“Wow,” said Wally into the sudden silence. “Was I supposed to make a poster, too?”
Jan held the butcher paper aloft until only her fingertips were visible, awkwardly angling it toward the camera. From behind the poster, her slightly muffled voice added, “By the way, everybody in this room is now a target. That’s the curse of knowledge. But they can’t get us all!”
Then she lowered it again. “When I’m on the city council, I’ll…” She cast about, looking for something. “Guys, my prop.” They passed a pair of scissors to her. Little arcs of electricity danced between the open blades as she raised her voice. “When I’m on the city council, I’ll cut this Gordian knot spun from generations of middle-class financial subjugation!” And with that, she set about sawing through the thickest tangle of yarn. Maybe the scissors weren’t sharp; she gave up after a moment and tossed them on the table, saying, “Well, you get the point.”
Wally couldn’t tell if the applause Jan received wasas confused as he was, but it sounded like about the same amount as he got. He figured that was a pretty good sign.
“Also,” she added, “rents are too damn high.”
The audience really liked that. Somebody even whistled.
As Jan re-rolled her spiderweb poster, Wally noticed one of the little text bubbles hanging off Jokertown city council—a scribble of red ink wedged between yarn-tags labeled polio vaccine and Count of St. Germaine—read Ann. 9 Phase II Redev. Something about that seemed familiar, but he couldn’t say why.
The moderated portion of the forum mostly focused on issues before the city council, and a few hypotheticals. (Moderator: “Numerous cities across the country have passed ordinances banning single-use plastic grocery bags. Some support this move on environmental grounds, but retailers argue this raises their costs, which are then passed to consumers. Candidates, where would you stand on this issue?” Wally: “Well, them plastic bags don’t look so nice in the spring when the winds blow and they get stuck intrees.” Jan: “Retailers’ plastic bags usually derive from various ethylene polymerizations including high-density or HDPE, low-density or LDPE, and linear low-density or LLDPE. All are highly stable with extremely long lifetimes to degradation, meaning they stay in the environment for decades. Beyond the immediate environmental risk, however, the military-chemical-industrial complex infuses these items with synthetic hormones that are easily absorbed through the skin. These hormones are capable of permeating the blood-brain barrier to attack the pituitary gland, where they prime the victim’s brain to receive the transmissions hidden in digital television broadcasts.” Wally: “Gosh.”)
Then the moderator opened the floor to questions from the audience. The first was addressed at Jan:
“You make a lot of unverifiable claims, so it’s hard to know if what you’re saying is true. You’re very vocal about being targeted and having your life threatened. Why should I vote for somebody who sounds so paranoid?”
“You want evidence of the conspiracy, right?”
Her questioner nodded, then returned to his seat.
“Okay. The evidence is sitting right in front of you.” Jan removed her gloves, waggling her fingers until little arcs of electricity danced between them like the science stuff in the old black-and-white Frankenstein movies. “Some of you call me ‘Sparkplug.’ Don’t you think it’s odd that my only opponent in this race is a metal man? A metal man whose body functions as a natural Faraday cage?” The more she spoke, the louder her voice, and the brighter the arcs between her fingers. They appeared between her teeth, too, as she built to a crescendo. “A metal man who is, therefore, completely immune to my abilities? Who better than a metal man—who, by his own admission, has ample experience with combat and regime change—to assassinate me?”
Wally, trying to remember all that complicated wordy Robert’s Rules stuff, jabbed a finger in the air. “Objection, your honor!”
Jan cocked her head, peering at him through her thick sunglasses. “Do you understand we’re not in court?”
“Oh.” He lowered his finger.
The next question was for Wally. The lady at the microphone read her question from an index card.
“You’ve repeatedly emphasized your association with the United Nations Committee. Yet you were absent from recent events in Kazakhstan, arguably the greatest humanitarian crisis since the Card Sharks released the black trump. How do you respond to those who accuse you of abandoning your colleagues, and who say that Aero, Doktor Omweer, and many others might be alive today if you had joined the fight?”
Silence, heavy as a wet wool blanket, fell across the audience. It was as though the air had been sucked from the room. (“Whoa,” Ghost whispered. “That escalated quickly.”)
Jan’s supporters in the front row looked at each other and shrugged. Both Mordecai and Darcy turned in their seats, craning their necks to get a look at the questioner.
(Jan scoffed. “Kazakhstan was a false flag.”)
Wally tugged on his chin strap. It felt like the elastic was cutting through his jaw. The strap snapped. He removed his top hat, placed it on the table, lowered his head, and ran his hands across his face. He knew people didn’t like the grinding sounds his body made sometimes, but he needed to process the question.
Not because he hadn’t wondered the same thing himself. He had. But because he couldn’t answer the question without bringing Ghost into it. He chewed on this, looking for a way to keep his personal promise to himself and his vow to Mordecai without dodging the question.
The snick of a camera shutter punctuated the silence. Somebody coughed. People started to whisper to each other.
Wally raised his head. Everyone was watching him.
