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Description
"I got good news and bad news," Jacobs said as she entered Gates' office.  "The good news is we know where the missing weapons are."

"Good!  Who's got them?"

"That's the bad news.  Remember the clown?"

"Oh no," Gates groaned.  "How'd he end up with them?"

"We're working on that.  Apparently he crashed a meeting of mob bigwigs last night and told them he had the goods.  Said he'd use them on either them or us and told them to convince him to play nice with them."

"Jeezus."  Gates leaned back in his chair.

"There's an upside.  Our informers say he called himself the Joke, or Grayson called him that, or something."

"So," Gates summarized.  "We have a name, sort of, we know that he has the weapons, and we have a possible description of what he looks like."

"We know what he looks like?"

"The kid who tricked Gunsmoke.  Black hair, average height, slender.  It's not much, and it may not even be him, but it's something."

"Don't worry, Inspector.  We'll get h—"

Gates' phone rang.  He picked it up and answered with a brisk, "Hello, this is Gates."

"Oh!  Good!" said a cheerful sounding voice on the other end.  "Lucky guess on that number.  Hi!  I am recently-came-to-be-known-as-the-Joke."  Gates' blood froze and he didn't move for several seconds.  Then he silently burst into action, motioning to Jacobs to start a trace on the call and grabbing a pen so he could take notes on the conversation.  "Anyhoo," the Joke continued, "as I'm sure you know from your excellent sources, I've come to own a bunch of fun toys, and last night I spoke to the scum of society to give them a chance to convince me to be nice to them.  It's only fair I give you the same chance, right?  Dazzle me."  The other end went silent in expectation.

"Are you looking for a bribe?" Gates asked, fighting to keep his voice steady.

"No!  No no no.  Though if you want to throw some money at me I wouldn't complain.  No, I'm looking for a reason.  All you have to do is convince me that using my toys on the mob would be more fun than using them on you slash the established order."  Jacobs stuck her head in and silently handed Gates a piece of paper informing him that the trace was completed and the cops on patrol notified.  Gates had just finished reading it when the dial tone started blaring in his ear; the clown had hung up.  Gates spent a stressful five or ten minutes wondering what was going on before his phone rang again.

"Gates," he said, scooping it up.

"FYI, Inspector, if you're trying to convince a guy to like you enough not to antagonize you, tracing his calls and siccing cops on him might not be the best way to do it."

"You should just turn yourself in.  You haven't done anything really serious yet," Gates said.  "Your sentence would be pretty light."

"…that's not very convincing either," the clown replied.  "Oh, and I killed some mob goon last night.  Last I checked murder was considered pretty serious."

Gates was officially worried now.  Anyone who could confess to a murder so casually was dangerous.  "Oh," he said.

"Anyway, if you could make your argument sometime before your guys finish tracing this call, that'd be great.  I don't really feel like hopping payphones all day."

"I'm not going to tell you to attack the mob," Gates finally stated flatly.  "It goes against everything I stand for."  There was a pause.

"Alrighty then, how about this?" the Joke replied imperturbably.  "Until you can convince me not to, and I mean a good reason, nothing boring like law stuff, I'll work with the mob.  At least until I get bored with it."  This was followed by chuckling, and Gates shuddered.

"What do you want?" the Inspector asked quietly.

"Want?" he laughed.  "I want to have fun, of course.  I'll be in touch, Inspector."  His laughter was cut off by the dial tone as he hung up, leaving Gates more concerned than ever about the clown case.

--------------

Joe decided, for some reason, to turn on the news while he got ready for school.  Some attractive blond reporter was holding a microphone to the face of a grizzled cop whose exact age was impossible to tell.  Joe guessed he was somewhere in his fifties.  "I'm not saying your sources are wrong," he was saying.  "Just don't believe everything you hear."

"I have to agree, Inspector Gates, that a clown stealing weapons from the mob is pretty unbelievable," the reporter replied.

"Say what?" Joe exclaimed laughingly, his attention now focused wholly on the TV.

"Not to mention threatening the mob into working with him.  But we have reliable sources in the mob that have passed along this information," the reporter continued.

