Jokertown Shuffle

  Veronica noticed the past tense. "You've heard, then." Nancy looked away, nodded stiffly.

  "I'm sorry" Veronica said. "I don't know you, I don't know what to say to you."

  Nancy nodded again, and Veronica suddenly realized what an effort she was making to be polite. "You don't have to say anything at all."

  They changed in Jamaica. The wind whistled through the open platform, and Liz huddled in a corner of her cage, crying softly. They boarded the Long Beach train in silence.

  When the train stopped in Lynbrook, Nancy suddenly grabbed Veronica's suitcase and started for the doors. "Come on," she said. "This is us."

  Veronica got off the train behind her. "I thought…"

  "It never hurts to cover your trail. Carrying that cat around-somebody at the ticket window might remember you." They walked downstairs and crossed the street to Carpenter Avenue. Veronica had never been on Long Island before, and the sense of space made her uncomfortable. None of the buildings were over two stories high. There were lawns and vacant lots covered with trees and grass. The streets were nearly empty.

  Nancy led her to a door in a row of tall, narrow woodframe houses across from the library. There was a dead bolt but no police lock or alarm system. They climbed two flights of stairs to a refurbished attic. There was a bed, a bathroom with a shower, a half-size refrigerator, and a hot plate. A huge leather-covered armchair sat by a lamp and a crowded bookshelf.

  "If somebody comes along who's got a worse problem than you, we'll have to make other plans. Until then, you can stay. I'll do your shopping for you, at least for a while, until we see how hard they're looking for you."

  "I've got money," Veronica said. Or she would have, once she could find a way to cash the check. "I can pay for the room."

  "That'll help." Nancy stood up. "I'll get you some foodand a litter box for the cat-and then I've got to get back to the city. Will you be okay here?"

  Veronica nodded. Her growing despair seemed to make the wood-paneled walls grow even darker. "I'll be fine," she said.

  The priest droned to a close, and the coffin was lowered into the ground. Ichiko would rather have been cremated, Veronica suspected. Miranda had refused to hear of it. And she had come up with this bastard amalgamation of Shinto and Catholic for a funeral service. Miranda was Ichiko's oldest friend, and she was Veronica's mother, so she got her way.

  They filed past the hole, and each threw in a ceremonial shovelful of dirt. Veronica's dirt hit the coffin with a hollow whack. She passed the shovel on and went to stand by her mother. Miranda had walked well away from the others and stood with her arms folded, watching the driveway.

  "He's not coming, Mother," Veronica said.

  "He's Ichiko's only son. How could he not be here?"

  "What do you want me to say? I could tell you maybe his flight was delayed. Maybe he got held up in customs. But you know as well as me he just decided not to come. She's dead, there's nothing he can do."

  Except, she thought, use his tantric powers to bring her back to life. A particularly nasty thought that she left unsaid. Miranda started to cry. "It's the end of everything. The business is closed down, Ichiko's gone, Fortunato might as well be dead. And you, you've changed so much…"

  I must be getting stronger, Veronica thought. I can almost handle this. She put her arms around her mother and held her until the crying passed.

  It had taken Veronica a week to settle in at Nancy's house. Nancy had gotten her a fake birth certificate, which they'd then parlayed into a driver's license and a bank account. Ichiko had rewritten the check with Veronica's new name on it. With the money Veronica had Nancy buy her a portable stereo and a TV set for her attic cell.

  She also got on a methadone program at Mercy Hospital. This was the biggest risk of all, but there was no way around it. It meant riding the bus up Peninsula Avenue once a day.

  The hospital, with all its Catholic paraphernalia, seemed comforting to Veronica, an island of her childhood.

  More and more she would find herself remembering her comfortable middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Miranda had been making a lot of money working for Fortunato, most of it going into savings. There was enough left over for a good-size apartment in Midwood, new clothes every fall, food, and a color TV Linda, Veronica's younger sister, lived in the apartment now, with her good-for-nothing husband, Orlando. Between Orlando and the smack, Veronica hadn't seen her sister in two years.

  Nancy tried to talk her out of the trips to the hospital. It would be safer, she said, for Veronica to go back to shooting up. The words alone brought back the memory of the rush.

