Jokers Wild wc-3

by George R. R. Martin

  She flung herself to the piano, seating herself on the cushioned bench. A violin, its smooth golden curves softly reflecting back the light from a brace of track lights, lay on the piano. And for the first time she found some disorder in this perfect room. A jumble of scores and music sheets marched across the stand. Roulette frowned and leaned in, studying the notation on one of the hand-scored pieces. The notes seemed to be in the familiar positions, but there were odd notations in the clefs. The piano cover fell back with a thud, and she sightread through the music.

  She was very aware when Tachyon came up behind her, for the sense of tingling magnetism increased, and the delicate scent he favored washed over her. Ice tinkled in the glass as he attempted to clap.

  "Bravo, you are quite accomplished."

  "I should be, my mother's a music teacher."

  "Where?"

  "Philadelphia public school system."

  There was a slight pause, then the Takisian asked, "What did you think?"

  "Very Mozartian."

  A tiny line appeared between Tachyon's arching brows, and he closed his eves as if in pain. "What a blow"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "No artist likes to be told they are derivative."

  "Oh, I'm sorry-"

  He held up a small hand. Grinned. "Even when they know it's true."

  She turned back, and shuffled the sheets, and went on to the second page. "Derivative or not, it's pretty."

  "Thank you, I'm glad my small effort pleased you, but let us play a true master. I so rarely find someone I can-" he paused, and shot her a glance alight with mischief "-jam with."

  He flipped quickly through the piles of music, and pulled out Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano in F, the so-called Spring sonata.

  She watched, held by the way his small, elegant hands caressed the polished surface of the violin, tightening a string here, plucking a single quivering note from another. "Which do you prefer?" she asked, indicating the piano and the violin. "I can't choose. I am partial to this." Another stroke to the wood of the violin. "For it kept me on the edge of the gutter rather than in it for a number of years."

  "Pardon?"

  "Old history. Shall we tune?"

  The A hung trembling in the room matched by a floating tone from the violin.

  "Good God, what is that? A Stradivarius?"

  "Don't I wish. No, it's a Nagyvary."

  "Oh, that chemist in Texas who thinks he discovered the secret of the Cremona school."

  The violin dropped from his chin, and he smiled down at her. "What a delight you are. Is there nothing on which you're not informed?"

  "I daresay a thousand things," she replied dryly.

  His lips pressed against the corner of her mouth, drifted down her neck, the breath puffing gently and warmly across her skin.

  "Shall we play?" And she noticed with embarrassment and anger the catch in her voice.

  They began in perfect unison, the violin singing the first held note then gliding into the elegant ornamentation. She echoed the phrase, and time ceased and reality withdrew.

  Twenty minutes of perfect harmony and graceful genius. Twenty minutes without word or thought or worry. A perfect moment. Tachyon stood transported; eyes closed, lashes brushing at his high cheekbones, metallic red hair curling across the violin, joy on his narrow face.

  Roulette laid her hands in her lap, stared down at the keys while Tachyon, also remaining silent, placed the violin in its case. Moments later his hands touched her shoulders, resting like nervous birds, as though frightened to remain.

  "Roulette, you make me feel… well, something that I haven't felt for many, many years. I'm very glad you came walking down Henry Street today. Perhaps there was even a reason for it."

  She watched with rather distant interest as her fingers tightened about each other, knuckles whitening with strain. "You're looking for significance again."

  " I thought you only warned me against looking for comfort. "

  "Well, add significance to it." She lifted a corner of the numbing blanket with which she had covered her emotions, and found panic throbbing in time to her rushing heartbeats.

  She probed at her soul, and found a bleeding wound. Fear, hate, guilt, regret, hopelessness.

  She blamed him.

  "Let's go to bed." And she was startled by the flatness of the words when they masked so much anguish.

  It would have been quicker to travel crosstown underground. Jack had clattered down the steps at the West 4th Street station. One level, two levels, three. Few people other than maintenance workers went down to the fourth level. He went through an anonymous steel door and entered an eastwest maintenance tunnel. In their little cages, the dim safety bulbs shed a brittle yellow glow, casting islands of illumination along the passageway. Jack's shoes scuffed in dirt.