"I'd like to know who they are," Inspector Gates responded seriously.

The reporter changed the subject, "Is there a physical description we can be on the lookout for?"  Joe couldn't help but cast a smiling glance at the Joker posters around his room.

Gates sighed.  "He's changed the appearance of his make-up each time.  As for his real appearance, we only have a possible, and nothing detailed enough to share.  That's all I have time for.  Thank you."  The inspector fled, questions bouncing off his retreating back.

"What has the clown done so far?  What will he do next?  Is the clown dangerous?  Inspector, is he dangerous?"

Joe couldn't help laughing.  It was like his favorite character had come to life, and he was delighted.  He went to school in a very good mood that day.  His day got even better when he got there and noticed Stella brooding darkly.  "Hey, Stella," he said cheerfully, plopping down into his desk.  "How's your daddy?"  If looks could kill, the look Stella gave Joe would have dropped him dead.  Then she straightened.

"My daddy will do whatever's smartest," she said proudly.

"Like working with a psychotic clown," Joe added.

"Maybe we'll sic the clown on you," she replied threateningly.

"Fine.  I think we'd get along quite well.  We could watch Batman or something," Joe said flippantly, turning around to pay attention to class.

"Freak," Stella muttered.  Joe chuckled.  Definitely another good day.

--------------

The Joke is out of costume, wearing instead a slick black ensemble complete with leather gloves, but by no means is he not working.  He is, in fact, disappearing.  He chooses the DMV.  Breaking in isn't hard; he has some useful alarm disabling toys from Gunsmoke.  He silently tumbles into an office with a computer.  He turns the computer on, then puts black tape on all visible lights on the console and tapes some heavy black paper to one side of the monitor, so it can swing over and block the monitor light.  He then inserts into the computer a flash drive with a hacking program on it, written by him precisely for this.  Even with the program, it takes him a good twenty minutes to a half hour to hack all the way into the main government server.  He locates his file, and after a moment of thought, leaves his fingerprints, dental, and DNA in the system and deletes the accompanying name, birth date, social security number, and other data.  For the final touch, he replaces the picture with one of himself, smiling psychotically with his finalized make-up.  After double-checking that the changes have copied over into every database they might ever need to, he leans back, satisfied.  Now he can never be traced or found, but he can still take full credit for his work.  He shuts down the computer, collects the flash drive and other materials, and sneaks back out through the window, leaving the room in darkness, the alarms turned back on, and everything as he found it.  Nothing even hints of a crime, much less points to him.  He has effectively vanished, which is exactly what he had come to do.

--------------

Boss Grayson's cell phone rang, and the room where he sat with his closest goons went silent.  The Boss's cell phone was for strictly private use only, no one but family, and even they weren't allowed to call him at certain times of day.  No person with any sense of self-preservation would be calling him now.  He answered it with a terse "What?"

"I'm bored," a voice on the other end said.  Grayson rolled his eyes and mouthed to his goons that it was the Joke.

"So?"

"So, I work for you now, right?  Give me something to do."  Grayson sighed.  "Or is it that you don't think I'll actually be useful for anything."  Grayson was silent, fuming over the fact that the clown could read him so easily.  "Give me something fun to do and I'll prove my use."

"Okay," Grayson said.  "Rob a bank for me."  There was a pause as the Joke thought for a moment.

"Okeedokee."  There was a click as the Joke hung up.  Grayson shrugged, still not sure what to think of this guy, but willing to give him a chance.

--------------

Benni the Squid (he came up with the nickname himself) was determined to take the easy way to the top.  Get rich quick, no taxes, big house, the whole city at his feet.  That was the plan; join Grayson's gang.  Trouble was, he had no idea how to go about that.  Then came the phone call.

"Benni the Squid here," he answered with his customary carefully calculated toughness.  There was a pause on the other end.

"Squid?  Really?  You're Benny…the Squid?" a voice said, disarmed.

"Yeah.  Gotta problem with that?"

"No.  No no," the other guy assured with barely suppressed laughter.  "In fact, a squid is exactly what I need."

