Marked Cards

  WILD CARDS

  EDITED BY

  GEORGE R.R.

  MARTIN

  Book II of a New Cycle

  MARKED CARDS

  The Color of His Skin

  by Stephen Leigh

  Part 1

  "Ms. Davis, I promise you that I take the concerns of the jokers very seriously. I will do whatever needs to be done."

  Gregg Hartmann ushered the attractive and intense blond woman from his offices, sliding her out the door with a perfect blend of smile and frown. Yes, I understand the importance of what you've just shown me, his expression said. You've made the right decision. Really, you have ...

  "Hold my calls, Jo Ann," he said to his secretary after the outer door closed. A soft, strangely inflected "Gotcha, boss" followed him as he closed the mahogany doors to his private office. The way she said it made him look back, but Jo Ann only smiled at him. Jo Ann was a minor joker, a woman whose only visible affliction was that her skin was as green and warty as a fairy tale witch's - and her tongue as sharp. Gregg had always had joker secretaries; it was expected of him.

  Gregg sank into the leather caress of his chair and contemplated the cardboard box of transcripts, tapes, and photos Hannah Davis had given him. His right hand throbbed achingly, but when he looked down there was only the dead plastic mockery of the prosthetic resting on the chair's arm - a dead weight whose ironic, crude symbolism didn't escape him. The inner voice that had begun to nag him more and more over the last several months spoke again.

  You took Tachyon's hand with Mackie Messer and Herne's hounds returned you a just revenge. Don't complain when you bear only a tithe of the pain you've caused over the years, Greggie. An eye for an eye ...

  Shut up, he told the voice. Left-handed, he touched the speed dial on his phone system and punched in two numbers. He listened to the phone ringing and picked up the receiver as the line clicked open.

  "Pan?" he said "Gregg Hartmann."

  "Gregg, so good to hear from you." The voice on the other end sounded entirely normal. Gregg heard nothing in the soft accents he hadn't heard before, and Gregg knew Pan Rudo, or at least he once had. He'd known him very well indeed. "In fact, I've just learned that the new WHO funding sailed through the Senate untouched, thanks largely to the lobbying you've done on our behalf. Thank you."

  "You're entirely welcome, and Jo Ann should have my invoice to you tomorrow, but that's not what I'm calling about. Pan ... well, I need to talk to you. In person. I'm also calling Brandon van Renssaeler...."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  "She is truly a most persistent woman," Pan said.

  The director of the World Health Organization placed the sheaf of transcripts back in the box on Gregg's desk and sat back in his chair, as elegant and composed as usual. Rudo shook his graying head slowly and let out a deep sigh, glancing at Brandon van Renssaeler, who sat silently next to him with his gaze directed on the shuttered windows behind Gregg, his jaw muscles bunched under his grim frown. Brandon had flushed brightly when he'd seen Lamia's transcript; since then, he'd said little.

  "But then, fanatics often are persistent," Rudo continued. "I should have guessed that she'd come to you eventually, considering your reputation."

  "I felt you both deserved a chance at private rebuttal before I did anything. Since we all know each other, and since you're both mentioned in the material, I thought I might as well talk to the two of you together. But I have to tell you, Pan, Brandon, this stuff here ..." Gregg frowned. "I'd hate to think there was any truth in it."

  "There's none," Brandon grunted suddenly. "Not in what was said about me, anyway. Gregg, we've known each other a long, long time. I consider us friends as well as colleagues. Pan and I certainly know each other well, and I've done work for him through the firm, but to suggest that I had something to do with the assassination of Robert Kennedy ..." He shook his head. "My ... wife was never exactly a stable person, Gregg. You knew her then. You were at the damn party she talks about in this transcript, where I supposedly became involved with Ms. Monroe. Gregg, I really hope you're not planning to do anything about this."

  "You're denying it, then."

