Carlotta took the glass of brandy Wes had hurried over and had a sip. “Okay. I’m shopping on Eighth Street. Checking out some clothes and whatnot, and I wind up in a bookstore. This guy comes up to me and starts talking. Gorgeous guy. Tall. Blonde. You’d hate him.”
“I do,” Bob said. “I’ll take that brandy after all, Wes.”
“Right. Well we really hit it off and he asks if I want to get a cup of coffee. I figure he’s looking to get laid, which isn’t exactly objectionable in my mind, so I’ll just entertain the possibility and see how it goes.”
“Playing hard to get again.”
“Forget that, okay.” Carlotta shot him an agitated glance. “I don’t need you to ride me right now. In any case, we’re having coffee and it turns out he likes the same things as me. Russian composers, and Monet, and Woody Allen, and iced coffee.” She ticked off the coincidences on her fingers as she named them. “And I realized that this was beyond Kismet and into something really creepy. This guy came after me, same as those goons last night. Only he was using sugar instead of trying to strong-arm me.” She paused and took a deep breath, then another swallow of brandy.
“So where is he now?”
“Damned if I know,” Carlotta said. “I crawled out the window of the ladies room at the coffee shop to get away from him and came straight here.”
“All right,” Bob said, nodding. “Do you think there’s any chance you’re being paranoid or overreacting because of last night?”
“No way.”
Bob picked up his brandy and drained the small glass. “Then lets’ go. We’ve got somebody to see.”
Carlotta hadn’t been excited about a trip to Jokertown, but the fact that she hadn’t protested either indicated to Bob that she was genuinely scared. Not that Jokertown was that bad these days. In fact, it was one of the few areas of the city that didn’t live in fear of the ’44 Caliber Killer known as the Son of Sam. There were a few nut-balls suggesting a joker was the murderer, but most people weren’t buying it, particularly in Jokertown.
“Pull over next to the newsstand,” Bob told the cab driver. The cabbie whipped the car over, his tires squealing slightly as the rubber met the concrete curb. Bob handed him a twenty, too much really for such a short ride, and helped Carlotta out onto the sidewalk.
No place on earth, at least that Bob had seen, was like Jokertown. The streets and building looked and smelled a little different, and the residents ranged from almost passably normal to grotesque, but that wasn’t what struck him every time he came here. It was that the rules were somehow not quite the same inside Jokertown, and outsiders never knew where the lines of acceptable behavior lay.
One of the few people he did know and trust down here ran this newsstand. Bob walked over with Carlotta in tow. The proprietor was wearing one of his trademark Hawaiian print shirts. Even in the gathering shadows of dusk, the colors looked electric. “Jube,” Bob said, extending his hand. “Got a minute?”
Jube, who resembled nothing more than an upright, badly dressed, walrus, extended a blubbery gray hand. “Well, if it isn’t the owner of the Jokertown Idiot.”
The walrus always gave Bob grief over the fact that the Village Idiot was technically closer to Jokertown than Greenwich Village, even after Bob explained that a club named the Jokertown Idiot not only wasn’t clever sounding but would fold in less than a month.
“Thanks. I need your help. Actually,” he indicated Carlotta, “she does.”
Jube’s lips tightened appreciatively across his tusks and into a smile. “Whatcha need?”
Carlotta looked Jube up and down and lightly shook her head. “You didn’t tell me he was a redhead.” She pointed to the crimson tufts on Jube’s head. “Could be more trouble.”
Jube gave a deep, rumbling chuckle. “She’s a live wire, Bob. One of yours?”
Bob nodded. He was relieved Carlotta hadn’t shed her sense of humor. “Yes, but only as an employee.”
There was a rapid skittering noise behind them. A coin flew up over the lip of the newsstands wooden front and landed in Jube’s open palm. Something thin and semi-transparent whisked away a copy of the Jokertown Cry. A short, indistinguishable form folded the paper and shot across the street into the shadows.
“Thanks, Speedy,” Jube said, tossing the quarter into the register. He turned back to Carlotta. “Now, where were we?”
“We,” Bob said, emphasizing the word, “need someone for a protection job. Someone very good.”
