Wild Cards 13 : Card Sharks

by George R. R. Martin

  "No," Quasiman repeated. "Hannah ..."

  "What is that?" Hannah asked the nurse.

  "It's just a sedative, to help you sleep." She struggled; Quasiman kept his grip and at the same time pulled the syringe from the IV. "Tell him to let go or I'm going to have to call security."

  "It's a lie, Hannah. I saw it," Quasiman said stolidly. His other hand pried her fingers from the syringe; with a cry of pain, the nurse let go. Quasiman glared at the woman, then turned to the bed. "Hannah, we can't stay here any longer."

  "Go! Now!" Quasiman yelling at Croyd, the explosion just behind them ... "All right," Hannah said. She threw the covers aside. Grimacing, she ripped off the tape holding the IV and slid the needle out of the vein. "You can't do that -" the nurse said in alarm as Hannah stuffed a tissue in the crook of her elbow to stop the bleeding and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  The nurse was very nearly right. The room did a lumbering waltz around Hannah and the stitches in her left shoulder screamed. Hannah gasped, then forced herself to stand. She nearly fell.

  The nurse had gone to the wall and slapped a button. A red light flashed above the door and an alarm sounded distantly. Hannah started for the door and realized she wasn't going to make it.

  "Hannah -" Quasiman was talking to her, one hand still holding the syringe. His arms were open wide, as if he wanted to embrace her. "Come here."

  "No ..." Hannah took another step toward the door. The nurse was yelling, and she heard running footsteps from outside.

  "Hannah!"

  She looked at him. She was sobbing now, in hurt and panic and fright. "I never let you get near me," she said.

  He simply held his arms wide. Someone appeared at the door and Hannah threw herself toward Quasiman. His arms closed around her. He smelled like anyone else, his skin felt like anyone's skin, and his embrace was strong yet gentle, like a lover's.

  "Now, Hannah," he said. Hannah hugged the joker tightly, one-armed.

  And they were gone.

  ***

  Dr. Finn came into the bedroom of Father Squid's apartment. The centaur looked as if he'd had a hard night at the clinic. "Insulin," he said Without preamble. "A nice heavy dose of it."

  "What would have happened?" Hannah asked him.

  "You'd have drifted into insulin shock. Considering that you've been shot, the resident's best bet probably would have been that the shock was due to some continuing internal blood loss they'd missed. Because of the shock and supposed loss of blood, the book response would have been to give you fluids - so the first thing they'd've done is crank your IV wide open, giving you even more insulin."

  "And?"

  "Convulsions. Then death." Dr. Finn sniffed. "In a busy hospital, they might never have figured it out, unless someone knew what to look for."

  Hannah took a deep breath. She looked at Quasiman, sitting next to the bed. She found his hand, squeezed it. "Thank you again," she said.

  "I should report this." Dr. Finns tail lashed. "It makes me sick."

  Hannah shook her head. "You can't," she told him. "We don't have any evidence. None. Anyone in the hospital could put the insulin in a syringe. For all we know, the nurse may have been entirely innocent - someone else could have prepared the syringe and told her to give it to me ..."

  "Then what can we do?"

  "Let me work. Let me figure this out. And ..."

  "Yes?"

  "Could you leave us alone for a minute?"

  Dr. Finn glanced at Quasiman. Shrugged. "Sure." With a graceful turn of his palomino body, Dr. Finn left the room. Hannah looked at Quasiman. "What's my name?" she asked.

  "Hannah. I remember."

  "I haven't been very nice to you. Do you remember that, too?"

  "That wasn't important. I didn't write those parts down, and I never told Father."

  "Quasi -" She stopped, her voice breaking. "Come here a second. Yes, that's it. Now, bend down ..."

  She grasped his head with her good arm. Kissed him. His lips were warm and soft, and they yielded slowly. "Why?" Quasiman asked when she released him. He remained stooped over her bed, close to her.

  "I don't really know," she answered truthfully. "Just tell me that you'll remember it, okay?" She smiled at him, stroked his cheek. "I don't care if you forget the rest."

  "I'll try," he said earnestly. "I'll try very hard."

  ***

  Brandon van Renssaeler ... In fact, Brandon's responsible for inviting me....