  It was exhilarating to be able to stride along without having to account for endless numbers of slower pedestrians getting in his way. Jack checked his watch, and then looked at it again, unbelieving. It was only a little after two. It seemed as if he'd been searching the city for Cordelia for davs. More to the point, he'd completely lost track of time. He wondered if maybe he was squandering his time now. Maybe he should be calling Rosemary, checking with Bagabond, phoning the police, anything… He should have been watching instead of thinking.

  When he swung around a dogleg in the passage and slammed into someone coming the other way at a dead run, he had, at first, only the briefest impression of a dark figure. He glimpsed one huge eye centered in the other's face, a monocle glittering in the dim light-

  "Son of a bitch!" said the other person, raising one hand toward Jack. Red flame erupted from the fist, a rolling wave of painful sound crashed against Jack's ears, and he heard something buzz past his head, sprnging against the concrete wall of the corridor. Cement chips sprayed the side of his face. There was no pain yet.

  "Hey!" Jack yelled. He dropped to the floor of the tunnel and the epinephrines took over. Now it was all instinctual. All the pent tension of the long day, the frustration of his search, his intermittent desire to kill something, flashed into critical mass. Also he was hungry. Very hungry.

  "Bastard. Get away from me! You die!" The dark figure drew down with the pistol. Another shot. Jack saw the sparks where the bullet hit a steel stanchion.

  "What the hell you doin'?" Jack cried. "Aaaaaahhh!" said the reptile brain, flooded with welcomed hormones. Jack felt his body elongate, the vestigial tail extending and swelling, clothing ripping, his snout springing forth before his eyes. The rows of teeth sprang up faster than anything sowed by Cadmus.

  His claws scrabbled for purchase on the hardpacked earthen floor. He bissed with anticipation.

  Hungry; he thought. There was anger, too. But mostly hunger.

  The man with the pistol backed into the corner of the dogleg. He held something shiny in his other hand. He stared unbelievingly at the alligator. "Get the fuck away!"

  Jaws scissoring open wide, the alligator lunged forward. Brief thunder rolled as the pistol flashed and a bullet nicked the creature's armored hide above one front leg. The jaws slammed closed with incredible force as the man screamed and thrust his hands out in a hopeless attempt to fend off the beast. The pistol skittered away, lost in the darkness. The plasticwrapped package went into the alligator's mouth. Along with the hand that held it. Along with part of an arm, the man's shoulder, and his face. His bubbling screams stopped in a matter of seconds.

  Glass shattered as the monocle spun away and smashed against the tunnel wall.

  The alligator wrenched his jaws away from the remains of the corpse. There was no chewing. The food went down his gullet where the powerful enzymes would take care of assuaging his hunger. He opened his jaws again to roar a challenge. No one and nothing answered him. The alligator swung his head heavily from one side of the corridor to the other. On some deep level, he remembered that food was not his only priority this day.

  He started forward into t
he darkness. There was something he had to do.

  "A cab?" Water Lily said. "I thought we were in a hurry."

  "It'll get the job done," Fortunato said. "We don't want any grandstand moves. Not today."

  The cab pulled over and they got in. "Empire State Building," Fortunato told the driver. He leaned back in the seat. "We don't need to make targets of ourselves."

  "It's the Astronomer; isn't it?"

  "He just killed Kid Dinosaur. Tore him to pieces. He would have killed Demise, but Demise was tougher than anybody knew. You probably heard about the Howler. So it's…"

  He broke it off. Jane had stopped listening somewhere in the middle. "Kid Dinosaur?" she said.

  Fortunato nodded.

  "Jesus." She stared straight ahead. Water-not tearsbeaded up on her cheeks. Fortunato couldn't tell if she was going to cry for real or start ripping up the cab's upholstery.

  Finally she said, "All right." The words came out small and strangled. She tried again. "All right. Count me in. Where do we start?"

  This isn't working, Fortunato thought. She's not going to go weak and helpless on you. She's gotten too tough for that. What do you do when they don't want your protection?

  "Um," he said. "How about a bodyguard assignment?"

  "What, are you serious? Guarding who?"

  "I was thinking of Hiram Worchester."

  "Oh. That fat guy?"