“Nobody knew what was going on over there. Not at first. It took a few days before people understood how bad it was. And by the time I heard about it … I, uh, I got scared. See, I’m responsible for somebody, you know? Maybe you are, too. Well, my person, she doesn’t have anyone else. And I worried, gosh, what if I go and I don’t come back? What happens to her? Now, those fellas you mentioned, I didn’t know them much but I think they were good folks. Thinking about ‘em and all the others makes me sad. But if they didn’t make it back, I wouldn’t have, either. Sometimes making the world better means keeping it from getting worse for just one person.” He looked at Ghost, who sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “I know I made the right choice.”
Darcy broke the ensuing silence. “Holy crap,” she said, and clapped. Mordecai joined her. Wally didn’t really hear the applause, though, because he was busy watching Ghost.
The forum concluded soon after that. Mordecai scooted over to shake Wally’s hand, followed closely by Darcy.
“You did a fantastic job. You should feel proud.”
“Thanks, fella,” Wally said. “You sure helped me out. All that reading, oof, it was tough, but…”
Reading. The meeting minutes.
As he watched Jan pack up her visual aids and props, Wally suddenly remembered where he’d seen something similar to the weird abbreviation on her poster.
He raised his voice over the hubbub of people chatting, putting on their coats, and bumping into chairs. To the moderator, who was finishing up his notes, Wally said, “Hey there. Are we allowed to ask you questions, too?”
The newspaper guy blinked. “What?”
“I was just wondering something. You asked us about all sorts of city council stuff, but how come you never asked us about Annex Nine?”
Darcy frowned. “What the hell is—”
Jan’s poster tube clattered on the floor. The sparkly lights under her skin went dark, like somebody had flipped a switch. “How do you know about that?”
* * *
Mordecai and Wally were hunched over the kitchen table, aka Gunderson Campaign Headquarters, when Darcy burst into the apartment, weaving a sheaf of papers like a pennant.
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
She plunked the papers on the table. “Check this out.”
/> Mordecai did. The top half of the stack comprised financial disclosure forms, like the one he’d helped Wally fill out. The bottom half pertained to a company called Twenty-First Century Retail Group. Flipping through these pages, he glimpsed the SEC logo.
He showed Wally. “‘SEC’ stands for Securities and Exchange Commission,” he said.
Wally nodded. “Sure.”
“They’re like the police, but for banks,” said Darcy.
Wally nodded. “Sure.”
“I know how to pull disclosure forms,” said Mordecai, “but how did you get all this other stuff?”
“Um, I’m a cop?” She pulled up a chair. “At first I thought there was nothing to her ranting after the forum. But I kept thinking about what Jan said about some kind of real estate swindle, so I went over to the detectives’ desks and asked around. Franny Black has been keeping tabs on these guys. If he’s right, they are into some shady stuff.”
She nudged Mordecai aside and used his laptop to pull up an image of the board of directors of Twenty-First. Five men stood in a conference room. The four with crew cuts were so bulky they must have been sewn into the suits. They flanked a more stereotypical business type at the center of the picture: tan suit, perfect hair, dead-eyed smile full of blinding white teeth. Probably normal-sized, but he seemed a child beside his juiced-up business partners.
“Recognize anybody?”
Wally’s lips moved while he studied the photo. Then he pointed at the guy in the middle. “Oh, hey! That’s the fella from the Joker thingamajiggy. Randall whatshisname.”
Darcy relinquished control of Mordecai’s laptop. “His name isn’t Randall McNath. Or, at least, that’s not what he called himself fifteen years ago. Meet Patrick Wilhelm Howard. He’s rumored to be the best three-card monte dealer the five boroughs have ever seen.” She shook her head, looking at the boardroom photo again. “Same game, larger shells. I swear, the pair of balls on this guy.”
She split the stack into two piles, and tapped one.
“Annex Nine is a wholly owned subsidiary of Twenty-First Century Retail Group. It was spun off six months ago as the overseeing contractor for a major construction project. Luxury high-rise condos with built-in retail space, the usual gentrification crap. Of course, there’s no room for that anywhere in Jokertown…”
“… Unless you knock down a few buildings to make room for it,” Mordecai concluded.
Wally asked, quietly, “Did I do something wrong?”
Darcy put her hand on his shoulder. It was the most affection Mordecai had yet witnessed from her. “No, Wally. Not even close.”
“We might not like it,” Mordecai sighed, “but the tear down/build up cycle you’re describing is pretty common.”
“Annex Nine, Phase Two is Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. And much of the rest of that block.”
“Oh.” Mordecai whistled. “That’s … bold.”
“Bold enough to require some back-room dealings.”
* * *
Wally crouched in the cosmetics aisle of a drug store, the only place from which he had a clear view of the street and the roadster that Darcy said belonged to their guy. Mordecai and Darcy got to enjoy a bright spring day sitting at a sidewalk café because Randall McNath or Patrick Howard—Wally was a little confused on that point—didn’t know them on sight.
A shopper sucked in his breath to slither past.
“Howdy!” Wally whispered, offering a hand. “Wally Gunderson for city council.”
So it went for a couple of hours. Then:
“Holy smokes! That’s him. That’s him!”
He wished they had brought walkie-talkies.
