A Comedy of Errors

Eva Frederiksen’s head felt like it was on the career chopping block.

This feeling wasn’t alleviated at the sight of a guillotine someone had left in the alley by the old bank building, wedged between two garbage cans as if someone had just thrown it out with the trash. The absence of severed body parts told her it either wasn’t a working guillotine or it had not yet been tested; yet in a city practically oozing with street gangs, such a form of harsh justice would not have been ignored. This seemed anything but random to her. Nope, this was an omen if she ever did see one.

Her soundman and cameraman were arguing about whose turn it was to drive the van next. Eva sighed, readjusted her sharp blazer and replayed in her head a vision she’d had a million times before. She was around eighty, and old but finely wrinkled lady, who when her grandchildren came over to visit her in a retirement home known as Gray Bush Resorts, would tell them stories of when she was a hot young whippersnapper, climbing up the ladder of network news, interviewing the most important political figures of the day … corresponding in Afghanistan … Bennifer.

Yup. She’d had her shot and she’d blown it by rising to ask District Attorney Harvey Dent a question and letting rip a loud fart that was the first in a series of unfortunate events in her life. If I could go back and change one thing,Eva often found herself thinking, … well, first off, I wouldn’t have had Mexican for lunch.

It wasn’t conducive to the positive mental attitude Eva had resolved to create for herself. She liked to think this was only a temporary fallback, that it was only a matter of time before the network had her back on prime time news, but it was difficult. At thirty one, she considered herself to look at least two years younger than her age and if you believe it, it’s as good as true. Five nine, healthy, brunette, good looking; but the industry was shamelessly fickle, and if you lose your looks in the business … Eva gulped.

The pressing crowd was making Eva feel a bit claustrophobic and no activity had been seen in or around the old bank building. She pushed through the crowd and leaned up against the building when she managed to swim through the throng of people. She was in the middle of her deep breathing exercises when a pale man with spectacles approached her.

“Eva?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied with a hint of annoyance.

“Eva Frederiksen,” the man said. Eva nodded with hostility.

“It’s me,” the man said.

Now that she came to think of it, he was oddly familiar.

“Crane - Jonathan Crane,” the man said. “We graduated together, Sentinel Secondary, class of ’95.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” Eva replied with a small grin. “You were the kid who burned the word, ‘FUCK’ into the school football field along with Kearney Jones and Geoff Kresge.” Crane chortled and nodded. “How’ve you been?” Eva asked.

“Good,” Crane answered. “Really good, I’m er, actually working up at Arkham,” he lied. What else could he say? ‘I performed ethically questionable practices on my patients and terrorized the city all while wearing a burlap sack on my face. I’m currently jobless and shacking up with a certified criminal whack job.’

“Well, I see you’re doing well for yourself,” Crane said, “gettin’ all on the TV and whatnot.”

“You don’t watch a lot of TV, do you?” Eva asked jokingly.

“No, not lately,” Crane chuckled. Eva left it that.

“What are you doing in these parts?” Eva asked.

“I’m actually making a house call to a patient,” Crane fibbed. “What’s going on here?”

“Ugh, some coke bust or something,” Eva said nonchalantly. “The cops have been in there for hours.”

“Do you know if it’s connected to the Padovanni’s?”

“Probably.”

Crane was about to say more, but was cut off by a voice shouting, “Jonat’in!” His head swiveled to find the Bulgarian, who wasn’t particularly difficult to miss, and Joker, who were both looking antsy and restless.

“Those your friends?” Eva asked.

“Assistants, kind of,” Crane said. “It’s complicated.” Eva nodded.

“But it was really good seeing you again,” Crane quickly added.

“Definitely,” replied Eva.

“We should hang out again sometime,” Crane said.

Eva reached into her right pocket and withdrew her wallet and pulled out a business card. “Here’s my card,” she said. “That’s um, my office number, my cell and my home phone,” she said, pointing to different number sequences. “Gimme a shout.”

