“I recognize you.” Jack reached out tentatively, checked the motion. “Your face—what have you done?”
“Do I not look more like a joker?”
“You’re not a joker,” said Jack. “You are my friend. You are ill, but you are my friend.”
“I am a joker,” said Jean-Jacques firmly. “I have a sentence of death laid across me.”
Jack stared at him mutely.
The black man looked back at him, then brushed the tips of his fingers across Jack’s face. The motion was fleeting and tender. Others of the dance line had gathered around them. Jack saw they were all normals dressed in outlandish garb, some bright and desperately garish, others muted and more subtly grotesque.
“Good-bye, friend Jack. I shall miss you.” Jean-Jacques turned away and started to chant the letters, “H, T, L, V!” The others took it up: “H, T, L, V!” roared along the street.
“HTLV?” Bagabond said to Jack as the pair stood there while Jean-Jacques and the other dancers whirled frenetically away.
“The AIDS virus,” said Jack flatly.
“Oh.” Bagabond looked at him strangely. “Jean-Jacques—that’s his name?”
Jack nodded.
“You and he? . . .”
“Friends,” said Jack. “Very good friends.”
“More than just friends?”
He nodded.
“We need to talk,” said Bagabond. “We’ll talk when this is over.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jack, starting to turn away.
“For what?” She took his arm again. “Come on. I mean it. We’ll talk.” She reached up and touched him as Jean-Jacques had. His face was rough with stubble. “Come on,” she said again. “We’ve still got to find Cordelia.”
Their eyes met. Each thought, things are going to be different now. But neither knew just how.
The shower was hot, but that was the way Spector liked it. The water spattered off him and ran down his thin body. He opened his mouth and let it fill up, then swished the water around and spat it out. His foot still hurt, but he was used to pain. At least it was clean now.
He turned off the shower and walked across the cold tile floor to the locker area, still favoring his foot. He whistled the beginning of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” then stopped. The sound echoed off the walls. The locker room was less impressive than he’d expected. Plain showers and lockers; wooden benches to sit on. Not that different from high school.
He walked over to a basket filled with dirty baseball uniforms and started sorting through them, looking for something close to his size. Most of it was much too big and he hated pinstripes. Better than his shot-up suit, though. If anybody asked, he could just say he was in costume. He managed to find a uniform that didn’t fit him like a tent and got dressed.
He wandered into the equipment room, past the caged-off space that held bats and gloves and beat-up practice balls, into the trainer’s area. He picked an elastic bandage off the floor. Spector took a breath, then started wrapping his broken half-foot. He had to stop twice, it hurt so much, but after a few minutes he had it fairly well covered. He put his foot down and shifted a little weight onto it. A sharp pain ran up his leg, but he could stand that. He walked back toward the dressing area, trying to limp as little as possible.
Spector dug out a pair of tennis shoes and shoved a sock in the end of the one, then painfully slipped his mangled half-foot in. He tied the laces loosely and slipped on the other shoe.
“Outside, Demise. Right now. I’m waiting.”
Spector looked up. The Astronomer’s image was floating a few feet in front of him. The projection didn’t have the normal knife-edge clarity Spector was used to. It was faint, colorless, and ghosted around the edges. The old fuck must be low on power.
“Where are you, uh, exactly?” Spector asked.
“In the parking lot. Look for the limo. I want you now.”
“On my way.”
The Astronomer’s image vanished.
Spector picked up his suit and headed for the exit. He rubbed his forehead. The old man’s energy was down; if he was going to do anything now was the time. He flipped off the lights in the locker room and started whistling “The Party’s Over.”
CHAPTER 20
1:00 a.m.
The limo was running low on gas and Jennifer could see that Brennan was running low on patience. An hour had passed and they had seen no sign of anyone who might be Demise carrying the books. They had seen plenty of suspicious and strange and downright weird sights, but nothing that was of any use to them.
“We might as well forget it,” Brennan said. He checked his watch. “I want to get some equipment that’s at my apartment. Then we can plan our next move.”