  "Yes," Brandon said emphatically. "All of it. And believe me, if I hear a word of it in the press or anywhere else, I will slap a lawsuit on this Hannah Davis and whoever is with her so fast ..." Brandon pressed his lips together. "We're both attorneys, Gregg. You can see as well as I can that all Davis has are the imaginings of a neurotic woman who probably blames me for the failure of our marriage. There's no photograph, Gregg. There never was one. I believe world-spanning conspiracies are best left to comic books and the tabloids. I understand why you feel you had to ask, and I appreciate that you called before doing anything Davis wanted you to do, but I resent the fact that I have to defend myself against anything so ludicrous, even to you." Brandon released a long, heavy exhalation after that. He ran fingers through perfectly clipped hair. He was so obviously angry that Gregg simply nodded and turned to Rudo.

  "And you, Pan? I take it you're denying all this as well?"

  Pan smiled, and Gregg once more felt the sense of frustrating interior blindness that had afflicted him for the last five and a half years, since that terrible night in Atlanta. Once, Gregg could have deciphered the emotional matrix behind that smile. Once, Gregg would have known exactly how Rudo was feeling, could have twisted and pulled on that emotion until Rudo writhed in his chair in fury or disgust. Rudo had been a puppet like a thousand others - not one Gregg had ever used much, but pliable and interesting in his own way, with odd quirks that made him ... tasty. But Puppetman had perished in the black chasm of Demise's gaze, and the power had gone with him. Like his lost hand, the vestigial remnants of the ability still ached, mockingly useless.

  "Gregg, my friend, I would prefer to talk with you alone, if that's possible."

  Brandon cast Rudo a sharp glance at that, and the two men locked gazes for a second. Once more, Gregg regretted the loss of his power. There was something going on here that he was missing, some unspoken communication between the two men. Like Rudo, Brandon had also been a puppet - and like Rudo, one not much used. He regretted that; it seemed he might have missed something.

  "Fine with me," Brandon said. "I'm supposed to be at a Chamber meeting anyway. Gregg, is there anything else?"

  Gregg shook his head. "No. I think you've told me all I need to know."

  "Good." Brandon put his hand on Hannah's cardboard box. "Give this stuff back, Gregg. Give it back or just burn it and be done. That's the best advice I can give you, both as a professional and as a friend. Don't get involved in this insanity."

  "I hear you, Brandon. Thanks for coming."

  Brandon nodded to Gregg, then looked again at Pan before taking his coat from the rack and leaving the office. As the outer door closed behind the man, Rudo rose stiffly from his chair and went to the side window of Gregg's office.

  Gregg had sent Jo Ann home at five. Brandon and Pan had arrived around seven, within minutes of each other. A few office lights in the old building across the alley gleamed outside Gregg's windows. Scant blocks away, hidden behind the brick flanks of Broadway and 44th, Jokertown was awakening, rising as the sun set. Now more than ever in its life, J-town was a place of night and shadow, a land where the only normality was abnormality.

  And if what Hannah Davis had told Gregg was even partially true, then the person sitting before him was responsible for much of that. If it's true, then I wasted a glorious puppet ... And with that, the voice scolded: Be glad. It was that much less pain laid at your feet, and Hannah has given you a chance for atonement.

  "Do I deny it?" Pan repeated. "Gregg, how long have we known each other?"

  Gregg shrugged. "I don't know.... Ten, twelve years, I guess
. Since you hooked up with WHO."

  "Have I ever indicated to you a particular hatred of jokers in that time?"

  A party at the Lindsays' ... there were several prominent jokers in the crowd, and you radiated such revulsion that Puppetman awoke. I never had the opportunity to use you that night, but Puppetman's hunger drove me out into the street afterward, seeking pain. I remember.... "No," Gregg told him. "Nothing overt, anyway. Nothing that stands out."

  Pan nodded. "Then let me tell you the truth, Gregg. I hate the wild card virus. I loathe it. And there is an organization known as the Card Sharks."

  "Oh my God ..." Gregg sucked in an voluntary breath. He blinked, startled by the unexpected, quick admission and not certain how to react to the vehemence in the man's voice. Yes! the voice inside him exulted. You've wanted to erase the horrors of Puppetman. You've wanted to make amends, and the way has been handed to you ... "Pan ... Pan, I - "

  "I know," Pan said. "You asked me here because you were certain that it was poppycock, that I could dismiss this so-called evidence of Ms. Davis's with a shrug and a laugh, and you could forget about it and her. Well, as much as I hate to admit it, the woman has done all too good a job. How's the saying go? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. This is a fine example of exactly that."

