Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty

by George R. R. Martin

  “You really hate jokers, don’t you?” Peanut whispered as they moved closer to the stage. The grass was torn and muddy under their feet, littered with newspapers and political tracts. It was another thing she detested about this hell; it was always crowded, always filthy. “Shroud, he told me what your brother preached. The Nur don’t sound awful different from Barnett.”

  “We … the Qur’an teaches that God directly affects the world. He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. I don’t find that horrible. Do you believe in God?”

  “Sure. But God don’t punish people by giving them no damn virus.”

  Kahina nodded, her dark eyes solemn. “Then yours is either an incredibly cruel God, who would inflict a life of pain and suffering on so many innocents; or a poor, weak one who cannot stop such a thing from happening. Either way, how can you worship such a deity?”

  The sharp rebuttal confused Peanut—in the days since she’d been here, Misha had found the joker to be friendly but extraordinarily simple. He tried to shrug, his whole upper body lifting, and tears welled in his eyes. “It ain’t our fault—” he began.

  His pain touched Misha, stopping her even as she started to interrupt. Again she wished for the veil to hide her empathy. Haven’t you listened to what Tachyon and the others have hinted at between the lines? she wanted to rage at him. Don’t you see what they don’t dare say, that the virus amplifies your own foibles and weaknesses, that it only takes what it finds inside the infected person? “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’m very sorry, Peanut.” She reached out and brushed his shoulder with her hand; she hoped he didn’t notice how the fingers trembled, how fleeting the touch was. “Forget what I said. My brother was cruel and harsh; sometimes I’m too much like him.”

  Peanut sniffed. A smile dawned on his sharp-edged face. “S’okay, Misha,” he said, and the instant forgiveness in his voice hurt more than the rest. He glanced at the stage, and the valleys deepened in his craggy skin. “Look, there’s Hartmann. I don’t know why you and Gimli got such a beef against him. He’s the only one who helps…”

  Peanut’s observation trailed off; at that moment the packed masses around them shoved fists toward the sky and cheered.

  And Satan strode onto the stage.

  Misha recognized some of those around him: Dr. Tachyon, dressed in outrageous colors; Hiram Worchester, rotund and bloated; the one called Carnifex, staring at the crowd so that she wanted to hide herself. A woman stood beside the senator, but it wasn’t Sara, who had also been in her dreams so often, with whom she’d talked in Damascus—Ellen, his wife, then.

  Hartmann shook his head, grinning helplessly at the adulation that swept through the crowd. He raised his hands, and the cheering redoubled, a roaring crowd-voice echoing from the skyscrapers to the west. A chant began somewhere near the stage, rippling back until the entire park resonated. “Hartmann! Hartmann!” they shouted to the stage. “Hartmann! Hartmann!”

  He smiled then, his head still shaking as if in disbelief, and then he stepped to the battery of microphones. His voice was deep and plain and full of caring for those before him. That voice reminded Misha of her brother’s; when he spoke, the very sound was truth. “You people are wonderful,” he said.

  They howled then, a hurricane of sound that nearly deafened Misha. The jokers pressed around the stage, Misha and Peanut thrust forward helplessly in the tidal flow. The cheering and chanting went on for a long minute before Hartmann raised his hands again and a restless, anticipatory hush came over the crowd.

  “I’m not going to stand up here and feed you the lines you’ve come to expect of politicians like me,” he said at last. “I’ve been a long time away and what I’ve seen of the world has, frankly, made me feel very frightened. I’m especially frightened when I return and find that same bigotry, that same intolerance, that same inhumanity here. It’s time to quit playing politics and taking a safe, polite course. These aren’t safe, polite times; these are dangerous times.”

  He paused, taking a breath that shuddered in the sound system. “Almost exactly eleven years ago, I stood in the grass of Roosevelt Park and made a ‘political mistake.’ I’ve thought about that day many times in the past years, and I swear to God that I’ve yet to understand why I should feel sorry for it. What I saw before me on that day was senseless, raw violence. I saw hatred and prejudice boiling over, and I lost my temper. I. Got. Mad.”

