George Martin: Lowball

And that had been satisfying. But it was now five years in the past.…

Until the morning of May 8, 2012, he had a firm plan to resign from SCARE the day after the November election. He wanted to make more money; he wanted to enjoy his work again. (A friend had sent him a script titled I Witness that might work for television.) Jamal didn’t particularly want to become the sole male lead of an action-adventure network series; that was a good way to make a lot of money and ruin your life. Nevertheless, going back to Hollywood and being thrown off tall buildings was a step up from a Sunday-night town meeting in Albany. And I Witness might wind up on cable … less money, but fewer episodes. The biggest lure was that going back to Hollywood meant he could rebuild his relationship with Julia-

“Any ideas on what this might be?”

Finn shrugged. “Joker medicine is still the Wild West.” Jamal let the joker reference go uncorrected. “There’s no reason to believe it’s anything … dire at the moment.”

“Wow, Doc, way to reassure a brother.”

The words obviously stung. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just…”

“We don’t get a lot of aces in a place like this,” Jamal said, sliding off the table. “And at these prices, no wonder.” The doc had obviously never heard the old wheeze. Or maybe he was just freaked out by the unique nature of Jamal’s problem.

Either way, it was time to get out of here.

As a special agent for SCARE, Jamal could have taken his problem to a facility higher up the scale than the Jokertown Clinic. Two things argued against that move, however: a visit to, say, Columbia Medical or Johns Hopkins or especially the New Mexico Institute would have surely come to the attention of Sheeba and the higher-ups at SCARE. And Jamal Norwood wasn’t eager for that.

Besides, Doc Finn and the Jokertown Clinic had more experience dealing with wild card-related matters than anyone on the planet. They were likely Jamal’s best bet to find out what was wrong with him.

He had just received a promise from Finn for a follow-up report within forty-eight hours when his phone beeped. Sheeba the Midnight Angel herself. “Jamal,” she said, her Southern accent and perpetual air of exasperation stretching two syllables to three, “where are you?”

“A personal errand,” he snapped. “Does it make any difference why I’m off duty for an hour? If you need me somewhere, now, I’m on my way.”

“Yeah, well … we have a DHS incident in New Jersey. Some kind of toxic spill.”

“Why is that our mission?”

“They don’t tell me why, Jamal, they just tell me. DHS is shorthanded today. Tell me where you are and we’ll pick you up on the way.”

He improvised. He was still largely unable to visualize lower Manhattan-had they been uptown, say, Seventy-second Street, it would have been easier. But here? “Uh, corner of Essex and Delancey,” he said, naming the only two major streets he knew.

“See you in ten minutes,” Sheeba said.

Jamal grinned. It wouldn’t be ten minutes. The Midnight Angel’s metabolism ran hot, requiring at least half a dozen meals every day. (What would it be like when she hit menopause? he wondered. Would she slow down? Or would she blow up like a fat tick?) The moment she hit the street, she would see some food cart, and that would add ten minutes to the trip. And beat hell out of Sheeba’s per diem.

Which would allow Jamal Norwood to find the corner of Delancey and Essex.

Jamal liked to run, as long as he was in gym gear, wearing sneakers and on grass or at the very least a track. Running down a hard and broken Manhattan sidewalk in suit and dress shoes was not only far from his idea of decent exercise, it was too damned slow, especially with the afternoon crowds.

It was also too damned public. He caught a startled double take of recognition on at least two faces, and heard one construction worker hollering, “Yo, Stuntman!”

He pretended not to notice. He kept hoping that his exposure on American Hero would fade. No luck, alas.

It took him thirteen minutes to reach the corner of Essex and Delancey from the Jokertown Clinic. And when he did-

He was on the northeast corner, about to cross with the light, when something flashed in his peripheral vision. A battered white van made a hard left headed south, so close to the corner that Jamal and the other pedestrians could feel the slipstream. “Shit goddammit!” a young man shouted.

Jamal glanced at him-a mistake. What he saw was an African-American joker, his upper half human-shaped, his nether regions more appropriate to a giant snake … if a giant snake adorned itself with rings of yellow, red, and black.

The social protocols required Jamal to say something. “Hey.”

He hoped to disengage at that point, but it was too late. “Hey, you’re Stuntman!”

Busted for the second time in a few minutes. American Hero had fattened Jamal’s bank account, undeniably a good sign, and had led to his meeting Julia, a jury-is-still-out sign, but in most other ways had proved to be a disaster.

Especially when it came to anonymity. Working in Hollywood had exposed Jamal Norwood to the perks and the price of fame, and it had quickly become obvious that the price far outweighed the perks. “Guilty.”

“Marcus!” the kid said, indicating himself. “What are you doing here, man?”

“Just … going from point A to point B.” This joker wasn’t likely to be satisfied with that, but it was all Jamal was offering. Maybe an autograph, if really pressed.

“Oh, wait,” the kid said. “Yo, Father!”

Christ, now what? Jamal had barely formulated the thought when Father Squid appeared out of the crowd. Jamal realized that, in addition to cooking food and auto exhaust, he had been smelling the sea. Father Squid was the source: big, tentacle-faced, wearing a black cassock, he also reeked of brine. The good father turned to Jamal. “Stuntman himself! What are you doing here? Thought you were working as a secret agent or something.”

“Something like that,” Jamal said. “Protection for candidates.”

The priest laughed long and loud. “Shielding the Holy Roller! What a task that must be!”

“Maybe that’s why they don’t know shit about anything going on in the streets,” Marcus said.

“Charity, Marcus,” the priest said.

Jamal was annoyed. “What’s he talking about?”

One of Squid’s tentacles uncurled in the direction of the nearest telephone pole. In addition to the usual long-past concert and job postings, the pole held three different homemade posters, the most prominent showing a joker named John the Pharaoh under the heading, Have you seen him? Missing since May 1!

“What’s going on?” Jamal said.

“A bunch of jokers have disappeared,” Marcus said. “I can’t believe SCARE doesn’t know about this.”

“SCARE might,” Jamal said. “My team doesn’t.”

“That sucks,” Marcus said.

Squid placed a calming tentacle on Marcus’s shoulder. “The local police aren’t stepping up. We can hardly expect the Feds to do what Fort Freak won’t.”

“How many have there been?” Jamal said. After five years with SCARE, he was finding it easy to slip into an investigative role.

“At least half a dozen,” Father Squid said.

“That’s a big number,” Jamal said, feeling alarmed. SCARE should know about this-

Suddenly Marcus started. “Who’s that?”

A black Ford Explorer pulled up across the street. Jamal’s phone buzzed.

“My team.” He turned to the priest. “I’ll make sure someone looks into this.”

“You can reach me at Our Lady of Perpetual Misery.”

“I know the place.” As he turned to cross the street, he hoped he had gotten away without making too many promises. Squid and Marcus made him nervous.