Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty

by George R. R. Martin

  Now he knew who was to blame for his failure.

  “Damn right. The son-of-a-bitch. That’s why I want him taken down. With Barnett or any of the other nat politicians we know what we’re dealing with. They’re all known quantities. Hartmann’s not. And that’s why he’s more dangerous than any of the rest. You remember Aardvark, Peanut? Aardvark died in Berlin, along with a lot of others—his death and all the fucking rest are ultimately Hartmann’s fault.”

  Peanut’s entire body moved as he tried to shake his head. “That ain’t right, Gimli. Really. Hartmann does work for the jokers. He got rid of the Acts, he talks nice to us, he comes to Jokertown…”

  “Yeah. And I’d do the same damn thing if I wanted to lull everyone’s suspicions. I tell you, we know where Barnett stands. We can deal with him anytime. I’m more afraid of Hartmann.”

  “Then do something about him,” Misha interjected. “We have his jacket. We have your story and Polyakov’s. Take it to your press and let them remove Hartmann.”

  “Because we still ain’t got shit. He’ll deny it. He’ll produce another blood test. He’ll point out that the ‘evidence’ was produced by a joker who kidnapped him in Berlin, a Russian who has connections with the KGB, and you—who says that her dreams tell her Hartmann’s an ace and who’s suffering under the lunatic delusion that she was made to attack her terrorist brother. A fucking classic example of guilt transference.”

  Gimli enjoyed the flush that climbed Misha’s neck. Yeah, that one hit home, didn’t it, bitch? “We’ve circumstantial evidence, sure,” Gimli continued, “but if we bring it forward, he’ll just laugh it off and so will the press. We have to link with someone else. Let them be the front.”

  “I take it you have someone in mind?” Polyakov commented. Gimli thought he heard a faint challenge in the man’s voice. “Yeah, I do,” he told Polyakov. “I say we take what we have to Chrysalis. From what I hear, she’s awfully damn interested in Hartmann herself, and she doesn’t have any grudges. No one knows more about anything in Jokertown than Chrysalis.”

  “No one knows more about Hartmann than Sara Morgenstern.” Misha waved away Gimli’s suggestion. “Allah’s dreams have shown me her face. She is the one who will destroy Hartmann, not Chrysalis.”

  “Right. She’s Hartmann’s lover. We think Hartmann’s got mind powers—so who’s he most likely to control?” The headache was slamming at Gimli’s temples now, and his head felt packed full of mucus. “We have to go to Chrysalis.”

  “We don’t know that Chrysalis would have any interest in helping us. Maybe Hartmann controls her as well. My visions—”

  “Your visions are crap, lady, and I’m getting fucking tired of hearing about them.”

  “They are Allah’s gift.”

  “They’re a gift from the wild card, and every last joker knows what’s in that package.” Gimli heard the door to the warehouse open. His gaze spun away from Misha to see Polyakov standing there. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Polyakov exhaled sharply. “I’ve heard enough. I won’t be caught with fools. Go to Chrysalis or go to Morgenstern—I don’t care which. I even wish you luck; it may work. But I won’t be associated with it.”

  “You’re walking?” Gimli said in disbelief.

  “We have a common interest, as I’ve said. That seems to be all. You do as you like; you don’t need me for that. I will pursue this my own way. If I uncover anything of interest, I will contact you.”

  “You try something on your own and you’re more likely to get caught. You’ll alert Hartmann that people are after him.”

  Polyakov shrugged. “If Hartmann is the threat you think he is, he already knows that.” He nodded to Gimli, to Misha, to File and Peanut. He stepped outside and closed the door softly behind himself.

  Gimli could feel the gazes of the others on him. He gestured obscenely at the door. “To hell with him,” he said loudly. “We don’t need him.”

  “Then I go to Sara,” Misha insisted. “She will help.”

  You don’t have a choice. Not now.

  Gimli nodded reluctantly. “All right,” he sighed. “Peanut will get you a plane ticket to Washington. And I’ll see Chrysalis.” He touched his hand to his forehead; it felt suspiciously warm. “In the meantime, I’m going to bed.”

  Tuesday, 10:50 P.M.