  "Pan ..." Gregg had no words. He almost laughed in surprise and shock. "Brandon, too? Is that what you're saying?"

  Rudo grimaced, waving a hand. "Brandon has done some legal work for us, work done under my own name, but he ... let's just say that he told you the truth as he knows it. Not everything Ms. Davis has surmised is true."

  "Pan, do you realize what you're telling me? You leave me no choice but to call the authorities and go public with this."

  Rudo looked out at the city. Gregg watched Rudo's wavering reflection in the glass, trying to see a demon and only seeing the image of a man. "Let me finish," Rudo said. "Ms. Davis has it half right, Gregg. We're not the hidden viper she imagines. In fact, I believe you would be sympathetic to our aims."

  Rudo turned back into the room. His eyes were alight, his face serious. "I'm not going to give you the recruitment speech, Gregg. We both know that nothing about the wild card is simple. The issues are complex. There's no black or white, just endless shades of gray. That's where Ms. Davis has found her delusions. We can both agree that this alien virus is a scourge, a plague that is best eradicated. For every hundred it infects, it horribly slays most, curses nearly all that survive with disfigurement or worse, and leaves one person, one out of that entire hundred with a small gift in exchange. Hardly a fair trade, I would say. And that's without mentioning the social chaos that has resulted from the virus, the thousands upon thousands of secondary deaths from misunderstanding and prejudice and outright hatred. That's the legacy of the wild card, and I believe very strongly that anyone who doesn't despise the virus is truly insane."

  Rudo stopped His hands, frozen in the midst of frantic motion, suddenly dropped to his side. He gave Gregg a self-deprecating smile. "I see that I've given you the speech anyway. Forgive me, it does spill out at odd moments. But let me add the second part, the part Ms. Davis has forgotten or has chosen not to see. I - we, the Sharks - hate the virus. Not the people infected with it: they're utterly blameless. They are sad, innocent victims. The Card Sharks - I must complement our dear Hannah. She's even ferreted out the pet name we once gave ourselves - do not exist to terrorize or kill jokers. We have pledged to end this modern plague by finding a cure: a treatment to halt the disease in those already infected, a vaccine to inoculate those who haven't yet been exposed. We are not a cabal; we are not terrorists. We are, very simply, a private research organization, funded by several wealthy and influential people who prefer that their efforts remain anonymous."

  Rudo spread his hands wide, like a performer taking a bow, like the pope blessing the multitudes.

  "Am I supposed to applaud now, Pan?" Gregg asked. "I can't. All this ..." He gestured at Hannah's box. "You can't erase everything with a few well-chosen words." You should know that more than anyone, Greggie.... "This Dr. Faneuil, infecting the jokers with AIDS - "

  "We've made mistakes," Rudo said. "Kenya was a terrible one. I'll admit that freely. We'd manufactured a retrovirus, an infection that would rewrite DNA the way the Takisian virus does. We had hopes that it would reverse the process and bring an infected body back to its original form. We thought we were on the right trail; we were wrong."

  "You experimented on jokers," Gregg said. Why do you sound so composed? Where's the heat? There's no rage, no fury in your voice. Here's someone dancing around to justify a horror. "It's not really my fault." The same thing you used to say .... "You used people as laboratory animals."

  Rudo pressed his lips tightly together. "We experimented on jokers who were dying already, from drought and neglect, from horrible prejudice directed at them from their own people, and from the wild card. We did it in the hope of saving them, and if we'd been successful we would have been heroes. As it was ... the wild card infects no other animal besides us, Gregg. Once the lab tests were done, Dr. Faneuil had no other way to know."

