“Because you owe me for that mind control last week. Not nice, Tachy, not nice.”
“Digger, if you weren’t so goddam irritating and unscrupulous—”
“Captain Ellis doesn’t approve of this protection racket,” the reporter bulled ahead. “She says somebody’s going to get hurt, and it ain’t gonna be the bad guys.”
“I would submit to the good captain that the protection rackets have all been coming from one direction. And she’s being unduly pessimistic. I think we can look out for ourselves. Ideal knows we’ve had enough practice,” he added dryly, recalling all the years when the police were curiously uninterested whenever a joker was beaten or killed, but Johnny-on-the-spot whenever a tourist howled. Things were better now, but it was still an uneasy relationship between New York’s jokers and New York’s finest.
Digger licked the tip of his ballpoint pen, a silly, affected gesture. “I know my readers will want to know why these patrols consist only of jokers. With you heading up this effort why not pull in some of the big guns? The Hammer for example, or Mistral or J.J. Flash or Starshine.”
“This is a joker neighborhood. We can take care of ourselves.”
“Meaning there’s hostility between jokers and aces?”
“Digger, don’t be an ass. Is it so surprising that these people choose to handle this themselves? They are viewed as freaks, treated like retarded children, and ignored in favor of their more fortunate and flamboyant brethren. May I point out that your magazine is titled Aces, and no one is panting to found a concomitant magazine entitled Jokers? Look around you. This is an activity born out of love and pride. How could I say to these people you’re not tough enough or smart enough or strong enough to defend yourselves? Let me call in the aces.”
Which was of course precisely what he had been going to do until Des had opened his eyes. But Digger didn’t need to know that. Still, Tach had the grace to blush as he shamelessly appropriated Des’s lecture and passed it on to the journalist.
“Comment on Leo Barnett?”
“He is a hate-mongering lunatic.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
“Go ahead.”
“So who’s going to be the white knight? Hartmann?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I thought you two were real tight.”
“We’re friends, but hardly intimates.”
“Why do you think Hartmann’s been such a friend to the jokers? Personal interest? His wife a carrier, or maybe an illegitimate joker baby hidden away somewhere?”
“I think he is a friend to the wild cards because he is a good man,” replied Tachyon a little frigidly.
“Hey, speaking of monstrous joker babies, what’s the latest poop on Peregrine’s pregnancy?”
Tachyon went rigid with fury, then carefully uncoiled his fists, and relaxed. “No, Digger, you’re not going to get me again. I will never stop regretting that I let slip that the father of Peregrine’s child was an ace.”
“Have a drink on me, Tachy?” asked the journalist hopefully, eyeing the almost empty snifter.
“NO!”
“Just a little hint to reassure all those breathless fans who are worried about Peri?”
“Oh, go away, Digger, do. You plague me worse than horse flies.” He waved a hand toward the jokers. “Interview them, and leave me in peace. I’m far less important in all of this than they are.”
“Jesus, Tachy! Modesty, from you?”
The Takisian stared hard, and Digger lifted the glass from the table and dribbled the remaining brandy over his head.
“I’m not … in a very good mood … right now.”
The journalist mopped at his wet neck. “No fuck! And that makes two, Tach. I’ll be collecting on that next interview soon.”
“I’ll count the moments.”
“Asshole.”
Tachyon stared morosely at his empty glass, then scanned the room for a waiter. Durg at’Morakh bo-Isis Vayawand-sa had been stolidly eating his way through an enormous plate of food, but Tachyon noticed that his pale eyes kept drifting toward the staircase. Chrysalis appeared and the Morakh killer, light-footed despite his incredible bulk, moved swiftly to her side. He lifted her hand with courtly grace and bestowed a fervent kiss upon it. Chrysalis snatched it back and stared coldly down at him. Drawn despite himself, Tach drifted toward them, trying to overhear. Suddenly Chrysalis’s hand shot out, and the sharp slap echoed about the crowded bar.
