"Kind of a shame it's going to melt, isn't it?" Jay Ackroyd said from behind him.
Hiram turned. "The artist doesn't think so. Frost maintains that all art is ephemeral, that ultimately it will all be gone, Picasso and Rembrandt and Van Gogh, the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa, whatever you care to name, in the end it will be gone to dust. Ice art is therefore more honest, because it celebrates its transitory nature instead of denying it. "
"Real good," the detective said in a flat voice. "But no one ever chipped a piece off the Pieta to put in their drink." He glanced over at Peregrine. "I should have been an artist. Girls always take off their clothes for artists. Can we get out of here? I forgot to bring my fur muumuu."
Hiram locked the freezer and escorted Ackroyd back to his office. The detective was a nondescript sort of fellow, which was probably an asset in his profession. Mid-forties, slender, just under medium height, carefully combed brown hair, quick brown eyes, an elusive smile. You'd never look at him twice on the street, and if you did, you'd never be sure if you'd seen him before. This morning he wore brown loafers with tassels, a brown suit obviously bought off the rack, and a dress shirt open at the collar_ Hiram had asked him once why he didn't wear ties. "Prone to soup stains," Ackroyd had replied.
"Well?" Hiram asked, when he was safely ensconced behind his desk. He glanced up at his muted television. A color graphic was showing sound waves coming out of the mouth of a yellow stick man and knocking clown a wall. Then they cut to an on-the-scene reporter speaking into the camera. Behind him, a dozen police cars cordoned off a brick building. The street was covered with shards of broken glass, winking in the sunlight. The camera panned slowly over rows of shattered windows and the cracked windshields of nearby parked cars.
"It was no big thing," Ackroyd said. "I nosed around the fish market for a hour and got the general idea fast enough. You've got your basic protection racket going down."
" I see," Hiram said.
"The waterfront draws crooks like a picnic draws ants, that's no secret. Smuggling, drugs, the rackets, you name it. Opportunities abound. Your friend Gills, along with most of the other small businessmen, paid the mob a percentage off the top, and in return the mob provided protection and occasional help with the police or the unions."
"The mob?" Hiram said. "Jay, this sounds suitably melodramatic, but I had the impression that the mob was made up of ethnic gentlemen partial to pinstripes, black shirts, and white ties. The hoodlums who were troubling Gills lacked even that rudimentary fashion sense. And one of them was a joker. Has the Mafia taken to recruiting jokers?"
"No," Ackroyd said. "That's the trouble. The East River waterfront belongs to the Gambione Family, but the Gambiones have been losing their grip for years now. They've all ready lost Jokertown to the Demon Princes and the other joker gangs, and a Chinatown gang called the Egrets or Snowbirds or something like that has run them right out of Chinatown. Harlem got taken away a long time ago, and the bulk of the city's drug traffic no longer flows through Gambione hands. But they still controlled the waterfront. Until now" He leaned forward. "Now there's competition. They're offering new and improved protection at a much higher price. Maybe too high for your friend."
"His son is in college," Hiram said thoughtfully. "The tuition is quite substantial, I believe. So what I witnessed this morning was a little, ah, dunning?"'
"Bingo," Ackroyd said.
"If Gills and his fellow merchants have been paying the Gambiones for protection, why aren't they receiving it?"
"Two weeks ago, a body was found hanging from a meathook in a warehouse two blocks from Fulton Street. A gentleman by the name of Dominick Santarello. He was ID'd by fingerprints, his face having been beaten into ground round. A colleague of Santarello's, one Angelo Casanovista, turned up dead in a barrel of pickled herring a week prior. His head was not in the barrel with him. The word on the streets is that the new guys have something the Gambiones don't-an ace. Or at least a joker who can pass for an ace in a bad light. These things do tend to get exaggerated, but I'm told he's seven feet tall, inhumanly strong, and ugly enough to make you wet your pants. He goes by the charming nom de guerre of Bludgeon. The Gambiones are overmatched, I'd say." He shrugged. Hiram Worchester was aghast. "And what about the police?"
"Gills is afraid. One of his friends tried talking to the police, and his body turned up with a flounder shoved down his throat. Literally. The cops are investigating."
"This is intolerable," Hiram said. "Gills is a good man, an honest man. He deserves better than to have to live in this kind of fear. What can I do to help'?"
"Lend him the money to make his payment," Ackroyd suggested with a cynical smile.
"You can't be serious!" Hiram objected.
The detective shrugged. "Better idea-hire me to be his full-time bodyguard. Does he have a nubile daughter, by any chance?" When Hiram didn't respond, Ackroyd got up and slid his hands into his jacket pocket. "All right. There might be something to be done. I'll work on it. Chrysalis might be able to tell me something useful, if the price is right."
Hiram nodded and rose behind his desk. "Fine," he said. "Excellent. Keep me posted." Ackroyd turned to go. "One more thing," Hiram said. Jay turned back, raised an eyebrow.
"This Bludgeon sounds, ah, ill-tempered to say the least. Don't do anything too dangerous. Be careful."
Jay Ackroyd smiled. "If Bludgeon gives me any trouble, I'll dazzle him with magic," he said. He made a gun out of his fingers, three fingers folded back, index finger pointed at Hiram, thumb up straight like a hammer.
"Don't you dare," Hiram Worchester told him. "Not if you want to eat tonight." Ackroyd laughed, and slid his hand back into his pocket, and sauntered out.
Hiram glanced back at his television scene. They were running an interview with the Howler. The interviewer was Walter Cronkite. A ten-year-old clip, Hiram realized, from the Great Jokertown Riot of 1976. He changed the channel, hoping to see some coverage from Jokertown and Jetboy's Tomb, and perhaps get another glimpse of Peregrine. Instead he got Bill Movers, doing a commentary in front of a large still photograph of the Howler. The Howler seemed to be much in the news this morning, Hiram thought. He was curious.
He turned on the sound.
Chapter Six
11:00 a.m.
A parade in Jokertown was always a unique experience. No need to create some fantastic creature out of wire and flowers and paper. No, here the jokers could provide all the grotesquerie required with just their miserable bodies. There was no Joker Queen either. Several years ago they had tried to introduce the notion, Tachyon explained as he guided Roulette through the crowds, but he had been so revoluted by the notion that the planners had dropped the idea. There were a number of politically active jokers who hadn't forgiven him yet.
Sara Roosevelt Park had been cordoned off and was filled with belching, grinding flatbed trucks all carrying fantastic scenes on their utilitarian backs. Off to the west a knot of sweating cops were demolishing a vast, double-headed phallus. Roulette noticed that a number of men in the crowd looked away each time a crowbar bit deep into the latex. To the west the Joker Moose Lodge Bagpipe Band was tuning up. The braying of the pipes sounded harsh in the still, sultry air.
"Are you the parade's grand master?" Roulette asked with more acid than she'd intended.