“Texas! What the fuck is going on in Texas that I need to miss out on wrapping up a case we’ve worked weeks on?” Jerry bolted out of the chair and put his hands on his head.
“Calm down.” Jay almost sounded conciliatory, which wasn’t his style. “This is a major new client, and we didn’t get to be one of the most respected detective agencies in New York by turning down heavy hitters.”
“How heavy?”
“Michelle Pond, the Amazing Bubbles.”
“Wow.” Jerry sat back down. Like everyone else on planet Earth, he’d heard of the Amazing Bubbles. He put his skepticism on momentary hiatus.
“Your travel gear is in the briefcase by your desk.”
“What are the specifics of the case?” He picked up the briefcase.
“There have been threats against a group of young joker musicians she’s chaperoning,” Jay replied. “Your cover is that young journalist we’ve used before.”
“So, kids or something. What kind of threats?”
“Ms. Pond will give you all the particulars.” Jay shaped his hand like a gun and pointed his index finger at Jerry. “You’ll be arriving at the Gunter Hotel. Nice place. I spent a couple of nights there once looking into a supposed haunting. You want to show up in the lobby, or the haunted room?”
“Oh, the haunted room, of course.” Jerry took a deep breath and began slowly exhaling.
“As you wish, partner.”
The hotel desk clerk dutifully told him there were no rooms, but after Jerry flashed his fake government ID he’d landed a suite. What the hell, it was on the agency’s dime and this wasn’t where he wanted to be anyway.
He called Michelle Pond. She answered on the sixth ring. “Yes.”
“Ms. Pond, this is Mr. Creighton of Ackroyd and Creighton. I understand you have some issues with a band you’re chaperoning. I’d like to meet with you as soon as possible.”
There was a moment of silence. “You’re here in San Antonio already?”
“We pride ourselves on our response time.” Jerry was trying to sound more professional than indifferent. “How soon would you be able to meet with me?”
Another longer pause. Jerry heard a lot of chatter in the background. “I’m finishing up with the police right now. Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Police?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s about the rattlesnakes.”
“Ah.” Jerry realized this might be a bit more complicated than some rowdy teenagers. “See you in a quarter hour.”
Her model-perfect features didn’t mask the worry on Michelle Pond’s face. That she was so obviously concerned was hard for him to figure. This was one of the most powerful aces on the planet. She could turn him into a grease spot on the wall in the blink of an eye. Either teenagers were far scarier than he imagined, or there was something else going on.
Jerry tapped notes into his phone. “We’ve escalated from smoke bombs and falling lights to rattlesnakes.” The snakes were potentially a good lead; not just anyone could handle them safely. If nothing else, it could eliminate some suspects.
She nodded, taking a sip of bottled water.
“I assume the auditorium has security cameras. Have the authorities gotten anything useful from them?”
“No,” Michelle said, “I think they spray painted them or something.”
“Were any of the locks forced?”
“I don’t think so.” She stared at Jerry and sighed. “What exactly is it you’re going to do? We’re only here for a few more days and things are getting serious. Do you have a plan for dealing with this?”
Jerry stopped tapping and looked up. “I understand your concern. The truth is, I just got here. The more information I have to work with, the more likely I can produce positive results for you. Are there any individuals or groups that have been overt in their hostility to your band?”
“The Purity Baptist Church. They’re complete assholes. And there’s always going to be tension among competing bands. The Plano Originals, for sure.” She pressed her lips together. “Probably won’t stop some of them from trying to have sex with people in other bands, though.”
“A major problem for a chaperone, I expect. Still it could be worthwhile to talk to your band members. Someone might have heard something useful. You never know.” He put away his phone. “We have one other operative here, a reporter for the Jokertown Cry, or that’s her cover. I’ll send her over to talk with them. Her name is Tess Harding.”
“What will you be doing in the meantime?”
“Staying busy, trust me,” he said, smiling. “I’ll be in touch.”