“Tachyon!” she gritted. He obediently followed her to her private table. Lifting her deck of antique cards, she shuffled quickly several times and laid out a solitaire hand. “Will you keep your pet freak away from me!”
“He’s not mine, he’s Mark’s, and what’s the problem?”
“He wants me.”
“Good god!”
A tangle of conflicting emotions washed through him. Disgust and amazement that Durg could be attracted to the joker. Monster he might be, but he was still a Takisian. Shame for his reaction, and pity for Chrysalis beset by such a monstrous lover.
“Will you get him off my back?”
“I’ll do what I can, but remember he was raised from childhood to hate and despise me; first by the Vayawand and then by my cousin Zabb. He tolerates me now solely for Mark’s sake.”
“Please.”
“All right, but be a bit more forbearing, I beg you. The Morakh may be a perversion, but they are Takisians, and as such used to getting what they want from groundlings. Never forget he’s a killing machine.”
“Thanks so much, Tachy, I feel so much better now.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, maybe the Mafia or the Fists will beat my head in before he does. And to think I let you talk me into this. You know this really is all your fault. Oh, stop looking so stricken. It was a joke.”
“Not to me.”
Dita came toddling down the hall, the heels of her improbably high heels clicking on the faded tile floor.
“Doctor, Mr. Marion quit!”
Tachyon looked up from the chart he was studying. “Who?”
“Mr. Marion, the tutor.”
“Oh, shit.” It was not a common expletive from him and Dita stared. “Dita, I’m far to busy to deal with this right now, and since it’s a losing proposition anyway, would you please hire a new tutor for me.”
“But I wouldn’t know what to look for.”
“A thorough grounding in mathematics, and the sciences. Some history and literature, and a knowledge or at least an appreciation for music would be nice.”
The click and hiss of the pager, and the smooth voice of the switchboard interrupted. “Dr. Tachyon to emergency. Dr. Tachyon to emergency.”
“But…”
“Just use your judgment.” Looping his stethoscope around his neck, Tach lifted the phone from the third-floor nurses’ station. “What is it?”
“Wild card,” came the terse response from Dr. Finn.
He wasted no more time but headed for the elevator.
The child was writhing on the examnation table. Finn’s hooves were clattering nervously on the tile as he sought to restrain her. He was the first joker physician at the Blythe van Rensselaer Memorial Clinic, and there had been some initial resistance from the joker community fearful that he had gotten through medical school because of affirmative action and not through merit. After two weeks of working with the young man, Tach could assure them that their fears were unfounded.
The child’s mother stared with panicked eyes at Tachyon. Superficially she was a nat; what her genetic code held was of course another matter. Manifestation, or new infection? Only testing would show.
“Initial exam indicates no transformation. We’ve managed to stabilize pressure and heart rate, and I’ve ordered up a trump, but…”
“Thank you, Doctor. Mrs.…?”
“Wilson,” supplied a nurse.
“Wilson.” Tachyon took her arm, urged her away from the convulsing child. “Your daughter has contr
acted the wild card, and its fairly evident that she’s drawn a Black Queen.” The woman gasped, whimpered, clapped a hand over her mouth. “We must very quickly make a decision. We can give her a dose of a countervirus which I have developed—”
“Give it to her!”
“But I must warn you that this treatment is successful only twenty percent of the time. The usual result is that there is no improvement. The virus runs its course. There is also a very slight chance of death in reaction to the trump.”
“She’s dyin’ anyway. It don’t matter if she does it faster.” A nurse appeared at her elbow with the release.
Tachyon was already preparing the syringe. It took Finn and three nurses to hold the girl quiet. The plunger was depressed. Tach held her wrist, the flutter of pulse beneath his fingers. Fainter, fainter. The monitor went flat. The deadly keen was echoed in the mother’s cry.
The aftermath was always so hateful. The inadequate words of comfort, obtaining consent for an autopsy, blood tests on both parents—in this case unfortunately incomplete, for Beth Wilson was a welfare mother, and the man who’d sired little Sara had long since vanished from her life. She had spent the last thirty dollars of her welfare check on taxis shuttling from hospital to hospital, being turned away when the virus was discovered, until at last she reached the Jokertown clinic. Tach gave her money and sent her home with Riggs in the limousine.