  The floor seemed to drop out from under her like she was in a high-speed elevator. "No," she said. "Don't even kid around about it." What would Hannah have thought?

  On her first Saturday night in the attic, there was a meeting downstairs. People showed up all through the afternoon, and the sound of movement and laughter filtering up through the stairwell only made Veronica's loneliness worse. For a week she had been cooped up there, seeing Nancy for no more than ten minutes a day. She lived for her short bus rides to the hospital, where she might sometimes exchange a few words with a stranger. Her life was turning into a prison sentence.

  On Sunday, when Nancy came up to check on her, Veronica said, " I want to join the organization."

  Nancy sat down. "It's not that easy. This isn't NOW or Women's Action Alliance or something. Hiding fugitives isn't the only illegal thing we do."

  " I know that."

  "We only invite people to join us after months, sometimes years of observation."

  " I can help you. I worked for Ichiko for over two years." She took a notebook out of the nightstand by her bed. "This is my client list. We're talking some major people here: restaurant and factory owners, publishers, brokers, politicians. I've got names, phone numbers, preferences, personal statistics you're not going to find in Who's Who."

  There was more, but Veronica wasn't willing to tell her the rest, not yet, about her ace power. She still didn't know how it worked or how to control it. And she didn't know what Nancy's reaction would be. Veronica had been watching CNN there in the room and was just starting to realize how strongly the tide had turned against wild cards. Aces and jokers were even turning on each other, thanks to Hiram Whatsisname, the fat guy's, murder of Chrysalis.

  Nancy stood up. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to have to say this, but you pushed me to it. Try and look at it from our point of view. You're a prostitute, a fugitive, and a heroin addict. You're not exactly a good risk."

  Veronica's face felt hot, as if she'd been slapped. She sat motionless, stunned.

  "I'll talk to the others," Nancy said. "But I can't make any promises."

  Ichiko's funeral was on a Sunday. On Monday, Veronica was back at work. At the moment, she was the receptionist at a company that published trade journals: Pipeline Digest,

  Catering!, Trout World. The owner, one of Veronica's former clients, was the only male involved in the business, and he was never there.

  When she'd decided to go back on the job market, she'd gone straight to her client files. At her first two interviews, the men who'd once salivated at the sight of her naked body simply stared at her. She'd put on twenty-five pounds in the last four months, and her metabolism, still trying to adjust to life without heroin, had taken it out on her complexion. She wore no makeup, her hair was cut short, and she'd given up dresses for loose drawstring pants and bulky sweaters. The men smiled with faint distaste and told her they'd let her know if something came up. The third interview landed her a cooking job at one of the better New York hotels. After a couple of months, she moved up to a senator's office.

  She'd been with Custom Publishing for six weeks. For the first time in her life, she felt comfortable, surrounded by competent women. She had even relaxed enough to stop for a drink with them now and again at Close Encounters, a fern bar across the street.

  Which she did on the Thursday after the funeral. It was still only s
lowly dawning on her that Ichiko was dead, that the most significant part of her life thus far was finally and absolutely over. She needed a little companionship to ease the sudden fits of panic and loss that would sneak up on her. A drink would have helped, but she'd quit that when she quit the heroin.

  She looked up from their corner table at the restaurant to see a man standing beside her.

  "Veronica?" he said.

  She'd gone back to using her own name, but none of her new friends knew about her past. She wanted to keep it that way. "I don't think I know you," she said coolly. Betty, a woman in her fifties with steel-gray hair, stared at the man hungrily. He was young, good-looking in a soap-opera sort of way, wearing an Armani suit.

  "We… went out together a couple of years ago. Donald? You don't remember?"

  There had probably been more than one man she'd forgotten, what with the heroin. "No," she said. "I wish you'd quit bothering me."

  "I wanted to talk to you, just for a second. Please."

  "Go away," Veronica said. She didn't like the touch of hysteria she heard in her own voice. "Leave me alone!" People all around them were looking now. The manDonald?-held up both hands and backed away. "Okay," he said. "I'm sorry"

  Veronica saw, to her horror, that her wild-card power was affecting the man, without her conscious control. He had turned pale and seemed barely able to stay on his feet. He caught his balance on the back of an empty chair and walked unsteadily out the door.

