself that much stronger in the process.
Just ahead of them Hester Street met the Bowery, square in the middle of Jokertown. Police barricades blocked off the side streets, though there were so many tourists a car couldn’t have gotten through if it wanted to. They mostly seemed to be dressed for a track meet, in shorts and running shoes and hideous T-shirts, except they were overweight and slung with cameras and had billed caps with moronic slogans on them.
“Look, there’s one now,” one of them said, pointing at Fortunato. The man’s hat said EATING OUT IS FUN. Fortunato thought about turning the man’s stomach inside out, leaving it hanging out of his mouth by the long tube of his esophagus, spilling his blood and drool and breakfast on the sidewalk. Easy, he told himself. Just take it easy.
In typical joker fashion the parade had already gone to hell. The official floats were supposed to be lining up down at Canal, but the street was already full of unofficial entries, the most obvious of which was a twenty-foot-high latex phallus, pink and glistening, pointing up at about sixty degrees. It was mounted on a wooden platform, and three masked jokers were trying to push it through the crowds. The penis was forked and there was a sign hanging between the two heads that said FUCK THE NATS. A fourth joker stood on the platform, throwing what looked like used condoms into the crowd. Two knots of people were fighting their way toward the platform, one cops, the other outraged tourists.
“There he is.” Brennan had to shout in Fortunato’s ear to make himself heard. Fortunato turned and saw Jube sitting on top of his news kiosk, short, fat, his tusks glistening in the morning sunlight.
“Okay,” Fortunato said. He used a little of his power to clear a space in front of the kiosk. He cupped his hands and called up to him. “Can you come down for a minute?”
Jube shrugged and started to clamber down. Fortunato reached up and took hold of a black, rubbery ankle to steady him. At the moment of contact Fortunato felt a weird vibration go through him. Jube looked down and their eyes locked. Fortunato read his thoughts involuntarily.
“Yes,” Fortunato answered him. “Now I know” Jube was not human.
“I’ve seen you at the Crystal Palace,” Jube said. “But we’ve never been formally introduced.” He held out a hand. “How are you at keeping secrets?”
“I mostly mind my own business,” Fortunato said. “Does Tachyon know about you?”
“No. Nobody does but you. I guess I just have to hope you don’t come up with a good reason to give me away.”
Jube’s face went blank as Brennan walked up and said, “Chrysalis told me-“
“I saw the Astronomer.” Jube’s head, greasy black and covered with tufts of reddish hair, moved up and down. “About five this morning. I was picking up the Enquirer. Every Monday, you know.” Fortunato cleared his throat impatiently. “He was in the back of a limo, headed down Second Avenue.”
“How did you know it was him?” Fortunato asked. Jube hesitated and Fortunato made it an order. “Tell me the truth.”
“I… went to some of their meetings. The Egyptian Masons. I thought they had … something I wanted.”
A sudden crash made the alien jerk back in surprise. Fortunato turned around. JUst across Hester a plate-glass window had exploded out onto the street. Four Oriental kids in blue satin jackets swarmed out of the store. The last one out smashed the glass of the door with a billy club. “You remember, old man!” the kid shouted. “You don’t fuck with the Egrets, man!” They charged into the crowd and disappeared.
Brennan had the leather case open and the two halves of his bow together in a second and a half: Even so he had no chance for a shot. He put the bow away again and turned back to Fortunato. Fortunato hadn’t moved.
“You weren’t kidding,” Jube said. “You really do mind your own business.”
“I don’t interfere where I don’t know what’s going on,” Fortunato said. He was thinking about 1969, when his power had first appeared. For a few months there he’d been involved with a political underground movement, trying to stop the wholesale slaughter of jokers in Vietnam. Even then, with the issues as clear as they’d been, he’d felt uneasy about it. There had been a woman involved, and when she disappeared that had been the end of it for him. And since then he’d kept to himself. “If I wanted to be a cop, I’d be a cop.”
He turned back to Jube. “I think you and me need to sit down and have a long talk sometime. When there’s not so much going on. For right now, just keep your eyes open. If you see the Astronomer again, or anybody that you know is working for him, call Tachyon. He can get hold of me. All right?” The alien nodded.
“And for Christ’s sake,” Fortunato said, “try to cheer up.”