Dealer's Choice

  He pictured another wall on top of the one Bloat had built. A wall of steel as clear as glass. Immovable. Impregnable. An anvil for his hammer. He painted it until it burned in his mind’s eye, until it was as real as he was.

  When he looked down, the fog was gone. The castle stood naked and clear below him, as a moving cliff of black swept down from the north. The sound of the water was too loud to hear now. For a brief second, Tom thought he saw Liberty’s torch, burnt and twisted, lifting slowly from inside the keep. The towers of the Rox seemed to shimmer and fade, and he glimpsed Ellis Island as it had been, another ghost come out to play in the moonlight.

  Then howling darkness descended and Tom thought, This is what armageddon sounds like, as the waters exploded around him.

  SUNDAY

  September 23, 1990

  Charles Dutton was woken at six o’clock Sunday morning by a phone call from the night watchman at the Famous Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum. Something was blocking the entrance. Dutton, the owner of the museum, hurried over to the Bowery.

  The Dime Museum owned three of the Turtle’s old shells, obsolete models that were now part of its permanent exhibit. Dutton walked carefully around the great steel hulk on his sidewalk, and finally crawled inside the open hatch. The shell was empty. He took note of the broken screens, the blackened instrument panels, the smell of burnt insulation. Then he crawled back out. “I believe we have a new exhibit,” he told the watchman.

  Ray woke up in the Jokertown Clinic to see that the doctor taking his pulse was a woman. She was tall and good-looking even though she had only one eye.

  “Say,” Ray said. “what time do you get off work?”

  Cody Havero looked down at him as he lay in bed swathed in bandages. “Half past never.”

  “I can wait,” Ray replied.

  She grunted something noncommittal, then released his wrist. “You have a visitor.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. A distasteful man named Battle.”

  “Him.” Ray clenched his jaw and immediately regretted it. It was still healing, still sore. He hoped it would come out better-looking this time. “Yeah. I’d like to talk to him.”

  Havero nodded and left Ray’s private room. Battle came in as soon as she was gone.

  “What do you want?” Ray asked.

  “To discuss your outrageous conduct,” Battle said, glowering. "Outrageous my ass,” Ray said. “You keep your mouth shut, I keep my mouth shut, and were both heroes. You open your trap and I’ll be forced to swear to some of the things I saw you do. And I know a lot of reporters who’d just die and go to heaven if they had a chance at that story.”

  Battle shut his mouth with an audible snap.

  “And you know,” Ray said thoughtfully. “I like working with you, George. I really do. I think I’ll take you up on your offer and join your Task Force.”

  Battle sputtered. “Why you, you”

  Ray looked at him with eyes as merciless as Mackie Messer’s “ It’ll be a real pleasure working with you, George, looking over your shoulder as you make your little plans and run your little schemes. A real goddamn pleasure.”

  Battle shut his mouth and nodded stiffly. “We can discuss this later.”

  “You bet,” Ray said. He felt happy, almost content. At last he’d found a really worthy foe.

  “Fine,” Battle said, through gritted teeth.

  “You know, George,” Ray said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  And he smiled, though his face hurt like hell. Battle, despite the warmth of the hospital room, shivered.

  There was still 65,000 dollars in neatly sorted bills on the kitchen table. Patchwork — Modular Woman — was lying in pieces on a plastic drop-cloth in Travnicek’s bedroom. Modular Man was trying to reassemble her.

  He had run into some difficulties. Which eye was which? He couldn’t tell the left from right. There were other similar problems with some of the digits; and during the night he had to break into a medical school library and steal some books on anatomy so as to figure out where some of the internal organs went.

  And whatever he did, there were still a good many bits missing. They’ll grow back, she had said, but that takes weeks. Months, sometimes.

  The television chattered at him as he worked. Someone who might he dead, the Turtle, or both was being sought in connection with a murder in Jersey. Zappa had scheduled a press conference for later in the day. He was expected to declare a victory. The battleship New Jersey, or the listing first half of it, was being carefully towed to a breaker’s yard. Dan Quayle was giving an anti-drug speech in Iowa and was unavailable for comment, and George Bush had gone fishing in Maine.