As they headed toward Jokertown the streets became even more crowded with late-night revelers.
“It’ll be quicker if we abandon the limo,” Brennan decided. “Besides, it’s just too conspicuous. We’ll have Egrets all over us in a minute if we try to take it through Jokertown.”
They pulled over and Jennifer reached for the keys to turn off the engine, but stopped with her hand resting on the keys, listening to the radio.
“What’s wrong?” Brennan asked.
“Shhhh.”
“. . . beat the Stars 4–2 today at Ebbets Field, Seaver winning his fourteenth. But the events of the game took a back seat to the bizarre story that nearly the entire Dodger team had seen a ghost in the locker room before the game. According to the normally stolid, one might even say unimaginative, Thurman Munson, the ghost wished them good luck before vanishing through the clubhouse wall. Descriptions of this specter state it was a female in her twenties, tall, with long blond hair, and very good looking. It—or she—wore a black string bikini. Well, if you’re going to be haunted—”
Jennifer turned off the engine, killing the radio, and got out of the car. Brennan looked at Jennifer critically, then frowned.
“What’s the matter?”
“We’ve really got to get you out of that bikini now. Talk about conspicuous.” He looked at her closely and she would have blushed had she thought he wasn’t being analytical. “Well, I’ll get something. I wish you wouldn’t lose your clothes so often. Although . . .”
He seemed to think better of finishing the sentence, and turned and walked off, shaking his head.
They’d been tailing her for several minutes, since she left Fortunato’s place in a cab. Spector was sitting in the back seat with the Astronomer. The old man’s eyes were closed and he was completely silent. Imp and Insulin were sitting in the middle seat. Imp had his arm around her. They were probably sleeping together. Imp had made a joke about the baseball uniform, but the Astronomer had stepped in before Spector could kill him.
The girl wasn’t what he’d been expecting. She was pretty enough and carried herself well, but wasn’t dressed like a high-priced whore. She had on faded blue jeans and a red-and-white. University of Houston sweatshirt. Her hair was short, dark blond, and tightly curled. She’d bounced down the stairs with a smile on her face when the cab showed up. Saved them the trouble of going inside. It would be simple enough to grab her wherever she got dropped off.
Spector looked at the Astronomer. The old man was breathing noisily and his hands trembled. When he opened his eyes again, Spector would try his power. There wouldn’t be a better opportunity. Spector stared at the Astronomer’s eyelids and waited.
The Astronomer opened his eyes. There was still power there, too much for him to challenge. Spector turned away. “I wonder where the hell she’s going?” he asked.
“The Jokertown clinic.” The Astronomer laughed wheezily. “That’s right, Demise. The place you were born, so to speak.”
“I’m not going in there,” Spector said, shaking his head.
“Yes, you are, Demise. You really have no choice.” The Astronomer closed his eyes again. “No choice at all.”
Spector clenched his teeth. The old bastard was right. “You’re sure she’
s going to the clinic.”
“That’s what she told the cab driver, Demise. There will be two other women. I want them all. Imp and Insulin will go inside with you.” The Astronomer paused. “Just to back you up.”
They rode in silence until the cab pulled up in front of the Jokertown clinic. The limo pulled past the cab and parked in front of a fire hydrant. The girl got out of the cab.
“Go get them.” The Astronomer jerked his thumb in the direction of the clinic entrance.
Spector opened the door and stepped out of the limo. He walked slowly toward the brightly lit entrance. His guts were ice. He’d spent the worst days of his life in the clinic, most of them screaming. He’d had to kill an orderly to escape, and someone might recognize him and remember. Two women were coming down the stairs to meet the girl from the cab. One had dark hair and was wearing a black sequined dress. The other, also a brunette, had on a low-cut electric-blue lamé dress slit up to mid-thigh.
“What happened?” asked the girl in the sweatshirt.