Sprawled back in his chair, Tach pulled a flask from the desk drawer and slugged back a large swallow.
“Mind if I have one?” asked Finn.
He was on the floor with all four legs curled neatly beneath him. His golden hide twitched slightly over one haunch, and he cranked around to scratch the itch. Tach, canted back in his chair, studied the young man and decided that Finn looked like a Disney character. Small pointed face, tipped-up blue eyes, a riot of white curls that tumbled over his forehead and ran down his spine to form a mane. His tail spread behind him like a white cloak. When he was in surgery they braided it up and wrapped surgical tape around it. Tach had suggested that he bob it and gotten a horrified look in response. He then realized that that floor-length fall of hair was Finn’s pride and joy.
Staring at those four teacup-size hooves, Tach wanted to ask if Finn had been born this way or metamorphosed after birth. If his had been an in utero transformation, Tachyon sure as hell bet he had been delivered by cesarean section. But it would be gauche to ask. Although Finn seemed incredibly well adjusted Tachyon would be the first to admit that he didn’t know the man at all well.
The doctor turned the flask slowly between his fingers and frowned off into space.
“What’s the matter?” asked Tach.
“I’ve never worked among jokers until now.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my old man had enough clout and money to send me to the finest medical schools and get me into a residency program at Cedars in L.A.”
“So why are you here?”
“I thought it was about time I got to know some jokers. To take a look at the joker experience.”
“That’s quite noble.”
“No, it’s guilt. I grew up in a Spanish colonial palace in Bel Air. If dad couldn’t buy people to accept me, he’d intimidate them until they did.”
“What did your father do?”
“‘Does.’ He’s a movie producer. A very successful one.”
“And you became a doctor.”
“Well, I could hardly become an actor.”
“True.” Tachyon rose. “If you’d like a bit more joker experience, I’m on my way over to the Crystal Palace for the daily report. If you would care to accompany me?”
“Sure. Beats staying here waiting for another Black Queen to be rolled in. Wish you guys had done a little more lab work before field-testing xenovirus Takis-A.”
“But Finn, by anyone’s standards it was an astounding success.”
“Yeah, tell that to Mrs. Wilson.”
Even the lights had been turned off in an effort to make the skinny teenager who huddled in a chair next to Chrysalis comfortable. Video was an undersize sixteen-year-old who would never dance at her senior prom or go to the movies or, in short, live with any of the modern conveniences that make life comfortable. For the presence of any electrical equipment in her vicinity sent her into ventricular fibrillation, and without immediate aid she would die.
Until one noticed her eyes, Video seemed normal. Long brown hair, parted in the middle, fell straight to her shoulders. A narrow, worried face peered out from behind this curtain of hair. And the eyes. White and perfectly round, they seemed to billow and change like whitetops on waves, or clouds torn by a passing wind.
“Hi, Dr. Tachyon,” she muttered around a mouthful of gum.
“Hi, Video, how are you today?”
“Pretty good.”
“This is Dr. Finn.”
“Hi.”
“So what have you got for us today?”
“I got around pretty good so I got quite a bit.”
“Excellent.”
“Uh … Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“Ummm … you’re a friend of Senator Hartmann’s, right?”
“Yes.”
“Is he gonna run?”
“For president, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know, Video.”
“Well, I wish he would. One of my friends got beat up near that Barnett mission.”
“Were Barnett’s people behind it?”
“I don’t know. He thinks so. The cops thought it was probably the Werewolves.”
“In other words, no proof.”
“Paul was sure,” she said with a mulish expression.
“But that’s not proof.”
“Well, I don’t think this guy ought to become president.”
“I doubt he will, Video,” said Tachyon, and wished he was as certain as he sounded.
“Senator Hartmann oughta run.”
“I’ll ask him next time I talk to him.”