  "He identified the Astronomer's coins. He could be in danger too."

  "Oh, all right," she said. "For now."

  An establishment as celebrated and unique as Aces High drew its share of trouble, and Hiram had long ago resigned himself to the unfortunate necessity of security, but he insisted that it be discreet. Peter Chou's men (and women) were quick, efficient, highly skilled, and very unobtrusive. When it came to dealing with drunks, holdup men, and leapers, no one was better. But the Astronomer was more than they'd been trained to handle.

  Modular Man was about as unobtrusive as a joker in Idaho. The android had a certain male-model handsomeness, although his prefab features were without either character lines or hair. He wore a skullcap to conceal the radar dome built into his head. Twin grenade launchers were mounted on rotating pivots set in the synthetic flesh of his shoulders.

  The shoulder modules popped right out, and normally Hiram insisted that Modular Man check his armament at the door. But today was not the day for normalcy. When the android landed on the balcony and was ushered into his office, Hiram asked him straight out what sort of weaponry he was equipped with.

  "The left module fires tear-gas canisters, and the right is loaded with smoke bombs," Mod Man said. "The smoke will not affect my radar, of course, but will blind any potential adversary. The tear gas-"

  "I know what tear gas does," Hiram said curtly. "Your creator is assuming the Astronomer has to breathe. Let's hope he's correct. "

  "I could exchange the grenade launcher for an armor piercing 20mm cannon," Modular Man said cheerfully. Hiram made a choking sound. "If you even think about firing a cannon inside my restaurant, you'll never set foot in here again."

  "It's more like a large machine gun, actually."

  "Nonetheless," Hiram said firmly.

  "Would you like me to patrol the perimeter?"

  "I'd like you to sit at the end of the bar and stav out of the way," Hiram told him. "There's still a great deal of work to be done. The guests will begin arriving around seven for cocktails."

  "If anything's going to happen, it should happen well before that."

  He escorted the android out to the bar and left him in the company of a bottle of single-malt Scotch. On the way to his office, Curtis accosted him. "The lobster was the only thing they bothered to destroy," he reported. "Some of Gills's employees are cleaning up the damage. The ones who didn't run away. Gills was taken to the Jokertown clinic."

  "Find out who's in charge, and tell them I want the tuna," Hiram said. "As much as he has. We'll do blackened tuna tonight instead of lobster."

  "Paul will not be amused," Curtis said.

  Hiram paused at the door to his office. "Let him scream. Then let him cook. If he refuses, I'll do it myself. I'm not unfamiliar with Cajun cuisine." He paused thoughtfully. "Alligator has an interesting taste. You don't suppose that Gills might have… no, that's too much to ask. Oh, and offer a premium price for that tuna. If I hadn't interfered this morning, none of this would have happened."

  "You shouldn't blame yourself," Curtis said.

  "Why not?" Hirain asked. He snorted. "I remember when I was first diagnosed, back in 1971. After Tachyon assured me that I wasn't going to die, that I'd been gifted with extraordi nary powers instead, I determined that I must use those powers for the public good. Absurd, I know, but it was the tenor of the times. I tell you, Curtis, heroism is a ludicrous career choice, although not half so ludicrous as I was in my costume." He paused thoughtfully, and flicked a piece of lint off the swell of his vest. "It was well-tailored," he said, "but ludicrous nonetheless. At any rate, my physique was distinctive, masked or no, and my abortive experiment in semiprofessional adventuring ended abruptly when a gossip columnist accurately divined my identity. I'm not a modest man, Curtis, but food is what I'm best at. Gills would be a lot better off if I'd remembered that this morning." He turned away before Curtis could reply, and shut the office door behind him.

  His lunch was waiting on his desk: three thick-cut pork chops grilled with onion and basil, a side of pasta salad, steamed broccoli with grated romano cheese, and a piece of the famous Aces High cheesecake. Hiram sat down and contemplated it.

  A newspaper lay next to his untouched lunch platter. The Daily News had already gotten out an extra, and Anthony had brought up a copy with Hiram's tux. The picture spread across the front of the tabloid had been taken at Jetboy's Tomb by some amateur photographer. Hiram supposed that it was a great news photo, but he could scarcely look at it.

