Jokers Wild wc-3

by George R. R. Martin

  Chrysalis nodded. "A fair trade. Shall we go another round?"

  "You first," Brennan said.

  "By sheerest coincidence I got another call this morning. From a man named Gruber. He's a broker-pawn, rather than stock, I'm afraid. He was concerned about some stockbooks full of stamps an ace tried to sell him this morning. Called, apparently, Wraith. Works as a thief. She's just a girl, and she's quite a bit over her head in this. Anyone who found those books would be in a position of enormous power."

  "Or end up dead," Brennan said.

  "Pray go on," Chrysalis said. "I'm all ears."

  "You've probably guessed the rest," Brennan said. "Maybe you don't want to mention the name. It's a dangerous name. Therefore very valuable."

  "Say it," Chrysalis said.-

  "Kien," Brennan said. "I'm convinced Loophole is working for Kien. Something must have happened, something big. If Loophole is that desperate for the book it must be something of Kien's, something really important. Something damaging. And if the Shadow Fist Society is Kien, they could be everywhere." He stood up. "This is where we part ways, my friend."

  Fortunato took his hand. "Thanks. If I find out anything about those books I'll let you know."

  "Good luck," Brennan said. By the time he hit the front door he was running.

  Chrysalis leaned across the table. "This 'Demise,' is he valuable to you, then?"

  "If he can take me to the Astronomer, he is."

  "Why can't you use your powers to find this Astronomer for yourself?"

  "They're no good against him. He's got me jammed, like they used to jam radar with tinfoil. I couldn't even see him if he was standing right over there." He pointed and Chrysalis, her eyes suddenly afraid, turned slowly to follow his finger. "No," she said. "No one there."

  Fortunato was no longer looking at her. He was building up the image of a tall, grotesquely thin man with brown hair and a ravaged face. If Demise was close enough, within a few blocks, Fortunato could find him just by concentrating.

  He opened his eyes.

  "Canal Street," he said. "The subway."

  Chapter Five

  10:00 a.m.

  By the time he got into the crooked, winding streets of the West Village, Jack had started to wonder whether he should cross over toward the East Side and Jokertown or continue down toward what was clearly the center of action in the city today, Jetboy's Tomb.

  At least he was in more familiar territory now. Spotting a familiar facade on Greenwich, he fumbled in his breast pocket and found the creased color snapshot Elouette had sent him the previous Christmas. Obviously Cordelia had blossomed, but the likeness would suffice.

  The bar was called the Young Man's Fancy. It was a sort of social were-creature. From its opening first thing in the morning, it was a solid blue-collar, working-class joint. Then, about six in the evening, it underwent a shift switch and utter sea change. All night, Young Man's Fancy was a gay bar. Whatever its guise, the Fancy was one of the oldest businesses in the Village.

  Jack took the three steps in one and swung open the door. It was dark inside, and his eyes took their time adjusting. He crossed the width of the rectangular room, hearing peanut shells crunch under his size-elevens.

  The bartender looked up from polishing a tray of Bud glasses. "Help you?"

  "Maybe you were looking out the window this morning," said Jack. He held up the photograph. "You see her?"

  "You a cop?"

  Jack shook his head.

  "Didn't think so." The bartender scrutinized the picture. "Mighty pretty girl. Your woman?"

  Jack shook his head again. "Niece."

  "Right," said the bartender. He scrutinized Jack more closely. "Ain't I seen you in here about six?"

  "Probably," said Jack. "I come here. The girl in the picture-have you seen her this morning?"

  The bartender squinted thoughtfully. "Nope." He looked appraisingly at Jack. "Reckon she really is your niece, huh? Lost, strayed, or stolen?"

  "Stolen." Jack scribbled a number on a Hamms napkin. Bagabond had given him Rosemary's direct office line. "Do me a favor, okay? You see her, whether she's alone or with someone else, leave a message here." He headed for the door. "Appreciate it," he said back over his shoulder.

  "Gotcha," said the bartender. "Day or night, anything for a customer."

