Card Sharks

  "Only one thing seemed slightly strange that afternoon. When Rudo opened a drawer to get out his medical kit with the dauerschlaf drugs, I caught a glimpse of a large photo lying beside it. I would have sworn it was a picture of Klaus Fuchs.

  "And so, I stretched out on the bed, as he directed, and he administered the first of the drugs. As the world began to swim away, I realized that I was happy. Rudo began speaking to me softly. His voice was a distant thing...

  "This one was different. There was the long dark time I always know. But it seemed that at some point I awoke briefly, did something, and went back to sleep again, visions of the gray containers dancing momentarily behind my eyes.

  "When the real awakening occurred it was more than a little traumatic. Someone had hold of my shoulder and was shaking me, shouting at me.

  "'Wake up, you bastard! You're under arrest!' a large, uniformed individual was calling, as I tried to focus my eyes.

  "I groaned, then, 'Awright! Awright!' I said. 'What's going on?'

  "I was dragged to my feet, supported there, still trying to throw off the effects of my long sleep. I saw another cop then - much shorter, mustached - over by the dresser. He was holding one of the gray containers from the DP Site. Another still rested on the dresser.

  "'... The stuff is even labeled as property of the Lab,' he was saying.

  "'Get dressed, Fuchs - or is it Crenson?' the larger one said. 'That the name you're using this time? And if you so much as breathe a suspicious breath I might get very nervous.' He patted his sidearm.

  "'I'll hold my breath,' I said, patting my pants as I donned them, to be sure the wallet was still there, if Rudo hadn't run off with the money. I'd had a lot in it, and I wanted it near.

  "'Why are you arresting me?' I asked.

  "'If you don't know that you're stupider than you look,' the big one answered.

  "'Tell me anyhow,' I said. 'Okay? Who said I did whatever I'm supposed to have done?'

  "He shrugged.

  "'We had a telephone tip that you were here. He didn't give his name. We're just going to hold you for the feds. They'll be up from Albuquerque in the morning to pick you up.'

  "It was dark outside the window. I could hear a car passing on the street below. They let me put on my socks and shoes before they handcuffed me. I tried to figure what might have happened. All I could see was that Rudo had set me up. He'd kept his hypnotic control - maybe by means of post-hypnotic suggestion - when I'd come out of dauerschlaf. Then he'd told me to teleport the plutonium containers here, as he knew I'd planned, and I'd done it. Then he'd put me back to sleep, leaving the evidence in plain sight, had cleared out, had made that phone call. The only thing I couldn't see in it was why? But if I needed any evidence of such intent - or of his twisted sense of humor - I got it as the cops hustled me out. I caught a glimpse of myself in the dresser's mirror as I passed by. I was a dead ringer for the man in the photograph, Klaus Fuchs. Security is everybody's business....

  "They drove me over, though the station was only two blocks away. There, I surrendered my wallet, which they said they'd keep safe for me. I was able to determine on handing it over that my money was still in it. I hoped it would stay there. I was conducted back to a cell then and locked up. I might have made a break on the way over, or even there in the station before they locked me up. But I was still disorganized, and I wanted a little time to think.

  "So all I did was watch which key it was on his chain that my jailer used to lock my cell. As he turned away, I already had hold of it with my mind. I teleported it into my right hand and put it in my pocket. I went and sat down on my bunk. I'd been in better jails and I'd been in worse. At least I knew where this one was located in relationship to everything else in the area, from my walk the other night. There was no point in escaping unless you knew where you were going and what you were going to do.

  "After perhaps twenty minutes I had decided what to do. So I got up, unlocked the door, stepped out, and closed it behind me. I passed a small room from within which I heard sounds of typing. No need to look for trouble. I continued on.

  "There were two cops up front. One was drinking coffee and the other was talking to someone on the telephone me. I backed up beyond the doorframe and waited for the sound of the phone being cradled. The safe wherein they'd stowed my wallet was an old one, of a sort Bentley'd taught me to open in the dark.

