Free Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass

Eddie grunted noncommittally, and used the phone on the wall to call Franny. He’d probably never see Lupo again; it might be months before he got another call from the police department. And the way his back and hip felt right now, he might wind up having to spend this whole paycheck on chiropractic. Maybe he should take his name off the list for police artist work?
    But no, he realized … as frustrating as it was to work with random, unobservant idiots like wolf-boy here, and as humiliating and painful as it was to haul himself out of his comfortable little apartment, it did his heart good to help track down crooks.
    It kind of balanced out his karma. He hoped.
    A knock on the door, then Franny entered. “So … how did it go?”
    Eddie gestured at the sketches tacked to the wall. “We got three of ’em, anyway. Lupo didn’t get a good enough look at the fourth.” If there really was one , he didn’t say.
    The detective looked over the sketches, then turned back to Eddie and Lupo. “These are great,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be a big help.”
    “Thanks.” Eddie began collecting his scattered reference materials, pencils, erasers, and sharpeners.
    “So what happens now?” Lupo asked, not unreasonably.
    Franny shrugged. “You’re free to go. But you’re a witness, so don’t leave town. We’ll leave a message at the White House if we need to contact you.” Eddie knew the White House Hotel, one of the Bowery’s few remaining classic flophouses. Fifty jokers sleeping on sagging beds in one big room.
    “I thought I might, y’know, go into a safe house?”
    The detective shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
    Lupo looked back and forth between Eddie and Franny, the whites showing all the way around his big brown doggy eyes. “I told you before, they might’ve seen me! I know what they look like, and they know it! As soon as I’m back on the street, they’ll snatch me too!”
    Franny spread his hands, palms up. “There’s no budget for it.”
    Now Lupo was really panicking, ears laid flat against his head. “Can’t I get some kind of police protection?”
    Franny laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lupo, really I am, but we just don’t have the people for it. I can put in a request, but…” He shrugged. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
    “Oh man…” Lupo put his head in his hands.
    Eddie felt bad for the mangy wolf-man, but there was nothing he could do about it. He cleared his throat and held out his time card and pen to the detective.
    “Oh. Sorry.” He scrawled a signature across the bottom of the card. “Thanks, Eddie. You’ve been a big help.”
    “You’re welcome.” He leaned in closer to the young detective and spoke low. “Say … I know it’s no business of mine, but is there something wrong between you and Detective Stevens?”
    Franny swallowed, and at that moment he looked nearly as miserable as Lupo. “It’s nothing you can help with. Thanks for your concern, though.”
    “Well, whatever it is, I’m sorry.” Eddie struggled to his feet, taking one last look at the sketches on the wall. “I hope you get those guys soon.”
    “Me too.”

    After the long day he’d had, Eddie wasn’t even up to ordering dinner from the New Big Wang Chinese Restaurant down the street. He opened a can of soup and heated it up on his tiny two-burner stove, meticulously washing and stowing the pot, bowl, and spoon when he was done.
    Then he rolled his chair over to the drawing table and began to work.
    Sometimes he did four-panel strips, sometimes book-length stories. Tonight it was a single large panel, Mister Nice Guy disporting himself across the page with a collection of anonymous, pneumatic women. Eddie worked rapidly, sketching the characters’ forms loosely in pencil before dipping his ink brush and bringing them to detailed black-and-white life.
    One of the women resembled the redheaded detective from that morning, only with much larger breasts. Mister Nice Guy