Father Squid’s cottage was gray and close compared to his home, and it did smell like a fish market. His bags were still half-packed. He sat on the bed. It was barely eight at night, and still much earlier than he was used to going to sleep. He had hoped that the caretaker of the church might be put upon to show him around, but that had been before he’d actually set eyes on the man. Which left him with his present options.
Jokertown after dark, a lone yokel braving the meanest streets of New York or Takis or whatever you decided Jokertown was really part of. Sounded stupid. But ministering to the twisted bodies and souls around him without having the courage to meet them face straight on seemed like hypocrisy. With his luck, they’d find him floating in the bay, and Quasiman would have to find some poor Episcopalian to perform next Sunday’s mass.
He snapped his fingers and snatched open his notebook. Flipping to a clean page, he wrote “In this age of empty wonders, a real miracle is something small and precious. Like me walking through Jokertown at night and not getting killed.” He grinned, then frowned and crossed it out. Maybe when he got home. These New York jokers might not think that was funny.
He loaded up all the little presents his sister had sent him when she heard he was going to take the assignment-a hand-held stungun, a canister of pepper spray, and a large gaudy crucifix that mirrored the one above the pulpit with its two-headed joker Christ impaled on a DNA helix. It wasn’t the sort of iconography that went over well with the Archbishop, but here it might mark him as belonging. And, of course, a camera so he could give a slide show when he got home.
“Oh, Mother,” he muttered, “God bless you. You gave birth to a fool and a papist.”
Despite the chill of the night, there was a good bit more foot traffic than he’d expected. Most folks ignored him, hurrying along their own business. Some jokers had their bare faces out, however disfigured. Others wore masks. Father Henry found himself falling into his old habit of smiling and nodding to people as he passed, like he was back home.
He stopped by the Crystal Palace because it was famous and, once he introduced himself as Father Squid’s stand-in, had his picture taken with the eyeless bartender. The twist-spined, grey-skinned clerk at an all-night bookstore along the way home asked him with a genteel grace whether he was out whoring and still treated him respectfully when he said no. Even the thin figures standing around trash fires, rubbing their hands or tentacles seemed more benign than he’d expected. For all the fear and angry talk-joker orgies, gang war, streets it was death for a nat to walk down after dark-Father Henry could name three or four road-houses in Alabama that had felt more threatening to him than this.
There were some moments when he felt like he’d walked into a bad hallucination-once when a section of sidewalk yelped under-foot and shifted off to become part of a wall, another time when something like a giant tongue called to him from a storm-sewer grate and asked the time. Despite all that, by the time he stopped to buy a newspaper from a poor walrus-man, he felt almost at home.
“You’re new around here?” the walrus said, smiling jovially.
“You could say that,” he agreed. “Father Henry Obst. I’m filling in for Father Squid for a couple weeks.”
“Well, welcome to the neighborhood,” the walrus said.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“And don’t worry about it too much. I’m sure next Sunday will go better.”
A true miracle would be a place without small-town gossip and slander, he thought, but kept his smile all the way back to the cottage.
The problem was, of course, how to get through the crust of anger and despair-and self-pity, worst of all self-pity-that came with drawing the joker. He’d spent enough years himself living with scorching self-hatred to know the smell when he was up to his asshole in it, as his sainted mother would have said. It was poison, but he’d seen strong souls overcome it.
The problem with despair, he thought, was that it wasn’t really despair when you could see your way clear of it. If he could only…
“Father?”
He blinked. The woman was crouched down beside the cottage door. Woman, hell. Girl was closer. Maybe eighteen years old with black hair and eyes and a tiny little skirt. She didn’t seem to be a joker of any stripe.
“Well now, miss,” he said gently, “what can I do for you?”
She stood up. Poor little thing barely came to his chin, and Father Henry had never been called a tall man. Her face, now that it was more in the light, was sharp as a fox’s and her shirt streaked with blood.
“You’re taking over for Father Squid, right?” she demanded, crossing her arms.
“Yes, I’ve agreed to help take up the slack, as it were.”
“So you’re the priest?”
“Yes. But there’s this other fella who’s really taking care of the place. I’ve only been in the city since…”
“I’ve come to beg for the sanctuary of the church,” she said, the phrase so formal it sounded rehearsed. “I’m in trouble. And I can’t take it to the police because I’m a Jokertown whore, and they wouldn’t help me.”
She stood there, her chin jutting out like she was daring him to send her away-back to her pimp or her family or whoever put her out on these streets. Eighteen might have been guessing high. She could have been younger.
Well, Lord, he thought. I don’t know what you have in mind on this one, but here goes.
“Well now. Let’s see,” Father Henry said. “There’s a room in the church basement you can stay in tonight at least. We’ll talk about this, see what seems like the best thing to do after that. You got a couple bags there? Let me help you with those.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987
Joey Piretta knew knocks. The cops, they knocked one way-bang bang bang like there was a pissed-off elephant coming through. Then there was the landlord, old man Fazetti; he knocked hard, but only once, showing his authority, ’cause he was the landlord and all, but still showing respect because if he didn’t Joey might kill him. The one that woke him up, though, wasn’t like either one of those. It was just a quiet double tap. That was Mazzucchelli.
Joey got up from the couch, adrenaline pumping, and didn’t quite knock over the half-empty beer cans on the coffee table. He grabbed the orange prescription bottle off the floor and pushed it down between the rough beige cushions. It rattled like a fucking baby toy. He delivered a quick prayer up the heaven that Mazzucchelli hadn’t heard it and crossed himself. The knock came again, a half a beat less time between the impacts. Joey pulled himself up, ran a hand through his hair, and tried to suck in his gut.
When he opened the door, Chris Mazzucchelli greeted him with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
“Hey,” Joey said, faking pleasure and surprise. “Chris! How you doin’?”
“Fine, Joey. And you?” Mazzuccheli asked, walking into the apartment. “The wrists still bothering you?”
“They still hurt a little sometimes. The scar tissue’s all messed up with the nerves. But you know how it is.”
Mazzucchelli smiled and nodded to the door. Joey closed it, apologizing with a gesture. The apartment looked like hell and smelled like a cheap bar. He wished he’d gotten around to washing the dishes last night. It just didn’t look professional the way they were all stacked up in the sink. Mazzucchelli walked into the living room but didn’t sit. Joey stood respectfully back, crossing his arms and scratching absently at the recent pink flesh the size of a quarter on his right forearm.
“You’re not still on the pain stuff,” Mazzucchelli said.
“Nah. Not for weeks. Just some aspirin sometimes.”
“Good. I have a job for you, Joey.”
Joey tried to pull himself up a little taller and deepened his scowl, just so as Mazzucchelli knew he was taking it seriously.
“Someone interrupted a negotiation last night. They killed some of our men and the jokers we were doing business with. They also took the merchandise we were picking up and the money we’d taken to pay for it. Half a million dollar, untraceable, and suitcase of heroin.”