Jokers Wild

  Hiram made a fist. “They might find that difficult.”

  “Because you’re an ace?” She smiled. “On a day like today, that seems precious little to cling to, dear boy. Do you remember that rather sensational gangland murder on Staten Island last year? It was in all the papers.”

  Hiram frowned. “One of those ace-of-spades killings, wasn’t it? I vaguely recall seeing the headlines. What was it the victim called himself?”

  “Scar,” said Chrysalis. “An instantaneous teleport, and a Shadow Fist hit man. Well, he’s done, but they have other aces working for them, if rumors can be believed. With pow­ers as potent as his. Maybe as many as a dozen. You hear names. Fadeout. The Whisperer. Wyrm. For all you know, one of your guests out there might be a Shadow Fist, sipping your champagne while he ponders the best way to dispose of you.”

  Hiram considered a moment. “Can you tell me the name of the man at the top of this organization?”

  “I could,” Chrysalis said coolly. “But passing along information like that could get me killed. Not that I wouldn’t risk it for the right price, of course.” She laughed. “I just don’t think you have that much money, Mr. Worchester.”

  “Suppose I wanted to talk to them,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “Unless you can provide me with a name, you’ll find I can easily stop payment on that check.”

  “We can’t have that,” she said. “Are you familiar with the name Latham, Strauss?”

  “The law firm?” Hiram said.

  “Attorneys from Latham, Strauss pried Bludgeon loose this afternoon, after Jay had teleported him into the Tombs. I had cause to ask a few questions about that firm today, and I discovered that the senior partner habitually takes a keen interest in men like Bludgeon. That seems strange, since his personal clients include a number of the city’s richest and most powerful men, a few of whom have good reasons to be discreet. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Hiram nodded. “Do you have his address?”

  She opened her handbag and produced it. Hiram’s respect for her rose a notch. “I’ll give you one more bit of advice for free,” she added.

  “And what is that?”

  Chrysalis smiled. “Don’t call him Loophole,” she said.

  CHAPTER 15

  8:00 p.m.

  It had become something of a ritual, the way these dinners began.

  When the rest of them were all seated, when the waiters had brought the soup and the diners had chosen their entrées, then all eyes went to Hiram Worchester. He filled a tall, thin glass with champagne, made himself light, lighter than air, and floated gently up to the high ceiling, next to one of his chandeliers. “A toast,” he said, raising his glass as he did every year. His deep voice was solemn, sad. “To Jetboy.”

  “To Jetboy,” they repeated in unison, a hundred voices all together. But no one drank. There were more names to come.

  “To Black Eagle,” Hiram said, “to Brain Trust, and to the Envoy, wherever he might be. To the Turtle, whose voice led us back from the wilderness. Let us all hope that he is safe and sound, that, like Mark Twain, the reports of his demise have been grossly exaggerated. To all of our brother aces, great and small, living and dead and yet to come. To the jokers in their thousands, and to the memory of the tens of thousands who drew the Black Queen.”

  Hiram paused, looked down on the room silently for a moment, went on. “To the Howler,” he said, “and a laugh that could shatter brick. To Kid Dinosaur, who was never as small as the one who killed him. To the Takisians, who cursed us and made us like gods, and to Dr. Tachyon, who helped us in our hour of need. And, always, to Jetboy.”

  “To Jetboy,” they repeated once again. This time they drank, and perhaps one or two actually paused for a mo­ment to remember the boy who couldn’t die yet, before they lifted soup spoons and began to eat.

  Hiram Worchester settled slowly back to the floor.

  “You’re not eating,” Tachyon remarked gently, sneaking a glance at her almost untouched plate.

  “Neither are you.”

  “I have an excuse.”

  “Which is?”

  “My mouth hurts.”

  “That’s not the real reason.”

  “Why should you care to hear the real reason?”

  “I don’t. I don’t care.” She looked away, but memory formed a transparent picture separating her from the room. Josiah, nostrils tightening fastidiously, superimposed over Trips’s kindly face. Her baby lying like some grotesque entrée on Mistral’s plate.