  Van Renssaeler had an interesting history, Hannah discovered, almost as interesting as his father's. In the late sixties and early seventies, a rising young lawyer in a powerful firm, he'd also performed gratis work for the UN and WHO. Now established and well-respected, blessed with his family's wealth, with looks and with a brilliant legal mind, Brandon moved in high circles. Among his friends and companions were senators and representatives, corporate executives, and presidential advisors. He separated from his first wife in the late sixties, though they never officially divorced. He and his current paramour attended all the right functions and appeared regularly in the Society pages of the Times. They looked to be very happy.

  Brandon van Renssaeler's marriage had not been so pleasant.

  And it seemed his ex-wife lived in Jokertown.

  ***

  "It's hot, Hannah," Quasiman said.

  "Like Saigon, huh?"

  "Have I been there?"

  Hannah sighed. "Yes." The side parlor of the brownstone was at least 90° inside, though the foyer had been cool enough. The person who escorted them in - an older man who looked perfectly normal - had begun sweating. "She needs the heat," he said and smiled. "You'll see. She's waiting for you in the rear room."

  The man left them. The heat was quickly transforming Hannah's bangs into matted, dripping ringlets. Hannah had Worn a coat against the early October chill; she took it off and loosened the first button on her blouse with her good hand. It didn't do much good; under the sling that held her left arm, her blouse was already soaked. Her pantyhose were sticking to her uncomfortably. "Let's go in," she said to Quasiman. He didn't answer. His legs were missing below the knee. Hannah touched his arm softly, squeezing. "Wait for me," she told him, even though she knew he couldn't hear, then called out loudly "Hello? Mrs. van Renssaeler?"

  "Come on in, my dear. Don't be shy." The voice sounded like that of a mature woman - a soft, pleasant alto.

  Hannah followed the sound of the voice into the back room.

  The room was dominated by a thick oaken branch, as if a tree had jabbed one of its lower limbs into the house from outside. The only other furniture in the room was a small couch with a coffee table on which sat a plate with pastries and a sterling tea service with a cup and saucer set alongside it. The couch was obviously a concession for visitors. Hannah knew that the woman in the room could never use it.

  The joker's bald head and upper body was that of a human melded with a cobra. The skin was covered with bright, multi-colored scales, and the folds of a fleshy hood hung on either side of her neck. The arms were human enough in appearance, but scaled like the rest of the body. Even the naked breasts were scaled, the nipples still faintly present as patches of darker color. Below the breasts, she was entirely serpent; the long, thick body coiled around the oaken branch. Hannah estimated that, stretched out, the woman might be fifteen feet long or more.

  The head bobbed, swaying back and forth. The eyes were round like a human's and lidded, but with the vertical golden irises of a snake; from her scaled woman's lips, a long forked tongue darted quickly out and back. The hood swelled briefly, then subsided. "Aah," she said. "There you are. My goodness, what happened? Your poor arm, and the scratches on your lovely face."

  "I'm much better than I was a few days ago," Hannah answered.

  "I'm happy to hear that. Father Squid told me that you'd been injured helping find the awful person who burned down the church. Come in. Please, don't let my appearance alarm you, my dear girl, and call me Lamia - Mrs.
van Renssaeler is too long and tiresome, and not really true anymore, after all. Sit down, sit down. The scones are cranberry; I had them delivered from the corner bakery this morning and they've assured me that they're absolutely delicious. Normally, I would go myself and pick them out, but I'm afraid that I become rather torpid in the cold. I'd fall asleep halfway there. Ahh, well ... I'll be most upset if you don't try one. The tea's Earl Grey - do you use cream? Some of us Americans don't, I know, but there's cream next to the service."

  The woman smiled, and the tongue slithered in and out again. "Thank you," Hannah said. "This is, ummm, just fine." Under Lamia's intent gaze, Hannah one-handedly poured tea into the cup and took a scone. She took a polite bite and set it down on the linen napkin folded on the table. "Your baker was right," Hannah said. "They're delicious."

  Lamia seemed pleased. Her smile went wider as Hannah took a sip of the tea. "Now then, what can I help you with? Father Squid asked that I tell you anything I know, but you were rather vague over the phone. I understand this has something to do with Brandon?"

