by Paul Dini
“The cops still have Quinzel, I take it?” Delvecchio said, his tone lofty now, as if he considered them far beneath him.
To remind them how important he is, Harleen thought, and they’d better not forget it. She looked up at Tony. He had a strong grip on her shoulder again but he was standing with his head slightly lowered and his shoulders hunched, like he thought Delvecchio might hit him. Spike was standing up straight, looking belligerent; he didn’t like taking orders.
And Delvecchio knew it, she realized, her gaze moving to him from Spike. Delvecchio knew how Spike felt and he made a point of bossing him around. It was all so obvious when you knew what you were looking at. These guys would never think she could understand stuff like this because she was a kid.
God, adults were so stupid!
* * *
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Delvecchio said to Spike in a put-upon voice. “Make the call. Unless by some miracle you’ve done that already?”
Spike looked super-sour as he held up his phone and took her photo, then walked off to lean against one of the shuttered games. The flash startled Harleen and she had to force herself not to cry. She hated having her picture taken with a flash because it hurt her eyes—hurt physically. Harleen had told her daddy always to warn her if he was using a flash so she could look away. Daddy had said it was smart to look away from any camera flash.
Now all she could see were big colored blotches in the dark. She got so distracted trying to blink them away and readjust her eyes to the night that she forgot to pay attention. Then something Tony was saying caught her ear: “…that Sharon’ll pay up, whether Slick Nick wants to or not.”
“You sound pretty sure about that,” Delvecchio replied in his lofty boss-voice. “I hope you’re right.”
“Oh, I know I am,” Tony assured him. “She only looks like a mousy little hausfrau, all shy and everything. But she used to be a doctor. In a hospital.”
“Did she?” Delvecchio tried to sound bored but Harleen heard the interest in his voice. Like maybe he hadn’t known that but he didn’t want Tony to think he’d told him something.
“Oh, yeah,” Tony said. “She passed all the tests, did her internship and residency like they do, got her license to practice. Then Slick Nick came along and bam!”
“‘Bam’?” Delvecchio said, as if it were a bad word from a foreign language.
“Yeah, bam! Now she’s got four kids and the bail-bondsman on speed dial.” Tony gave a short laugh. “Hey, she could be useful. She could be your personal physician.”
“If anyone’s gonna need a personal physician tonight, it won’t be me,” Delvecchio said darkly, just as Spike came back.
“She’s on her way,” Spike said, looking pleased with his own efficiency. “I told her to call when she gets here and we’ll tell her where to drop the, uh, package off.”
“The ‘package’?” Tony laughed. “What are you, a spy or something?”
Harleen’s vision had cleared enough to let her see the look Delvecchio and Spike gave Tony. “Always good to be circumspect,” he said. He patted Spike on the shoulder and added, “Good boy.” Spike’s sour face returned. “As long as she thinks it’s a straight trade—the kid for the package.”
Spike’s eyes swiveled from Delvecchio to Harleen and back again.
“I can’t just let this go,” Delvecchio went on. “Otherwise everyone’ll think they can get away pulling all kinds of shit on me. People gotta remember the golden rule: you make my life difficult, I make your life hell.” Delvecchio glanced down at Harleen and his nose wrinkled slightly, like he was looking at a dog turd someone hadn’t pooper-scooped. “The cops’ll hold onto Nick for a while. One of you drop by holding later and tell him why nobody’s coming to bail him out this time.”
“Will do, boss,” Tony said cheerfully, as if Delvecchio had asked him to water his plants while he was on vacation. It probably meant about that much to them. Harleen knew she had to do something fast.
At the same moment, Tony actually let go of her to reach into his pocket for something. Harleen didn’t even think about it—the moment his hand was gone, so was she.
“Get her!” Delvecchio bellowed.
* * *
This was like playing hide-and-seek backward, Harleen thought as she pelted through the park; she was It and everyone was trying to find her. Her chest was starting to tighten and burn and her legs were getting heavy but she pushed herself to go faster, faster than she ever had before. Because this wasn’t just a silly game. It was nothing like a game.