  Not much had been made of Modular Man’s rescue of a few people from the Rox. He was still being sought as a traitor and outlaw.

  The android figured that Canada was sounding better and better. From there he might be able to cut a deal with someone in the government, or alternatively emigrate to Buenos Aires.

  But first things first. He needed to put Patchwork back together.

  Sorting out the real Patchwork from Travnicek’s remains presented a problem. Some parts rather obviously belonged to a joker, however, and others turned cold and began to decay and were obviously useless whether they belonged to her or not.

  Patchwork’s parts cooled slightly, but not to air temperature. And if he fitted them together properly, they stayed together.

  At the moment he was puzzling over a bagpipe-like organ that he had identified from the medical textbook as a “ventriculus.” The name made it sound as if it belonged somewhere in the heart area.

  He put the organ down and reached for a dictionary. “Ventriculus,” he discovered, meant “stomach.”

  He picked the stomach up again. Which end was up?

  It was almost enough — almost — to make him wish he had Travnicek back to guide him.

  How appalling had it been, he wondered, to arrange for Travnicek’s death? And, because he couldn’t do it himself, to coax Patchwork into doing the deed?

  He had wanted to live. At some point he had decided, like Bloat, that some lives were worth more than others; that his existence was worth more than his creator’s.

  And now, because he had wanted to live so desperately, he was going to have to live with the consequences of that decision.

  And Patchwork would have to deal with it as well, if her life didn’t fade as he was reassembling her.

  It was possible for a murderer to redeem himself, according to society’s rules. There were traditional ways of dealing with those who were guilty of crime. Imprisonment or execution was high on the list. But sometimes the criminal was allowed to redeem himself through service to others.

  Another traditional road to redemption was through love. Modular Man thought he might give that one a try.

  But first things first. He had to work out which end of Patchwork’s stomach went up.

  Perhaps he should try attaching it to something.

  The intestines were a mess he hadn’t dealt with yet, but he’d found a muscular tube that might well be an esophagus. He went to where that was on the pile and picked it up. He matched torn ends together and found that they fused.

  Well. One mystery solved. On to the next.

  This was obviously going to take some time.

  But Modular Man had all the patience required.

  Her name was Ariel, but for the last decade she had been called Slash, since she contracted the wild card and moved to Jokertown. Now she sat on a dock along the East River. Dirty, moonlit wavelets slapped the pilings, hiding the faint sound of clashing steel as she moved. Moonlight sparked on a hedge of blades, a bristling snarl of edged steel that lined her body. She was naked; no clothing could last long on her. It didn’t matter that anyone could see the flesh between the knife-blade ridges of her body. She was safe. She was always safe. Always. Whether she wanted to be or not.

  Iaido had been her passion — the ar
t of sword — drawing. She had spent years studying, years of sweat with a hakama swirling around her legs and a sai thrust between the belt at her left side. The lure of the blade had taken her from Cincinnati to New York in pursuit of a sensei, then to Japan, then back to New York yet again. Her life had begun to expand in a grand, delightful fashion: landing a big contract as a programmer; studying under a wonderful sensei; finding Dennis and realizing for the first time that there were other types of loves too.

  And New York had gifted her with the wild card.

  Dennis had fled in terror. The contract had been voided. Her sensei told her that she was a distraction to his other students. She had been made a mockery of herself. Because she had been made into what she loved, she had been made unlovable. Untouchable. The isolation and hatred had grown year by year until — now — she didn’t think she could stand it anymore.

  Slash sat waiting, throwing mocking, sharp light back at the city’s brilliance, not quite sure what or why she was waiting but knowing that she must.