  Hannah set the cup down; the china rang delicately. Expensively. "I'm not entirely sure, Mrs - ... Lamia. Maybe. Does the name Card Sharks mean anything to you?"

  It did. Hannah could see it in the way the woman's head drew back, the sudden brilliant color that washed through the scales of her chest, and the spreading of the cobra-like hood. Hannah pressed the advantage. "It's possible that an organization by that name was responsible for the fire. They may also be responsible for many more acts of violence against wild card victims." Lamia had regained control of her body. The color faded, the hood collapsed around her neck. "The name van Renssaeler has come up several times in the stories I've heard," Hannah continued. "And I wondered -"

  The end of Larnia's tail lashed. "- whether Brandon was part of it. I suppose his dislike of jokers is fairly well documented. May I ask you something? Will you be discreet if I tell you what I know? If they knew I were telling what I know, I'm afraid that they'd do something. I'm not so worried for myself, you understand, as for my daughter. They might harm her to harm me, and I couldn't bear that. I'd rather take this secret to my grave, as terrible a burden as it has been to me these twenty-five years."

  "I don't know what I can do with anything you tell me yet," Hannah said. "But if you don't tell, these Card Sharks will continue to do what they've been doing. They'll kill and hurt and destroy, if not your daughter, then someone else's." Hannah shifted on the couch, and the healing wound pulled. She grimaced.

  "Oh, look at you," Lamia said. "And listen to me. You've already put yourself in danger, haven't you? And you didn't need to. You look beautiful and normal; you're safe from them. Clara's safe enough, too; she's been safe since I left when she was five. I ..." The tongue darted: in and out. The scales glittered as she rearranged her long body on the branch. "I've been using Clara as an excuse for a long time. This is rather like lancing a boil, isn't it? The infection can't heal while it's buried beneath the surface. Everything has to be exposed to light and air to clean away the toxins. My God, the lives that were lost in poor Father Squid's church - I weep for those poor souls! If only I'd spoken sooner...."

  Her voice was so pained that Hannah leaned forward and shook her head. "No. You couldn't have known about that. Even if you had, who would you have told that would have believed you?"

  Lamia smiled at her sadly. "You're so kind, my dear. And you're right; I mustn't blame myself. This guilt I've carried, it's like a rock in my gullet or a meal that won't digest."

  "Guilt because you didn't tell anyone about the Card Sharks?"

  Lamia's head moved slowly back and forth. "No. Not that. You don't have any children, do you? When you do, you'll understand. There are joys to children that only a parent - a mother - can know. You love them sometimes more than you love yourself. And because of that, there are pains...."

  Lamia's body wriggled, the muscles rippling in a wave down the length of her body as she moved closer to Hannah. The joker sighed, the hiss of a serpent. "Let's get on with this, then...."

  The Lamia's Tale

  by Laura J. Mixon

  My true name is Joan van Renssaeler, nee Moresworth, of the Philadelphia Moresworths. I was a hot number back then, though you wouldn't know it to look at me now. Here, hand me the large book on the mantle, the leather-bound one. It's my scrap book.

  These pictures certainly take me back. I haven't thought about Brand in years. A blessing, that. Our marriage wasn't a good one. But some of the old memories can still make me smile.

  Now, there, that's a shot of me. This was taken in late May of 1968, at a party the firm threw for Brand when he was promoted to associate at Douglas, Mannerly, & Farsi.

  No, no - I'm the willowy blonde with the sulky expression and the Twiggy haircut. Look all those sequins and feathers! What we used to wear! I shudder to think how much I loved that ghastly white lipstick. But it was positively The Thing back then.

  Funny how the things we value change, isn't it, my dear? I look back and all those things I had, the money, the fame, the social connections, they brought me such pleasure then but they mean nothing to me now. Even my looks, my young woman's body, which I had so little chance to enjoy before the virus took it from me - I was only twenty-three when this happened, you know - even for that I feel little more than a lingering nostalgia. The only treasure that has lasted is my Clara.

  My dear Clara. How I loved to dress her in lace and ribbons and tiny patent leather shoes. I took her everywhere.

