Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel

by George R. R. Martin

  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 & 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 mak
e 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?”