Clothes were the bane of his existence. He could change his face and form all the livelong day, but clothes would always give him away if they weren’t right. Jerry handed the stack of garments and his company credit card to the woman behind the counter. If she thought it was odd that a man was buying women’s clothes, her smile didn’t give even a hint of it. She was disarmingly friendly. In fact, outside of the gun-toting lunatic who’d tried to shoot him, all the people Jerry had encountered were among the nicest he’d ever met. How was it that a state filled with people like this invariably elected bigots and morons? There was no point in trying to square that circle. He didn’t have the time.
“Thanks so much for shopping with us today.” She returned his credit card and neatly placed the clothes into a bag. “Y’all please come visit us again, soon.”
Jerry wandered over to the ladies’ dressing rooms and snuck in when no one was looking. He put on the new clothes and altered his body to fit them perfectly, checking the mirror to make sure everything was working properly. The crotch bulge wouldn’t do, so he shrank his junk down to minimal size. He could get rid of it altogether, and had done so when it was necessary, but he liked to keep a little. A therapist, if he had one, might be able to tell him why, which was one of many reasons he didn’t have a therapist. He tucked his Creighton clothes into the bag, hit the makeup counter, and decided to walk back to the hotel.
Jay was right about the weather. It was glorious. The temperature was ideal and the gentle breeze was indecently pleasant. The San Antonio River Walk was busy, but not overly crowded. Most of the people looked to be tourists like him. They didn’t move with the speed or assurance that a local would.
He worked to put himself into a Tess mind-set—young, energetic, and inquisitive. Realistically, he was only one of those things, but pretending otherwise was the job. Becoming Tess physically was easy. Jerry couldn’t disobey the laws governing conservation of mass, so Tess was tall and well-muscled. Big breasts were hard on his back so he kept them small. Tess did have substantial hips, though. Tess was a joker too, but Jerry hadn’t added those features yet since jokers sometimes drew unwanted attention and aggravation.
Jerry felt a hand on his shoulder and turned, wondering who could possibly want anything from a stranger. There were two young men staring at him. One had a drunken smile on his face; the other had a more drunken one. Aggravation had showed up in spite of Jerry’s best efforts.
“Piss off, boys. I don’t have the time.” Jerry’s Tess voice was concise, brusque, and very New York.
The boys looked at each other. The larger one leaned in. “Looking at your ass we thought you had it going on, but there’s not much up here.” He grabbed a breast and squeezed.
Jerry owned guns, but he didn’t like carrying them. So over the past couple of decades he’d taken self-defense courses in various disciplines and was highly skilled at hand-to-hand fighting. He grabbed the big boy’s pinky and twisted it hard. There was a satisfying snap.
The injured punk fell to his knees. “You broke my fucking finger!”
Smart guy number two moved in, fists raised. “I’ve got this, bro.”
Jerry stomped on the kid’s instep, elbowed him in the solar plexus, and hip-checked him over the metal railing into the dirty, shallow water. A boat cruised by, loaded with passengers. Many of them pulled out their cell phones and p
ointed them in Jerry’s direction.
“Cunt!” the broken-fingered boy screamed.
Jerry walked away quickly. The last thing he wanted was an encounter with the local police. So much for everyone in Texas being friendly. Young punks were pretty much the same everywhere. Although those two wouldn’t have lasted out a day in New York City.
Ezili had taught him how to put on makeup, but Jerry had never really mastered it. His hands were steady and he understood the basic concept of what to do, but the aesthetic of the process eluded him. Luckily, he didn’t have to do anything with her hair. Tess had a multicolored mohawk of feathers, as well as a mane of smaller, softer feathers around her neck. The only other aspect of her jokerdom was her finger- and toenails, which looked more like talons. He gave his Tess look one final check in the mirror and then grabbed his tablet. He’d Googled “teen slang” and was scanning the page. The number of terms was daunting, to say the least.
“This is hopeless,” he said. He’d just have to fake his way through it. The story of his life.
