Bill strode along, nightstick swinging in the rhythm of his walk.
“Isn’t it a little threatening to be carrying your stick? All you’d have to do is slap your palm with it, and you’d be a perfect cliché,” I said.
“It’s how I access my power, kid. When I want a critique of my policing style I won’t be asking you.”
“Sorry.”
A big hand closed on my shoulder. “That’s okay. At least you have the sense when to climb down. So many of us are macho assholes. Even the girls.”
“So, what is your power?”
“The day is young. I’m sure you’ll see before it’s over.”
“I noticed that every pairing seems to be a joker and a nat, or an ace and a nat,” I said.
“Precinct policy. Pair a nat and a wild card whenever possible.”
We made a stop at a newsstand at the corner of Hester and the Bowery. An incredibly wide man with blue-black skin and tusks protruding from his mouth was selling a Times, a Newsweek, and an Economist to a multiarmed, multieyed joker. After the joker skittered away on what seemed to be a million centipedelike legs, the proprietor leaned on the weather-worn counter. He and Bill slapped palms and bumped fists. Then Bill asked, “What’s the word, Jube?”
“Pretty quiet.”
“Well that won’t last,” Bill said.
“Hey,” said Jube, “I got a new one. A joker, a priest, and a rabbi are in a lifeboat…”
But I was thinking about Bill’s last comment and didn’t hear the joke. It was August. In a month, on the fifteenth of September, Jokertown was going to bust out in a celebration that was half Mardi Gras, half St. Patrick’s Day, and half riot: Wild Card Day. For me it was the anniversary of my dad’s death.
Bill groaned. “That was terrible. You need a new writer.” Then added in his absurd voice, “Let me introduce my new partner. Franny, meet Jubal. He’s been watching the world go by from this newsstand, for what? Forty years?”
“Close enough. I don’t want to actually count them up.” A broad hand thrust toward me. We shook, and Jube looked closely at my nameplate that read F. X. BLACK. “There was an F. X. Black at the 5th twenty-five years ago. Any relation?”
The words emerged from between my teeth like pulled taffy. “Yeah, my dad.”
Bill was staring at me and I felt heat rising up the back of my neck. Mercifully we were interrupted by yelling.
“You ugly son of a bitch! I gave you a goddamn fifty, and you gave me back change for a twenty. I don’t fucking think so.”
Across the street and on the corner, people swirled like water circling a drain, attracted by the altercation at the pretzel cart. Bill and I plunged between parked cars and into the street. Bill held up his stick like Moses exhorting the waves, and lo and behold, all the traffic stopped.
A red-faced nat dressed in shorts, tennis shoes with calf-high socks, and a green polo shirt that strained across his belly screamed into the masked face of a joker. “You’re a goddamn crook, you fuckin’ freak.”
The small joker seemed to be shriveling beneath the barrage of words and profanity. His face might be hidden, but folds of skin sagged down his neck like wattles on a turkey, and the same dangling folds festooned his arms, visible because of his short-sleeved shirt.
“Okay, let’s all just calm down. Now what seems to be the problem?” Bill said. It’s the standard cop line, and usually presented in an all-knowing tone. Bill’s high-pitched voice rather undercut the effect. His bulk made up for it.
“I gave this guy a fifty, and he only gave me change for a twenty,” the tourist repeated, at a much lower volume.
“I didn’t,” the joker whined.
“Open your cash box,” Bill said.
I gulped. If the joker refused we’d be forced to get a warrant. But he didn’t. And I checked off lesson number one. It never hurts to ask. Cops are intimidating, people usually agree and you avoid the warrant. I could just imagine how Dr. Pretorius, my constitutional law professor at Columbia, would react to my conclusion.
There was no fifty in the cash box. I decided I needed to start acting like a cop and investigate. “How much for a pretzel?” I asked.
“Buck twenty-nine with tax. Buck sixty-seven if you want cheese. He wanted cheese.”
I looked up at Bill who was glaring at me. I took a breath to help quiet the quivering that had hit my gut and said, “Nobody pays for a dollar sixty-seven pretzel with a fifty-dollar bill.” I peered into the cash box. “And he…” I indicated the joker. “Would have cleaned out his cash if he’d tried.”
“Which is why he just pocketed my money,” the tourist blustered.
Bill looked from one to the other. Suddenly he unlimbered the cuffs and spun the joker around.
♠
Back at the station Mr. Kuzlovsky had recovered his fifty-dollar bill, the pushcart vendor was in a cell, and I was feeling really, really stupid. After the arrest Bill had patted down the joker, and found the fifty tucked away in the drooping folds of skin around his belly. Bill was laboriously typing up a report using a one-fingered hunt and peck method, and he sensed my embarrassment. He looked up, and his expression was kind.
“Don’t worry about it, Rook. Just don’t let pity cloud your judgment. And don’t overcompensate by assuming innocence just because they’ve been afflicted and you find them disgusting.”
My new partner was turning out to be frighteningly astute. I decided not to insult us both by denying it. “I’d quibble with the word choice, but I am finding this harder than I expected,” I said. “I took an apartment down here so I could try to see the neighborhood as just a neighborhood.”
“That’s good. And now you gotta see jokers as people. Which means like most people they’re shits.”
I dropped into a chair, and shifted my nightstick and handcuffs so they weren’t digging me in the kidneys. “That’s a damn depressing attitude.”
Bill shrugged. “Just being realistic. We’re cops, which means we see the bad, not the good.” He flashed me a grin. “Cheer up. In a week you’ll assume everybody’s lying.”
“Great.” I sighed and looked away.
“What else is bothering you?” I was beginning to wonder if Bill’s power was telepathy.
“I’m worried that searching a physical deformity qualifies as a strip search. If it does we should have gotten a warrant.”
Bill stopped typing and leaned back in his chair. It creaked ominously. “You one of those annoying armchair shysters?”
I stared into that broad face and for one cowardly moment considered lying. “No, I’m an actual shyster.”
“Oh, fuck. That’s just great.” He shoved back from the desk, the wheels on his chair chattering across the floor. “Well, that probably means you can type. Be my guest.” And he stomped away toward the break room. It looked like the bonding moment was definitely over. As I settled down behind the computer I figured the word would be all over the precinct by shift change.
We were back on the street by 10:30 A.M. We broke up a fight outside Squishers Basement at 11:15. The combatants were about sixteen sheets to the wind. As I stepped back, panting and rubbing my upper arm where one of the drunks had landed an ill-aimed punch, I found myself yelling at the bartender who had come outside to observe the fight.
“What the hell time do you open? Or did you ever close? Unless you’ve got a special license you better have closed at 4:00 A.M.”
Bill slapped me on the back. “They serve ‘food.’” He put air quotes around the word. “Which means they can open at ten, and he makes a great hangover remedy.”
After the drunks were sent back to lockup I realized I was famished. Bill was hungry too, so we hit a local diner for burgers. I made the mistake of ordering mine with guacamole and blue cheese. For the next hour I got to listen to Bill talk about my “yuppie burger,” and I was revising my opinion of his empathy. I checked my watch. It was 1:20 and I had a headache blossoming behind my eyes.