“It’s Croyd,” said the brunette. “We think he went into a coma or something. One minute he was fine, the next he’s passed out and we can’t wake him up.”
“Bet you tried everything you could think of, though.” The girl in the sweatshirt smiled. Spector wondered what her expression would be if she knew what was in store.
He heard car doors close behind him. Imp and Insulin were moving in. Spector couldn’t make a break for it with Insulin around.
Spector heard muffled screams from inside. Glass from the entranceway shattered outward. A security guard bounced bleeding down the steps. Spector ran forward.
“Get the fuck out of my way, jerk-offs. Get away, or I’ll feed you your own assholes.” The speaker was one of the biggest, ugliest jokers Spector had ever seen. The thing’s face was badly bruised. He raised a club like hand, tearing the white hospital gown that only partially covered his oversized body.
The joker saw the girls and smiled. They backed away from him toward the cab which was pulling away, tires screaming.
“Come to Poppa, little pussies.”
Spector moved in as the joker grabbed the woman in the lamé dress. She tried to knee him in the balls, but couldn’t hit high enough. Spector looked at the dark-haired woman and squinted. It was the same girl who’d been in the subway station with the pimp. She looked even better dressed up. Spector took a step toward her.
“Who the fuck are you?” The joker had slung the other woman over his shoulder and leapt down the stairs at him. “One of the boys of September?”
Spector saw the punch coming and ducked; the blow grazed his left cheek and spun him to the ground. He rolled out of the charging joker’s path. There was no way to lock eyes while he was moving so quickly. He turned at a scream behind him. Imp was dragging the dark blonde toward the limo.
Insulin faced the giant and smiled.
The joker went to one knee. “Goddamn, what the fuck are you doing to me?” He dropped the woman and slumped over. The brunette pulled herself out from under him, tearing her dress. Insulin grabbed her by the elbow and pointed her down the street.
Spector sat up, thought about running, and looked at the limo. The Astronomer was staring at him. No chance to get away. There wouldn’t be, ever. He went for the dark-haired girl, putting his arm around her. She didn’t look scared, but there was something in her eyes that made him feel she wasn’t all there.
“Me again,” Spector said. “Looks like your visit is going to be kind of short.” She didn’t react. “Tonight nobody’s getting out alive.” Still no reply.
He kicked the fallen joker in the face with his good foot as he walked past.
CHAPTER 21
2:00 a.m.
She glanced back, arched until her shoulder blades etched bony wings beneath her skin, but Tachyon failed to take the hint. He was agitatedly pulling the brush through his tumbled curls and staring sightlessly into the mirror. Frowning with irritation, Roulette reached back and unzipped the white silk gown. It whispered to the floor, brushing softly at her ankles.
The brush crashed onto the antique marble-topped dressing table scattering crystal bottles. “This day! What is it about this day that it always engenders so much grief? And they celebrate.” He swept out an arm toward the closed window which could not completely block the sound of continued revelry. “Would you celebrate?” His violet eyes seemed to blaze in his pale face as he swung around to face her.
“No, but mine’s a bleak nature.” She took several steps toward him, but stopped short of touching him. “And I don’t think you fully understand why they celebrate. It’s not heedlessness, it’s an attempt to survive. We have very few options when life plays its little jokes on us. We can laugh, hiding the hurt. We can die. Or we can be revenged. You hear the laughter, but I hear cries of pain.”
“Pain. You talk to me of pain, I who have lived with it every day for forty years. You humans are fortunate. Your present time memory is mercifully short. The tragedies you endure fade quickly. Your minds draw a veil. It’s not so with us.”
He lifted the picture in its silver frame, staring at the delicate face captured there. His lips hardened, deepening the lines about eyes and mouth.
She felt again that tearing as the Astronomer stripped from her those buffering veils and released her demons. They lovingly presented each moment of loss and abandonment, and each repetition was as exquisitely painful as the one before. Her hand lashed out, and swept away the picture. It landed face down on the cold marble, and the glass shattered with a sound like frozen music. Tachyon lifted the photo, and held it protectively against his chest while Roulette stared in fascination at the crystal pattern left by the broken glass.