He was nervous about being in a room full of teenagers and couldn’t really place why. It wasn’t just the way they talked. That couldn’t be it. There was something else. Jerry was in his mid-seventies, although he never looked it unless it was for a job. He’d spent two decades as a giant ape, which had messed with his mind to the extent that a lot of his pre-simian memories were becoming fuzzy or nonexistent. Teenagers were like aliens to Jerry. Maybe worse. He would probably have been happier if Jay had popped him to Takis.
He arrived at one of the band’s rooms. It must be the right place, because there was the sound of a saxophone being played behind one of the doors. At least, Jerry thought it was a saxophone. He smoothed his clothes, took a deep breath, and knocked. The playing stopped and a few moments later a teenager with sax in hand opened the door. At first he looked totally normal, but then Jerry noticed an expanding blob of sky blue on his neck. It disappeared and moments later a crimson one showed up on his right arm.
“May I come in?” Jerry leaned into the open doorway and smiled. During the course of his decades as a detective, he’d flashed a ridiculous number of introductory smiles at people and had gotten really good at it.
The joker boy opened the door and backed away. Jerry stepped in and looked for a place to sit. The room was littered with instrument cases, laptops, tablets, and random piles of clothes. The boy was alone, which surprised Jerry. He figured teenagers ran in packs. Still, the kid might speak more freely without his bandmates around.
“My name is Tess Harding.” Jerry extended a clawed hand and the boy shook it cautiously. “I’m a reporter with the Jokertown Cry. I’m working on an article about the band competition, featuring the Mob, of course. Would you be willing to talk to me?”
“Me? Sure, I guess.” He scratched his head and took a seat on the couch, holding his sax carefully in his lap. More circles of color bloomed on his skin. “I never met a joker reporter before.”
“I never met a joker saxophone player, so we’re even.” Jerry sat down. “What’s your name?”
“Sean Malone.”
“Nice to meet you, Sean.” Jerry noticed Sean trying to not look at him. Tess wasn’t a stunning beauty—women who were exceedingly pretty attracted too much attention as a rule—but she was still plenty cute. Jerry’s vanity demanded that much. He guessed Sean hadn’t been around too many women. Jerry flipped open his tablet for note-taking. “You want to tell me about yourself, Sean?”
Sean took a moment. “Well, I’m from Pennsylvania. After I changed, my parents wanted me to continue playing sax, so they sent me to high school in New York. To be with other people like me. That part’s worked out great. Our squad is hella tight. I miss my folks, though.”
Jerry nodded. “I understand you’ve had some problems since arriving here.”
“It’s been totally effing nuts. The smoke bomb was no big deal, but this morning we had rattlesnakes in a couple of the instrument cases.”
“That’s serious. Who do you think would want to do that?” Jerry leaned in a bit.
“Nobody knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that bunch outside the hotel. You should have seen how they acted when we got off the bus. If Bubbles—Ms. Pond—hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened.” He clutched his sax a little tighter. “All we want to do is play our best. We’re not hurting anyone.”
“What about the other bands? How do they feel about you competing?”
Sean twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “They’re mostly okay, I guess. The Plano Originals aren’t crazy about us. Some of them, anyway.”
Jerry tapped the info into his tablet, his clawed fingers clicking on its surface. “Sean, do you have any other notions, no matter how wild you may think they are, about what—”
The door opened and a crowd of kids pushed into the room. It was like an inversion of the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera but with joker kids.
Sean popped up off the couch to greet them. “Did you have any luck?”
“Oh yeah,” said a girl with wings and antennae. “We’ll be back in business soon.”
Jerry stood. “Hi. My name is Tess Harding. I’m a reporter with the Jokertown Cry. I’m here to do a story on your band. Do any of you have a few minutes to talk to me?”
A young joker rolled up to him, literally: his legs were fused together with a wheel at the bottom. “Do you blog?”
“Not really. Some of my stories have been picked up by mainstream media, though.” It was half a lie. There actually were stories under the Tess Harding byline that had appeared in the Jokertown Cry and elsewhere, validating her faux existence. Ezili wrote them, though. She had quite a talent in that area.