  Gimli had told her that she must be careful that no one was watching Sara’s apartment. Misha thought the dwarf paranoid, but she waited several moments before crossing the street, watching. There was never a way to be sure—Sayyid, her husband, who had been in charge of all aspects of the Nur sect’s security, would have agreed.

  “No amateur will ever see a professional unless he wants to be seen,” she remembered his saying once. Thoughts of Sayyid brought back painful memories: his scornful voice, his overbearing manner, his monstrous body. She’d felt relief mingled with horror when he’d been struck down in front of her, his bones snapping like dry twigs, a low animal moaning coming from his crumpled body.…

  Misha shuddered and crossed the street.

  She pressed the intercom button at the front door, marveling again at the American obsession with ineffectual security—the door was beveled glass. It would hardly stop anyone desperate to enter. The voice that answered sounded tired and cautious. “Yes? Who’s there?”

  “This is Misha. Kahina. Please, I must talk with you.…”

  There was a long silence. Misha thought that perhaps Sara wasn’t going to answer when the intercom’s speaker gave a dry click. “You may come up,” the voice said. “Second floor. Straight ahead.”

  The door buzzer shrilled. For a moment Misha hesitated, not certain what to do, then pushed the door open. She entered the air-conditioned foyer and went up the stairs. The door was cracked open; in the space between the door and jamb, an eye stared at her as she approached. It withdrew, and Misha heard a chain rattling. The door opened wider, but only enough to let her pass. “Come in,” Sara said.

  Sara was thinner than Misha remembered, almost gaunt. Her face was sallow and drawn; there were pouchy dark bags under the eyes. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days, lying limp and lusterless around her shoulders. She locked the door behind Misha, then leaned back against it.

  “You look different, Kahina,” Sara said. “No chador, no veils, no bodyguards. But I remembered the voice, and your eyes.”

  “We’ve both been changed,” Misha said softly, and saw pain flicker in Sara’s dark-rimmed pupils.

  “I guess we have. Life’s a bitch, huh?” Sara pushed away from the door, knuckling at her eyes.

  “You wrote about me, after … after the desert. I read it. You understood me. You have a kind soul, Sara.”

  “I don’t write much lately.” She went to the center of the living room. Only one lamp was on; Sara turned in dim shadow. “Listen, why don’t you sit down? I’ll get something to drink. What would you like?”

  “Water.”

  Sara shrugged. She went into the kitchen, came out a few minutes later with two tumblers. She handed one to Misha; Misha could smell alcohol in the other. Sara sat on the couch across from Misha and took a long swallow. “I’ve never been more frightened than the day in the desert,” she said. “I thought your brother—” She hesitated, glancing at Misha over the rim of the glass. “I thought he was utterly mad. I knew we were all going to die. And then…” She took a long sip.

  “Then I cut his throat,” Misha finished. The words hurt; they always did. Neither one of them looked at the other. Misha put her tumbler on the table beside the couch. The chiming of ice against glass seemed impossibly loud.

  “That must have been a very hard decision.”

  “Harder than you could believe,” Misha answered. “The Nur was—and still is—Allah’s prophet. He is my brother. He is the person my husband followed. I love him for Allah, for my family, for my husband. You’ve never been a woman in my society; you don’t know the culture. You can’t see the centuries of condi
tioning. What I did was impossible. I would rather have cut off my hand than allow it to do that.”

  “Yet you did.”

  “I don’t think so,” Misha said softly. “I don’t think you believe it, either.”

  Sara’s face was in darkness, haloed by backlit hair. Misha could see only the gleam of her eyes, the shimmer of water on her lips as she raised her glass again. “Kahina’s dreams again?” Sara mocked, but Misha could hear the words tremble.

  “I came to you in Damascus because of Allah’s visions.”

  “I remember.”

  “Then you remember that in that vision Allah told me you and the senator were lovers. You remember that I saw a knife, and Sayyid struggling to take it from me. You remember that I saw how Hartmann had taken your distrust and transformed it, and how he would take my feelings and use them against me.”

  “You said lots of things,” Sara protested. She huddled back deeper in the couch, hugging her knees to her chest. “It was all symbols and odd images. It could have meant anything.”

