Jerry had been there a couple of times when they were getting the camp up and running. It was a favorite charity funded to a large degree by him and Ackroyd, and administered by Father Squid and a committee drawn mainly from his parish. Located on a couple of dozen acres set in the middle of nowhere which were owned by a friend of the joker priest, Camp Xavier Desmond was a year round retreat whose purpose was to get poor joker and nat kids out of the city so they could hang out together and learn about each other. It was open all summer and on weekends when school was in session, just to give kids a breath of fresh air, to show them what a tree looked like and maybe help them realize that nats and jokers weren’t so different after all.
Once they’d crossed over the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee Bridge, Jerry avoided the Palisades Parkway feeder road, sticking to the thoroughfare leading to old Route 17. He could have taken the 87, also known as the Thruway, which was wider, straighter, and faster. But he didn’t want wide, straight, and fast. He wanted narrow, crooked, and obscure, and old 17 was that in spades.
The little traffic there was on 17 consisted of commuters heading south to New York City. Virtually nobody was traveling on his side of the road. He kept to the speed limit and drove conservatively, glancing every now and then at John Fortune, who had conked out in the front seat next to him well before they’d crossed the Hudson. The boy had been through a lot, and this was probably the first time he’d felt safe enough to get a good rest. Jerry himself was going on the last dregs of adrenaline his body had left. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, and food was nearly a forgotten concept. He could have stopped at one of the diners that catered to travelers on the old road, but he had no wallet, no I.D., no money. Doggedly, he drove on.
Wanting real obscurity, he turned west on 17A as soon as possible, entering the empty big space on the road map. As always, he found it kind of hard to believe that there was so much nothing so close to New York City. A confirmed city boy, the nearness of so much unused land always bothered him. More than once he found himself thinking that what these open fields needed was a couple of good apartment complexes to fill them up, but intellectually he realized that these open space were not really wasted. The rich soil was burgeoning with crops of all kinds—corn, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, celery, and other vegetables that would eventually make themselves useful at one salad bar or another. He was just not used to seeing them in the wild.
It was slow going, and even slower once he’d reached the sleepy hamlet of Florida with its one traffic light. He turned from 17A to the network of county roads that spread through the rural landscape like capillaries meandering off larger blood vessels. The traffic was now at a minimum, mainly locals headed for their jobs at metropolises like Middletown and Goshen, places whose populations didn’t exceed that of a decent-sized apartment complex.
Half relieved to find the place again, he pulled into Camp Xavier Desmond just as it was waking up to face another beautiful summer day. He was still wearing Butcher Dagon’s face and body, not thinking it prudent to take the time to transform in the middle of their escape, but was still easily able to establish his bona fides with the camp superintendent while keeping John under wraps in the car. It was before office hours at Ackroyd and Creighton, but he called to check in and leave a message, saying where they were and that they were all right. He got the kid settled into an empty guest cabin, had a big, satisfying breakfast, and went to the cabin himself and crashed.
He slept well and deeply, knowing that he’d earned every moment of the rest he took.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Las Vegas: Airport
They had to rush through breakfast to catch their early morning flight. The Angel wasn’t happy about that. All she wanted was to get her money’s worth (Well, she reminded herself, The Hand’s money’s worth.), but there was also the fact that they were going to be on the plane for a good part of the day and plane food was notoriously bad. And scanty.
Breakfast unfortunately turned out to be the high point of the day, which went downhill really fast.
The Angel and Ray boarded the plane half an hour before take-off. The flight was already full. Ray grumbled endlessly about the fact that they’d gotten stuck in the main cabin because they’d had to buy their tickets at the last second. He was, the Angel thought, acting like a spoiled child. Their seats were perfectly adequate.
They had two seats in a row in the cabin’s central section. Ray offered her the aisle seat, but she declined. That was her first mistake. Her second was being nice to the man who sat down next to her, smiling at him when he first plopped down. He was young, rather handsome with lean, dark good looks. Almost Mediterranean, with thick, wavy hair and dark, puppy-dog eyes. She was somewhat suspicious of him at first, but she told herself not to stereotype. Not every Italian-looking man was an Allumbrado.
