Joker knelt at Peter's side and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife, smiling a smile that might have passed for sympathetic on any other face.

"You're dying, yanno," he said calmly, and pulled the knife downward, stopping just short of spilling the young man's innards across the roof. "But old Joker is in a giving mood. I'll end it for you quickly."

He leaned in close to the side of Peter's face and purred into his ear. "I'm sure you'll find this all hilarious when you look back on it."

The clattering of footsteps on the fire escape grew louder, and he wrenched the knife out with a violent, twisting motion. "Au revoir, Pete! If ya ever see your buddy Sylar again, tell him to keep his grubby paws off my things!" He buried his Cuban heel into Peter's ribs and shoved him off the edge of the roof just as Nose's boys finally started to close in.

Joker flashed them a wide grin, tipped his fedora at them, and leaped from the roof to the awning of a nearby, shorter building. The police rushed to the ledge and looked down into the street but Joker was as elusive as the wind when he wanted to be. The clown had already vanished into the blood red light of the setting sun. He was gone.