“Don’t hurt me, Wes. You know how things are.”

Bob heard a key turn in the front door and Carlotta stepped in. Even in the dim light, he could see she was paler than usual. She was wearing a royal blue halter-top that was sweat-soaked to the skin and her hair was plastered to the sides of her face.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Bob asked. “You look like, well, like last night.”

“Funny about that.” Carlotta clutched a chair back and took a deep breath. “Because that’s how I feel.”

“Okay. Sit down and tell me about it.” He motioned to Wes. “You want anything to drink?”

“A shot of brandy would be nice.”

“Coming up.” Wes grabbed a glass and a bottle. “Anything for you, Mr. Cortland?”

“Not just yet, Wes.” He put a finger under Carlotta’s chin and raised her head. “Let’s hear it.”

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.