“I’d vote for him. If I were eighteen.”
“I’ll tell him. Now, the replay.”
“Oh, okay.”
The girl stared hard at the clear space before Chrysalis’s table. Figures sprang to life.
… An Oriental man in gang colors stuck the tip of a switchblade up Gobbler’s nose slit. A flick, and blood poured over the old man’s beak. With a screech he collapsed onto the floor. A lean, ganglingly tall street punk dressed in stained leather pants and chains grinned, pulling the crawling scarlet and black scars on his face into hideous relief. Spiked hair made him seem seven feet tall as he gripped the joker by the tuft of feathers sprouting from his bald skull and pulled him up. The feathers came loose in his fist.
“Put ’em on a hat,” yelled the Oriental gleefully.
Suddenly Elmo boiled in the door of the deli. Launched himself at the tall, scarred Occidental. They wrestled. The dwarf leaned forward, his powerful jaws closing on his opponent’s bandaged nose. Elmo reared back, and the man screamed and clapped a hand over the raw, bleeding wound where his nose had been. Elmo spat the nose into his palm …
“Gross,” said Finn.
… The Twisted Sisters shuddered and clung more tightly to one another’s waist. Gray hair twisted like smoke about their gaunt bodies. It snaked out as soft and insubstantial as cobwebs, as insinuating as a sigh. It crept up nostrils and past lips. Thickened until it lay like cotton wadding in windpipes and lungs. The bully boys collapsed onto the floor of the deli like deflated balloons.
… A pair of men in polyester sports jackets and a wealth of gold chains thrust Spots’s head into one of her own washing machines at the Spots Out Laundromat. They dragged her out gasping and dripping, soap clinging to her piebald hair and skin. Mr. Gravemold slipped through the door, flexed his fingers, and laid a hand on one goon’s shoulder. The man reared back, cried out, and collapsed. The other soon joined him.…
“What’s he using?” asked Tachyo
n with a glance to Chrysalis.
“Hypothermia.”
“Oh.” He waved to Video to proceed.
… The back door of the bakery spilling light into the alley. Screams from the kitchen. Shadow Fists pausing like alert hounds in the cluttered alley. Rushing in to join in a fight with their Mafia competitors. Terrified jokers backed against the walls, smoke rising from doughnuts boiling to ash in the hot oil.
In the distance a clear whistle floating over the bleat of horns, and the rumble of subways. The theme to High Noon …
Tachyon dropped his face into his hands. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“I can be pretty sneaky,” said Video with pride.
Chrysalis shot the Takisian an ironic glance. “Very interesting. So our little doctor is riding with the posse. Go ahead, Video, I want to see this.”
“Doug’s bakery is a block from the clinic. I buy doughnuts there in the morning. When the call came, Troll and I were convenient.”
“Right,” she drawled.
… Tachyon, the .357 Magnum like a cannon in his small hand, entering from the alley. Troll roaring in from the front of the bakery. Troll doubled up a ham-size fist and beat heads like a man playing bongos. One of the Mafia thugs drew a .22 pistol. Fired point-blank into Troll’s massive chest. The bullet ricocheted off the joker’s thick greenish skin with a whine. The man went white. Troll lifted him by his shirt front.
“You shouldn’t have done that, mister, because now I’m really mad.”
Troll coolly broke both the man’s arms, then his legs, and then propped him in a corner like a discarded sack. A sack that screamed.
Tachyon switching his gaze from man to man. Each one dropping in a snoring heap as soon as those strange lilac eyes were leveled upon him. One of the Fists succeeded in unlimbering a .45 automatic. Tachyon shot the gun from his hand. Raised the gun to his lips, and blew lightly across the barrel …
“Show off,” said Chrysalis.
The alien shrugged. “I’m a good shot.”
“I don’t believe for a moment that you didn’t know Video was there. That has got to have been a performance for the benefit of the applauding masses.”
“Chrysalis, you wound me.”
“Tachyon, you’re an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, and don’t try to tell me otherwise.”