"Look here, punk—"

"How would you like to get your foot in the door with Big Boss Grayson?" the caller interrupted.  "Or…tentacle, I guess.  Cuz you're a squid.  Heh."

It was Benni's turn to be disarmed.  "What?"

"See, Grayson told me to rob a bank.  And I thought, why hog all the glory?  Share with some other saps looking to impress the Big Cheese.  I asked around and your name came up."

"Hunh."

"Help me out with this robbery and I just know Grayson will take notice."  Benni thought for a moment.  A moment.

"Alright, I'm in."  Finally, things were looking up for the Squid.

--------------

The day of the robbery arrives and the Joke meets up with all the unsuspecting fools he's found.  He's dressed like they are, black pants, jacket, and ski mask, and he introduces himself as a member of the vault pair.  As far as they know, he's just like them.  He's not.  He's done his homework.  He knows exactly how this is gonna go.  And he can't wait.

At 1:17 pm the motley crew bursts into the bank, startling the employees and the meager number of customers, brandishing guns supplied by the Joke.  The lobby team locks down the front while the Joke and one other guy scoot to the vault.  The other guy has been informed how to open it by someone he has no idea is standing right behind him.  The Joke knows everything about this vault.  He knows things about it the guy fussing with it right now doesn't know.  He knows things only the guy who built it and the guy who commissioned it know, and won't the latter be thrilled.  The Joke almost can't keep from chuckling to himself.  This is too fun.

The guy cracks the vault with a gleeful "We're in!" and the Joke recognizes the voice of Benny the Squid.  Pity such a hilarious nickname is going to go to waste.  The Joke hovers outside the vault door as the Squid enters.

"Toss me the money," the disguised clown whispers.  Squiddy picks up a bundle of hundreds the size of a shoe box and tosses it to the Joke outside the vault, all before realizing the heavy vault door is swinging shut.  As it snicks into place the alarm sounds.  The Joke is already on his way down the hall, now indulging in chuckles.  The door was rigged to close and lock and the alarm to sound if any pack of money was lifted without the manager's code keyed in beneath it.  Perfect.

The Joke hits a fire escape door, adding another alarm to the delightful cacophony.  He peels off the ski mask and black jacket and ditches them in a nearby dumpster.  He retrieves a backpack he'd stashed outside the door earlier and stuffs the money in.  Then he strolls out onto the street, black cargo pants, t-shirt, backpack, normal guy, and joins the crowd of curious spectators until the police tell them all to clear out.  Then he walks off, a few thousand dollars in his backpack.  Wait'll Grayson finds out.

--------------

Gates glanced at the crowd of people gathered outside the bank and motioned to an officer to clear them out.  Then he strode inside, asking Jacobs, "What do we got?"

"Bank robbery," she answered, a little needlessly.  "Three got away when the alarm sounded.  Two are here in the lobby.  One in the vault."

"Sorry.  In the vault?" Gated interrupted.

"Yeah."  Gates got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Well, let's get him out.  Maybe he'll talk."

An hour or so later Gates sat in the interrogation room across from an indignant young man who insisted his name was Benni the Squid.  "Alright, Benni," Gates sighed.  "Tell me what happened."  Benni actually seemed to consider.

"I'm no rat."

No, you're a squid, Gates thought ironically, then shook himself mentally.  The clown case was getting to him.  "You were trapped in a vault.  Apparently the loyalty isn't mutual."

Benni took a moment to puzzle that out, then shrugged.  "I got a call from some guy wanted to rob a bank.  Said he'd cut me in."

"Okay.  How'd you end up in the vault?"

"I dunno.  I grabbed some cash and tossed it to some other guy.  Next I know I'm trapped."  This was news.  There had been another guy, and he had gotten away with some of the bank's money.  Gates stood, left the room, and relayed that information to Jacobs.  In return he was informed that that particular bank was being investigated for possible ties to the mob.  Fantastic.  Then Gates reentered the interrogation room and sat back down.

"Did the guy who called you say who he was?" he asked Benni.

"Um…nope."

"Of course not," Gates sighed again.  He already didn't like this case.