“Deffs,” Crane smiled. The two embraced in a friendly hug.

“Jonat’in!”

“I gotta go,” Crane said. “I’ll call you.”

“I look forward to it."

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“Jonat’in?” Tatiana called. Crane was standing in the bathroom doorway stupefied with shock. Joker was casually meandering through the rooms and halls. When he approached Crane and saw Izzy Skinazzi lying dead and bloodied in the bathtub, he sucked on his lips, shrugged and said, unmoved, “oh well, we tried.”

“Vat’s going on?” Tatiana asked, pushing her way through the two men. When her eyes met the grizzly scene, she made a disgusted noise and shuddered.

“We should get out of here,” Crane said. “The longer we’re here, the more evidence we leave behind. We need to get to Maroni ASAP.”

Suddenly the door was swung open with great force and two suited goons stomped in. Quick as a cat, both Crane and Joker had their trusted weapons at the disposal; Joker, a hunting knife and Crane, a shiny grey aerosol canister. Out of the corner of his eye, Crane saw a wet washcloth lying in the bathroom sink. He grabbed it and plastered it across Tatiana's nose and mouth. “Don’t take it off until I say so,” he said. She held the cloth to her face with one hand while her other was fumbling for her hot glue gun.

“Who’s there?” one of the suited goons asked in another room. Crane, Joker and Tatiana approached the man from behind. The goon had a pistol in his hand but before he could react, the Joker had it knocked out of his grasped and had his hunting knife in his mouth. Crane had his aerosol canister held up with his index finger on the trigger.

“You wanna know how I got these scars?” Joker asked the goon. The goon was paralyzed with fear and didn’t respond; so Joker nodded and told yet another variation of a story he had told about a million times before. “These are what you get when you mix thirteen ounces of cocaine with a couple toddlers and some gardening equipment.”

“Don’t move!” barked the other goon from across the room. His gun was raised and his feet were standing firm and apart. In one swift movement, Crane traveled the length of the room and sprayed a grayish white substance into his face. The goon shrieked and dropped the gun, causing it to go off and send a bullet through the drywall. Tatiana, with the washcloth still over her face, picked up the gun and swapped it with her hot glue equivalent. The goon had fallen to the ground and was screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs. The aerosol has dissipated through the room and was swirling around Joker and the man with the knife in his mouth

“Let’s go,” Crane said urgently. Joker dropped the man to the ground and left him to the spray, which as the party raced down the emergency staircase in the building, had administered it’s affects on both the men.

Crane, Joker and Tatiana didn’t stop running until finding a pay phone two blocks down and across from Park Royal Towers. Crane dug a quarter of his pockets and dialed for Maroni as Joker and Tatiana were bent over, both panting heavily. The Bulgarian dropped the soggy washcloth to the pavement, where it made a soft smacking sound against the concrete.

“ ’Yallo?” Maroni answered.

“Maroni, it’s me, Crane,” Crane said while trying to catch his breath.

“Yo, Doctor, ya’ll right? You sound like you’ve just run the London Marathon,” Sal Maroni said.

“It’s about Izzy Skinazzi.”

“Why? What happened?”

“She’s dead, sir,” Crane breathed. “We found her in the bathtub, with what appeared to be stabwounds."

“Shit,” Maroni grumbled. “I’ll hafta get Meza and Hernandez on this one.”

“Also,” Crane breathed, “a couple Padovanni thugs showed up at the apartment.”

“What did you do?” Maroni asked after a pause.

“I used the fear toxin on them. They won’t be going anywhere.”

“Good. If we could somehow plant this on the Padovanni’s …”

“What do you want us to do, sir?”

“You’re in the East End, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell you what; I’m down on Granville and Robson. Why don’t you three meet me at say, the er, sushi place, oh, fuck if I can pronounce it. We’ll discuss it more there.”

“Okay.”

“See you in about, what, twenty, thirty, minutes?”

“Okay.”