  “The dwarf was in that vision, too,” Misha insisted. “You must remember—I told you. The dwarf was Gimli, in Berlin. Hartmann did the same thing there.”

  Sara’s breath was harsh. “Berlin—” she breathed. Then: “It’s all coincidence. Gregg’s a compassionate and warm man. I know that, better than you or anyone. I’ve seen him. I’ve been with him.”

  “Is it coincidence? We both know what he is. He is an ace, a hidden one.”

  “And I tell you that’s impossible. There’s a blood test. And even if it were true, how does that change things? He’s still working for the rights and dignity of all people—unlike Barnett or your brother or terrorists like the JJS. You’ve given me nothing but innuendo against Gregg.”

  “Allah’s dreams—”

  “They’re not Allah’s dreams,” Sara interrupted angrily. “It’s just the damned wild card. Flashes of precognition. There are half a dozen aces with the same ability. You see glimpses of the possible futures, that’s all: useless little previews that have nothing to do with any god.”

  Sara’s voice had risen. Misha could see her hand trembling as she took another drink. “What did you think he’d done, Sara?” she asked. “Why did you once hate him?”

  Misha had thought that Sara might deny it; she didn’t. “I was wrong. I thought … I thought he might have killed my sister. There were coincidences, yes, but I was wrong, Misha.”

  “Yet I can see that you’re frightened because you might have been right, because what I’m saying might be the truth. My dreams tell me—they tell me you’ve been wondering since Berlin. They tell me you’re frightened because you remember one other thing I told you in Damascus: that what he did to me, he would also do to you. Don’t you notice how your feelings for him change when he’s with you, and doesn’t that also make you wonder?”

  “Damn you!” Sara shouted. She flung the tumbler aside. It thudded against the wall as she rose to her feet. “You have no right!”

  “I have proof.” Misha spoke softly into Sara’s rage. She looked calmly upward into the woman’s glare.

  “Dreams,” Sara spat.

  “More than dreams. At the mosque, during the fighting, the senator was shot. I have his jacket. I had the blood analyzed. The infection is there—your wild card virus.”

  Sara shook her head wildly. “No. That’s what you want the tests to show.”

  “Or Hartmann had his own blood test falsified. That would be easy for him, wouldn’t it?” Misha persisted. The wild agony in Sara tore at Misha, yet she persisted. Sara was the key—the visions all said that she was. “And it would mean that perhaps you were right about your sister. It would explain what happened with me. It would explain what happened in Berlin. It would explain everything, all the questions you’ve had.”

  “Then go to the press with this proof.”

  “I am. Right now.”

  Sara’s head swayed back and forth in dogged refusal. “It’s not enough.”

  “Maybe not by itself. We need all that you can tell us. You must know more—other strange incidents, other deaths…”

  Sara was still shaking her head, but her shoulders slumped and the anger had drained away. She turned from Misha. “I can’t trust you,” she said. “Please. Just go away.”

  “Look at me, Sara. We’re sisters in this. We’ve both been hurt, and I want justice for that, as you want justice for your sister. We cry and bleed and there’s no healing for us until we know. Sara, I know how we can mix love and hate. We’re related in that strange, awful way. We’ve both allowed love to blind us. I love my brother, but I also hate what he’s done. You love Hartmann, and yet here’s a darker Hartmann underneath. You can’t move against him because to do so would prove that giving yourself was a mistake, because when he’s here all you can think about is the Hartmann you love. You’d have to admit that you were wrong. You’d have to admit that you let yourself love someone who was using you. So you wait.”

  There was no answer. Misha sighed and nodded. She couldn’t say any more, not when each word tore a visible wound in Sara. She moved toward the door, touching Sara gently on the back as she passed. Misha could feel Sara’s shoulders moving with silent tears. Misha’s hand was on the knob when Sara spoke behind her, her voice choked.

  “You swear it’s his jacket? You have it?”

  Misha kept her hand on the knob, not daring to turn, not allowing herself to feel hope. “Yes.”

  “Do you trust Tachyon?”

  “The alien? I don’t know him. Gimli doesn’t seem to like him. But I will trust him if you do.”

