Aces High Page 0,24

this time of year. Winos who freeze to death-you know. How do I know which one is the right one?"

"I was getting to that. This guy's a joker, see? A little fellow. About five feet tall, maybe. Looks kind of like a big bug-legs that fold up like a grasshopper's, an exoskeleton with some fur on it, four fingers on his hands with three joints each, eyes on the sides of his head, vestigial wings on back . . ."

"I get the picture. Sounds hard to confuse with the standard model."

"Yes. Shouldn't weigh much either."

Croyd nodded. Someone in the front of the restaurant said, ". . . pterodactyl!" and Croyd turned his head in time to see the winged shape flit by the window.

"That kid again," Jube said.

"Yeah. Wonder who he's pestering this time?"

"You know him?"

"Uh-huh. He shows up every now and then. Kind of an aces fan. At least he doesn't know what I look like this time. Anyway. . . . How soon do they need this body?"

"The sooner the better."

"Anything you can tell me about the setup at the morgue?"

Jube nodded slowly.

"Yes. It's a six-story building. Labs and offices and such, upstairs. Reception and viewing area on the ground floor. They keep the bodies in the basement. The autopsy rooms are down there, too. They have a hundred and twenty-eight storage compartments, with a walk-in refrigerator with shelves for kids' bodies. When somebody has to view a body for ID purposes, they put it on a special elevator which lifts it to a glass-enclosed chamber in a waiting room on the first floor."

"So you've been there?"

"No, I read Milton Helpern's memoirs."

"You've got what I'd call a real liberal education," Croyd said. "I should probably read more myself."

"You can buy a lot of books for fifty grand." Croyd smiled.

"So, we've got a deal?"

"Let me think about it a little longer-over breakfastwhile I figure out just how my talent works. I'll come by your stand when I'm done. When would I pick up the ten grand?"

"I can get it by this afternoon."

"Okay. I'll see you in a hour or so."

Jube nodded, raised his massive bulk, slid out of the booth.

"Watch your cholesterol," he said.

Blue cracks had appeared in the sky's gray shell, and sunlight found its way through to the street. The sound of trickling water came steadily now from somewhere to the rear of the newsstand. Jube would normally have thought it a pleasant background to the traffic noises and other sounds of the city, save that a small moral dilemma had drifted in on leathery wings and destroyed the morning. He did not realize he had made a decision in the matter until he looked up and saw Croyd looking at him, smiling.

"No problem," said Croyd. "It'll be a piece of cake." Jube sighed.

"There's something I've got to tell you first," he said. "Problems?"

"Nothing that bears directly on the terms of the job," Jube explained. "But you may have a problem you didn't know you had."

"Like what?" Croyd said, frowning. "That pterodactyl we saw earlier . . . ?F "Yeah?.,

"Kid Dinosaur was headed here. I found him waiting when I got back. He was looking for you."

"I hope you didn't tell him where to find me."

"No, I wouldn't do that. But you know how he keeps tabs on aces and high-powered jokers . . . ?"

"Yeah. Why couldn't he be into baseball players or war criminals?"

"He saw one he wanted you to know about. He said that Devil John Darlingfoot got out of the hospital a month or so ago and dropped out of sight. But he's back now. He'd seen him near the Cloisters earlier. Says he's heading for Midtown."

"Well, well. So what?"

"So he thinks he's looking for you. Wants a rematch. The Kid thinks he's still mad over what you did to him the day the two of you trashed Rockefeller Plaza."

"So let him keep looking. I'm not a short, heavyset, darkhaired guy anymore. I'll go get the stiff now-before someone buys him a short bier."

"Don't you want the money?"

"You already gave it to me."

"When?"

"What's your first memory of my coming back here?"

"I looked up about a minute ago and saw you standing there smiling. You said there was no problem. You called it 'a piece of cake.'"

"Good. Then, it's working."

"You'd better explain."

"That's the place where I wanted you to start remembering. I'd been here for about a minute before that, and I talked you into giving me the money and forgetting about it."

Croyd withdrew