  She had the cabbie drop her at Freakers. The club was jumping even at 10:20 in the morning, and the doorman who handed her out of the cab looked as if he were already two or three sheets to the wind. His soft white fur was rumpled, and his red eyes were both bleary and bright at the same time. He indicated the door to the club, but Roulette merely shook her head, and headed off toward the Crystal Palace.

  And nearly jumped out of her skin when the double doors crashed open, and a long line of conga-dancing jokers came undulating into the street from between the neon thighs of the six-breasted stripper that adorned and formed the club's door. Leading the line was a beautiful-faced woman who was having no trouble with the sinuous curves of the dance, since from the neck down she had the body of a iridescent snake. Her tail, which ended in an incongruous tuft of feathers, was uplifted, and the joker immediately behind her in the line had a firm grip on the tip.

  He wasn't wearing a mask, but he was one of the few. The rest of the swaying, yelling, shouting crowd wore a variety of dominos from elaborate feathered, jeweled, and sequined cre ations to hideous visages that were worse than the deformities they hid-perhaps.

  At the tail end of the line clung a few nats looking both excited and self-conscious, and a touch belligerent, as if daring the jokers who inhabited the Bowery-and provided a wealth of skin-crawling, spine-tingling entertainment for the tourists-to object.

  For a moment Roulette hated the thrill seekers with their bland, normal faces and smug security. I hope it is catching, came the vicious thought. God damn you all. But the thought was really meant for Josiah. Josiah, who had sworn to love and care for her, and instead had abandoned her when she most needed him. Apparently white liberal guilt wasn't enough to deal with a woman who had the wild card virus. Might be catching. And she could imagine her former mother-in-law seated in prissy splendor at her Newport mansion sipping tea and discussing how no matter how much you worked with one of those "black" girls it so often went to naught. Many times were simply too badly warped and scarred both mentally physically by the white man's oppression to enter white society. Wasn't it a shame. Sigh.

  But she probably burnt the sheets and had every piece of furniture in the house re-covered after Josiah divorced me. Sanctimonious, hypocritical bitch!

  Roulette realized that she had been walking blindly, shouldering past the throngs that filled the streets of Jokertown. The sound of hammers and staple guns echoed in the already sultry morning air, shouts of greeting and insult from the jokers busy setting up booths for the day-long party, the smell of cooking (good and bad) wafting over the exhaust-laden air. Overhead a small private plane droned by pulling a long banner that read JOKERS INTO ACES. RESULTS GUARANTEED.

  CALL 555-9448.

  On another corner the Church of Jesus Christ joker had a booth already up and running, handing out literature to anyone who could be stopped. Their results were guaranteed too, but in the afterlife. Beset on all sides, thought Roulette, charlatans for the here and the hereafter. Hopeless hope. Well, my people can tell you all about that, and it never gets any easier until there's some new and even more unpopular minority to take your place. And I can't conceive of a more unpopular and hideous minority than the jokers ever arising, you poor bastards.

  There was a barricade across Henry Street. It wasn't legal, but Chrysalis was a major figure in Jokertown, and the area precinct had reason to be grateful to the owner of the Crystal Palace. More than one tough case had been solved because of her intervention, so the chief wasn't about to raise a stink over a few traffic snarls once a year. Chrysalis also had control of street decorations, so Henry Street projected an image of tasteful pride rather th
an the garish shock value that held sway on other streets. Roulette slipped past the barricade, and started down the street. To her right, and for about half the length of the block, there was an empty lot filled with piles of rubble, a reminder of the Jokertown riot back in '76. Waisthigh weeds and a few hardy saplings thrust up through the brick and plaster mounds. Several of the piles had dark openings like yawning little mouths, and she wondered if the place had become a haven for animals. She couldn't picture the fastidious Chrysalis allowing a rat warren to grow up next door to her bar. As she watched, there was a gleam from deep in the hole that soon resolved itself into a pair of bright eyes surrounded by hair. But it wasn't the shy muzzle of an animal that peered from the burrow. It was human-sort of-

  With a gasp Roulette ducked her head and hurried on, passing Arachne, whose eight slender legs caught at the line of silk extruding from her bulbous body and wove it swiftly into one of her famous spider-silk shawls. Her daughter was busy in their booth hanging out an array of delicately dyed scarves and shawls. Most nats would never have purchased one of the trembling, almost transparent scraps of fabric if they'd seen it being created, but Arachne made a good living supplying the scarves to Saks and Neiman-Marcus. Roulette owned one, a delicate peach-colored creation that looked like she had thrown a sunset over her dark shoulders. If she had known Arachne was going to be on Henry Street she would have worn it to show the woman that she at least did not mind the source, and that she honored the artistry.