  Hartmann shouted the last words, and the jokers shouted back to him in affirmation. He waited until they had settled into silence again, and this time his voice was dark and sad. “There are other masks than those which Jokertown has made famous. There is a mask which hides a greater ugliness than anything the wild card might produce. Behind that mask is an infection that’s all too human, and I have heard its voice in the tenements of Rio, in the kraals of South Africa, in the deserts of Syria, in Asia and Europe and America. Its voice is rich and confident and soothing, and it tells those who hate that they are right to hate. It preaches that anyone who is different is also less. Maybe they’re black, maybe they’re Jewish or Hindu, or maybe they’re just jokers.”

  With the emphasis on the last word the crowd-beast howled again, a wail of anguish that made Misha shiver. His words echoed the visions uncomfortably. She could almost feel his fingernails clawing at her face. Misha looked to her right and saw that Peanut was craning forward with the rest, his mouth open in a cry of agreement.

  “I can’t let that happen,” Hartmann continued, and now his voice was louder, faster, rising with the emotions of the audience. “I can’t simply watch, not when I see that there’s more I can do. I’ve seen too much. I’ve listened to that insidious hatred, and I can no longer abide its voice. I find myself becoming angry all over again. I want to rip the mask off and expose the true ugliness behind, the ugliness of hatred. The state of this nation and the world frightens me, and there’s only one way that I can do something to ease that feeling.” He paused again, and this time waited until the entire park seemed to be holding its collective breath. Misha shuddered. Allah’s dream. He speaks Allah’s dream.

  “Effective today, I have resigned my seat in the Senate and my position as chairman of SCARE. I’ve done that to give full attention to a new task, one that will need your help as well. I am now announcing my intention to be the Democratic candidate for president in 1988.”

  His last words were lost, buried under the titanic clamor of screaming applause. Misha could no longer see Hartmann, lost in the rippling sea of arms and banners. She had not thought that anything could be so loud. The acclamation deafened her, made her clap hands to ears. The chant of Hartmann! Hartmann! began once more, joker fists pumping in time with the beat.

  Hartmann! Hartmann!

  Hell was noisy and chaotic, and her own hatred was lost in the joyous celebration. Beside her, Peanut chanted with the rest, and she looked at him with revulsion and despair.

  He is so strong, Allah, stronger than the Nur. Show me that this is the right path. Tell me that my faith is to be rewarded.

  But there was no answering dream. There was only the beast-voice of the jokers and Satan basking in their praise.

  At least now it would begin. Tonight. Tonight they would meet and decide how to best destroy the devil.

  Monday, 7:32 P.M.

  Polyakov was the last one to arrive at the warehouse.

  That pissed Gimli off. It was bad enough that he wasn’t sure he could trust any of the old New York JJS organization. It was enough that he’d been dealing with Misha for nearly two weeks now, putting up with her contempt for jokers. It was enough that Hartmann’s Justice Department aces were prowling all over Jokertown after him; that Barnett’s rabble-rousing had made any joker fair game for the nat gangs; that the continuing battles between the underworld organizations had made the streets a gamble for all.

  On top of everything else, he could feel a cold coming on.

  Gimli sneezed and blew his nose into a large red handkerchief.

  I
t was shit time in Jokertown.

  Polyakov’s arrival only made Gimli’s temper more vile. The Russian stamped into the place without a knock, throwing the door back loudly. “The joker on the roof is standing against streetlight,” he proclaimed loudly. “Any fool can see her. What if I’d been police? You would all be under arrest or dead. Amateurs!” Dilettante!

  Gimli wiped his bulbous, tender nostrils and glanced at the handkerchief. “The joker on the roof’s Video. She threw an image of you in the room to let us know you were on the way—she needs the light to project. Peanut and File would have taken you out at the door if I hadn’t recognized you.” Gimli stuffed the damp handkerchief back in his pocket and pounded on the wall twice with his fist. “Video,” he shouted to the ceiling. “Give our guest a replay, huh?”

  In the center of the warehouse the air shimmered and went dark. For a moment they were all looking at the alleyway outside the warehouse, where a portly man stood in shadow. The darkness coalesced, pulsed, and they were seeing a head-and-shoulders view of the man: Polyakov, grimacing as he looked toward Video. Then the image faded to Gimli’s laughter.