  "I moved in quickly whcn I heard the telephone drop into place. It took one calculated punch each to render the cops unconscious. Then I propped them in their chairs to look as if they were dozing. The safe was old and crochety and started taking longer than I'd thought it would. I didn't want to give it another five or ten minutes, though, so I braced it with a foot and a hand and started pulling. I wasn't able to tear the door off, but I buckled it enough to be able to reach inside and get my wallet. I pocketed it then and walked out, taking a right on Washington Avenue.

  "I continued along this until I came to the road to Hyde Park, where I turned and started to climb. I knew that it would eventually pass through a part of the National Forest. I could find myself a good place to hide out there before morning. And I did."

  Croyd rose, stretched, returned to the cooler, came back with two beers. He set one before Hannah. He backhanded a moth.

  "End of story," he said, "except for an Indian ace I met who could change the patterns on rugs into whatever was selling best, just by running his hands over them. I got away. Now can I buy you a drink?"

  "Yes, now I'm thirsty," she said, reaching out and holding the bottle as he opened it. "But how did you get out of town?"

  "I lived on roots and people's picnic remains for over a week," he said. "Then, with a short beard and wearing a pair of sunglasses I'd found, I took a chance and hiked back to town and bought a load of food and took it back to the forest with me. Lived on that until I got sleepy. Sacked out then in a rocky shelter I'd set up. When I woke a couple of weeks later I was a slim blond guy with the ability to shout at ultrasonic levels and knock people out or just make them uncomfortable, depending on how high I raised my voice and for how long. I went down to town then, got a ride out to Lamy, took a train back to New York."

  "And Rudo?" she asked, sipping the beer. "Did you ever see Pan Rudo again?"

  "Yes," he said. "Looked him up when I got to town. Got into his apartment building one day and picked the lock to his pad, waited there for him."

  "And?"

  "Of course, he didn't recognize me. He looked startled when he saw me, but he just said, 'If this is a robbery, take whatever you want. I don't need any trouble.'

  "I caught hold of his shirtfront and pulled him forward till his face was within an inch of my own. At first I'd planned to kill him, but then I decided it just wasn't worth it. Hell, maybe he was even helping some of his patients.

  "'It's me, Croyd Crenson,' I said, and he must have thought I was going to kill him because he went pale as a bone. Then, 'Just tell me why you did it,' I said. 'Why'd you set me up?'

  "I guess he figured he had nothing to lose if he was going to die. His lip curled then, and he said, 'You're genetic garbage, you and all of the others! I hate what you have done to the race! I wanted to disgrace the lot of you - publicly, seriously! You got lucky, though.'

  "I hit him then, in the mouth, twice, and I split his lip. I threw him down on his couch and used my handkerchief to wipe the blood off my hand. But it kept coming. I realized then that I'd cut a knuckle on his tooth.

  "'I'm not going to kill you now,' I told him. 'But one of these days - Who knows?'

  "I left then, and when I checked a bit later I discovered that he'd moved out. And that is the story of something that might have hurt me and led to a lot of bad will toward jokers and aces in general, what with all the HUAC paranoia that was in the air."

  "Thanks," she said, taking a swallow and shutting down her recorder.

  She cased the recorder and placed it in her shoulderbag, along with the clipboard.

  "So m
uch for business," Croyd said. "How's about having dinner with me?"

  She slung the bag over her shoulder and moved toward the door.

  "Sorry," she said. "I've got to organize a lot of notes tonight, and I'll be leaving fairly early in the morning."

  "You prejudiced against guys with tails?" he said.

  She removed a collapsible umbrella from her bag and opened it. She smiled then.

  "No, Croyd," she said. "But I'll be keeping mine to myself. Good evening," and she turned and walked off into the shadows and the drizzle.

  Croyd stood in the doorway, watching until she was out of sight. Then he turned back to the empty bar.

  "Play it, Sam," he said softly, and racks of glasses began to sing. A horde of flies chose that moment to swarm about him. Cursing, he swatted at them. Their buzzing took on the sounds of a tune.

  The Ashes of Memory

  6

  "I know you. You're Hannah."

  The quiet voice spoke in the dark. Hannah turned. In the dim glow of the lamps hung from the porch's ceiling, she could see Quasiman's eyes looking at her. "Hi. You came hack, huh?"

