“Yeah, go greet my fans,” Sam said, pulling at the lining hanging out of the torn pocket of his coat.
“Sure,” Roger said, “we need to go over some stuff anyway. Glad you could make it after all-and nice to meet you.” Roger tipped his hat to Topper and he and the boys went over to the stage area and started a sound check. Meanwhile, Sam and Topper slipped around the edge of the proscenium, coming out past the red velvet curtain. There were cheers and screams almost immediately: “Roger! Roger!” and “Show us your horns!”
Sam didn’t oblige, just looked out at the main floor of the club. He had never seen so many girls in his life. Girls in black formal-wear and fishnets, leather and lace, shiny patches of vinyl and acres of bare midriffs, with mime masks and dominos and occasional headbands with animal ears or maybe just joker ears sticking out beneath their hats. Top hats. Everywhere. And there were more girls and more than a few boys pouring in all the time, forming a sea of high silk hats on either side of the runway that led forward from the main stage, taking seats at the tables in the upper mezzanine, or swarming through the shadows of the upper balcony.
“Oh my God…” said Topper, stricken. “I haven’t seen this many possible suspects since the Democratic National Convention…”
Sam watched the bouncing, waving, shimmying sea of fans. “Well at least my brother and my friends have been lined out.” He glanced to her. “They have been lined out, right?”
“Sorry,” Topper admitted. “First rule of detective work-everyone’s a suspect until you solve the crime. Or the innocent mix-up. But if we don’t figure it out soon, it may become an unsolved mystery…” She looked out at the sea of top hats. “Can you spot our mystery woman?”
Sam looked. “No. I’d need opera glasses.” He glanced back to Topper. “Got any?”
“If I had my hat, that would not be a problem.” She smiled to the crowd and managed a feeble wave. “But if I had it, the point would be moot.” Topper’s smile looked like it had been affixed with a staplegun.
“We could ask Cameo,” Sam suggested. “If anyone has some, she would.”
“Cameo?” She looked glad for any excuse to look away from the audience. “The costumer for the band?”
“And the Jokertown Players. And Broadway. And the Jokertown High theatre department.” Sam held up his right glove and waggled his fingers, girls in the audience screaming in response. “Made me these. Even recommended Roger and the rest of the guys for the School for the Arts.” He waved again, eliciting more screams from frenzied girls, which was sort of fun now that he wasn’t in the middle of them, but only slightly. “She always has this bag of props. Seen her pull out everything from a feather boa to a frying pan.”
“Worth a shot,” Topper said. “But you ask. I don’t want anyone else to have even a chance of knowing what’s going on.”
“Sure thing.”
She pulled Sam back past the edge of the curtain and sighed, then looked at him. “You know what, Swash? The girls out there are right-you are cute. Way too young for me, but cute.” She gave a nervous grin. “Now let’s go see about those binoculars, Mr. Teen Idol.”
Sam felt a blush stealing into his face. “Sure thing.”
It took a bit of asking around backstage, but they finally located Cameo in the wardrobe room. “Got a sec?”
“No, but tell me what you need anyway.” She emerged from behind a rack of costumes, dressed as a twenties flapper in a fringed tea dress and cloche hat, her only departures from cutting the perfect IT girl figure being a tape measure in place of a string of pearls around her neck and the sudden expression of shock on her face as she stopped, gaping. Then the moment passed. “Sam! What have I told you?” She went over to him, clucking her tongue, clearly more distressed by the rips in his jacket than the scratches on his face. “Old clothes are like old people. You have to treat them gently.”
“Tell that to Roger’s fans.”
Cameo just shook her head. “You take that off before you do any more damage to it.” The cloche hat framed her face, beautiful as a nymph from a Mucha poster, a few spit-curls of golden hair pulled loose to make it a mirror of the face on the cameo she wore on a choker around her neck, her one constant amid her constantly shifting display of vintage outfits and recreations. “I’ll find you a loaner till I can fix it. Something black you can’t stain.”
Topper looked around at the racks of clothes and the stacks of hats, including a huge number of top hats, lingering for a moment on a collection of wigs, one long blond one in particular. “Nice collection,” she said, turning at last. “All this yours?”
“Heaven forfend,” Cameo said, “I do not have the space. Most of this is on loan from Dutton’s Theatrical Supply. We’re in rehearsals for The Boyfriend.” She turned to face a rack of tuxes and rifled through them. “Alec misplaced his cummerbund. I was hoping there might be one he could borrow.”
Topper stared at Cameo’s throat until she turned. “That’s a lovely brooch you have there. Antique?”
“Why yes,” Cameo said, her hand going to it. “Family heir-loom.” She dimpled. “And source of my nickname. My real name’s Ellen.”
“Melissa,” Topper said, her eyes flicking to Cameo’s golden spit-curls. “Were you at Starfields earlier?”
“Me?” said Cameo with a slightly alarmed expression. “You must be joking. I can’t stand eating in restaurants. The tables are never clean enough for me, and the silverware… Ugh! Just the idea of how many people have had it in their mouths…” She shuddered delicately. “Give me a nice new styrofoam box and disposable chopsticks any day.”
Sam nodded. “You’re talking to the Queen of Takeout here.”
“Too true,” Cameo sighed, going back to her search. “Call it an eccentricity, but until they invent a fashionable hazmat suit, the most I’ll be able to stand is the occasional stand-up buffet with plastic champagne glasses and cocktail pics.”
Topper gave her a long look. “Aren’t you an ace?”
Cameo chuckled. “If I say ‘yes,’ Marilyn Monroe’s lawyers will sue me. Word to the wise, but never accuse an international idol of card sharkery on national television. Especially if the only proof you can give is ‘revelations from the spirits.’”
“So you’re not an ace?”
“I’m a trance channeler and psychic-for entertainment purposes only-and do seances for the tourists over at the Dead Nicholas. I’m also a famous fraud.” Cameo chuckled. “Peregrine kicked me off her Perch and Hiram Worchester had me barred from Aces High once it came out that my only ace powers were my skills as an actress and the same medium scam that goes back to Houdini. And a positive blood test for the wild card.”
“Positive?” Topper asked.
Cameo nodded, then struck a melodramatic pose, her head cast back, her wrist to her forehead. “Alas, I’m cursed. I’m doomed. I live under a cloud of knowing that any day I might suddenly drop dead or suffer some unimaginable fate-which, if you think about it, sounds pretty much like a joker, not that you can convince many jokers of that,” she said, dropping the pose. “But since being a latent means always having to say your sorry, I decided to quit waiting for the damn card to turn and just picked something out of the deck myself.” She chuckled again. “After all, you don’t have to be a real psychic to go to a murder scene and scream about bad vibes. Besides,” she said, waving to her dress, “aces have an excuse to wear the coolest outfits. And people treat you like a celebrity. What’s not to like?”
Topper chuckled as well. “Do you want a list?”
Cameo paused. “You’re Topper, aren’t you? The conjurer ace?”
“Yes, I-” Topper broke off, spotting something hanging from the corner of one of the costume racks. “Excuse me, what’s that?” Sam looked-a white pantomime mask, a single tear on the cheek. The same as the fetish girl had been wearing back at Starfields.