Aces High

" December," the figure said without moving its lips. "Merry Christmas."

"Yeah," Croyd said.

He tried a few more simple tests as he headed for his first stop, but he could not break the empty whisky bottles in the gutter with a thought, nor set fire to any of the piles of trash. He attempted to utter ultrasounds but only produced squeaks. He hiked down to the newsstand at Hester Street where short, fat Jube Benson sat reading one of his own papers. Benson had on a yellow and orange Hawaiian shirt beneath a light-blue summer suit; bristles of red hair protruded from beneath his porkpie hat. The temperature seemed to bother him no more than it did Croyd. He raised his dark, blubbery, pocked face and displayed a pair of short, curving tusks as Croyd stopped before the stand.

"Paper?" he asked.

"One of each," Croyd said, "as usual."

Jube's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the man before him. Then, "Croyd?" he asked.

Croyd nodded.

"It's me, Walrus. How're they hanging?"

"Can't complain, fella. Got yourself a pretty one this time."

"Still test-driving it," Croyd said, gathering a stack of papers.

Jube showed more tusk.

"What's the most dangerous job in Jokertown?" he asked. "I give up."

"Riding shotgun on the garbage truck," he said. "Hear what happened to the gal who won the Miss Jokertown contest?"

"What?"

"Lost her title when they learned she'd posed nude for Poultry Breeder's Gazette."

"That's sick, Jube," said Croyd, quirking a smile.

"I know. We got hit by a hurricane while you were asleep. Know what it did?"'

"What?"

"Four million dollars' worth of civic improvement."

"All right, already!" Croyd said. "What do I owe you?" Jube put down his paper, rose, and waddled to the side of the kiosk.

"Nothin'," he said. "I want to talk to you."

"I've got to eat, Jube. When I wake up I need a lot of food in a hurry. I'll come back later, all right?"

"Is it okay if I join you?"

"Sure. But you'll lose business." Jube began closing the stand.

"That's okay," he said. "This is business."

Croyd waited for him to secure the stand, and they walked two blocks to Hairy's Kitchen.

"Let's take that booth in the back," Jube said.

"Fine. No business till after my first round of food, though, okay? I can't concentrate with low blood sugar, fu

"I understand. Take your time."

When the waiter came by, Jube said that he had already eaten and ordered only a cup of coffee which he never touched. Croyd started with a double order of steak and eggs and a pitcher of orange juice.

Ten minutes later when the pancakes arrived, Jube cleared his throat.

"Yeah," Croyd said. "That's better. So what's bothering you, Jube?",

"Hard to begin," said the other.

"Start anywhere. Life is brighter for me now."

"It isn't always healthy to get too curious about other people's business around here…"

"True," Croyd agreed.

"On the other hand, people love to gossip, to speculate." Croyd nodded, kept eating.

"It's no secret about the way you sleep, and that's got to keep you from holding a regular job. Now, you seem more of an ace than a joker, overall. I mean, usually you look normal but you've got some special talent."

"I haven't got a handle on it yet, this time around."

"Whatever. You dress well, you pay your bills, you like to eat at Aces High, and that ain't a Timex you're wearing. You've got to do something to stay on top-unless you inherited a bundle."

Croyd smiled.

"I'm afraid to look at the Wall Street journal," he said, touching the stack of papers at his side. "I may have to do something I haven't done in a while if it says what I think it's going to say."

"May I assume then that when you work your employment is sometimes somewhat less than legal?"

Croyd raised his head, and when their eyes met Jube flinched. It was the first time Croyd realized that the man was nervous. He laughed.

"Hell, Jube," he said. "I've known you long enough to know you're no cop. You want something done, is that it? If it involves stealing something, I'm good at that. I learned from an expert. If someone's being blackmailed I'll be glad to get the evidence back and scare the living shit out of the person doing it. If you want something removed, destroyed, transported, I'm your man. On the other hand, if you want somebody killed I don't like to do that. But I could give you the names of a couple of people it wouldn't bother."

Jube shook his head.

"I don't want anybody killed, Croyd. I do want something stolen, though."

"Before you go into any details, I'd better tell you that I come high."

Jube showed his tusks,

"The-uh-interests I represent are prepared to make it worth your while."

Croyd finished the pancakes, drank coffee, and ate a Danish while he waited for the waffles.

"It's a body, Croyd," Jube said at last. "What?"

"A corpse."

"I don't understand."

"There was a guy who died over the weekend. Body was found in. a dumpster. No ID. It's a John Doe. Over at the morgue. "

"Jeez, Jube! A body? I never stole a body before. What good is it to anybody?"

Jube shrugged.

"They're willing to pay real well for it-and for whatever possessions the guy had with him. That's all they wanted said."

"I guess it's their business what they want it for. But what kind of money are they talking?"

"It's worth fifty grand to them."

"Fifty grand? For a stiff?" Croyd stopped eating and stared. "You've got to be kidding."

"Nope. I can give you ten now and forty when you deliver. "

"And if I can't pull it ofl?"

"You get to keep the ten, for trying. You interested?" Croyd took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah," he said then. "I'm interested. But I don't even know where the morgue is."

"It's in the medical examiner's office at Five-Twenty First Avenue. "

"Okay. Say I go over there and-"

Hairy came by and laid a plate of sausages and hash browns before Croyd. He refilled his coffee cup and placed several bills and some coins on the table.

"Your change, sir."

Croyd looked at the money.

"What do you mean?" he said. "I didn't pay you yet."

"You gave me a fifty."

"No, I didn't. I'm not finished."

It looked as if Hairy smiled, deep within the dark dense pelt that covered him entirely.

"I wouldn't stay in business long if I gave away money," he said. "I know when I'm making change."

Croyd shrugged and nodded. "I guess so."

Croyd furrowed his brows when Hairy had left, and he shook his head.

"I didn't pay him, Jube," he said.

"I don't remember seeing you pay him either. But he said a fifty.

… That's hard to forget."

"Peculiar, too. Because I was thinking of breaking a fifty here when I was done."

"Oh? Do you recall when the thought passed through your mind?"

"Yeah. When he brought the waffles:"

"Did you actually have a mental image of taking out a fifty and handing it to him?"

"Yes."

"Interesting…"

"What do you mean?"

"I think that may be your power this timesome kind of telepathic hypnosis. You'll just have to play with it a bit to get the hang of it, to find its limits."

Croyd nodded slowly.

"Please don't try it on me, though. I'm screwed up enough as it is today."

"Why? You got some stake in this corpse business?"

"The less you know the better, Croyd. Believe me."

"Okay, I can see that. I don't really care, anyway. Not for what they're paying," he said. "So I take this job. Say everything goes smoothly and I've got this body. What do I do with it?"

Jube withdrew a pen and a small notebook from an inside pocket. He wrote for a moment, tore off a sheet, and passed it to Croyd. Then he dug in his side pocket, produced a key, and put it next to Croyd's plate.