Description
"I got good news and bad news," Jacobs said as she entered Gates' office.  "The good news is we know where the missing weapons are."

"Good!  Who's got them?"

"That's the bad news.  Remember the clown?"

"Oh no," Gates groaned.  "How'd he end up with them?"

"We're working on that.  Apparently he crashed a meeting of mob bigwigs last night and told them he had the goods.  Said he'd use them on either them or us and told them to convince him to play nice with them."

"Jeezus."  Gates leaned back in his chair.

"There's an upside.  Our informers say he called himself the Joke, or Grayson called him that, or something."

"So," Gates summarized.  "We have a name, sort of, we know that he has the weapons, and we have a possible description of what he looks like."

"We know what he looks like?"

"The kid who tricked Gunsmoke.  Black hair, average height, slender.  It's not much, and it may not even be him, but it's something."

"Don't worry, Inspector.  We'll get h—"

Gates' phone rang.  He picked it up and answered with a brisk, "Hello, this is Gates."

"Oh!  Good!" said a cheerful sounding voice on the other end.  "Lucky guess on that number.  Hi!  I am recently-came-to-be-known-as-the-Joke."  Gates' blood froze and he didn't move for several seconds.  Then he silently burst into action, motioning to Jacobs to start a trace on the call and grabbing a pen so he could take notes on the conversation.  "Anyhoo," the Joke continued, "as I'm sure you know from your excellent sources, I've come to own a bunch of fun toys, and last night I spoke to the scum of society to give them a chance to convince me to be nice to them.  It's only fair I give you the same chance, right?  Dazzle me."  The other end went silent in expectation.

"Are you looking for a bribe?" Gates asked, fighting to keep his voice steady.

"No!  No no no.  Though if you want to throw some money at me I wouldn't complain.  No, I'm looking for a reason.  All you have to do is convince me that using my toys on the mob would be more fun than using them on you slash the established order."  Jacobs stuck her head in and silently handed Gates a piece of paper informing him that the trace was completed and the cops on patrol notified.  Gates had just finished reading it when the dial tone started blaring in his ear; the clown had hung up.  Gates spent a stressful five or ten minutes wondering what was going on before his phone rang again.

"Gates," he said, scooping it up.

"FYI, Inspector, if you're trying to convince a guy to like you enough not to antagonize you, tracing his calls and siccing cops on him might not be the best way to do it."

"You should just turn yourself in.  You haven't done anything really serious yet," Gates said.  "Your sentence would be pretty light."

"…that's not very convincing either," the clown replied.  "Oh, and I killed some mob goon last night.  Last I checked murder was considered pretty serious."

Gates was officially worried now.  Anyone who could confess to a murder so casually was dangerous.  "Oh," he said.

"Anyway, if you could make your argument sometime before your guys finish tracing this call, that'd be great.  I don't really feel like hopping payphones all day."

"I'm not going to tell you to attack the mob," Gates finally stated flatly.  "It goes against everything I stand for."  There was a pause.

"Alrighty then, how about this?" the Joke replied imperturbably.  "Until you can convince me not to, and I mean a good reason, nothing boring like law stuff, I'll work with the mob.  At least until I get bored with it."  This was followed by chuckling, and Gates shuddered.

"What do you want?" the Inspector asked quietly.

"Want?" he laughed.  "I want to have fun, of course.  I'll be in touch, Inspector."  His laughter was cut off by the dial tone as he hung up, leaving Gates more concerned than ever about the clown case.

--------------

Joe decided, for some reason, to turn on the news while he got ready for school.  Some attractive blond reporter was holding a microphone to the face of a grizzled cop whose exact age was impossible to tell.  Joe guessed he was somewhere in his fifties.  "I'm not saying your sources are wrong," he was saying.  "Just don't believe everything you hear."

"I have to agree, Inspector Gates, that a clown stealing weapons from the mob is pretty unbelievable," the reporter replied.

"Say what?" Joe exclaimed laughingly, his attention now focused wholly on the TV.

"Not to mention threatening the mob into working with him.  But we have reliable sources in the mob that have passed along this information," the reporter continued.