  “I have to be in New York later this week. Meet me in front of the Jokertown Clinic Thursday evening at six-thirty. Bring the jacket. We’ll have Tachyon examine it, and then we’ll see. We’ll see, that’s all. Is it enough?”

  Misha almost gasped with the relief. She wanted to laugh, wanted to hug Sara and cry with her. But she only nodded. “I’ll be there. I promise you, Sara. I want the truth, that’s all.”

  “And if Tachyon says it proves nothing?”

  “Then I’ll learn to accept the guilt for what I did myself.” Misha started to turn the knob, stopped. “If I’m not there, know that it’s because he stopped me. You’ll have to decide what to do then.”

  “Which gives you a convenient out,” Sara said derisively. “All you have to do is not show.”

  “You don’t believe that. Do you?”

  Silence.

  Misha turned the knob and went out.

  Tuesday, 10:00 P.M.

  Chrysalis swung open the door to her office. She paid very little attention to the dwarf who sat in her chair, his bare feet propped up on her desk. She shut the door—the sounds of another busy night at the Crystal Palace dropped to a distant tidal soughing. “Good evening, Gimli.”

  Gimli was feeling rotten. The lack of surprise in Chrysalis’s startling eyes only made him feel worse. “I should learn that you’re never caught off guard.”

  She gave him a tight-lipped smile that floated over a webbing of muscles and tendons. “I’ve known you were back for weeks. That’s old news. So how’s your cold?”

  Gimli sniffed, a long, wet inhalation. Another chill rattled down his spine like a tray of ice cubes. “Shitty. I feel like hell. I’ve had a fever I haven’t been able to kick for two days now. And I’ve evidently got somebody in my organization who can’t keep his or her mouth shut.” He gave her a rueful grimace.

  “You wouldn’t get colds if you’d wear shoes. You brought me a package, too.”

  “Fuck,” Gimli spat out. He swung his legs down and hopped from the chair with a grimace. The sudden movement made him dizzy, and he steadied himself against the desk with a hand. “I might as well have come in the front door. Why don’t we just skip the conversation entirely and you just give me an answer?”

  “I really don’t know the question yet, for certain.” Her laugh was short and dry. “There are some limits after all, and
I’ve been concerned about more immediate things than politics recently. It’s not safe out there for any joker, not just you. But I can make an educated guess,” Chrysalis continued. “I’d say that your visit concerns Senator Hartmann.”

  Gimli snorted. “Shit, after the fuckup in Berlin that doesn’t take much of a guess.”

  “You’re the one who’s impressed by what I know, not me. You’re the one who has to hole up near the East River so the feds don’t snatch him.”

  “I’ve got a big goddamn leak.” He shook his head. Gimli lurched around the side of the desk and hauled himself into her chair again. He closed his eyes for a second. When you get back, you can go to bed again. Maybe this time when you wake up it’ll be gone. “God, I do feel like crap.”

  “Nothing infectious, I hope.”

  “We’ve both already had the worst fucking infection we’re ever like to get.” Gimli glanced at Chrysalis with a sidelong, bloodshot stare. “And speaking of which, I suppose you already know that our Senator Hartmann’s a goddamn ace?”

  “Really?”

  Gimli scoffed. “There are things I know too, lady. One of them is that Downs has been asking odd questions, and that you’ve been seeing a lot of each other. My guess is that you’re thinking the same thing.”

  “And if I am? Even granting that you’re correct—and I’m not—why should you care about it? Maybe an ace president would be good. A lot of people feel Hartmann’s done more for the jokers than the JJS.”

  Gimli shot to his feet at that, his illness forgotten. Rage eroded deep canyons in his pudgy face. “The goddamn JJS was the only organization that told the fucking nats that they can’t jerk us jokers around. We didn’t stand there holding our hats in our trunks like old kiss-ass Des. The JJS made ’em pay attention, even if we had to do it by beating them in the face. I’m not going to listen to crap about Hartmann being better than the JJS.”

  “Then I suggest you leave.”

  “If I do, then you don’t see the fucking package.”

  He could see Chrysalis considering that, and he smiled, the anger quickly forgotten. Yeah, you’re hungry for that. Old Chrysalis’s just playing it cool. I knew she’d want to see it. And fuck Misha if she doesn’t like it.