  I have news of her now and then. She's brilliant, just like her father. I suppose you could say she inherited my looks and his brains. At least, my pre-viral looks.

  Here. Here is a photo of Clara when she was four, and these are of her at college. I hired a private investigator to take some pictures of her while she was an undergraduate at Rutgers back in the early eighties. Isn't she lovely, with those long legs? She resembles me a good deal; she has the same delicate facial features. And of course she looks rather like her grandmother Blythe, God rest her soul.

  But I'm getting off track. Let me tell you about the doctor's appointment, where it all started.

  ***

  Dr. Emil Isaacs was a leading obstetrician, a diplomat of some board of obstetricians, or some such. Dozens of certifications and awards hung on the wood panelling behind his desk. He was a rather short man, as I recall. Nervous nature.

  Dr. Isaacs had always been so kind to me, so gentle and wise, that I couldn't imagine going to anyone else. Most people weren't patient with me back then, with my sharp tongue and ill tempers, so I valued the few who were. I didn't even mind - had long since forgotten - that he was a Jew.

  You look shocked at that. I can understand that; attitudes are different now. Including mine. But, well, I'm determined not to distort this story to save face. Self-deceit is a terrible trap. I should know.

  And there is no getting around the unfortunate truth. Jews, blacks, Catholics, Hispanics, Orientals, wild card victims, the poor - I feared and despised them all. Anyone who wasn't in my little social circle, frankly, and even they weren't always spared.

  Weakness enraged me, you see. It awakened a need in me to strike out. Perhaps I thought I had to keep others down so they couldn't hurt me. I don't know. Only Clara was safe from the predator inside me. And to a lesser degree, such serene, gentle people as Dr. Isaacs.

  But the most important thing was, he had slender hands. Between us ladies, my dear, you know how important slender hands are.

  "You must have some important news for me," I said.

  He sighed and looked reluctant. "I know how much you wanted another baby, Mrs. van Renssaeler. But I'm afraid your test came back negative."

  I looked from him to Clara to a chart with my name on it which lay open on his big rosewood desk.

  "I'm not pregnant?" I asked. He shook his head.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I'd been so sure.

  Clara said, "Don't cry, Maman. It'll be all
right."

  I dried my eyes and gave her a big hug; she Wrapped her arms about my neck.

  "Sweet girl. We'll keep trying. You'll have a little brother soon. Or maybe a little sister."

  Clara gave me a wet kiss and told me she loved me. Children give their love so freely. It was so long ago; it's remarkable that I'm tearing up about it now, isn't it?

  Where was I? Oh, Dr. Isaacs. When I looked back up at him the pitying expression on his face infuriated me. I thought he pitied me my failure to be pregnant. Gathering up my handbag and kerchief, I stood.

  "Well. I certainly don't understand why you felt the need for an appointment to tell me that. You could have informed me over the phone."

  The doctor grimaced and ran a hand over his face. He glanced at Clara. "Please sit down. That wasn't the only reason I asked you to come in. I need to discuss your pregnancy screening tests with you."

  His tone alarmed me; I sat. "What? Tell me. Have I got cancer? A venereal disease? The wild card? What?"

  Something in his expression told me I'd guessed the truth. The world went strange and flat. I pressed my kerchief to my lips. Clara's hand was on my arm; her worried little face looked up Wide-eyed at me, asking me what was wrong.

  "Tell me which."

  "Perhaps we should have Nurse Clifford take Clara outside," he said.

  ***

  Once we were alone, he told me what you must have already guessed, that it was the wild card.

  "It's a standard test for pregnant women. I'm sorry."

  "Whatever are you apologizing for?" I had my composure back by then. "Obviously you've confused my blood sample with someone else's. I don t associate with those sorts of people. I go out of my way to avoid jokers. There's no way I could have been exposed."

  Unless, it occurred to me, Brandon had been visiting houses of ill repute, or joker drug dens, or had a secret life as a "weekend hippie." Weekend hippies looked and acted normal during the week but then put on wigs and bellbottoms and love beads and peace signs at night or on the weekends, grew sideburns and read bad poetry to each other and smoked marijuana cigarettes till their brains leaked out their ears.