"I'd like to know who they are," Inspector Gates responded seriously.

The reporter changed the subject, "Is there a physical description we can be on the lookout for?"  Joe couldn't help but cast a smiling glance at the Joker posters around his room.

Gates sighed.  "He's changed the appearance of his make-up each time.  As for his real appearance, we only have a possible, and nothing detailed enough to share.  That's all I have time for.  Thank you."  The inspector fled, questions bouncing off his retreating back.

"What has the clown done so far?  What will he do next?  Is the clown dangerous?  Inspector, is he dangerous?"

Joe couldn't help laughing.  It was like his favorite character had come to life, and he was delighted.  He went to school in a very good mood that day.  His day got even better when he got there and noticed Stella brooding darkly.  "Hey, Stella," he said cheerfully, plopping down into his desk.  "How's your daddy?"  If looks could kill, the look Stella gave Joe would have dropped him dead.  Then she straightened.

"My daddy will do whatever's smartest," she said proudly.

"Like working with a psychotic clown," Joe added.

"Maybe we'll sic the clown on you," she replied threateningly.

"Fine.  I think we'd get along quite well.  We could watch Batman or something," Joe said flippantly, turning around to pay attention to class.

"Freak," Stella muttered.  Joe chuckled.  Definitely another good day.

--------------

The Joke is out of costume, wearing instead a slick black ensemble complete with leather gloves, but by no means is he not working.  He is, in fact, disappearing.  He chooses the DMV.  Breaking in isn't hard; he has some useful alarm disabling toys from Gunsmoke.  He silently tumbles into an office with a computer.  He turns the computer on, then puts black tape on all visible lights on the console and tapes some heavy black paper to one side of the monitor, so it can swing over and block the monitor light.  He then inserts into the computer a flash drive with a hacking program on it, written by him precisely for this.  Even with the program, it takes him a good twenty minutes to a half hour to hack all the way into the main government server.  He locates his file, and after a moment of thought, leaves his fingerprints, dental, and DNA in the system and deletes the accompanying name, birth date, social security number, and other data.  For the final touch, he replaces the picture with one of himself, smiling psychotically with his finalized make-up.  After double-checking that the changes have copied over into every database they might ever need to, he leans back, satisfied.  Now he can never be traced or found, but he can still take full credit for his work.  He shuts down the computer, collects the flash drive and other materials, and sneaks back out through the window, leaving the room in darkness, the alarms turned back on, and everything as he found it.  Nothing even hints of a crime, much less points to him.  He has effectively vanished, which is exactly what he had come to do.

--------------

Boss Grayson's cell phone rang, and the room where he sat with his closest goons went silent.  The Boss's cell phone was for strictly private use only, no one but family, and even they weren't allowed to call him at certain times of day.  No person with any sense of self-preservation would be calling him now.  He answered it with a terse "What?"

"I'm bored," a voice on the other end said.  Grayson rolled his eyes and mouthed to his goons that it was the Joke.

"So?"

"So, I work for you now, right?  Give me something to do."  Grayson sighed.  "Or is it that you don't think I'll actually be useful for anything."  Grayson was silent, fuming over the fact that the clown could read him so easily.  "Give me something fun to do and I'll prove my use."

"Okay," Grayson said.  "Rob a bank for me."  There was a pause as the Joke thought for a moment.

"Okeedokee."  There was a click as the Joke hung up.  Grayson shrugged, still not sure what to think of this guy, but willing to give him a chance.

--------------

Benni the Squid (he came up with the nickname himself) was determined to take the easy way to the top.  Get rich quick, no taxes, big house, the whole city at his feet.  That was the plan; join Grayson's gang.  Trouble was, he had no idea how to go about that.  Then came the phone call.

"Benni the Squid here," he answered with his customary carefully calculated toughness.  There was a pause on the other end.

"Squid?  Really?  You're Benny…the Squid?" a voice said, disarmed.

"Yeah.  Gotta problem with that?"

"No.  No no," the other guy assured with barely suppressed laughter.  "In fact, a squid is exactly what I need."

