"Let's go over to Port Authority and grab a cup," Jay told his partner. "We need to talk."
"You don't want to miss the part where Joe saves the orphans from the fire," Rondo Hatten said.
"Yes I do," Jay told him. "Besides, I think we got some orphans of our own that need saving."
"I told you guys to shut the fuck up!" the angry voice said. A hand the size of Rhode Island grabbed Jay by the shoulder.
Jay glanced back. The face behind him was prettier than Rondo Hatten's, but not by much; the breath that came with it was a lot worse. "Don't you know it's rude to talk in a movie theater?" Jay asked. He shaped his right hand into a gun and pointed it between the close set eyes. "Let go of me, please."
"You want that finger shoved up your asshole, you just keep pointing it at me," the angry man said.
"Wrong answer," Jay said squeezing his trigger. There was the familiar soft pop and the angry man was gone. He turned back to his partner. "Let's go."
The junior partner in Ackroyd and Creighton Investigations, who sometimes called himself Mr. Creighton and sometimes Jeremiah Strauss and sometimes Mr. Nobody, cleaned the Golden Flavor off his fingers with a napkin and followed Jay up the aisle and out onto Forty-Second Street. "Where'd you send him?" he asked when they were outside the theater.
"Our Lady of Perpetual Misery," Jay said.
"The church?"
"The steeple," Jay said. "He didn't look real religious to me, but you never know. Besides, if Quasiman is going to pop into my bedroom, I figured turnabout was fair play."
"Oh," Jerry said. "He found you, then." He scowled. A scowl on Rondo Hatten's face was quite a sight to see.
"He found me," Jay admitted.
Jerry brooded on that as he ambled along, hands in his pockets. Finally he got the complaint out. "How come he wanted you?" he said querulously. "What am I, a potted plant?"
Jay sighed. As much as he liked his junior partner, Jerry's insecurities sometimes wore him out. "I've been working Jokertown a long time. Father Squid and Dutton and the rest trust me. They don't know who you are."
"My name is right there on the door with yours. Ackroyd and Creighton Investigations."
"So you're a name on a frosted glass door. Jokers don't trust anyone, not without good reason. What's Creighton to them? They don't even know his first name. For that matter, I don't know his first name. Does Creighton have a first name?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet."
"Real helpful," Jay opined, deadpan.
"Even so," Jerry said. "It was rude. I was the one on duty. He could have told me what the case was about. All he said was, 'The Black Trump,' and 'Where is Jay Ackroyd?', and I was so startled I told him. Then he vanished, just like that, without so much as a by-your-leave. He treated me like I was nobody."
"You are Nobody," Jay put in.
"Yes, but he doesn't know that."
Jay was losing his patience. "Father Squid didn't give him any messages for Humphrey Bogart."
Jerry looked startled. "How did you know that I was - "
"I'm a trained detective," Jay said. "You know, Jerry, if you keep turning into movie stars around the office, people are going to figure out that Creighton's not what he seems."
"It wasn't Bogart, it was Sam Spade," Jerry said, his tone defensive. "I forgot I had it on. The office was closed, the door was locked, I was finishing up the report on the Wedaa surveillance, and all of a sudden Quasiman pops out of nowhere. There was no time to work on my face." He put on a peevish tone and tried to change the subject. "What's a Black Trump, anyway?"
"No idea," Jay told him, "But I don't like the sound of it."
The Port Authority Bus Terminal was a hop, skip, and a couple of junkies down the street. They found an all-night doughnut stand. Jay ordered coffee, black and very strong, served in a cardboard cup. Jerry got a cruller sprinkled with powdered sugar. The muggers and the chickenhawks were giving them a wide berth, and no wonder. Rondo was almost as big as the monkey in the movie, only meaner. "I can see why you picked this look," Jay said.
Jerry smiled. It looked odd on that huge misshapen face, shy and tentative and strangely gentle. "Rondo's great for walking around bad neighborhoods late at night," he said proudly, "but you wouldn't want to wear him on a date."
"No," Jay said, "listen, we got trouble. A whole bunch of Jokertown's leading citizens were picked up earlier this evening. Father Squid, Charles Dutton, Finn and another doctor down at the Jokertown Clinic, Oddity, Troll, god knows who else."
"Picked up?" Jerry said. "By the police?"
"Feds, I think. The NYPD knew nothing about any of this until it went down. They were howling bloody murder for an hour or two, then someone got a phone call and now they won't say a word. Quas said Snotman was involved, so I had Melissa do some digging."
"You went to her first?" Jerry said miffed again.
"She was with Justice for years, she still has contacts. I figured she could find out the score if anyone could. I was right. The operation was Special Executive Task Force, start to finish. The strikes were well coordinated, simultaneous, and there was a SCARE ace with each team. Snots at the Dime Museum, Lady Black at the Jokertown Clinic, Jim Dandy at the church. Slamdancer, Bloodhound, and a couple of others are in town too, so it could be there were more arrests we don't know about."
"Hoo boy," Jerry said. "Sounds serious. Was anyone hurt?"
"The Oddity tried to fight back and Snotman pounded them into guano. Then Quas gave Snots a bear hug and both of them vanished. That's the last time anyone has seen Snotman."
"Where did they take the people they arrested?"
"That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Problem is, the answer is classified. No one has been charged with a crime, you understand. According to my sources in the cophouse, Father Squid and Dutton and the others are just being held in protective custody."
"Can they do that?" Jerry said, surprised.
"Not legally," Jay said. "Melissa is going to hunt up Dr. Praetorius, he'll file a habeas corpus and wave some papers at them, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it doing a whole lot of good. You know what this smells like to me?"
"Card Sharks," Jerry blurted suddenly.
"Bingo," Jay said, smiling.
"But why?" Jerry asked. "What's this all about?"
"I don't know," Jay admitted. "What's worse, I think the feds just scooped up everyone who does know." He leaned across the table and brushed powdered sugar off his junior partner's lapel. "Now here's the interesting part. Quasiman isn't the the only one on the loose. He said that Hannah Davis escaped them at the museum, along with a joker who may or may not be Gregg Hartmann."
"Hartmann?" Jerry said. "Hartmann's dead."
"Is he?" Jay asked. The last few years, with the jumper gangs running around stealing people's bodies, you could never be sure who was dead and who wasn't. Dr. Tachyon, the Turtle, Elvis, even Jerry and Jay themselves, at certain points all of them had been presumed dead. "Maybe he is and maybe he isn't, I don't care. The point is, somewhere out there is a loose end. Two loose ends, actually. Hannah Davis and a joker who looks like a yellow caterpillar."
Jay had a good view of the escalators that led down to the subway. A boy got off the Up while Jerry was pondering the case. He stood there a moment, a file folder tucked under his arm while his eyes searched the terminal. A firefly was buzzing around him.
He was well dressed for a kid who looked no older than eleven. His suit was Italian, charcoal gray, and he wore it with black wingtips, a white shirt, and a red silk tie, but there was still something about him that made you think of Heehaw. Maybe it was the mop of blond hair that fell across those deep blue eyes, or maybe it was the freckles. He had freckles on freckles on freckles.