  “And you never fucking saw Shroud behind you, did you?” he said.

  A slender figure materialized out of the shadow behind Polyakov. He poked a forefinger in Polyakov’s back, “Bang,” Shroud whispered. “You’re dead. Just like a Russian joker.” Alongside the door Peanut and File grinned.

  Gimli had to admit that Polyakov took it gracefully enough for a nat. The burly man just nodded without looking at Shroud at all. “My apologies. You obviously know your people better than I.”

  “Yeah. Don’t I.” Gimli sniffed; his sinuses were dripping like an old faucet. He waved to Shroud. “Make sure nobody else gets in—there’s no more invitations.” The thin, dark joker nodded. “Dead meat time,” Shroud said—another whisper. A grin came from the vaporous form, and then he dissolved into shadow.

  “We have aces with us, then,” Polyakov said.

  Gimli laughed without amusement. “Get Video near an electrical device and her nervous system overloads. Put her in front of a damn television and her heart will go into arrhythmia. Too close and she’ll die. And Shroud loses substance every day, like he’s evaporating. Another year and he’ll be dead or permanently immaterial. Aces, shit, Polyakov—they’re jokers, just like the rest. You know, the ones you cull out in the Russian labs.”

  Polyakov merely grunted at the insult; Gimli felt disappointed. The man brushed his fingers through stubbly gray hair and nodded. “Russia had made her mistakes, as has America. There are many things I wish had never happened, but we’re here to change what we can, are we not?” He fixed Gimli with an unblinking stare. “The Syrian ace has arrived?”

  “I’m here.” Misha came from the rear of the warehouse. Gimli saw her glance sharply at Peanut and File. Her attitude was sour and condescending. She walked as if she expected to be catered to. Gimli might find her Arabian darkness extremely attractive, but—except in late-night fantasies—he didn’t delude himself that anything might come of it. He knew what he looked like: “a warty, noxious little toadstool feeding on the decaying log of ego”—Wilde’s phrase.

  Gimli was a joker; that was the bottom line for the bitch. Misha had made certain that Gimli knew he was tolerated only to gain revenge on Hartmann. She didn’t see him as a person at all; he was just a tool, something to use because nothing else would do. The realization gigged him every time he looked at her. Just seeing the woman was enough to make him want to shout at her.

  I’ll make you a fucking tool of my own one day.

  “I’m ready to begin. The visions”—she smiled, making Gimli scowl in response—“have been optimistic today.”

  Gimli scoffed. “Your goddamn dreams ain’t gonna worry the senator, are they?”

  Misha whirled around, eyes flaring. “You mock Allah’s gift. Maybe your scorn is why He made you a squashed mockery of a man.”

  That was enough to shatter what little restraint he had. A quick, molten rage filled Gimli. “You fucking bitch!” he screeched. The dwarf’s stance widened on muscular legs, his barrel chest expanded. A finger stabbed from the fist he cocked at her. “I won’t take that shit, not from you, not from anyone!”

  “STOP THIS!” The shout came from Polyakov as Gimli took a step toward Misha. The roar brought Gimli’s head around; the movement made his stuffy head throb. “Amateurs!” Polyakov spat out. “This is the stupidity that Mólniya said destroyed you in Berlin, Tom Miller. I believe him now. This petty bickering must end. We have a common purpose; focus your anger on that.”

  “Pretty speeches don’t mean shit,” Gimli scoffed, but he stopped. The fist lowered, the fingers loosened. “We’re a damn unlikely conspiracy, ain’t we?—a joker, an ace, and a nat. Maybe this was a mistake, huh? I’m not so certain anymore that we share much of a common purpose.” He glared at Misha.

  Polyakov shrugged. “None of us want Hartmann to gain political power. We have our separate reasons, but on this we agree. I would not care to see an ace with unknown powers as president of the nation that opposes my own. I know the Kahina would like to exact revenge for her brother. You have a long-standing grudge of your own against the senator. And as little as you may care for this woman, she has brought hard evidence against Hartmann.”

  “So she claims. We ain’t seen it yet, have we?”

  Polyakov grunted. “Everything else is circumstantial: hearsay and speculations. So let us begin. I, for one, would like to see Misha’s ‘gift.’”

