I looked up and realized the brown eyes on either side of the snout and fangs were warm and very kind. I nodded; it was as good an explanation as any, and it might keep a bad situation from turning into complete shit.
“Aw, Beastie, ever the peacemaker,” said a redheaded woman. Her shoes were polished mirror bright, and her pants crease could have provided a shave. She patted the dragon on the shoulder. “Lu, it’s not the kid’s fault you’re hungover. Come on, we’re going to be late.”
Everyone started to move again. Dragon guy fell into step with the one-eared guy and the redhead and threw back over his shoulder, “Next time you see me, Rook, step aside.”
“Come on, kid, let’s get you to the briefing. Don’t wanna be late on your first day.”
“Thank you, Officer…” I let my voice trail away suggestively.
“Bester. Benjamin Bester, but everyone calls me Beastie. You can too. It’s great not to be the rookie anymore.”
“Glad I could oblige.” I followed after him, past the winged desk sergeant and up the stairs. “Who’s my other rescuer?” I asked, with a nod toward the redhead.
“Angel Grady, Puff’s … sorry, Lu Long’s partner. She’ll be captain before she’s forty. She’s awesome. The other guy is Thomas Driscoll … Tabby. He works undercover.”
“That can’t last long. He’s pretty distinctive-looking.”
“No, no, he doesn’t go undercover like that. He turns into a cat.”
“Oh,” I said, faintly, as we topped the stairs and entered the squad room.
More chaos there. Phones were ringing, people were talking. Depressed-looking suspects in handcuffs were seated at a few desks while uniformed cops and plainclothes detectives pecked at the dirty keyboards of ancient computers. One old guy had ram’s horns growing out of his skull. At the back of the room were two glassed-in offices for the precinct brass. I wondered if things had been remodeled since 1986. They must have been. Somebody would have noticed if my dad had died at his desk in a glass office.
Clashing odors swirled through the room. In addition to gun oil, sweat, and vomit there was the distinctive burnt-nuts smell of very old coffee and very fresh donuts in the air. My stomach gave a growl. I had been too nervous to eat breakfast. Maybe this is how cops become a cliché, I thought. I longed to go in search of the donuts, but instead followed Beastie into the briefing room.
Beat cops were settling into chairs. Behind the podium was a middle-aged Asian woman with an oval face and worried dark eyes. Her name tag said CHOY. Behind her was a large and detailed map of Jokertown and a bit of Chinatown where the two intersected. There were wanted posters and updates from the FBI, SCARE, and other law enforcement agencies.
I took a chair in the back. I’d drawn enough attention for one day. The sergeant began the briefing. I took out my iPhone and began taking notes.
“Mr. Lee reports that somebody’s been entering his fish market and eating just the mussels and the clams. He comes in every morning to find empty shells. Tabby, maybe you could offer some insight?” The Asian woman looked over at him.
“Love to,” Driscoll drawled.
“Just don’t get distracted banging the alley cats, Tabby,” a short, skinny Asian man called. Laughter sputtered through the crowd.
A middle finger flipped up, and Tabby shot back, “Unlike you, Dildo, I can do more than two things at once.”
More laughter, quickly extinguished when Choy said, “Okay, okay, moving on. The turf war between the Werewolves and the Demon Princes is heating up. Some of those guys are better armed than us, so be careful. And we’ve got a purse snatcher operating between Elizabeth and Orchard. Keep an eye out, and for God’s sake kick your lazy asses into gear and run him down. The store owners are complaining that it’s hurting the tourist trade.”
“Are we ever gonna get those Segways?” asked a cop who was busy brushing powdered sugar off the shelf of his belly. I could see why he wanted one of the two-wheeled personal transports.
“In a word … no,” said the sergeant.
“Ah, damn. Then can I get a car?”
“No.”
The new mayor had taken many of New York’s Finest out of patrol cars and put them back on foot or on bicycles. He thought it improved community outreach when the police had to walk among the citizens they were supposed to be protecting. I thought he had a point, which is why I had decided to take an apartment in Jokertown. My mother hadn’t liked it, and I admit some of my neighbors left me queasy, but all the research indicated that when cops lived where they worked conditions in a neighborhood improved. And when I had been in law school there’d been a lot of discussion about breaking the cycle of gang membership leading to jail, returning to the gang—
“… Black? Is Black here?”
I have this tendency to become fascinated with some thought, and miss what was going on around me. Hence I missed my name being called. I scrambled awkwardly to my feet while thrusting my hand into the air. “Here. Here. I’m here.”
“Okay, Bill, he’s all yours,” said Choy, addressing an absolutely enormous Asian man in the front row.
He stood and peered back at me. I gaped. He looked like an Easter Island statue. He shook his head with its thick mop of jet-black hair and said, “How did I get so lucky?”
I choked on a laugh. The voice that emerged from that massive body was a ridiculous high-pitched squeak.
“You think his voice is funny, wait till you get a load of his power,” the woman next to me whispered. Her name tag read QUATTORE. Curling black hair brushed her shoulders, and I couldn’t help but notice her impressive rack.
At the same time Tabby grunted, “’Cause you’re such a fucking sterling example to us all.” My new partner glared at Tabby.
There appeared to be a story there. I just didn’t want to become part of it.
“Okay,” Choy broke in again. “Go out there and catch bad guys.”
There was much scraping of chairs, coughs, and conversations as the cops headed for the door. Bill walked to me. I craned my neck to look up at him, and I’m five feet ten.
“Bill Chen,” he said, and thrust out his hand.
I watched mine disappear into his paw. “Francis Black.”
“Okay, Franny, stick by me. Keep your mouth shut. Learn something.”
“I go by Frank,” I said. “And I thought that’s what I did at the Academy?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That was bullshit. This is Jokertown.”
♣
It was indeed Jokertown. Bill’s beat encompassed most of the famous tourist attractions—the Famous Jokertown Dime Museum, the strip club Freakers, the line of mask and cloak shops on Hester. Interspersed among them were Starbucks stores and—most incongruous of all—a new Hyatt Hotel.
The sidewalks were crowded, worse than even normal Manhattan. Joker body shapes aren’t exactly human normal, and many jokers require additional help to get around. So the sidewalks were also clogged with wheelchairs, four-wheeled carts, and other unique forms of conveyance. At one point Bill stepped casually through the scrabbling eight legs of a giant spider topped with the head and torso of an old woman scrabbling down the sidewalk. Bill acknowledged her with his baton. “Morning, Arachne.”
“Hi, Bill,” the spider-woman responded.
I didn’t trust myself not to tread on one of Arachne’s legs so I stepped off into the gutter to walk past her.
“First day on the job?” the old woman asked.
I stopped. “Uh, does it show that bad?” I tried to look at the human face, look the woman in the eyes, but my eyes kept flicking back to the spiky hairs protruding from the spider body, the eight legs culminating in pincers.
She chuckled. “Yes, you look poleaxed.”
“Franny, come on,” Bill bellowed. I ducked my head at Arachne and hurried to catch up.