She hadn’t thought about where to go when she had taken off at warp speed, only that she had to get away. The bad guys hadn’t seen that coming. They must have thought she was too scared to move.
Well, she was scared, more than she’d ever been in her life. She hadn’t understood everything Delvecchio had said, just enough to know something bad was going to happen to her and her mommy. Which had made her too scared not to run.
Harleen could hear Delvecchio hollering somewhere behind her, ordering Tony and Spike not to let her get away. She was breathing hard now but she didn’t dare slow down. If it had just been Tony chasing her, she could have outrun him easily; he had a belly on him that showed he liked pizza and beer, not gym workouts. Spike was skinny but he stank like cigarettes—yuck! He’d have been coughing and wheezing and puking before he could even get near her. And Delvecchio probably didn’t even walk fast; he hired people to run for him.
But all three of them were after her. They could split up, surround her, trap her, unless she could find a way to get around them or under them or something. The problem was, she didn’t know the park very well anymore. She wasn’t even sure where she was right now; nothing looked familiar. Her heart was pounding so hard and loud, it almost drowned out the sound of her gasping for breath. Worse, it seemed to be getting even darker and there were fuzzy colored patches in her vision, like she saw when her eyes were closed.
But she couldn’t close her eyes and she couldn’t stop. Harleen tried to push herself to run even faster but her legs felt awful heavy, like they had after she’d proved to Benny who lived on the ground floor that she could run up and down the stairs half a dozen times when he’d bet her a dollar she couldn’t (and then the crumb-bum had refused to pay up).
Despite her efforts, Harleen felt herself slowing down. If she couldn’t run, she had to think. The park was big but it didn’t go on forever; if she kept going, she was bound to come to a fence or something. She was good at climbing fences. She might get over the fence and out before those guys even knew it. They’d be running around searching the park, never knowing she wasn’t even there anymore—
Except Mommy wouldn’t know, either.
Mommy was on her way and they were going to do something bad to her. She had to find Mommy first so they could both get away. How was Mommy going to get into the park? Would she go to the front gate and call those guys to tell them she was there? Harleen couldn’t picture her mommy crawling under the barrier to get in the way she had.
Should she find a hiding place near the main entrance, Harleen wondered? Or get out the way she had come in, and hope she found Mommy there? The surge of hope Harleen felt lasted barely a second before she realized she had no idea where the entrance was.
“Over here! This way!”
Spike. Harleen’s heartbeat doubled as she ran faster through the shadows, past big, dark structures, low buildings, and weird shapes that could have been trash cans or sleeping robots or other unearthly creatures. All at once, she saw a tall skinny thing she recognized as the strong-man test. Daddy called it the high striker. You hit the base with a big mallet to make the striker go up. If you rang the bell at the top, you won a prize. Her daddy had only made the striker go halfway up—no prize for that. Harleen had told her daddy it didn’t matter, he was really the strongest man in the world. Besides, no one else got the striker as high as he did.
The strong-man test was right in front of the Fun
house; and there was the word FUNHOUSE glittering in the moonlight. It was near the wooden roller coaster, she remembered, slowing down a little. She and Daddy had ridden it three times in a row before Daddy said he needed to take a break. On the best day ever. That was just today—well, yesterday, Harleen supposed, although it felt like a hundred years ago. How could everything go so bad after going so good?
Harleen remembered what her daddy had said about the roller coaster lattice being good camouflage. That probably worked even better at night, she thought, and headed toward it. She wasn’t sure how to get inside the lattice. There had to be a way, though—maintenance people had to get in, didn’t they? Daddy said everything had an entrance for maintenance. Most people simply didn’t notice.
Harleen was trying to remember what else her daddy had said about maintenance when the world exploded in a blinding white flash.
Before she could even cry out, something caught her ankle and she fell forward, scraping her hands and knees on the pavement.
“Damn, Spike,” Tony said. “You’re, like, a genius.”
