George Martin - Lowball

Before they set off, Wally said, “Remember our talk last night? About Jo?”

Ghost looked down, scowling at the thin fuzz atop Miss Holmes’s head. “Yes.”

“You’re a swell kid. See you later, gator.”

“Not now cacadile!” Her English was pretty good, but sometimes Ghost had trouble remembering rhymes.

Wally stood in the hallway, watching and waving until they got in the elevator. Then he went back inside and called the Committee offices in the UN building up near Forty-second Street. He had plenty of vacation built up, so taking a day off was easy. They were happy as long as he wasn’t running off to a remote corner of the world on a personal mission.

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.