  Under the urging of his inner voice, Gregg started to protest, but Rudo shook his head once more. "Let me bring us to the bottom line. Gregg, my good friend, the Card Sharks had nothing to do with the incident that precipitated all this and brought Hannah Davis into the picture in the first place - the tragic fire at the church. You're a lawyer: I will wager that there is not one shred of hard evidence in your box pointing to that, not one. I've spoken with Ms. Davis and she admitted that to me. Nor have we ever threatened Ms. Davis's life or attempted to silence her, as she claims. For an organization that's supposed to be as huge and powerful as she's contending, it would seem that we're remarkably inefficient at carrying out death threats. Brandon already gave you his answer to the assassination of Robert Kennedy; I'll tell you that we also had nothing to do with the assassination of President Kennedy. We never tried to burn down Jokertown; we never sabotaged the X-11A space program, we weren't part of the witch hunts of the fifties. Gregg, the woman's prime piece of evidence is a talking hat. I'm afraid that Hannah Davis is paranoid and delusional. A very intelligent and a very attractive woman, but unfortunately mentally unbalanced - and that's a diagnosis I can give you from my own field of expertise, as you know."

  Again, the faint, uneasy smile. Rudo seemed to be trying to gauge Gregg in some way; Gregg remained silent. Shout! Get angry! Point out the inconsistencies! the inner voice railed, but Gregg ignored it.

  Fascinating. All the time this was festering inside Pan and I didn't know -

  "Still," Rudo continued, sitting once more, "if the contents of that box were to become public knowledge, we would find it embarrassing and costly. We'd rather that didn't happen. Gregg, you're known as a friend of the jokers. I appreciate that. I admire your dedication, the way you've sacrificed your own ambitions for a higher ideal. I also know that fate hasn't been kind to you. This office - it's expensive enough, but not exactly upscale. You've had to sell property and assets you once owned to stay solvent. You're in your mid-fifties, you have no hope of recovering your political career, and frankly, in a country that elected the Barnett/Zappa ticket, your views are hardly popular anyway. How does this sound? I would like to hire you as a consultant for our research facility. Name your own salary, whatever you need. Write your own job description, as well. Maybe you're right. We've kept our work secret because we wanted to leapfrog over the tangles of legislation and regulations, because we wanted to move as fast as possible, and Gregg, I will tell you that we are closer than we have ever dreamed. A few more puzzle pieces ... Maybe with your help and contacts, we can bring our work to completion - in the mainstream."

  "You're offering me a bribe, Pan."

  "Bribe is an ugly word. I am offering you compensation for decades of effort. I'm offering you a chance to continue your good work. I am offering you a chance at redemption for the unfortunate failures in your life."

/>   Redemption ... "And if I say no? If I tell you that the implications of the Davis material disgust me and I can't in good conscience condone it by silence?" Because you don't believe this artful deceit. You don't believe it at all. You can look at him and see that's he's lying, Greggie....

  Rudo did smile now. He chuckled - a cultured, controlled amusement. His long, delicate fingers steepled under his chin. "Am I supposed to threaten you, to say 'then we will be forced to eliminate you?' Gregg ..."

  The laugh came again, then Rudo's face fell into serious lines as he leaned forward. "If you say no, I walk out of your office believing you have the sense to look at your 'evidence' and realize that you have nothing actionable beyond a few tall tales and the musings of a deranged woman. And if you still go public with this, then - " Rudo smiled again. "Then I contact Brandon and my other lawyers. There, that is a threat worse than death."

  Rudo laughed once more, and Gregg found it hard not to smile in response. Gregg drew Hannah's box to him and glanced at the contents. He's lying.... "Pan, I don't know. This 'research organization' of yours.... You're operating totally outside the legal system. A cure for the wild card virus would be a wonderful thing - a damn miracle, in fact - but this.... She didn't sound deranged to me."

  "They rarely do, at first. Think about it, Gregg. Mull it over. Check out this Davis woman and her conspiracy theory. If you'd like, I can arrange for you to meet with Ms. Monroe - she's still in town. I invite you to ask her version of what happened the other night. Ms. Davis's tale is so compelling because it is an artful blend of truth and delusion, fact and fiction. If you decide that there's anything evil about me, well, do what you need to do."

  "That's exactly my intention."

  "Good." Rudo uncrossed his legs and stood. He strode quickly across the room to the office door and paused, his hand on the brass handle. "Thank you for calling me first, Gregg. I appreciate that. And keep my offer in mind," he said. "Tell me what you need, and we will get it for you."