  He found himself averting his eyes from Kid Dinosaur's mutilated body, and looking at the faces in the background. Their emotions were plain to read: horror, hysteria, anguish, shock. Some just seemed baffled; others stared with unwholesome fascination. In the right-hand corner was a pretty blonde who couldn't have been more than eighteen, laughing, no doubt amused by some witticism from the boy whose arm she clung to, as yet oblivious to the horror a few feet away. How did she feel when she looked around, the laughter still fresh on her lips? How would she feel when she saw this picture, her laugh frozen there for all time?

  His lunch was growing cold, but Hiram had no appetite. Kid Dinosaur had been a constant nuisance to the proprietor of Aces High. He remembered one hot summer night when a pteranodon had swooped in through the open terrace doors and buzzed the diners. Drinks were spilled, plates were dropped, the dessert cart tipped over, and a half-dozen indignant customers left without paying their bills. Hiram had put an end to the incident by making the creature too heavy to stay aloft, and reprimanding him in no uncertain terms. From all reports, the boy had been cowed for almost a week.

  When the phone rang, Hiram grabbed it quickly. "What?" he demanded brusquely. He was in no mood for conversation. "Me, Hiram," Jay Ackroyd said.

  Hiram had almost forgotten about the detective. "Where are you?" he demanded.

  "At the moment I'm at a pay phone outside the men's room of the Crystal Palace, being eyed by a joker who looks like a cross between a douche bag and a saber-toothed tiger. I think he wants to use the phone, so I'll get right to the point. Chrysalis knows something."

  "Chrysalis knows a good many things," Hiram said. "Real good," Ackroyd replied. "Your friend Bludgeon isn't independent. Him and his whole scam are part of something, something a lot bigger. Chrysalis knows who and what, but the price she quoted for the information was way out of my budget. Maybe not out of yours, though. I'm bringing her up tonight, you can talk to her yourself."

  "You're bringing her here?" Hiram said. "Jay, she's a joker, not an ace."

  "I'm an ace," Ackroyd reminded him, "a
nd she's my date. Don't worry, I made her promise to cover her tits. A shame, though. They're nice tits, even if they are invisible. Just pretend she's really British and you'll get on great."

  "Fine," Hiram said. "And while you've been arranging your social calendar and studying Chrysalis's breasts, Bludgeon put Gills in the hospital and destroyed my lobsters."

  " I know," Ackroyd said.

  Hiram was astonished. "How could you possibly know?"

  "I dropped by Fulton Street before I went to see Chrysalis, figured maybe I'd see Gills, charm him with a few magic tricks, pull a coin out of his gills, and see if he'd talk to me. I got suspicious right off when I saw a truck burning in the alley. This seven-foot-tall guy was going out as I was coming in. He looked a lot like the guy waiting for the phone, only ugly. I made a citizen's arrest. He's in the Tombs."

  "God," Hiram exclaimed. "Jay, this is the first good news I've heard all day. Thank you, and good work. You'll get a month of free dinners for this."

  "Appetizers included, I hope. The thing's not done, though. Bludgeon's locked up for the moment, but sooner or later someone's going to notice him hollering in there, and then they'll count heads and let him go, unless we can get him charged with something. Can you go downtown and do the honors?"

  Hiram felt in a terrible bind. " I… Jay, I want to, but I can't possibly leave now."

  "A crisis with the pate de foie gras?"

  "Fortunato is going to be bringing some people by. I need to, ah, stay. Besides, I've never laid eyes on Bludgeon. Gills was the one they assaulted. Have him prefer charges."

  "He's terrified, Hiram."

  "If we put Bludgeon away, he has nothing to be terrified of. Tell him that. He can't let them get away with this." Ackroyd sighed. "All right. I'll go talk to him. Hell. On days like this, I wish I could pop myself around. Do you have any idea what the traffic's like out there?"

  Spector stared across the Hudson River toward the Jersey shore. He'd grown up in Teaneck. As long as he could remember he'd hated New Yorkers. Hated them for their contemptuous comments and unending supply of Jersey jokes. They really thought they were better, just by living a few miles away. Every New Yorker he killed was a little revenge for the way he'd always been treated by them.