He smiled, nodded, and opened his notebook, searching for a moment to find the right spot. Gina tilted her head, her expression serious.
“Jesus,” he began, “could change water into wine…”
She listened patiently as he moved through the homily, cited the passages of the bible that supported him, cracked wise a couple times, then took the tone down to somber at the middle and ended with a bright, hopeful, but also realistic finish.
Gina leaned back, considering. He took off his glasses, polishing the lenses on his shirttail.
“No,” she said. “Sorry, father. You got it wrong. I mean it’s a nice talk, but it’s all about nats and aces. You’re preaching to jokers. Jokers don’t give a shit about miracles-except for miracles that make jokers not jokers anymore, I guess.”
“But faith is a universal. The proof of Christ’s holiness…”
“No one gives a shit,” she said. “Sorry. I mean I know you’re a priest and all, but really, jokers don’t care. They want to hear about how even though they’re fucking ugly, someone still loves them. Or that they have beautiful souls. Or that the righteous are made to suffer. Like with Job. That kind of shit.”
“Watch your language, young lady,” he admonished, but his mind was already elsewhere. “So you don’t think it’d go over well?”
“You’re not selling what they’re buying,” she said. “They don’t want another challenge. They want comfort. It’s what they come here for.”
“I suppose…” he said, and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t looked at it like that. I’ll go see what can be salvaged.”
“Put in someplace how ugly men are better because the world makes them tough,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know. That seems a little harsh.”
“Always works for me,” she said, shrugging. “We’re kind of in the same business that way. Making jokers feel better.”
She winked and lay back on the cot, turning the TV back on as she descended. Father Henry found himself speechless for a moment, then walked up the stairs laughing.
The revisions took the better part of an hour, but in the end, there was more that could be saved than he’d imagined. With a little work, he had his very first jokers-only sermon, and by God, he was proud of it.
So proud and so excited, in fact, that he forgot to knock on his way down the stairs.
“… unload it now, Randy. Don’t tell me you… buyer.”
Father Henry stopped, slowly easing his foot back to the step above. Gina’s voice was muffled, but he could still make out some words here and there.
“Hundred thousand… tomorrow… would never guess where I… shit, really? Is she okay? Shit… No, I’ll call you.”
The plastic clatter of the telephone handset slipping into its cradle ended the conversation, and Father Henry slowly backed up the stairs. That certainly didn’t sound much like her brother calling in from Minnesota.
Well Lord, he thought, if this lesson is not to get took in by a pretty face, I could have sworn we’d covered that already.
He went back down, knocking this time. Gina was all smiles and pleasant company.
Oh yes. This little girl was going to take some watching.
Joey smiled. Not a hey-that-was-funny smile. More like hey-I’m-gonna-take-your-eyes-out-with-a-fucking-spoon. Jerzy didn’t seem to know the difference.
“Human target, get it?” the skinny Jew said again, like repeating it would make it funny. “Like that guy with the arrows.” He pantomimed plinking a bow at Joey.
“That guy with the arrows killed my boys and tried to cripple me,” Joey pointed out coolly.
Jerzy’s shrugged, smile fading, and he sipped his coffee. It was the closest he ever came to apology. The foot traffic going past the café was pretty light for the garment district, but it was still early in the afternoon. Come five o’clock, the overflow from Times Square would fill things up a little more. Joey wanted to be out before then.
“You got the coroner’s reports?”
“Nah,” Jerzy said. “I don’t make copies. What you want to know, I’ll tell you. I got a photographic memory.”
Joey looked around. The whole place was the size of a school bus-the short kind for the dumb kids. The guy behind the counter looked archly back it him. An old lady in a puffy blue ski jacket was sitting right up against the window and muttering to herself. Other than that they were alone.
Joey leaned forward.
“Okay,” he said. “So I’m hearing there’s something about the way they got offed? Something about aces?”
“Everybody’s buying up aces. Mafia, Shadow Fist. Everyone,” Jerzy said. He wasn’t so stupid, thank God, that he didn’t know to keep his voice down.
“Okay, but it’s not like the ones the Mafia hired are gonna queer a Mafia deal, right?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Jerzy said, waggling a bushy eyebrow. “Thing is, a couple of the guys that died? They shouldn’t have. It’s like they were hurt, but not so bad they woulda died. You see what I’m getting at?”
Joey scowled and shook his head. Talking to Jerzy was about as much fun as talking to Lapierre.
“People hiring aces?” Jerzy said, his hand moving in a little circular come-along motion. “Guys dead for no reason?”
“Hey Jerzy. How about you fucking tell me?”
The woman in the ski jacket glanced at them, scowling.
“Shouldn’t yell,” Jerzy said. “We’re in public.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s the wrists thing. Pain makes me jumpy.”
“Demise,” Jerzy said and sighed. “Find whoever hired Demise, you’ll find the shit.”
“Demise,” Joey said, nodding. “Great. And, ah, what about the percidan?”
“I can hook you up next week. You got enough darvon to hold you ’til then?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What? What is this with the long face?”
“It’s just the darvon pills are all pink,” Joey confided. “They make me look like a faggot, you know?”
Randy McHaley lived in a basement apartment with six other jokers. Two of them were there with him when Demise and Phan Lo got there. They were happy, though, to give the three of them a little privacy.
The place looked like the worst of the 1960s left to rot for a couple decades. Beaded strands substituted for doors, old psychedelic posters of the Lizard King yellowed and cracked on the grimy wall. Sandalwood incense mixed with something close to wet dog. And Randy slumped on the low couch with his hands between his knees.
The wildcard hadn’t been kind to Randy. His greasy brown fedora rested on a forest of spikes like a hedgehog. His pale, fishy skin wept a thin mucous, soaking his clothes. Tiny blind eyes opened and closed along his neck and down behind his shirt, some staring, some rolling wildly. Demise could see the distaste in corners of Phan Lo ’s mouth and it made him want to draw the conversation out.
“I don’t know anything about it,” the sad joker said again, wagging his head.
“Okay,” Demise said. “Let me clear this up, fuckhead. A piece of shit like you can’t-cannot-set up a hundred thousand dollar horse deal in this town without us finding out. Okay? Where’s the meet?”
“I swear guys, you’ve got the wrong fuckup. I mean look at me,” the joker smiled desperately. “Look at the place I live. I’m not dealing with that kind of money.”
“You’re a junkie,” Demise said. “You and your buddies could blow that kind of money up your arms in a couple weeks.”
“I swear to Christ, you guys got it wrong. I’m really sorry. I wish I could help, but…”
“Could we just do this?” Phan asked.
Demise sighed and nodded. It had been fun while it lasted, but business being business…
Phan Lo stepped forward, drawing a pistol. The little joker squealed and pulled back, but Phan leaned in, pressing the barrel under Randy’s chin, forcing his head up. Demise stood, shot his cuffs, and leaned in close. When their eyes met, Randy was caught like a fish. Demise let the pain of his own death, the sick feeling of spiraling down into darkness, the visceral knowledge of dying flow into the joker for a second, two, three… and looked away.