  “What’s your excuse?”

  That I’m going to kill—have to kill—you, and I’m losing my nerve. Would that answer satisfy you?

  Brain engaged with mouth, and she heard herself say, “I’m upset about what happened today.”

  “Which part?” the alien asked with a grim little smile.

  “The Tomb, the killing.”

  His hand covered hers. “And you have hit on the reason for my lack of appetite. How can I eat when Kid . . . I think of his parents.”

  The French onion soup she had eaten earlier in the evening hit the back of her throat, and she swallowed convulsively. “Excuse me,” she muttered breathlessly, and pushing back her chair fled from the dining room. The curious glances felt like blows.

  In the bathroom she sluiced cold water across her face, heedless of her careful makeup job, and rinsed her mouth. It helped, but could not relieve the burning knot in the pit of her stomach. Her amber eyes stared bleakly out of the mirror, fawn wide and as frightened. She studied the perfect oval of her face, the high, chiseled cheekbones, the narrow nose (legacy from some white ancestor). It looked like a normal face. How could it hide such . . . Her mind rebelled at the word. Not evil. It hid memories.

  Memories of evil.

  Whose evil? The man whose kin had brought the hell-born virus to Earth, and broken her life?

  Or her own?

  She rested her hands on either side of the sink, bent forward, her breath coming in quick gulps.

  “He lives, Roulette.”

  Fear drew a whimper, and she whirled to face him. Shrank back as he laid aside a nail file left for the convenience of the female customers of Aces High. Inspected knotted veins in the back of his hand, and swiveled slowly on the small dressing-table stool to face her. It was an incongruous sight. The Astronomer dressed as an Aces High waiter, framed by double rows of theatrical lights, the back of his balding head reflected in the mirror.

  “Oh my God. What are you—”

  “Doing here? Apparently finishing the business that you have failed to do. Dealing a little in death. I came expecting lamentations, fear, and loathing. What do I find?—a bunch of aces feeding their faces, and talking, talking, talking.”

  “You can’t . . . not here.”

  “Oh yes, by all means here. Starting with Tachyon.”

  “No!”

  “Concern?”

  “He’s . . . he’s mine.”

  “Then, why haven’t you killed him?” He had lost the jovial tone, his voice grating like rock across sandpaper. He came off the chair, the action made all the more menacing for its slowness.

  “I—” Her voice didn’t work, and she tried again. “I’m toying with him.”

  “What a dramatic—almost melodramatic—phrase. Toy­ing with him,” he repeated thoughtfully. His hand shot out, caught her by the throat. “Well, don’t toy with him! Kill him!” Spittle wetted her cheek, and she twisted in his grasp.

  The hand tightened, larynx aching under the pressure, blood rushing, beating in her ears. Roulette clawed at his hand, begging for mercy, but only mewling sounds emerged. He threw her contemptuously aside, and she came up hard against the edge of a toilet bowl.

  “You can’t make me. Fear of you won’t be enough.”

  “True. I wish you would recognize the wisdom of what I’ve told you. Only your hate will free you. Only if you release the acid of your soul can you be at peace.”

&
nbsp; She dug her fingers into her temples. “I don’t know what I hate worse. Your threats or your pop psychology.”

  He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Only that ulti­mate catharsis can save you from a lifetime of memory.”

  He tore aside his carefully constructed mental shields, gripped and broke a part of her mind. The pictures fluttered past behind her eyes. Nurse’s hand hard on her chest, forcing her back. “Don’t look.” She looked. MONSTER! It lay in an incubator mewling out its life. Hidden away. Four days of watching it die. Disgust becoming love becoming hate. Nurse’s hand hard on her chest, forcing—

  And so it went. A never-ending replay of a nightmare.

  “Kill him, and it stops.”

  “Oh God! I don’t believe you!” Her fingers writhed in her hair.

  “That’s unfortunate. For you really don’t have any other option.”

  “Is it time yet?” Jack raised his head from the steel railing he was clutching.