“Mmmm.” Jube leaned forward. “And cost?”
“Is a consideration, but not a deterrent to hiring the best.” Bob had an Uncle Scrooge vision in his mind of dollar bills flying away on angel wings.
“I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.” Carlotta smoothed her hair back with both hands. “Just tell us who to see.”
Jube pulled out a beat-up notepad and wrote a name and address on it. “He’s the best I know of. Doesn’t ask too many questions and gets results.”
“I sense a qualifying ‘but’ coming here,” Bob said.
“No, not really. He’s a… changeable guy, but reliable. Just pay him what he asks and tell him what he needs to know to do the job and you’ll be fine.” Jube tore the paper from the pad and handed it over.
Bob turned the paper around and peered at it, unable to make out the letters. “What’s his name? Starts with a ‘C’? Can’t quite read it.”
“Croyd, just Croyd. I’ll call ahead and let him know you’re coming” Jube said. “Hey, you know how many jokers it takes to screw in a lightbulb?”
“I don’t have time to find out. Thanks, Jube.”
Whoever Croyd was, he didn’t have a standard address. Bob walked carefully down the alleyway with Carlotta a couple of steps behind. Dumpsters, baked by the incessant heat, clogged the alley with the actively unpleasant smell of accelerated decay. Bob checked Jube’s instructions with his flashlight and kept moving forward, looking for a door.
“Are we there yet?” Carlotta was trying to maintain her sense of humor, but Bob wasn’t laughing, or even smiling.
“Just about, I think,” he replied.
“I’d turn back if I were you,” the voice came from behind a stack of half-empty boxes. There was an old, bearded man sitting there, nursing a bottle of something. His threadbare clothes were soiled with what looked like a decade’s worth of stains. He looked them up and down and then turned back to his bottle.
“I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks.” Carlotta’s voice had a bit of the spunky tone Bob associated with her, which was okay because his courage and confidence were beginning to head south. He came to a door and rapped hesitantly on it.
“Entre vous,” came a deep, raspy, voice from the other side.
Bob opened the door and stepped into a small, high-ceiling room. There was a low-light lamp in one corner next to a large mattress and the opposite corner was screened off. Something was sitting in against the wall opposite the door, covered in a massive gray-brown tarpaulin. There was an odd smell, but no Croyd was visible.
“We did hear somebody, right?” Carlotta was right on his heels.
“Yes, you did,” came the same deep voice. What Bob had thought was a tarpaulin began to slowly unfold into two massive, leathery wings, spreading until they almost touched either wall. Between them was a humanoid-type creature with a horned head, slitted, yellow eyes, and a fanged mouth. One of the yellow eyes winked and the mouth curled into something of a smile. Except for a small, belted garment at the waist, the creature was naked, not that it mattered. “You must be Jube’s friends.”
“Yes,” Carlotta said, “Well, he is anyway.” She pointed to Bob, who was trying to get his mouth to shut.
Croyd stood up on feet that, although sporting four clawed toes each, were more or less human. “He said you need protection. Afraid the Son-of-Sam is after you?”
“No,” Bob said, finally able to speak. “He doesn’t work Manhattan anyway. I t
hought Jube would have explained, Mr… Croyd.” Bob then covered the story of the heckler in the alley for the second time that night.
“Do you have any enemies that you know of?” Croyd turned his horned head lazily toward Carlotta.
“No. I’m from Iowa.”
“Well, you seem to now. Nothing I can’t handle, though.” He gently placed a taloned finger under her chin. “I aims to please.” He emphasized the word “aims,” obviously aware that it was a town in Iowa.
Everybody’s a comedian, thought Bob. “And your fee for protecting Miss DeSoto will be?” He was trying to get Croyd’s attention. The last thing he needed was someone else trying to horn in on Carlotta, literally or figuratively. That line was already long enough.