“If by ‘genius’ you mean ‘not a moron,’ you’re right,” Delvecchio chuckled.
Harleen felt a familiar large, rough hand clamp onto her left arm and drag her up to her feet.
“Don’t!” she yelled, more angry than scared for the moment. She was going to get Spike for flashing the light in her eyes, she promised herself, she really was. It was like red-hot needles stabbing her eyes. And she seemed to be even blinder than she was the last time—she couldn’t see anything but great big purple blotches, no matter how much she blinked.
“If she’d gotten away, I dunno what we woulda done,” Tony was saying, holding her arm too tight. “Sharon woulda never given us the loot.”
There was a brief silence. Then Delvecchio said, “Perhaps you really are a genius, Spike.”
“Perhaps I am,” Spike said, but he sounded sulky, not like he thought it was a compliment.
“Hey, my hat is off to anyone with smarts—” Tony began.
“Shut up!” Delvecchio snapped.
“You got it, boss,” Tony assured him. He started dragging Harleen back the way she had come.
Fresh tears sprang into her eyes. Tony had to know he was hurting her now. How could he do that to her when she’d made him laugh? When you made people laugh, they felt good and they liked you—they didn’t want to hurt you. How could Tony be so mean to her?
She was going to get him for that, him and Spike both.
“…an errand to run,” Delvecchio was saying. “If I leave you two here, can I count on you to take care of Dr. Quinzel, Medicine Woman, or whoever the hell she is?”
“Hey, we always take care of business,” Tony said proudly.
But Spike was talking over him. “Consider her dead, boss. You want us to take care of the brat, too?”
“Absolutely not,” Delvecchio replied. “I want her alive and in good condition when I get back.” Harleen still couldn’t see but she felt him examine her knees, then her hands. “The man I’m bringing with me is what you might call a connoisseur of the beauty of youth, particularly in those magic, single-digit years. He’ll pay top dollar for merchandise in good condition.” Delvecchio chuckled. “He can afford it.”
Harleen felt her stomach turn over. She would get Delvecchio, too.
“It’s too bad about the scrapes,” Delvecchio added, “but I’m sure that in every other way, she’s, ah, pristine.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Tony said cheerfully.
Harleen’s vision cleared in time for her to see Delvecchio walking away in a boss-man strut. I will get you, she thought at his back. Even if it takes twenty years, I’ll pay you back for ruining my best day ever.
“Boy, am I glad he’s gone!” she said in her tough-Brooklyn-cookie voice. “Talk about a buzz-kill—that guy just doesn’t know how to have a good time, am I right?” She poked Tony’s middle with her free hand; she was starting to lose all feeling in the arm he was holding. “Right? Right? You know I’m right, doncha?”
Tony laughed but not as much as before. She needed better material.
“Hey, you think maybe he was raised by a family of eggs?” Harleen went on. “And that’s why he’s not crackin’ up?”
Tony sat her down on a bench near the strong-man test but kept a tight grip on her arm. She couldn’t even feel her hand anymore.
“Hey, siddown, why doncha,” she told him. “Take a load off.” Tony plumped down next to her, laughing a little. She turned to Spike, who was looming over her. Inspiration struck and she tried a slightly different voice. “Can we talk?”
“Shut up, you little brat, or I’ll shut you up!” Spike shouted at her with a ferocity that shocked her.
“Jeez, take it easy,” Tony said, taken aback. “I’m startin’ to think you got some serious anger issues.”
“You can shut up, too!” Spike snapped at him. “Compared to you, I really am freakin’ Einstein. I don’t know why Delvecchio makes me work with you.”
“What the hell’s bitin’ you?” Tony asked him.
“We’re gonna take out her mother and give her to a pervert buddy of Delvecchio’s,” Spike said, putting one foot up on the bench and leaning over Tony. “And you’re telling me I’ve got anger issues?”
“Serious anger issues,” Tony corrected him. “Maybe you should talk to someone.”
“Hey, we all need to talk sometimes,” Harleen said, being the tough cookie.