  "Yeah. Sorry." He looked pained, frowning as if he had a migraine. "Hannah, it's so damned hard keeping it all together. Remembering you, remembering what we're doing and who's involved and why ... I write every day, and I keep looking at it when I forget, but ..."

  "Don't apologize. I know you carft help it. Where were you?"

  The hunchback shook his head. "I don't know. I heard a gunshot, and I was frightened. I saw you, but ... but ..." His shoulders sagged. His mouth twisted as his lips pressed together. "I've forgotten it. Already. The whole thing's gone now, and I don't know what it was or what it meant, but it was important. Damn it ..."

  Quasiman went silent. He stepped out onto the rude wooden planks Where Hannah leaned against the railing, looking out to where Faneuil's grave lay invisible in the jungle night. Gently, as if he didn't want his nearness to trouble her, he halted several feet away. The gesture, so caring and self-effacing, touched her. She found herself smiling at the joker; he gave her a tentative smile in return. "Where's ... ?" Quasiman asked.

  "Croyd? He got himself invited to dinner at Ngo's."

  "You didn't want to go?"

  Hannah shook her head. "No. I just felt like ... thinking."

  "Are you still having nightmares about the bomb?"

  "No. But it's nice of you to ask."

  Quasiman took a step toward her. His hand lifted as if he were going to touch her as he had after the bomb in Saigon, then halted in mid-motion. "You sound sad," he said. "Didn't you find out anything this afternoon?"

  Hannah gave a soft laugh at that. She moved her hand away from his. "I found out nothing, and also more than I bargained for. I'm just not sure What it means. You've sure set me on a strange course, you and your talk. The trouble is, it's starting to scare me, too." Hannah looked up at the sky - she didn't know if she'd ever seen so many stars. Yet like the prejudice and hatred she was uncovering, they too had always been there, hidden but unseen. "I think we've hit a dead end with Faneuil," she told him. "No records, no problems. Nothing. Dead men don't talk."

  "But they can," Quasiman replied, softly and earnestly. He was looking at the sky also. "With the right person they can. I know how, Hannah...."

  ***

  It seemed so easy in the old horror movies.

  They took a pair of kerosene lanterns from behind the bar. In the back of Croyd's jeep they found a medical kit, a crowbar, and a shovel. Thus armed, Hannah and Quasiman went out into the field behind the village. Quasiman was a tireless, powerful worker, but he had his own limitations. Twice they had to stop: once when Quasiman found that he couldn't lift either arm because a major muscle group in his back had phased out, and again when his left leg disappeared. Both times, the episode was short, and Hannah only had to remind Quasiman of what they were doing a few times. Even so it was several hours before the shovel made a harsh tchunk! as it struck wood.

  In that time, they'd piled up an impressive amount of earth, made a fair amount of noise, and acquired an audience of villagers. Hannah found it blackly amusing: a circle of Awed Asian faces watching a cliche in motion: the middle of the night, a hunchback digging up a grave in the light of a lantern held in the hand of a young woman. Croyd came up about the time Quasiman struck the casket, Ngo Dinh Yie in tow. Croyd stopped and let out a horse laugh. "Vell," he said, in an atrocious Germanic accent. "Haf you got ze brain for me, Igor?"

  "As soon as you stop laughing at your own jokes, give us a hand with this," Hannah told him. "Bring that crowbar."

  "Ja, Frau Frankenstein. Did anyone ever tell you you're lovely when you're macabre?" Croyd picked up the crowbar and walked over to look down into the hole, where Quasiman was standing on top of the rough wooden casket. "Mind if I ask what you're after? I mean, it's obvious enough what you intend to do, but why?" His tail brushed the length of her leg.

  Hannah ignored it. "We need a ring."

  "You could've asked me. There's a thousand jewelry stores back in Saigon. This is going about it the hard way."

  Hannah glared at him. "All right," Croyd said at last. He hopped down into the open grave with Quasiman. Hannah came down after him with three handkerchiefs soaked in smelling salts. "Here," she said. "This is going to be bad."

