Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (23 page)

“Cherry almond muffins today, Franny,” Mary said as she lumbered past. Her voice had a strange, burring rasp.

“Sounds great. Let me have a Denver omelet with a side of ham, and coffee too.”

“You got it.”

The coffee and muffins arrived. He broke open a pastry and it added its steam to the pennant floating over the coffee cup. The mingling odors of coffee and warm baked goods had his stomach grinding. Slathering the muffin with butter and jam, he leaned over to Tim at the next table, who was reading the
Jokertown Cry
.

“How’d the Jets do?” he asked, referring to Xavier Desmond High School’s baseball team.

Tim tilted the paper so Franny could see the photo and the headline. “We’re in the playoffs,” he said with pride. The pale green cilia that filled his mouth quivered from the puffs of air carried with the mumbled words.

The plate of ham arrived, and he dug in. The bells over the door gave an agitated ring as it was pushed violently open. Franny, along with everyone, else looked up as the door banged into the wall.

Abigail Baker strode in. Her mouth was set in a tight line, and her brow furrowed. Franny reflexively checked to see if he had done something to piss off the girl, but since he hadn’t seen her in months he couldn’t think of anything. Of course, Abigail was just enough of a drama queen to have gotten upset about something that happened ages ago.

His mental trashing of the girl didn’t help. Franny’s heart still raced and his breath went shallow when he saw her. He reminded himself that he had a girlfriend now. An irritating girlfriend.

Could she be walking over to him?
Nah, it had to be somebody else on this end of the room.
He had had a crush on Abby from the first moment he’d seen her naked and angry on a Jokertown street, another victim of The Stripper.

She couldn’t be walking over to him.

Liked her even when she insulted him.

Could she?

Liked her when she shot him down when he’d asked her out.

She was still coming his way.

Kept liking her even when she took up with that part-time small-time crook, Croyd Crenson.

Speculation ended when she pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table and sat down.

“Hi,” Franny began, then had to cough to clear the muffin crumb that had lodged in his throat.

She didn’t waste time on social niceties. “I need your help,” she said in her clipped British accent.

She needed his help?
Oh, holy shit
.

“Why aren’t you asking your lowlife boyfriend?” his mouth said, before his brain engaged and thought better of it.

She reared back in her chair, and she flashed her eyes at him. “Are you not an officer of the law? Isn’t it your
job
to bloody well help people?”

He discovered that shame had a funny taste. It laid on the back of his tongue and seemed to burn. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. So, this is official?”

Now she looked uncomfortable. Horribly uncomfortable. “Umm, not exactly.”

Franny opened his mouth to make another smart-ass remark only to be completely unmanned when she started to cry. Soundlessly, shoulders shaking, tears sliding down her cheeks. Unlike Apsara she didn’t cry beautifully. Her nose turned bright red. He thought she looked adorable.

He bounced out of his chair like he’d been shot from a catapult, came around the table, and knelt at her side. He slipped an arm around her heaving shoulders. “Oh, God, Abigail, Abby, I’m sorry. What’s wrong and how can I help?”

Franny noted that the other patrons in the restaurant had politely looked away, engaged pointedly in conversations with their breakfast companions, or buried themselves in newspapers or e-readers. He was struck again by the courtesy and sensitivity of jokers. More than any other humans they understood the need for privacy and empathy to another’s pain. “Come on,” he said, lifting Abby out of the chair. “Let’s take a walk.”

“But you haven’t finished your food,” she sniffed.

“It’s okay.” He threw a twenty on the table and guided her out of the restaurant.

The sidewalk was filled with people, nats and jokers on their lunch hour. He tried to think of someplace private to talk. Only one thing came to mind. “Uh … look don’t take this wrong, but my apartment is just a couple of blocks away.” She just nodded. His arm was still around her shoulders, and Franny noticed she wasn’t pulling away so he left it there. He looked down at the flash of multiple earrings climbing up the curve of her ear.

They climbed the four flights of stairs past the sounds of televisions, and a crying baby, and the smell of frying liver and onions. He really wished Mrs. Fortescue didn’t make liver so often. He let Abigail into his apartment, and she stepped away, head turning as she inspected his space. Franny followed her gaze; touching on the small flat-screen
TV
and the Xbox. At the leather recliner facing said
TV
. At the
TV
tray off to one side of the chair. For art he had a framed print of a Fredric Remington painting,
The Stampede.
Franny decided the place looked tawdry and ordinary and like a sad, single guy lived here, which was the absolute truth. “You like cowboys?” Abigail asked.

“Well. Yeah. My dad had a huge collection of Louis L’Amour books. I read ’em all.”

“Because he made you or because you wanted to?” Abigail asked.

“He died before I was born. I wanted to.”

Her face was a study in embarrassment. “Oh. Sorry about that.” Her fingers writhed through her hair, making it even more spiky and tousled. “My being rude, I mean. Sorry about your dad too. I mean, being dead and all. Oh, Christ, I’m making such a muddle of this.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I ever knew him to mourn him. I’ve actually got
two
chairs at the table in the kitchen. Want some coffee? Or tea?”

“Tea, please.”

She followed him into the postage-stamp-sized kitchen, and settled at the tiny two-person table. He filled up two cups with water and stuck them in the microwave to boil.

While the mugs twirled like dancing partners Franny sat down across from her, and put on his best
you can trust me, I’m an officer of the law
expression. “So, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Croyd.”