Reflecting waterfalls as the mirror broke, window glass like a scintillating snowfall across the streets . . .
His eyes were on her, seeming to burn her cheek. Slowly she faced him. Long lashes lowered as he studied the picture. Then the full force of his gaze was once more on her.
“You are absolutely right,” he murmured cryptically, and opening a drawer in the dressing table he slid in the photo. Before it closed she saw the gleaming black metal of a .357 Magnum.
In the midst of the public chaos, it seemed to Jack and Bagabond that they were starting to walk in circles. In the middle of the very core of the Big Apple, the pair started getting the feeling that they might as well have been in trackless woods with no sign of the sun for navigation. The faces in the crowds started to look the same. The costumes all began to look alike. The only thing missing was a sixteen-year-old girl, tall and slim, with straight, black hair and dark eyes.
They passed an alley and heard what sounded like cries.
Bagabond shook her head and started to walk past.
“Hold it,” said Jack. He walked a few steps into the narrow passage. He saw several people he’d already encountered today on separate occasions. One was Jean-Jacques. He crouched protectively over one of the other dancers. This one, in tattered and dirty formal ballet getup, was lying sprawled on the alley floor. There was blood around his mouth.
Standing over the pair was the punkish young man with whom Jack had had the run-in the morning past, outside the Young Man’s Fancy. The young man’s rainwater eyes were masked by the alley shadows.
“Try sucking this,” he said. Jack and Bagabond heard the snickt of spring steel. The blade snapped out of the young man’s stiletto and locked into place.
The young man crouched with the knife and feinted toward Jean-Jacques. The Senegalese didn’t move. “Fuckin’ faggots! I’m gonna cut off everything that moves.”
Jack started forward. Bagabond tripped him. Jack sprawled forward into the alley, partially catching himself with his outthrust palms, feeling skin grate across the ragged brick.
“Wait.” Bagabond frowned, concentrating.
Alley cats erupted from the stinking pyramids of garbage bags stacked further back in the darkness. Howling, they bounded toward the young man
with the knife. He snarled in turn and swung around to face them.
“Come on,” said Bagabond, helping Jack up. “It’s taken care of. Everything’s cool.” She tugged at his arm.
Jack hesitated, but saw that Jean-Jacques was helping his friend up. He followed Bagabond.
The alley cats screeched and yowled triumphantly behind them, as all humans exited the alley, save for the young man.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer homophobe,” muttered Jack.
Spector had never been inside the Astronomer’s pent-house apartment before. It was in the Seventies off Central Park. The decor was surprising subdued, dark wood floors and furnishings complemented by off-white walls and ceilings.
The Astronomer unlocked the door to a room off the library and motioned them to enter. The old man leaned heavily against the doorframe. Spector pulled the dark-haired girl inside. The captive women had been quiet, probably Insulin’s doing. The room was dim, the only illumination coming through a large skylight. Underneath it was a mahogany altar. There were steel manacles at each corner, and a large V-shaped notch at one end. Spector didn’t have to wonder what that was for.
“That one.” The Astronomer pointed to the girl in the University of Houston sweatshirt and closed the door.
Imp pulled off the woman’s sweatshirt and dragged her to the altar. He quickly manacled her hands and then unzipped her jeans and began working them down her legs. He tossed them on the floor and tore off her red cotton panties, then fastened her feet down.
Spector felt the dark-haired woman tense and he gripped her arms tighter.
“Get her ready.” The Astronomer opened a drawer in the altar’s side and pulled out a syringe. He made a fist and tied his arm off, then sank the needle in and slowly injected what Spector knew had to be heroin. The old man took a deep breath and pulled out the needle, leaving a tiny red dot. His arm was lined with them. The Astronomer unsashed his robe and let it drop. Imp kneeled between her legs and began moistening her with his tongue.
Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild Page 35