"You ask a lot of questions."

"I just saved your life."

"No. No to the books, no to whatever-his-name-was."He was telling the truth, but Fortunato still felt the connection. "A man named Loophole, or Latham?"

"Sorry. No dice."

Fortunato started to turn away. "Hey, listen," Demise said. "I didn't mean to get snippy. Maybe you could hide me out for a while? Just till this time tomorrow'?"

"Why tomorrow?"

"Just the way the man was talking. 'Parting shot' and shit like that. I got a real strong sense that by tomorrow morning you can color me gone. So what do you say? Got someplace to stash me?"

"Don't push your luck," Fortunato said.

Demise shrugged. The gesture was a little stiff, but otherwise his neck looked almost normal. "I guess I better turn up something on my own, then, hadn't I?"

The ice sculptures arrived at half past ten, in a refrigerated truck that had fought its way through the holiday crowds from the artist's loft in SoHo. Hiram went down to the lobby to make certain that there were no mishaps as the life-size sculptures were transported up the service elevator. The artist, a rugged-looking joker with bone-white skin and colorless eves who called himself Kelvin Frost, was most comfortable at temperatures around thirty below, and never left the frigid comforts of his studio. But he was a genius in ice-or "ephemeral art," as Frost and the critics preferred to call it.

When the sculptures were safely stored in the Aces High walk-in freezer, Hiram relaxed enough to look them over. Frost had not disappointed. His detail was as astonishing as ever, and his work had something else as well-a poignancy, a human quality that might even be called warmth, if warmth could exist in ice. Hiram sensed something forlorn and doomed in the way Jetboy stood there, looking up at the sky, every inch the hero and yet somehow a lost boy too. Dr. Tachyon pondered like Rodin's The Thinker, but instead of a rock, he sat upon an icy globe. Cyclone's cloak billowed out so you could almost feel the winds skirling about him, and the Howler stood with legs braced and fists clenched at his side, his mouth open as if he'd been caught in the act of screaming down a wall.

Peregrine looked as though she'd been caught in some other act. Her sculpture was a recumbent nude, resting languidly on one elbow, her wings half-spread behind her, every feather rendered in exquisite detail. A sly, sweet smile lit that famous face. The whole effect was rnaguificently erotic. Hiram found himself wondering if she'd posed for him. It was not unlike her.

But Frost's masterpiece, Hiram thought, was the Turtle. How to bring humanity to a man who'd never once shown his face to the world, whose public persona was a massive armored shell studded with camera lenses? The artist had risen to that challenge: the shell was there, every seam and rivet, but atop it, in miniature, Frost had carved a myriad of other figures. Hiram walked around the sculpture, admiring, picking out detail. There were the Four Aces at some Last Supper, Golden Boy looking much like Judas. Elsewhere a dozen jokers struggled up the curve of the shell, as if climbing some impossible mountain. There was Fortunato, surrounded by writhing naked women, and there a figure with a hundred blurred faces who seemed to be deep in sleep. From every angle, the piece unveiled new treasures.

"Kind of a shame it's going to melt, isn't it?" Jay Ackroyd said from behind him.

Hiram turned. "The artist doesn't think so. Frost maintains that all art is ephemeral, that ultimately it will all be gone, Picasso and Rembrandt and Van Gogh, the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa, whatever you care to name, in the end it will be gone to dust. Ice art is therefore more honest, because it celebrates its transitory nature instead of denying it. "

"Real good," the detective said in a flat voice. "But no one ever chipped a piece off the Pieta to put in their drink." He glanced over at Peregrine. "I should have been an artist. Girls always take off their clothes for artists. Can we get out of here? I forgot to bring my fur muumuu."

Hiram locked the freezer and escorted Ackroyd back to his office. The detective was a nondescript sort of fellow, which was probably an asset in his profession. Mid-forties, slender, just under medium height, carefully combed brown hair, quick brown eyes, an elusive smile. You'd never look at him twice on the street, and if you did, you'd never be sure if you'd seen him before. This morning he wore brown loafers with tassels, a brown suit obviously bought off the rack, and a dress shirt open at the collar_ Hiram had asked him once why he didn't wear ties. "Prone to soup stains," Ackroyd had replied.

"Well?" Hiram asked, when he was safely ensconced behind his desk. He glanced up at his muted television. A color graphic was showing sound waves coming out of the mouth of a yellow stick man and knocking clown a wall. Then they cut to an on-the-scene reporter speaking into the camera. Behind him, a dozen police cars cordoned off a brick building. The street was covered with shards of broken glass, winking in the sunlight. The camera panned slowly over rows of shattered windows and the cracked windshields of nearby parked cars.

"It was no big thing," Ackroyd said. "I nosed around the fish market for a hour and got the general idea fast enough. You've got your basic protection racket going down."

" I see," Hiram said.

"The waterfront draws crooks like a picnic draws ants, that's no secret. Smuggling, drugs, the rackets, you name it. Opportunities abound. Your friend Gills, along with most of the other small businessmen, paid the mob a percentage off the top, and in return the mob provided protection and occasional help with the police or the unions."

"The mob?" Hiram said. "Jay, this sounds suitably melodramatic, but I had the impression that the mob was made up of ethnic gentlemen partial to pinstripes, black shirts, and white ties. The hoodlums who were troubling Gills lacked even that rudimentary fashion sense. And one of them was a joker. Has the Mafia taken to recruiting jokers?"

"No," Ackroyd said. "That's the trouble. The East River waterfront belongs to the Gambione Family, but the Gambiones have been losing their grip for years now. They've all ready lost Jokertown to the Demon Princes and the other joker gangs, and a Chinatown gang called the Egrets or Snowbirds or something like that has run them right out of Chinatown. Harlem got taken away a long time ago, and the bulk of the city's drug traffic no longer flows through Gambione hands. But they still controlled the waterfront. Until now" He leaned forward. "Now there's competition. They're offering new and improved protection at a much higher price. Maybe too high for your friend."

"His son is in college," Hiram said thoughtfully. "The tuition is quite substantial, I believe. So what I witnessed this morning was a little, ah, dunning?"'

"Bingo," Ackroyd said.

"If Gills and his fellow merchants have been paying the Gambiones for protection, why aren't they receiving it?"

"Two weeks ago, a body was found hanging from a meathook in a warehouse two blocks from Fulton Street. A gentleman by the name of Dominick Santarello. He was ID'd by fingerprints, his face having been beaten into ground round. A colleague of Santarello's, one Angelo Casanovista, turned up dead in a barrel of pickled herring a week prior. His head was not in the barrel with him. The word on the streets is that the new guys have something the Gambiones don't-an ace. Or at least a joker who can pass for an ace in a bad light. These things do tend to get exaggerated, but I'm told he's seven feet tall, inhumanly strong, and ugly enough to make you wet your pants. He goes by the charming nom de guerre of Bludgeon. The Gambiones are overmatched, I'd say." He shrugged. Hiram Worchester was aghast. "And what about the police?"