Krokodil Tears

remained.

The girl's hand relaxed, and fell away from her weapon. The moon rose, and her pale face glowed.

II

This is ZeeBeeCee, The Station That's Got It All, bringing you What You Want twenty-four hours a day, sponsored by GenTech, the bioproducts division that really cares…

And now, as part of our public service program, we hand you over live to Lynne Cramer and Brunt Hardacre in our Beverly Hills Studios…

'Hello, America. It's June 16th, 1997, and it's Lynne again, welcoming you to SnitchWatch USA, the program in which you, the viewer at home, can help fight crime for cash money and prizes by interfacing with our datanet on your home peecee. Remember, GenTech is offering goods or the credit up to the value of ten million dollars for any and all information leading to the arrest of ever-so-desperate felons. Now, over to our Op from the Top, Brunt Hardacre…'

'Thank you, Lynne. Last week, you'll remember, we put a bounty out on the head of that scuzzbo, Jimmie Joe Jackson, South-Western Sector Venerated Warthog of the Maniax. Well, we've sorted through the heads that were sent in to the studio, and we're real pleased to report that Jackson's was indeed among them. He's positively been identified by EX. Wicking of the T-H-R agency and by Colonel Younger of the United States Cavalry, and those bio- implanted replacement lungs are winging their way to a viewer in Phoenix who has asked us, for reasons we fully understand, not to reveal his name. Thank you, public-spirited do-gooder, whoever you are, and good luck with your tar-free windsacks…'

'Say, Brunt, what do you think? Would someone with terminal cancer have a better life expectancy than someone who was publicly known to have ratted on the Maniax?'

'That's a good question, Lynne. Of course, we'll never know the answer because ZeeBeeCee absolutely guarantees the confidentiality of all our informants. Not one has ever fallen victim to a gangland-style hit after coming forward with solid information. Some other stations don't have such good security, you know, and their crime-fighting shows rack up pretty heavy casualties. But with ZeeBeeCee, you can snitch in safety…'

'Phew! Say, I sure feel safer now that Jimmie Joe Jackson is out of business, Brunt.'

'There are a lot of people who feel like that, Lynne.'

'I'm sure there are. Tell me, who's the scumbag for today?'

'Well Lynne, today we're giving equal time to the ladies and throwing the spotlight on one of America's Most Wanted Femme Criminals, Ms Jessamyn Amanda Bonney, sometimes known under the aliases of Jazzbeaux or Minnie Molotov. Guns and Killing magazine currently rate her as the sixth most dangerous solo outlaw in the Americas, and she is the highest-ranked woman on the list, coming in at thirty-seven places above the Antarctic esperado Ice Kold Katie. Formerly affiliated to the Psychopomps gangcult, her chapter was broken up in 1995 during a pitched battle with the Road Cavalry in Spanish Fork, Deseret. Jessamyn is now believed to be working alone.'

'What kind of a girl gets to the Most Wanted list, Brunt?'

'Jessamyn was born in 1978 in the Denver NoGo, Lynne. She got off to a bad start on the streets as the child of Bruno Bonney, convicted pimp, pusher, armed robber and bilko artist. ZeeBeeCee has gained a court order allowing access to Jessamyn Bonney's juvenile records, stored in the central infonet of the Bruyce-Hoare Agency, and we can exclusively reveal for the first time on national television that evidence which has come to light since her 1992 parricide hearing has suggested that she was indeed guilty of the murder of her father, a crime for which she was acquitted in court on the testimony of one Andrew Jean, since deceased, a gangcult associate and known perjurer.'

'Well, that's just a thrilling revelation. Brunt.'

'You said it, kiddo. After knocking off her old man, Jessamyn rose through the ranks in the Psychopomps, and racked up quite a score. Then, after Spanish Fork, our information gets a bit shaky. We have uncovered evidence that suggests she was working in league with famed mass murderer Herman Katz in the Spanish Fork area…'

'That's the guy who stuffed his mother?'

'You got it, Lynne. Now, sources close to the receivers of the H-M Agency of Los Angeles suggest that it has been conclusively proved that she was involved in the massacre at Dead Rat, Arizona, last year, during which a peaceful force of process-servers were murdered by members of the Maniax gangcult, who then razed the community to the ground. It will be remembered that popular Los Angelino Op Bronson Manolo lost his life in that engagement.'

'I remember it well. Bronson Manolo was a personal friend of mine. We were co-worshippers at the Surfside Pyramid.'

'Tough break, Lynne. It is believed that Jessamyn underwent extensive bio-engineering under the scalpel of Dr Simon Threadneedle, the disgraced GenTech surgeon who was also among the dead in the Dead Rat Incident. Details are not yet available, but it is possible that Dr Threadneedle turned her into some sort of cyborg death machine.'

'That's not good news for law-abiding citizens, is it?'

'Certainly not, Lynne.'

'So, is Jessamyn Bonney in fact the Most Dangerous Woman in the World?'

'Well, we asked that question to Redd Harvest of the T-H-R agency as the Op was on her way to face a cadre of the Trap Door Spiders.'

'And what did Ms Harvest say?'

'I can give you the exact quote. Her reply was 'not while I'm alive, she isn't.''

'So, what's Jessamyn up to these days?'

'Little has been heard of her since Dead Rat, but she is believed to be in the South-Western United States. Her known associates are all deceased, although a sighting which has not been discounted would put her in the company earlier this year of Hawk-That-Settles, a Navaho, medicine man and dealer in controlled substances. Hawk-That-Settles left the Navaho Reservation last year and is classed by the US Cavalry as a 'renegade,' having been associated in the '80s with the militant Native American terrorist organization, The Sons of Geronimo.'

'Scary people. Brunt. What does Jessamyn look like? Is she pretty?'

'You don't have anything to worry about, sweetheart.'

'Flatterer.'

'Well, Jessamyn's appearance has changed over the years, from her first arrests as a pre-teenager to this last photograph—please excuse the quality, it's a blow-up from a spysat picture taken from an orbital pass over Arizona last December—which shows her as we must assume she is now. She is identifiable by her missing left eye, and her green right eye. Her hair has usually been black, and worn long. She is, of course, dangerous, and should not be approached.'

'And what's the damage, Brunt?'

'Rewards on her total over one million dollars, for offences that range from felony bank robbery to first degree murder. Bounties on her head have been filed by the United States Government, the Holderness-Manolo Agency, Turner-Harvest-Ramirez, GenTech, G-Mek, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hammond Maninski, the Winter Corporation, Westinghouse, Co-Cola, the Tabernacle of Joseph, the National Enquirer, Interpol, the Government of the Republic of Mexico, Walt Disney Enterprises, the Denver Civic Improvements Committee, the Colorado Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, and this station, ZeeBeeCee.'

'And in addition to those rewards, Brunt, we know that anyone coming forward with information leading to the apprehension or termination of Jessamyn Bonney will be entitled to one hundred thousand dollars' worth of bio- improvements supervised by Dr Zarathustra himself, a duplex apartment in the PZ of your choice, a fully-guaranteed and pirate-protected Caribbean cruise, this complete household computer hook-up and two thousand hours net-time on the interface of your choice, one of our new range of Venus-Adonis model companions, and a further one hundred thousand dollars in the currency or negotiable bond of your choice. So, viewers at home, do not hesitate, if you have even the slightest piece of useful data, hook up that modem and call, in complete confidence, our