  Light glimmered just under the surface of the murky waves — a faint drifting wash of phosphorescence. Just below Slash, water suddenly bulged and ran as something large and rounded rose from underneath. Slash threw herself back, blades clashing. The apparition surfaced: a sphere of gelatinous, semitransparent flesh with wriggling cilia covering its surface and a vaguely human face set atop it. Points of soft, multicolored light dotted the body; gills fluttered near the head. A Hefty trash bag was snagged on its side; as Slash watched, the green plastic slipped loose and splashed back into the river.

  There seemed to be something — someone inside the creature. As Slash watched from underneath one of the dock lamps, a woman pushed her way through the belly of the creature and hauled herself up onto the dock. She was — maybe — twenty; blond hair and dark eyes that seemed to have seen too much, judging by the circles underneath them. The woman glanced at Slash, then at the city. She sighed. “Charon,” she said. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “Yes. I guess it is.” The woman’s gaze found Slash. To her credit, she shuddered very little. “Looks like you have a fare waiting,” she said. She nodded to Slash, touched the choker around her neck as if to make sure that the antique cameo there wasn’t lost, then frowned at the city. She began to walk away from the water toward the lights without another word. Slash watched her leave.

  “Hey!”

  Slash turned. “You called?” Charon said. “Get in — it’s almost light.”

  “You came for me?”

  “Among other things. I heard you calling. Took me a little longer than usual to get here. Let’s move.”

  “Move where? The Rox is gone. The Turtle smashed it to pieces last night. I saw it from Battery Park. Bloat’s dead.”

  “Just get in if you’re going,” Charon insisted.

  “But going where?” Slash asked again.

  “Trust me,” Charon said. “Or go back to Jokertown. It’s your choice.”

  Slash glanced back at the city. Manhattan was bright against an ultramarine sky. The skyscrapers themselves were dark, invisible towers. Only the lights gave them substance, like a stage backdrop built of paint and boards and strands of glaring bulbs.

  The last week had been hell in Jokertown. Slash had tried to get to the Rox twice; each time she’d been turned back by the police and National Guard units. She didn’t know why she’d wanted to be there or why it might be different from Jokertown or why she thought she might be less lonely there — from what she’d heard, she had a better than even chance of dying on the Rox. Somehow, that didn’t seem to matter. It hurt to stay in J-town; it hurt to listen to the explosions rumbling between the skyscrapers as they strafed and shelled the Rox; it hurt to listen to the anger and hatred that boiled from every radio and television report about the assault.

  It hurt just to be.

  Slash was certain that bad, bad times were coming for all jokers. There’d been too much death and too much pain, and the blame had to be placed somewhere. She suspected she knew where that blame was going to rest.

  “Just push through my side,” Charon said behind the joker. He seemed to laugh. “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble. Once you’re in, we’ll go.”

  Slash turned from the city. She went to Charon, arms outstretched. She plunged her hands — followed almost immediately by the points of several blades — into the yielding cold flesh between the vaulted ribs, felt the sides cling and then part under the pressure. She stepped into Charon’s slime-walled belly and sat there. Through the womb of Charon, New York still gleamed, blurred and haloed now. Very distant.

  “We’re off, then,” Charon said.

  Cilia thrashed. Gas vented from orifices around the body, bubbling in the dark water. Charon slowly sank below the surface of the East River, the city lights swirling in the current as it disappeared.

  On the muddy, trash-filled riverbed, Charon began its long walk home.

  Croyd awakened.

  Stretched, snorted, and rolled over. And found himself face-to-face with a fish. Now that he thought about it the air had smelled a little funny. The Sleeper experimentally drew another breath. Watched the exhalations, carrying water and carbon dioxide, erupt from the tiny puckered mouths on the ends of his blue spikes.

  “Christ, a joker again.” That was the intent. What emerged was a series of bubbling sounds.

  Visibility was lousy. The Sleeper picked a direction and struck out. Fetched up face-first in goo. It smelled even worse than the water. Reversing direction he stroked doggedly upward until his head broke the water. The skyline of Manhattan greeted him.