But it didn’t matter, because Darcy and Mordecai were already on the move, sauntering up the street as the man from the photograph unlocked the car. Wally felt bad about lurking in the store all afternoon, so he got in the checkout line and bought a neck massager, compression socks, and a jar of vitamin C pills. By the time Wally got outside, the guy was too busy yelling at Darcy to notice him.
“I’ve broken no laws. I’m leaving now.”
He reached for the door handle, but Wally’s campaign manager was faster. Mordecai leaned forward, wrapped his arms around the hood, picked up the car, and walked it across the street to lay it gently across two of the drug store’s three angle-in parking spots.
That done, he flagged down Darcy. “Officer? Excuse me, officer? I think this car might be parked illegally.”
She made a show of checking the license plate and looking for a parking placard. “My goodness. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, citizen.”
“You can’t do this,” said McNath. “It’s entrapment.”
“Actually, it’s not,” she said, brandishing a wheel lock. Wally had known her to boot cars even when she was off duty. It had even happened to him, before they were friends. “Nobody enticed you to park illegally.”
McNath moved to intervene, but Mordecai gently laid one fingertip on his chest. “Speaking of enticement, I think you know my friend here.”
Mordecai jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Wally waved. “Hey there, fella.”
Mr. McNath looked unhappy, but he recovered quickly, launching into that paint-can-shaker nod of his. “Mr. Gunderson! Well this is a bright spot to the day. And may I say congratulations on your city council campaign? I’ve been following the coverage in the Cry and I am just tickled knowing the people of Jokertown will soon have you as their most passionate advocate. And perhaps when you’re on the council you’ll be in a position to do something about these rogue elements of the law enforcement community.”
“Okey-dokey. But how come you lied about working for the Joker antithingy? You work with them real estate guys.”
McNath cleared his throat. “Well, you see, public advocacy doesn’t pay the bills—”
“Now you tell me,” Wally said. This wasn’t going the way he thought. But, as usual, Mordecai had his back.
“How will your fellow directors of Twenty-First Century Retail Group react when they find out you confessed to poisoning Morlock-and-Eloi as retaliation for her stance against Annex Nine Phase Two?”
The poison was a guess, but a good one, apparently.
Now McNath looked scared. “You wouldn’t do that. You can’t! They’re all tied up with the Brighton Beach crew. Alexandrovitch, my god, he’d pull my head off.”
Wally frowned. “But did you? Did you hurt M&E?”
McNath looked around as if seeking an escape path. But finding himself sandwiched between Mordecai and Wally on the sidewalk, and with his car immobilized, there was none. McNath’s shoulders slumped. “Please, don’t tell them you heard it from me. Please.”
“Judas priest,” said Wally. “That’s rotten.”
“Phase Two seems like it would be controversial,” Darcy added. “How fortunate for you that my other city council representative was on-board with the project.”
McNath shrugged. “Mark Bensonis a major investor in Annex Nine.”
A look passed between Darcy and Mordecai. Wally didn’t understand. “What?”
Mordecai said, “Think back to all the forms you had to fill out.”
Wally concentrated. Politics was hard. “So … thisother fella who represents Jokertown … and who argued with M&E about Annex Nine … It’s like he had an extra money jar. A secret one that nobody knew about.”
Mordecai smiled. “Exactly.”
“Huh.” But now that Wally was thinking in politician style, he couldn’t stop. “But I still don’t get it. How come you were so keen for me to run in the first place?”
McNath hemmed and hawed. Mordecai loomed closer to him. Wally knew Mordecai wouldn’t hurt a fly, but McNath didn’t.
“Two reasons. We knew that hiring Aces in Hand for the demolition phase of the work meant you’d be involved. That would give us leverage against you. But we didn’t expect to need it, because we thought you’d be easy to trick. We’d slip Phase Two right past you and finally get the
vote we needed to proceed. You’re not somebody known for looking deeply at things.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” It hurt, but not much. Wally already knew this. That’s why he’d gone to Mordecai in the first place. “But you didn’t know I have these guys! Holy moley. I sure am lucky.”
Wally pulled a flyer from the pocket of his overalls and tucked it on McNath’s windshield. Then he knelt on the asphalt and touched the wheel lock. As it dissolved into rust, he said, “Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.”
* * *
Though he wore his politics top hat, Wally was uncharacteristically quiet on the walk back to Campaign Headquarters. Mordecai felt bad for him. When McNath told Wally to his face that he was a dimwitted patsy, he might as well have been kicking a puppy.
Wally broke his silence as they neared the apartment. “I guess Jan was right.”
“About the Nazi UFOs piloted by Satanic reptilian Freemasons from the hollow earth? Probably not.” Mordecai shrugged. “But about the real estate stuff, yeah.”
“Gosh. People should be nicer to her.” Wally’s shoulders slumped. “Does all this mean I have to drop out?”
Darcy laughed, hooking her arm through his. “No, you dingbat.”
“It means that after we head over to the Jokertown Cry and explain how you and Jan both uncovered evidence of Benson’s illegal enrichment scheme,” said Mordecai, “there will soon be two open spots on the city council.”
Wally thought this over. “I guess I’d better work on gaining her trust, then.”
Hammer and Tongs and a Rusty Nail Page 5