  “Let’s talk reality first. Then we can indulge in religious fantasies,” Gimli argued. He could feel control of the meeting slipping from him; the Russian had presence, charisma. Already the others were watching Polyakov as if he were the head of the group. Forget how lousy you’re feeling. You’ve got to watch him or he’ll take over.

  “Nevertheless,” the Russian insisted.

  Gimli cocked his head at Polyakov. Polyakov stared back at him blandly. Finally Gimli cleared his throat noisily and sniffed. “All right,” he grumbled. “The stage is yours, Kahina.”

  When Gimli glanced at her, she gave a quick, triumphant smile. That decided Gimli. When this was over, the bill would come due for Misha’s arrogance. He’d exact the payment himself if he had to.

  Misha went to the rear of the warehouse again and came back with a rolled bundle of cloth. “When the aces attacked us in the mosque, Hartmann was wounded,” she said. “His people examined him there, quickly, but they retreated immediately afterward. I”—she stopped, and a look of remembered pain darkened her face—“I had already fled. My brother and Sayyid, both horribly wounded, gathered their followers and went deep in the desert. The next day a vision told me to return to the mosque. There, I was given this: It is the jacket Hartmann was wearing when he was shot.”

  She unrolled her package on the cement floor.

  The jacket wasn’t all that impressive—a gray-checked sports coat, dusty and bedraggled. The cloth held a faint stench of mildew. At the right shoulder a frayed hole was surrounded by an irregular splotch of brown-red, spreading as it crept down the chest. Packed inside were a sheaf of papers in a manila envelope. Misha riffled through them.

  “I went to four doctors in Damascus with the jacket,” she continued. “I had them examine the bloodstains independently, and each gave me a report that said the blood had definitely come from someone infected with the wild card virus. The blood type matches Hartmann—‘A’ positive. I have verification from the man who gave it to me that this is Hartmann’s jacket—he picked it up after the fighting, thinking to keep it as a relic of the Nur.”

  “A verification letter from a terrorist, and blood that could have come from fucking anyone.” Gimli snorted. “Look, all of us here might believe it’s Hartmann’s blood, but alone it’s nothing. The bastard’s got his blood test on record. You think he can’t produce another negative one with the people he knows?”

  Polyakov nodded ponderously. “He can.
He would.”

  “Then attack him physically,” Misha said, wondering at these people. “If you don’t want my gift, kill him. I will help.”

  The look on her face made Gimli laugh, and the laughter brought on a hacking, phlegm-filled cough. “Christ, all I need is a cold,” he muttered, then: “Awfully fucking bloodthirsty, ain’t we?”

  Misha folded her arms beneath her breasts, defiant. “I’m not afraid. Are you?”

  “No, goddammit. Just realistic. Look, your brother had him surrounded by guards with Uzis and he got away, didn’t he? I had the fucker tied to a chair, all of us armed, and one by one most of us left, a decision we can’t believe we made an hour later. Then Mackie Messer—who was a loaded gun with no safety anyway—goes fucking berserk and slices up everyone that’s left, yet somehow doesn’t hurt the good senator at all.” Gimli spat. “He can make people do things—that’s got to be his power. He’s got aces all around him. We ain’t gonna get to the man, not that way.”

  Polyakov nodded. “Unfortunately, I must agree. Misha, you don’t know Mólniya, the ace who was with Gimli in Berlin,” he said. “He could have killed Hartmann with a simple touch. I spoke to him at length. He did things there that were sloppy and senseless for a man of his loyalty and experience. His performance was utterly inconsistent with his past record. He was manipulated: part of the evidence I have is his deposition.”

  File elbowed Peanut. “’Seventy-six,” he said to Gimli. “I remember. You talked to Hartmann when we were all ready to march. Suddenly, you were telling us to turn around and go back into the park.”

  The memory was as sour now as it had been eleven years ago. Gimli had brooded on it many times. In ’76 the JJS had been on the verge of becoming a legitimate joker voice, yet somehow he’d lost it all. The JJS and Gimli’s power had fallen apart in the aftermath of the rioting. Since Berlin, since his meeting with Misha, that brooding had taken a different turn.