  Donna, a thirty-year-old blond who wore short skirts all winter long, said, "Are you crazy? He was gorgeous. And that suit must have cost a thousand bucks."

  Betty said, "This is the first we've ever seen of your sordid past." She turned in her chair, watching Donald move away down the street. "You can't blame us for being curious. You never drink anything but club soda, you never talk about dates or husbands, none of us even know where you live…" Veronica tried a smile. It was supposed to be mysterious, but she could feel the wrongness of it. "My lips are sealed," she said.

  On a Saturday evening, her third week in the attic in Lynbrook, there had been a knock on her door.

  Nancy stood in the stairway, looking uncomfortable. "It's okay for you to sit in on the meeting. But for God's sake, don't say anything, okay? You'll just make me look like an idiot."

  Veronica followed her downstairs. A dozen women sat around Nancy's dining-room table. They were all dressed casually; most wore little or no makeup. Three of them were black, two Latin, one oriental. One was a joker who seemed to have too much skin for her body; she had no hair, and folds of flesh hung off her chin and neck and hands. She looked like one of those weird wrinkled bulldogs that rich people sometimes had.

  Only one of the women was under thirty, and she stood out like a panther in a rabbit hutch. She couldn't have been out of her teens. Even with her bulky winter clothes, Veronica could tell she was a bodybuilder. It showed in her neck and the width of her shoulders, in the way she held herself. Her hair was black, shoulder length, and to Veronica's expert eye, almost certainly a wig.

  Veronica found a chair. The meeting started and lurched slowly forward. Every issue was put to a vote, and then only after endless debate. The young bodybuilder seemed as bored as Veronica. Finally she said, "Screw all that. Let's talk about Loeffler."

  The joker said, "I can't see that being as important as the joker issue. Wild-card violence is tearing this city apart." She slurred her words, and Veronica found it hard to understand her.

  One of the black women-Toni, her name was-said, "Zelda's right. This joker shit could take forever. Let's talk Loeffler."

  The joker woman objected and was quickly overruled. Even W O. R. S. E., Veronica thought, was not completely free of prejudice. As the discussion heated up, Veronica put the pieces together. Robert Loeffler was the publisher of Playhouse magazine and head of the entire Global Fun amp; Games empire. The group intended to confront him and force changes in the magazine's attitude toward women. The problem was, nobody knew a way to get through to him. A slight woman in her fifties named Frances offered to use her locksmithing experience. Zelda wanted to use a bomb.

  After a half hour of debate, Veronica excused herself. She went upstairs and copied Loeffler's unlisted phone number and the combination to his penthouse elevator on a piece of paper. She took it downstairs with her, handed it silently to Nancy, and took her chair again.

  Nancy, across the table from her, said, "Where did you get this?"

  The debate stopped.

  Into the silence Veronica said, "I used to fuck him." The table came to life. In ten minutes they had the outline of a plan. The rush of power went right through the top of Veronica's head, like a hit of crystal meth.

  Toni said, "Let's go on this. My only question is, how soon?"

  Marline, the joker woman, threw her weight behind the bandwagon. "How about tonight?"

  "We haven't got time to get set up," Veronica said. "But tomorrow is possible. Sundays were always good for him." The next night, Nancy and Veronica took the train to Penn Station, and Veronica made the call from a pay phone in the lobby of the Penta Hotel across the street.

  "Bob? Veronica."

  "Veronica!" His voice was muffed, but he sounded pleased. "Darling, how are you?"

  "I'm gorgeous, Bob. And the thermostat in here doesn't seem to be working. It's so hot! I had to take all my clothes off." A gust of freezing air came through the front doors, attacking her legs. The extra weight she had put on in the attic made her feel thick and clumsy, and her nerves were ringing like a switchboard at a radio station. "And one part of me is hotter than all the others. I bet you remember which part that is."

  She heard a soft moan. "Don't do this to me, Veronica. I'm a married man now. Don't you read the papers? She was the May Doll of the Month."