  It was. The smell of corruption hit them like a sledgehammer as soon as the lid was pried open. The handkerchiefs were little protection; Hannah, who at least had some small experience of decomposing bodies, gagged but managed to hold it down. Croyd struggled, then lost his supper to the side. Almost all the faces which had been looking down at them from above disappeared quickly. Quasiman alone seemed unaffected.

  Hannah took a slow, deep breath into the handkerchief, men shone the light in. The face was unrecognizable, flesh rotting and peeling away from the bone. The wood had let in moisture: a green fuzz hung around the body's neck like a fur collar and mushrooms sprouted from his chest. The hands folded over the moldy suit were almost down to bone. In the lamplight, a ring glittered on the right hand: a class ring with a blue stone, inset with diamonds. "I'll do it, Hannah," Quasiman said.

  "No," she told him. "I'll do it. Here, hold this." She gave the joker the lamp, then reached into the coffin with trembling fingers. She snatched at the ring, grimacing as the fingerbones broke apart from dried tendons. She slammed the lid down again and let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "That was gross," she said. "I sure as hell hope this was worth it." She shuddered "Let's get this done and over with - I have to take a bath."

  She started to climb out of the grave. One face was still looking down at them, framed in stars: Ngo Dinh Yie. He was staring at the ring in Hannah's hand.

  ***

  "Anything to declare?"

  "A few articles of clothing," Hannah said. "Maybe a hundred dollars' worth. That's all."

  The customs agent - his name tag said FIELDING - snapped shut her passport. He tapped it against his palm. Hannah's purse was still open before him, and Hannah tried to avoid looking at it - tried to pretend that it wasn't important. "Ms. Davis," Fielding said. "Would you please step out of line and follow me?"

  "Wait a minute -" Hannah said. Her stomach was suddenly knotted; her breath tight. She could feel sweat beading at her hairline. Her fellow passengers were watching, and she oould feel the mixture of fascination and irritation coming from them.

  "Please, ma'am. You're holding up the rest."

  Fielding led her to a small office, opened the door, and ushered her in. Another customs official, seated behind a desk, nodded to them. Her passport and purse were given to the man, then the door was shut behind them. The agent perused the passport. "Ms. Hannah Davis?"

  "And you're ... ?"

  "Agent Stone. I need to ask you a few questions. You're returning from Free Vietnam?"

  "Yes. Is there a problem? I had a personal invitation to visit the country from Ambassador Ngu, Prime Minister Meadows, and Pre
sident Moonchild."

  Stone smiled. "Yes, ma'am, we know. However, a Free Vietnam state official contacted us. They are investigating a report that a small group of Americans recently plundered an old grave in their country - among the stolen items was a ring. We also had a tip from another source that someone of your description would be smuggling it in. I wonder if you have a receipt for the ring that Agent Fielding found in your purse?"

  Hannah tried to keep her expression noncommittal. "No, I don't. I didn't buy it. It was given to me several years ago. As you can see, I wasn't trying to hide the ring or smuggle it past. The ring wasn't stulled in the lining of my coat or inside my shoe heel, Agent Stone. It was lying in the bottom of my purse. The ring's mine."

  Stone reached into the purse and pulled out the ring. He placed it on the table in front of Hannah. "Yours?" he said. "Odd. This looks like a man's ring. Would you mind putting it on?"

  Hannah didn't move. Her stomach churned and she fought not to show it. She looked at Stone blandly. "I don't have to; it won't fit. The ring belonged to ... an old lover of mine. He died in an auto accident. I keep it for its sentimental value, not to wear. That's why it's in my purse."

  "Aahh." Stone drummed his fingers on the table. "I'm afraid that I'll need to keep the ring for a few days, until we can verily with Saigon that this isn't the stolen item. We will, of course, give you a receipt ..."

  "No!" Hannah protested. "You can't do that. That's not right."

  Stone almost smiled. "I'm afraid that under the circumstances we both can and must, Ms. Davis. I can assure you that the ring will be returned to you just as soon as we hear from someone in Free Vietnam."

  "Call Meadows, then. He'll tell you."

  "We've done that. Unfortunately, he is unavailable at the moment." Stone smiled, and Hannah knew the man was lying. "I regret the inconvenience, but regulations ..."