Great. Just great.
She was going to talk about her boyfriend.

She gulped down another sob, cleared her throat, and composed herself. “He hasn’t slept for weeks, he’s cranked out of his mind, and…”

“I take it you’re about to tell me the worst part,” he said.

She sniffed. “He’s got this barmy notion that this joker, I suppose it’s actually two jokers because they’re twins and they’re not so much conjoined as they just share a lower body, anyway, Croyd thinks they’re part of this gang that’s been kidnapping people, and they’re coming for him next. You see, he woke up a joker this time so he feels very threatened and fragile … emotionally fragile I mean because he’s hideously strong, with skin like rock, and when he makes a fist his fingers disappear and they become like giant sledgehammers.…”

Franny pictured his soft nat body going up against
hideously strong
and
rock skin,
and
sledgehammers
. It was not a pretty picture. He rose abruptly, and dumped tea bags into the two mugs. Handed one to Abigail.

“… He could really hurt someone if he had a mind to, and I’m afraid he does right now. Not that he would. He’s usually very good about controlling his impulses, but when he hasn’t slept…”

“Is there a point in here somewhere? Are we coming to it soon?” he asked.

Abigail’s fingers twisted and knotted in her lap. She tore them apart and pressed her palms against her cheeks. “So, he’s planning to kill them—him.” The final words came out in a rush.

Now it was his turn to run his hands through his hair. “Jesus.” He stood and started pacing. “Why didn’t you report this at the precinct?”

“Because I don’t want him arrested, and I don’t want him to hurt anyone, and he’s bound to fall asleep soon.”

“You actually heard him say he was going to kill them?” She nodded. “So, what did you think
I
could do?”

“I thought maybe you could help me … put him to sleep. Or help me lock him up until he does fall asleep.”

“In case you’ve forgotten—I’m a nat. No powers.”

“Your colleagues at the precinct said you were very clever and—” She broke off abruptly and turned bright red.

“And what? What else do they say about me?”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“That you’re an ambitious prick, and you’d knife anybody, even a friend, to get ahead.”

That hurt. Enough to completely cancel out the grudging compliment. “I didn’t want the promotion,” Franny said, a refutation not to the woman in front of him, but to the universe at large.

“All right. And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” Abigail asked.

“Sorry, it’s been … well never mind, I won’t bore you with it.” He gave himself time to think by draining the last of his tea, refilling his cup with water, and setting it back in the microwave. “Do you know where Croyd is holed up?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know where I can find these jokers?”

“They’re working as shills at Freakers trying to get hapless tourists in the door.”

“Okay, I see two approaches. We help put Croyd to sleep, or we get the jokers out of town. Or maybe we do both, a two-pronged attack.”

“I’ve tried dousing his food with sleeping pills, but I have to be careful because he’s very paranoid right now, and the couple of times I succeeded it hasn’t done a damn thing. And I’m out of pills. I got them when my mum came to visit and they only gave me thirty, and I used quite a few of them during
that
nightmare, so I only had about seven to use on Croyd, and I didn’t want—”

He stopped the seemingly inexhaustible flow of words. “Maybe we need something stronger than sleeping pills.”

Dr. Bradley Finn, head of the Jokertown Clinic, agreed to see them. Finn was a man in his fifties with silver-streaked blond hair, and a small paunch that pushed out the material of the Hawaiian shirt he wore beneath his white doctor’s coat. The middle-age spread that was affecting the human torso wasn’t echoed in the body of the palomino pony that made up the rest of the good doctor’s form.

“Yep, you’ve got a problem,” he said after hearing their story. “We’ve had occasions where we really, really needed Croyd to go the fuck to sleep, and we’ve tried everything, even horse tranquilizers. Nothing pharmaceutical works. His wild card decides when he’s going to sleep, aided and abetted by Croyd.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Franny said. “How can he use speed to stay awake, but drugs can’t put him to sleep?”

“Damned if I know,” the doctor said. “Ask the virus.”

Franny and Abigail exchanged looks. The doctor sensed their disappointment and her desperation. “Look, I’ve known Croyd for a long time, and I was able to put him to sleep back in the eighties—”

“How?” Abigail demanded.

“Brain entrainment and suggestion, but it takes time, and he was motivated. He’d promised some girl he wouldn’t go out with her cranked.”

Franny risked a glance at Abigail. Her face was set as she tried to hold back any reaction. “Problem is when he’s in this state he’s very paranoid—”

“No shit,” Abigail interrupted the doctor.

“And this time he doesn’t want to go to sleep because he feels threatened,” Finn added.

“You’re not telling us anything we don’t already know,” Franny said.

“Bear with me. In addition to being paranoid he’s also very suggestible.” A faraway expression crossed the doctor’s face as he looked at a memory, and he gave a soft chuckle. He then gave himself a shake. “Point is, if you can get close enough to him you might be able to convince him to go to ground, or obsess about something else until the virus does put him to sleep.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Franny stood and shook hands with the joker.

They walked out of the clinic accompanied by the sound of clashing bedpans, and the squeaking wheels on carts, moans and cries from patients, and incomprehensible gabble over the intercom. Franny felt like his clothes were absorbing the smells of alcohol, old coffee, overcooked peas, and sickness.

Outside he said, “I’m going to go talk to these jokers. You keep an eye on Croyd, and warn me if anything changes. Here’s my card and my cell phone number.”

Abigail started to walk away, then paused and looked back. “Thank you,” she added softly.