  "I don't care if you're married to Miss America. It's not marriage I'm interested in." At first, Nancy's jaw had dropped in amazement. Now she was starting to crack up. Veronica had to turn away to keep from losing it herself. "I'm freelance now, Bob. I'm offering a special to my very favorite clients. The first one's free. Just to remind you why you should always let a professional take care of your needs. All your special needs. Hint, hint."

  "Oh god. We can't do it here. Bev would kill me."

  "That's why the good lord made hotels."

  "Tonight?"

  Veronica covered the receiver and mouthed "Tonight?" to Nancy, who nodded. "Sure, baby. I'm just over here at the Penta, with the heat turned all the way up. Oh! It's really getting damp and sticky in here."

  "I'll be there in an hour."

  "Call it ten o'clock? I'm ready now, but by ten o'clock I'll really be ready. I'll have the room set up just the way you like it. Call me from the lobby."

  She made a kissing noise into the phone and hung up, a little uncomfortable at how easily it all came back. She left Nancy to phone for reinforcements and rented a room under her own name.

  By ten till ten, they had five more women, including Toni and Zelda and Martine, the joker. Nancy wanted Veronica to get into bed with Loeffler so they could take pictures. Veronica refused.

  "It's not like you've never done it before," Nancy said. "How much could it hurt?"

  "Leave the chick alone," Zelda said. "I wouldn't want nobody inside my body unless they was invited."

  "The ends are the means," said Toni. "We can't victimize our sister."

  "Okay, okay," Nancy said.

  "I got a better idea," Zelda said, taking off her clothes. She was not as built-up as Veronica had thought. She was smooth and feminine, with extraordinary muscle definition. Veronica found it a little hard to look away.

  The phone rang. It was Loeffer. Veronica gave him the room number and told him to hurry. She left the hall door slightly ajar and took the other women into the darkened bathroom.

  "Don't nobody fart," Zelda said, and there was muffled laughter.

  Veronica heard Loeffler come in, the door clicking shut behind him. "Veronica?" he said.
"Did you bring the pickles?" One of the women strangled a laugh.

  "Get undressed," Veronica said through the door. "I've got a surprise for you."

  She heard the sound of a zipper. "Mmmmmm. I love surprises." Clothes hit the floor, covers swished back, the bedsprings creaked. "Okay, darling, do your worst."

  Zelda was the first through the door. She pulled the sheet down and had Loeffer's erect cock in her hand by the time Nancy got the lights on and the camera focused. Somebody else threw a copy of that day's New York Times on the bed to verify the date. It took Loeffler at least three frames to shove Zelda away and say, "Veronica, what the hell is going on here?" Veronica shook her head. Toni stood at the foot of the bed and presented their list of demands. They weren't asking him to kill Playhouse or turn it into a women's-lib magazine. They wanted the Doll of the Month to become Woman of the Month, and feature the occasional professional woman over thirty. Feature articles supporting the ERA and condemning the NRA. Fiction by women. In short, finish out the decade with at least a minimum of social consciousness.

  "And," Zelda said, "I want your centerfolds to stop lying about their waist sizes. Nobody has a twenty-two-inch waist. That is such bullshit!" Veronica giggled in spite of herself.

  Loeffler was not amused. During the lecture, he had gathered up his clothes and gotten dressed. "Do you realize who you're fucking with, here?"

  Nancy said, "Maybe you don't realize who we are."

  "WORSE would be my guess."

  "That's right."

  "I'm not afraid of you."

  "You should be," Toni said. "We can mobilize letterwriting campaigns that will get your magazine pulled from every convenience store in the country. Picket lines to keep your employees from getting to work. Media coverage that will have the fundamentalists all over you like flies on shit." She nodded toward Nancy and her camera. "Not to mention breaking up your marriage."

  Loeffler sat down to put his shoes on. "If you'd come into the office like reasonable human beings and discussed this, I might have listened to you."

  Martine said, "I've been trying for an appointment for three months. Don't pretend you're interested in our `input."' "Okay, then, I won't." He started for the door, then turned to look at Zelda. She was still naked and had been following him around the room. "And put some clothes on," he told her. "Looking at those muscles makes me sick."