  Bagabond moved over to stand beside him. She put her arm around his waist. “Soon. It’ll be soon.” She reached up to push the sweat-soaked black hair away from his eyes. Obviously in pain, Jack stared back at her. Shadowed, his dark eyes blended invisibly with the night.

  “You’ll have to go in as yourself,” she said. “I’ll help you change when the time comes. I’ll be there with you the whole time.” Bagabond put her hand on top of his on the railing. He turned his hand over and clasped her fingers.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Jack said. He looked down at their plaited fingers, but didn’t take his hand away. “I wish the cats were here.”

  “Me too.”

  “Anything goes wrong,” he said, “you get out. I mean it. I can take care of myself.”

  Bagabond said nothing, but squeezed a bit harder. She looked over at Rosemary. “Can we start in?”

  The lawyer walked back to the corner and peered around the dingy brick. “It looks clear.” She touched her digital watch, squinting at the dim glow. “It’s twenty past eight. Everybody who’s coming should have gone in by now. Let’s go.”

  The entrance to the Haiphong Lily was marked by a huge water lily limned in red neon. Its buzzing flicker lit the quiet street. Half a dozen limousines were pulled up at the curb outside the restaurant. The uniformed drivers stood in a group at the head of the line, smoking and gossiping like ordinary cabbies. Each car was guarded by one or two unsmiling men. A couple of the guards impassively watched Bagabond and her companions pass, eyes tracking their progress like the sights on an M60 machine gun. All the guards wore black armbands.

  The cilantro, fish, and hot pepper smells of the Vietnam­ese cooking engulfed them before they reached the door.

  “Mon Dieu.” Jack raised his eyes skyward and then looked toward Bagabond. “Can you believe it? Now I’m hungry.”

  “We’ll eat as soon as we get this over with.”

  While the entrance was at street-level, the restaurant itself was up a flight of stairs. The stairwell was dimly lit and the red flocked wallpaper absorbed most of that light. In an alcove beside the inner doorway, a big man whose subdued suit matched those of the watchers outside stood gazing down the steps. He had stepped out at the sound of the outside door and now blocked the upstairs landing.

  “Reservations?” he said.

  “Of course.” Rosemary didn’t hesitate.

  Bagabond felt the eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses checking them for the possibility of a threat. The big man shrugged. Apparently satisfied, he stepped back out of the way. He obviously did not recognize Rosemary.

  Inside the restaurant was more of the dark wallpaper and a nervous, middle-aged Oriental man who greeted them with a sheaf of menus. “Good evening. Three? Yes?”

  He had already started toward one of the many empty tables when Rosemary stopped him. “We’re here for the meeting.”

  The small man halted abruptly. The dining room was nearly deserted. An elderly couple huddled in intimate conversation to one side. Nearer, a tall, gaunt man with a crooked mouth looked up from his meal. He and the Oriental manager exchanged looks. Bagabond thought for an instant that the lone diner looked awfully familiar, but her attention snapped back as Jack stumbled and nearly fell against a bubbling tank of carp. The maître d’ looked distressed.

  Smiling weakly, he said, “No meeting.”

  “Yes,” said Rosemary. “There is. In the private room.”

  “No meeting here.”

  “What we have here,” Jack said slowly through taut lips, is a failure to communicate.”

  Rosemary surveyed the room, stopping when she spotted two men in dark blue suits and expensive sunglasses sitting at separate tables in the back of the room. They too wore the armbands of mourning.

  She addressed the nearer. “Buon giorno . . . Adrian, isn’t it? Tony Callenza’s son?”

  “Lady, you got the wrong person.” The soldier on the right glanced at his companion, who shrugged. Bagabond tightened her hold on Jack, prepared to pull him to cover if shooting started.

  “Adrian,” said Rosemary. “We used to play together. You’d kidnap my dolls and hold them for ransom. I’m hurt you don’t remember.” The assistant DA had left Bagabond and stood a few feet away from the table and the man she’d addressed. There was no tension in her stance, head high, arms loose at her sides. Bagabond had watched her once at a trial. Bagabond thought that she herself had never been so self-assured as Rosemary.