  He dogpaddled in a slow circle to get his bearings. Unfortunately there weren’t many bearings to be got. Ellis Island was gone. Liberty Island was gone. Liberty herself was gone.

  “…Jesus, must have been some party … Wonder if I slept through Wild Card Day again?” Croyd mused aloud.

  Stunned, angry, grieving, all those things at once, weary and heartsick, Cordelia let the government man usher her into the small room. She blinked in the dim light, tried to focus through the sudden sheen of tears.

  A woman sat behind a simple wooden table. She was young, seemingly fragile, face finely sculpted. Her long, wavy, blond hair cascaded around her shoulders. Slightly shadowed, her dark eyes glanced up at Cordelia.

  “Yes?” the woman behind the table said. To Cordelia, the voice sounded a little spacey. “You’ve need of my services?”

  “You already know that,” said the government man tightly. “We’ve made arrangements. This is Cordelia Chaisson.”

  “You were mentioned,” said the woman to Cordelia. She fingered the cameo at her throat, let her delicate thumb and index finger brush across the black ribbon choker. “Please sit down.”

  Cordelia sat in the austere dark-wood chair in front of the desk. The government man stood at her shoulder.

  He placed his hand on Cordelia’s shoulder. “This is Miss Allworth.”

  “Cameo,” said Miss Allworth. “We’ll leave it at that.”

  Cordelia nodded slightly. “What… can you do? I mean, for me?”

  “Maybe nothing,” said Cameo. She looked drawn, suddenly years older than her first impression. She turned to the government man. “Give me the opal. His opal.”

  “Wyungare,” said Cordelia. “His name was Wyungare.” She wanted, how she wanted, to break down and sob. She drew together her strength and did not. For now.

  The government man shook something out of a small cloth sack and showed it to Cordelia. It was a rough-cut opal suspended from a leather thong. The leather was seared. Cordelia could smell it.

  “I gave him that,” she said. She took the piece from the government man’s hand and clutched it momentarily in her fingers.

  Cameo extended her own hand, palm up, and let Cordelia drop the opal pendant into it.

  “What do I do?” said Cordelia in almost a whisper.

  Cameo apparently mi
sunderstood. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll do everything that needs to be done.” Her fingers closed on the opal and thong. Her fist tightened in what seemed almost a small convulsion.

  Her eyes, huge already, seemed to dilate even farther. But there was no focus there. It was, Cordelia thought, like looking into a birthing hurricane — immense power, but no clear form.

  Cameo’s head jerked back once as if from a blow. Her chair rocked and creaked. Then she looked directly at Cordelia and her features seemed subtly to shift, her face taking on a squarer shape.

  “G’day, young missy.” Cameo’s voice had deepened, broadened, was accented now with the outback inflections Cordelia knew so well.

  “Wyungare?” Cordelia almost breathed the word. She unconsciously started to get up. The government man’s fingers tightened on her shoulders.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “Make the time give you what you want. There’s no telling how long this will last.”

  Cameo’s lips turned in a smile. “None other,” she said in Wyungare’s voice.

  “You’re, you’re” Cordelia started to say, couldn’t.

  “Dead?” said Wyungare’s voice. The smile took on a gentleness. “We never say dead in my business, but” — a shrug — “I’m afraid I’m close enough for your purposes. My stay on this plane for this time is done.”

  “Please,” said Cordelia. “I need you here.”

  Cameo cocked her head the way Wyungare would have cocked his. “You want me here. You’ll discover you don’t need me.” "That’s cruel!” She tried to bite back the words but couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry, Cordie,” said Wyungare’s voice. “I truly am, my sweet, my love. I should not be so glib, and I certainly shouldn’t be what you keep defining as a wiseass. It’s just that I’ve been through a lot lately.”

  “I know,” said Cordelia, staring at the man looking back at her from Cameo’s body. “They’ve told me some of it. Enough of it.”

  “Did they tell you about Jack?”

  Cordelia shook her head.

  “Your uncle helped me enormously with aiding the young master in turn.”