Both Tony and Spike turned to her. “Shut up,” they said in unison.
“Don’t interrupt when the adults are talking,” Tony added firmly. “It’s not polite.”
Turning away from them, Spike threw his hands up. “Why is God punishing me?” he said, looking up at the sky.
Harleen couldn’t help herself. “’Cause you ain’t got no class,” she said promptly and looked at Tony. “Somebody hadda tell him. Am I right?”
“That’s it!” Spike yelled. All at once, he was pulling a gun out of his jacket. Tony’s laughter cut off as he jumped up and tried to grab it.
As soon as he let go of her, Harleen sprinted for the Funhouse.
There wasn’t much fun in the Funhouse now; in fact, it was downright creepy. Except for the faint glow from an exit sign here and there, the place was completely dark. Harleen wasn’t afraid of the dark, not really, but she wasn’t that crazy about it even when there weren’t a couple of bad guys after her.
She felt her way along a wall and came to a door. Immediately, she knew this was the door she and Daddy had mistaken for the way out. She had no idea how she knew—maybe it was just the way the knob felt in her hand. She slipped inside and closed it silently behind her.
The smell of sawdust and chemicals was heavier than ever; Harleen felt as if she were stifling. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all, she thought, feeling her way along another wall. This was a small room with no place to hide and it would probably be the first place Tony and Spike would look, using the light on Spike’s phone—
Abruptly she tripped over something and fell on a bunch of paint cans and plastic bottles. If Tony and Spike were in the Funhouse already, they must have heard that, Harleen thought, biting her lips together to hold the tears in. She kept very still, listening for their voices, but all she heard was her own heart pounding like a big bass drum.
After a bit, she got to her feet and, keeping close to the wall, moved more carefully, feeling ahead with her foot for any more obstacles. She tried to remember what the place had looked like with the lights on.
Suddenly, she came to another door. Her heart leaped—she didn’t remember seeing another door when she and Daddy had been there earlier. It was unlocked but, to her dismay, it wasn’t a way out, just a closet. There were lots of shelves on one wall; another had tools hanging from pegs. But the wall opposite the door was bare, except for something like a metal cabinet set right into it. Harleen pulled it open; there were lots and lots of switches—the ci
rcuit breaker. Well, this was a house, after all.
Daddy had taught her all about the circuit breaker at the tenement. It was enormous but he had showed her the switches for their apartment. When the power failed, sometimes it was because a circuit had become overloaded. When that happened, a switch would flip and you had to flip it back to get the power back on. Daddy showed her how to do it and warned her to leave all the other switches alone, especially the ones for other people’s apartments.
Mommy hadn’t liked Daddy showing her the circuit breaker; she said Harleen was too young. But Daddy said that there might be a power cut when he wasn’t home and Mommy couldn’t leave the apartment—like, if one or two, or even all three, of the boys were sick. Then she’d be glad she could send Harleen down to the basement.
Abruptly the muffled sound of Tony and Spike’s voices brought her back to the present. They were sure to find this room—unless something distracted them. Impulsively, she reached up and flipped the main switches. The lights went on and there was a cacophony of silly music and recorded laughter as the Funhouse came to life. With all the noise, Tony and Spike would be so confused, they wouldn’t know where to look first. With any luck, she could sneak out the back door and they’d never know.
Or, she thought as she stepped out of the closet and looked around the work-room, she could get them before she left.
Harleen found a tool-belt lying on the floor near several cans of spray paint, bags of glitter in every color, and several bottles of glue of various kinds, including—she smiled—super. The belt was too big for her but she discovered she could wear it slung over one shoulder, like a Miss America sash, and stuff would stay in the pockets. She stuffed them full of glitter bags, some spray cans, and lots of super-glue.
She meant to open the work-room door just a crack to see if Tony and Spike were nearby, but she froze with her hand on the knob. She couldn’t just stay there until they cornered her—they’d do something to make sure she couldn’t get away. And when Delvecchio came back, everything would get worse.