  There was a low rumbling that gained in speed and intensity, and ended with a crashing boom as Elmo, the Palace's resident bouncer, rolled another metal keg of beer out the front door and into the street where it joined its brethren like a rotund cue slamming into a setup of stumpy balls. The bouncer, who looked rather like a beer keg himself, flexed his shoulders in satisfaction, and headed back for another one.

  Kids darted up and down the pavement chasing a battered soccer ball while at the far end of the block an impromptu baseball game had begun. Ghetto blasters throbbed out a cacophony of conflicting music: soul, rock, country, classical. Children cried and mothers called, but this madness had a sense of serenity and security; a feeling of family. Nowhere did she sense that desperate and nerve-stretching drive to have fun that had gripped the dancing throng outside Freakers. These people, as hideous as many of them were, were at peace with themselves.

  Roulette tore her eyes from the gang of playing urchins, and forced herself to scan the crowd for a distinctive, tiny, redheaded figure. Thirty minutes ago she had stopped at the jokertown clinic only to be told by Tachyon's very cool, very elegant, very beautiful, and very disapproving chief of surgery that the good doctor was not present, but could no doubt be found making house calls at any one of a number of bars. Roulette had tried Ernie's and Wally's and the Funhouse with no luck, and now the Crystal Palace…

  And she found him.

  Seated at a small table among many other small tables that had been squeezed onto the sidewalk out front of the Palace. Brandy snifter held lightly between long, slender fingers, glass tilting softly so the amber liquid flowed gracefully about the sides. Another glass figure standing at his left shoulder, but this one filled with the bone and viscera that form a human being, long nails painted an iridescent pink, a dusting of silverblue glitter across one unseen cheek. Chrysalis herself.

  Roulette had reached the moment. She hadn't thought beyond simply finding the Takisian, but now having found him what did she do? Faint? Sprain an ankle? She knew-as did most of the world-of the alien's fascination with beautiful women, but there were lots of beautiful women in New York, and what if he'd already found a companion for the day? And if he hadn't, how could she insure that he picked her? Beauty she had, but not the skills that usually accompanied it. She had never mastered the art of flirting. And in that moment she felt a surge of relief. She would walk past; if he noticed… well, so be it. He was meant to meet his fate. If not… She tried not to think of the wizened little man lurking in his damp lair.

  She focused her eyes on the barricade, and began to count her steps, noting how the crepe-rubber soles of her shoes seemed to spring away from the concrete, and the way her slacks whispered against her ankles, and the brush of her braided hair against-

  "I think you're a fool." Chrysalis bit off the words in her clipped British way. "Every year you start out here, having your first brandy of the day, remain sober long enough to get through your speech, begin soaking up beer at the game, maintain your liquid diet right through Hiram's dinner, and then to put a perfect cap on the day, you end up back here, blind drunk, guilty, and miserable. Why don't you take my advice and-"

  "And every year you give me the same advice," Tachyon said in lilting counterpoint.

  "Go to Miami," they concluded in chorus.

  Tachyon's smile faded. "How could I leave? This dreadful news about Howler, and not a clue as to his murderer."

  "And you're not a cop. Leave it to the professionals." A stubborn shake of his head. "Tachy, its not necessary for you to take part in this annual celebration of the grotesque. Jokertown knows you care. We won't hate you for being absent for one out of three hundred and sixty-five days."

  "But not this day. I have to be here." His throat worked at gulping down another large swallow of the brandy. "It's my penance." His voice husky, perhaps, from the effects of the brandy.