Sean picked up his sax and raised it to his mouth. He glanced around at the others and started to play. The sound filled the room, reverberating off the walls.
“Please, if you could just spare me…” A couple of the others joined in. The insect-girl fingered an imaginary bass, bobbing her head and mouthing the notes in bum-ba-bum rhythm with the rest. The wheeled boy started gliding, dipping, and, well, dancing. He moved like Cab Calloway on a unicycle.
Jerry was overwhelmed, not just by the noise but by the kids’ unbridled enthusiasm. His head swam and he started to feel a bit faint.
“Excuse me,” he said, and bolted for the bathroom.
Once inside he checked his face, which had slipped ever so slightly back to his actual countenance. Jerry sat on the toilet and did some deep breathing. He’d studied yoga for a bit; it helped him focus and he was able to quickly get back into character. He stepped back into the room and headed for the door.
“I’ll try to come back later, if anyone would like to talk to me.” No one noticed.
Outside, Jerry encountered a large, slow-moving metallic person. He immediately recognized Rustbelt towering over him.
“Who the heck are you?”
“I’m Tess Harding with the Jokertown Cry. I was trying to get an interview with the kids, but it didn’t really work out.”
Rusty slowly shook his head. “Cripes, once they get going it’s hard to stop them. I gotta break it up, though, or the hotel folks will complain. You might have some better luck later on.” He paused for a second. “I never do, though.” He ducked his head and entered the room.
Jerry walked quickly away and heard the music slowly fade as he moved down the hallway. That had been a bust, for the most part. Still, Sean had given him a little bit of info to go on. Might as well check it out.
Jerry sat on the edge of his bed, trying to make the pieces of the case fit together in a way that made sense. The problem was he didn’t have enough pieces to work with. He needed to find some, and soon.
He had the TV on in the background, tuned to the local cable news channel. There was a blue bar at the bottom of the screen showing upcoming stories. The next up was titled Snakes Alive. Jerry turned up the volume.
The picture cut away to a you
ng woman reporter. “As if the situation with the jazz band competition wasn’t already tense enough, reports this morning indicate that instruments were stolen from the Jokertown Mob band, and in their place were left a pair of baby rattlesnakes. We are informed that the Amazing Bubbles herself disposed of the dangerous reptiles. In her own inimitable fashion, I would imagine.”
Jerry clicked the TV off and used his tablet to find the contact number for the San Antonio Zoo. Moments later he had a telephone receptionist on the line.
Jerry mimicked the reporter’s voice. “This is Ms. Garcia. I’m researching a story for our station on what happened this morning with the snakes at the band competition. Do you have a herpetologist on staff?”
“Yes. I’ll connect you.”
After a long wait, a woman answered. “This is Dr. Shelton. I’ve been told you’re a reporter. How may I help you?”
“Thank you for your time, Dr. Shelton,” Jerry said. “Regarding the incident with the snakes earlier, is there a special permit required to handle rattlesnakes? If so, who would issue such a permit?”
Dr. Shelton cleared her throat. “My understanding is that those snakes were diamondbacks. There’s no permitting process for the handling or housing of indigenous snakes, regardless of how dangerous they might be. Only if it were a non-indigenous species would a permit be required. Texas Parks and Wildlife would handle that.”
Another swing-and-a-miss. Jerry sighed. “I see. Thank you for the clarification.” He was about to hang up when Dr. Shelton spoke again.
“Most of the people who handle rattlesnakes and such are … well, they do it for religious reasons. They don’t really show the animals the proper respect and many of them wind up getting injured. Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, but other times he just smacks you upside the head.”
“Indeed. Thanks so much for your time, Dr. Shelton. You have a nice day.” Luckily, Jerry knew exactly where to find a group of people who were both religiously inclined and hostile to the Mob.
He was hungry as hell, but Jerry was determined to make some headway before letting himself eat. The gnawing in his gut was motivation after the debacle with the kids. As Tess, he’d established a bit of a relationship with Sean, but there was no guarantee that would pay off in a meaningful way.
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