“She’s not a DeSoto.” Croyd gave Carlotta the slow once over, which she didn’t seem to mind at all. “With curves like that, she’s more like a Mustang.” Croyd cleared his throat. It was an unpleasant noise. “You can have me for five hundred a day, one day’s pay in advance and the rest when the job is over.” He walked in an ungainly fashion to the partitioned area of the room. Bob heard the sound of a bottle-cap coming off and being replaced, a drawer opening. Then Croyd emerged with a small amber bottle held between a massive thumb and forefinger. He carefully opened and dabbed some of the liquid contents on one his fingers, then scooped Carlotta’s blonde hair back and applied it gingerly behind her ears. “Et, voila.”
“What’s that for?” she asked, sniffing. “It’s definitely not Chanel.”
Croyd handed her the bottle. “No, but if someone does get their mitts on you, the scent will help me track you, so take good care of the stuff.”
Bob was equal parts tired, suspicious, and annoyed. If Jube hadn’t vouched for Croyd, there was no way he’d deal with him at all. Not because he was a hideous joker, but because in spite of that fact, he was still charming.
“I don’t have that amount of cash with me,” Bob said. “But once Miss DeSoto is safely home, you can follow me to my business. I’ll pay you there.”
“And just what is your business?” Croyd leaned his head toward Bob’s face.
Bob held his ground, in spite of Croyd’s unusually hot breath on his face. “I own a comedy club in the Village, the Village Idiot. I’ll meet you in back of my place, show you what happened and where, and give you your retainer.”
“You know,” Croyd said, “I find the fact that the name of your club is the Village Idiot to be completely believable.”
“I work there,” Carlotta said, stifling a yawn. “So show some respect. By the way, you do fly don’t you? Those wings aren’t just for show?”
Croyd laughed. It was a deep, booming sound, and in spite of the source, Bob liked it. “I fly like a bat-out-of-hell, just wait and see. And if you spot something on a building that looks like a misplaced gargoyle, don’t worry. It means I’m on the job.”
“You can’t cover her 24 hours a day,” Bob said, hoping the comment didn’t reveal his paranoia. “When you’re asleep, I’ll take over.”
“I won’t be sleeping on this job,” Croyd said. “Later. I’ll sleep later.” There was a hint of something in Croyd’s demon voice that to Bob almost sounded sad. With that thought in his head, he smiled.
They hadn’t seen Croyd since hiring him, although Carlotta said she thought maybe she’d spied him a time or two, a dark, still shadow on the rooftop of the building opposite her apartment. Bob was fine with the situation. Out of sight, out of mind, as far as he was concerned. A grand every other day was a steep price, but sooner or later the Mutt and Jeff, or maybe the pickup artist who spooked Carlotta, would try again. If Croyd did his job as advertised, that would be their mistake.
He’d offered to buy her dinner at a steak house off Central Park West, knowing she’d have a hard time saying no. Bob knew what she took home in pay, and it didn’t allow room for passing up a free meal. She also had to overcome the fact that it was the 13th of the month and she was deathly superstitious.
They got to the restaurant early enough to beat the crowd, and darkness was settling in over Manhattan when their food arrived. Bob had ordered a t-bone smothered in onions, while Carlotta had gone for the filet mignon. It was 10 ounces and he hoped she’d let him poach off her plate if she wasn’t up to finishing it.
“This is one thing my people could never get right, cooking meat,” he said after downing a particularly tasty bite.
“Your people?”
“The English.” He dabbed a spot of juice from his chin. “I’m a Brit, you know that.”
“You’re a New Yorker in denial, you mean.” She shook her head. “You spent what, two years in England after you were born and have been here the rest of your life. You’re just a New Yorker with a slightly different pedigree. Live with it.” Carlotta pointed to her filet with the fork. “This is great, by the way. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, and I’m English, thank you very much. My parents lived there for ten years before we moved to NYC, and raised me to be a repressed, cultured snob.”
“Bet your mom would smack you if she heard you say that. You’d deserve it, too.” She gave him a lascivious smile that promised only torment. “At least you’re right about the repressed part.”
“Oh, that’s great, coming from the Ado Annie of Iowa. You wouldn’t know repressed if it bit you on the ass, and it’s probably the only thing that hasn’t.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “That would be you.”
Bob wagged a finger in her direction. “No dessert for you.” The lights inside the restaurant flickered and went out, tried to come back on for a second, and then went completely dark.