  "You're a fool," Chrysalis said again softly, and gave his shoulder a hard squeeze with one transparent hand. Roulette, staring in fascination at the white finger bones against the deep ruby material of Tachyon's coat, had a dislocating image of Death capering beside the man. Slowly she brought her hand up before her face, and studied it. The way the tendons shifted beneath the cafe au lait skin, the halfmoons of pale white beneath the buffed nails, the tiny scar on the index finger where she had cut herself during a cooking lesson when she was only six. Then looked back to Chrysalis now disappearing through the door of the Palace, and thought, I should look like her, I'm Death.

  Cool touch against the bruised skin of her face. An anchor. She gasped, and her eyes flew open and she looked down into the concerned pale lilac eyes of the Takisian.

  "Madam, are you all right? You looked like you were about to faint."

  "Yes… no… I'm fine," she babbled.

  The strength of the arm about her waist was at odds with his delicate features. "Here, sit down."

  The metal edge of the chair caught at the back of her knees, and she sprawled, and realized how close she had been to fainting. The brandy snifter was pressed into her hands. "No."

  "It's an accepted if somewhat old-fashioned remedy for faintness."

  Her wits were returning, and she straightened in the chair. "And I'm old-fashioned enough to consider it far too early in the day for brandy."

  She watched in astonishment as a wave of red washed across his thin face, and the red lashes lowered to hide the chagrin in those purple eyes. Tachyon hurriedly removed the glass, and set it well away from both of them as if abjuring the alcohol.

  "You're right. Chrysalis is right. It's far too early in the day for me to be imbibing. What would you like?"

  "Some fruit juice. I… I just realized I haven't had anything but coffee today."

  "Well, that clearly won't do, and can be easily rectified. A moment please." He bounded from his chair and hurried into the Palace.

  And Roulette rested her head on a hand, and tried to readjust her thinking. Or perhaps truly thought for the first time. The man who had ruined her life had been a hazy out line. For one thing she hadn't expected hire to be quite so tiny, or to have a smile of such sweetness, or a quaint courtesy that seemed more appropriate to an eighteenth-century drawing room.

  And Hitler loved children and small animals, she reminded herself. Her eyes settled on one of the ballplayers, a small boy whose bloated body rested on narrow webbed feet, and whose flipper arms flapped in excitement as the ball was pitched. The crime is too monstrous, and his death will ease not only my suffe
ring.

  He was back, depositing a glass of orange juice before her. He watched while she sipped, tipped back in the chair, booted feet propped on the table. He seemed comfortable with the silence which was not a thing she was accustomed to in men. Most seemed to need a constant babble from the women around them as if in reassurance of their importance. "Better?"

  "M uch. "

  The front legs of the chair crashed down. "Since introductions would now seem in order… I'm Dr. Tachyon."

  "Roulette Brown-Roxbury."

  "Roulette," he repeated, giving it its French pronunciation. "Unusual name."

  She twirled the glass, leaving a circle of condensation on the table. "There's a story behind it." She glanced over, and found his eyes resting with unsettling interest on her face. "My mother was allergic to most birth control devices, so my parents settled for the rhythm method. Dad said it was like playing Russian roulette, and when the inevitable happened they decided to call me Roulette."

  "Charming. Names should say something, about the person, or about their background. They're like stories that get added to with each successive generation. But I've said something to offend you."

  Roulette forced her features back into an expression of calm. "No, not at all."

  She returned to her contemplation of the condensation ring, and silence settled softly over them, making the cries of the children and the pounding of hammers all the louder. "Doctor.. "

  "Madam."

  They both began together, and fell back into their chairs embarrassed. "Please." She gestured toward him. "Go ahead."

  "I was wondering what brought you into Jokertown on this day. You lack the guilty curiosity or the morbid hunger that motivates most normals."

  "I've come to journey a bit farther in despair," she heard herself say, and that darker part of her soul cursed her for a fool. What man would want to spend the day with a morbid and lachrymose woman?

  His hand closed over hers, tightening about the fingers, and pain seemed to flow between them. "Then, let us journey together. If you would like," he added quickly as if fearful to offend. "This day is… difficult… for me. It would be easier in your company."