  She was even less certain now that Rosemary really intended to use the books solely as a means to influence the family. There was too much of her father in her still. Bagabond remembered Rosemary’s remark about wishing she had been a son, able to inherit control. Was she about to provide the means for Rosemary to get that control?

  “I told you, my name isn’t Adrian.”

  “Then I guess I’m not Rosa-Maria Gambione.”

  The man pulled off his mirrorshades. “Maria!” He smiled for the first time. “I remember once, I sent you the right hand from a kidnapped doll. You still wouldn’t pay.”

  The other man spoke for the first time. “Be quiet, Adrian. Rosa Maria Gambione disappeared many years ago.” He said her, “You look more like a district attorney to me, Ms. Muldoon.”

  “Very good. I don’t know you, do I?”

  “No.”

  “My father fought for the Family in the old ways. I chose few ones.”

  “Like hounding us?” said the second man. “Prosecuting us?”

  “To be a useful district attorney, I have to be a good district attorney.”

  The thin, inexpressive mouth below the sunglasses twitched at one corner. “Adrian, get your father. I think he’ll be interested in this.” He leaned back in his chair and said, “Please sit down, you and your friends, Ms. Muldoon.”

  Rosemary pulled out a chair and sat, crossing her legs and smiling at the man on the other side of the table. She barely turned her head. “Suzanne, I think now would be an appropriate time.”

  Bagabond turned Jack toward her and extended a hand toward his head. The man pulled back sharply. “Not here!”

  “You’re right.” She caught Rosemary’s eye and pointed her chin toward the door of the men’s rest room.

  “Good idea,” said Rosemary. To the man across the ta­ble, she said, “My friends will be rejoining me in just a moment. I can assure you they are not . . . armed.” She looked directly into the opaque lenses. “Do you have a name?”

  “Okay, make it quick.” He waved idly at the rest room. “You always hang out with junkies?”

  Rosemary reached across the table and poured herself a cup of tea. “No.”

  “Morelli,” said the man.

  “Very pleased to meet you.”

  Bagabond led Jack to the men’s room door.

  “Perhaps I’d best go first.” Jack reached out to steady himself against the doorframe.

  “You won’t make it,” Bagabond said matter-of-factly.

  “Your faith is touching.?
?? Then he gasped in pain. “On the other hand . . .”

  Bagabond pulled open the door and walked in. No one stood at the urinal, but a Vietnamese man dressed in a soiled kitchen apron was just coming out of the stall. He squawked in surprise, managed hurriedly to wash his hands, then left, muttering in a language Bagabond was glad she didn’t un­derstand. “Get in here,” she said to Jack. The door swung shut after him.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” said Jack. “Sometimes I can’t call him up. I hurt too much right now to concentrate. I—”

  “Just take off your clothes.”

  “What?” He tried to smile. “Bagabond, this isn’t the time.” He shut up as she stared at him in exasperation.

  “I don’t have any spare clothing for you this time. If you don’t take it off, you’re going to destroy what you’ve got on. Okay?”

  “Oh. Right.” His back to her, Jack unbuttoned his shirt. Careless of her suit, Bagabond sat down on the dirty tile floor. After he had stripped, Jack looked dubiously at her. He held the bundle of clothes in front of him.

  “Lie down.”

  Jack swallowed and prostrated himself in front of Ba­gabond. In the limited space, his feet extended under the green wooden partition dividing off the stall. She reached out and set his clothing safely aside. Holding his head in her hands, she began to send her consciousness inside his mind, searching for the key to his transformation.

  “Let go of the pain. Stop trying to control it.” Bagabond stopped using the rough voice she had adopted years before. Now she spoke in the rhythm she used when she calmed her animals. She synchronized her breathing with that rhythm and stroked Jack’s head.

  She knew the way. It was not the first time she had worked with Jack, although it was the first time she had sought to release the beast rather than contain it.

  Jack relaxed under her hands. In his mind, he led her down through the levels of his consciousness. She dodged the barriers there and respected the private self which stood behind them. The cats had always urged her to pry. Out of friendship and because of her own near-pathological desire for privacy, Bagabond resisted that severe temptation.