“Looks like they’ve blown a fuse,” Carlotta said.
Bob turned and looked out the windows toward the street. There was light, but it was fainter than it should be. “I think the whole area has a power outage. The street lights are gone, too.”
The waiters were moving from table to table, lighting candles. One particularly lanky fellow made it over to where Bob and Carlotta were seated to furnish the couple with their meager source of light.
“Any idea what’s going on?” Bob asked.
“No,” the waiter replied, shaking his head, “and wouldn’t you know the manager would be off today. Like he didn’t know it was the 13th. Someone’s on the phone though, checking into it. We’ll pass on any word we get.” He hurried off to another table.
“A man after your own heart,” Bob said, smiling. Carlotta’s face, lit by the flickering candle, had an almost sinister cast. Her round features, lit from beneath, reminded him of the face in the mirror from Disney’s Snow White.
“If you want to make jokes, you should get up on stage and try it sometime.” She took another bite of steak. Bob’s hope of leftovers was quickly disappearing. “You don’t have any superstitions?”
“No. Only fact-based fears.” One of them, that Carlotta would completely finish her steak, had already been realized. He raised his arm and waved it in an exaggerated fashion, trying to flag the waiter, who noticed after a few moments and wove his way expertly through the mostly empty tables toward them.
“No word yet, sir, but I believe it’s city-wide.”
“Thanks. Could we have the check?”
“Certainly, sir,” he said, and quickly disappeared in the direction of the register.
Bob fingered his shirt’s topmost button uncomfortably. “It’s getting pretty warm in here without the a/c. Want to stop by the park and see if we can get some ice-cream?”
“Sure. My relatives in Wisconsin would tar-and-feather me if they found out I passed up a dairy product. I wonder what it’s going to be like on the streets?” Carlotta pulled a compact out of her purse and checked her face briefly. “Like anyone will be able to see me.”
Their waiter returned and set the tray with their bill in front of Bob. “Our credit card machine is down, sir. I hope cash won’t be inconvenient.”
“Not a problem,” Bob said, pulling out hi
s wallet. “Thank you.” He carefully stacked several twenties onto the tab and helped Carlotta out of her seat. “Let’s have a look outside.”
The street was unreal in the dim moonlight. People stood in small groups talking quietly, and a family, probably out-of-towners, waved in vain for an available cab. The traffic was crawling at best, but drivers were still jockeying from lane to lane, trying to find an opening. Bob looked up and saw the stars. Normally, the city lights washed them out completely, but now they were clear and distinct. In contrast, Central Park loomed darkly across the crowded, hot asphalt.
“It’s going to be murderous getting you home,” Bob said. “Even the subways are going to be useless. Maybe we should reconsider our plan.”
“We’re not going anywhere until the power comes back on.” She headed across Central Park West, moving around the cars that were momentarily at a standstill. “Might as well kill the time as best we can.”
“Alright,” Bob said, “wait for me.”
After half an hour wandering along the edge of Central Park looking for an ice-cream vendor, Bob was ready to give up. He’d also noticed a group of kids following them at a distance. Even if they were just wandering in the same direction, it made him uneasy. He was glad to still be carrying the revolver.
A sharp snapping noise, followed quickly by another, stopped them in their tracks. Screams began to drift through the still, hot air from nearby.
“What the hell is going on?” Carlotta asked, looking quickly from side to side. “It’s just a blackout.”
A dark shape appeared at the tree line and grew in size. More snapping. Bob realized it was the sound of branches being split. Several people were sprinting directly at them. One of them screamed “The ape! It’s loose.”
Bob knew in an instant how much trouble they were in. The giant ape had been a mainstay at the Central Park Zoo for over a decade. Every now and then it broke loose and started looking for a young, blonde woman to clutch to its massive chest. After abducting its Fay Wray stand-in, the beast invariably headed in scripted fashion for the top of the Empire State Building. His mind registered that the monster ape had first appeared during the blackout in 1965, but there was no time to dwell on coincidence. He grabbed Carlotta by the wrist and bolted for the street. She had no trouble keeping up, matching him stride for stride in the race to reach the hoped-for safety of a building interior.
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