"Look here, punk—"

"How would you like to get your foot in the door with Big Boss Grayson?" the caller interrupted.  "Or…tentacle, I guess.  Cuz you're a squid.  Heh."

It was Benni's turn to be disarmed.  "What?"

"See, Grayson told me to rob a bank.  And I thought, why hog all the glory?  Share with some other saps looking to impress the Big Cheese.  I asked around and your name came up."

"Hunh."

"Help me out with this robbery and I just know Grayson will take notice."  Benni thought for a moment.  A moment.

"Alright, I'm in."  Finally, things were looking up for the Squid.

--------------

The day of the robbery arrives and the Joke meets up with all the unsuspecting fools he's found.  He's dressed like they are, black pants, jacket, and ski mask, and he introduces himself as a member of the vault pair.  As far as they know, he's just like them.  He's not.  He's done his homework.  He knows exactly how this is gonna go.  And he can't wait.

At 1:17 pm the motley crew bursts into the bank, startling the employees and the meager number of customers, brandishing guns supplied by the Joke.  The lobby team locks down the front while the Joke and one other guy scoot to the vault.  The other guy has been informed how to open it by someone he has no idea is standing right behind him.  The Joke knows everything about this vault.  He knows things about it the guy fussing with it right now doesn't know.  He knows things only the guy who built it and the guy who commissioned it know, and won't the latter be thrilled.  The Joke almost can't keep from chuckling to himself.  This is too fun.

The guy cracks the vault with a gleeful "We're in!" and the Joke recognizes the voice of Benny the Squid.  Pity such a hilarious nickname is going to go to waste.  The Joke hovers outside the vault door as the Squid enters.

"Toss me the money," the disguised clown whispers.  Squiddy picks up a bundle of hundreds the size of a shoe box and tosses it to the Joke outside the vault, all before realizing the heavy vault door is swinging shut.  As it snicks into place the alarm sounds.  The Joke is already on his way down the hall, now indulging in chuckles.  The door was rigged to close and lock and the alarm to sound if any pack of money was lifted without the manager's code keyed in beneath it.  Perfect.

The Joke hits a fire escape door, adding another alarm to the delightful cacophony.  He peels off the ski mask and black jacket and ditches them in a nearby dumpster.  He retrieves a backpack he'd stashed outside the door earlier and stuffs the money in.  Then he strolls out onto the street, black cargo pants, t-shirt, backpack, normal guy, and joins the crowd of curious spectators until the police tell them all to clear out.  Then he walks off, a few thousand dollars in his backpack.  Wait'll Grayson finds out.

--------------

Gates glanced at the crowd of people gathered outside the bank and motioned to an officer to clear them out.  Then he strode inside, asking Jacobs, "What do we got?"

"Bank robbery," she answered, a little needlessly.  "Three got away when the alarm sounded.  Two are here in the lobby.  One in the vault."

"Sorry.  In the vault?" Gated interrupted.

"Yeah."  Gates got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Well, let's get him out.  Maybe he'll talk."

An hour or so later Gates sat in the interrogation room across from an indignant young man who insisted his name was Benni the Squid.  "Alright, Benni," Gates sighed.  "Tell me what happened."  Benni actually seemed to consider.

"I'm no rat."

No, you're a squid, Gates thought ironically, then shook himself mentally.  The clown case was getting to him.  "You were trapped in a vault.  Apparently the loyalty isn't mutual."

Benni took a moment to puzzle that out, then shrugged.  "I got a call from some guy wanted to rob a bank.  Said he'd cut me in."

"Okay.  How'd you end up in the vault?"

"I dunno.  I grabbed some cash and tossed it to some other guy.  Next I know I'm trapped."  This was news.  There had been another guy, and he had gotten away with some of the bank's money.  Gates stood, left the room, and relayed that information to Jacobs.  In return he was informed that that particular bank was being investigated for possible ties to the mob.  Fantastic.  Then Gates reentered the interrogation room and sat back down.

"Did the guy who called you say who he was?" he asked Benni.

"Um…nope."

"Of course not," Gates sighed again.  He already didn't like this case.