She had her first qualm when she smelled the liquor wafting off him in waves, the smell of which was undisguised by his rather potent hair tonic, skin lotion, and cologne. It was an uneasy combination of odors to experience so early in the morning and it didn’t help any when their take-off was delayed for unspecified reasons and the air-conditioning was turned off as they sat on the runway and waited. And waited. And waited.
The passenger sitting next to the Angel wanted to while away the time drinking, but the flight attendant refused him alcohol. He then turned his attention to the Angel and she finally realized that he was hitting on her when she felt his hand on her upper thigh.
“Take your hand off me,” she said in a cold voice.
He only smiled back at her. Ray, who had been focused in on his own little world, turned his head and frowned as she spoke. “You want to take it down a notch, Jack?” he asked.
“Please, Billy—” the Angel began, but the drunk interrupted her.
“I’m not poaching your private preserve, am I?” he asked Ray.
Ray frowned. “No, but—”
“Hey,” the drunk interrupted again, “she’s free, white, and twenty-one, ain’t she?”
Ray’s expression went cold. “How’d you like to be drunk, dead, and thirty-five, dork?”
“Billy!”
“You threatening me?” the drunk asked belligerently.
Ray laughed in his face. The drunk turned red, stood, and drew his fist back. The Angel caught it in her palm as he tried to punch Ray.
“Stop it!” she ordered.
The drunk tried to pull free. She twisted his wrist a little harder than she’d intended, and heard something snap. He screamed, “You broke my fucking arm, you fucking bitch!”
Then his face turned puce and he gagged.
“No,” the Angel said. “Oh, no.”
He threw up in her lap.
Ray was out of his seat and standing in the aisle before the spatter could hit him. “Son of a—” he started to say when a swarm of flight attendants descended on them. Some of them tried to placate Ray, some tried to help the Angel and a couple others led the still-retching drunk away.
“I saw it all,” one of the stewardesses said. “It wasn’t your fault. Not at all. But I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the plane so we can clean... this... all... up.”
The Angel saw Ray muttering to himself, barely under control.
“My name is Billy Ray. I’m with the Secret Service. This is my associate. We have to get to New York as soon as possible—”
”I sympathize,” the stewardess said. “But surely you can’t expect to travel in this condition.”
Ray took a deep breath as if to calm himself, then screwed up his face when he got a good whiff of the Angel.
“No,” he said woodenly. “Of course not.”
“I’m sorry,” the Angel said. She grimaced at the vomit-covered front of her pants and blouse, holding her arms out from her body in dismay. “I didn’t mean—”
“No one’s blaming you,” Ray said. He glared at the stewardess. “Are they?”
“No, certainly not, sir. We all saw t
hat she was simply protecting herself from an obnoxious drunk.”
“That’s right,” chimed in an interested passenger. “We all saw it.”
The captain came down the aisle, frowning. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Trouble?”
“No, sir,” the Angel said in a meek voice. “No trouble at all.”
But of course they had to deplane. She had to clean up, using one of the airport shower facilities to wash off the vomit that had soaked her to the skin. Ray had to buy her another outfit, because all the clothes she had in the world had finally taken off for New York City. Then the cops came and she had to tell the story. Then more cops came and they had to tell the story again. Then they had to tell it one more time, officially, for their statement. Ray’s status helped, but he didn’t want to push it because he didn’t want the locals to look at them too deeply. It was afternoon by the time they’d cut their way through the red tape, and having had the satisfaction of seeing the obnoxious drunk hauled off to the poky with his arm in a sling.
They were saying their good-byes to the airport cops, who, the Angel thought, were googling at her all too avidly in the tight jeans and form-fitting tee-shirt that said “I Lost It In Vegas” that Ray had purchased for her. Fortunately she’d been able to salvage her bra. Without it she would have been too much of a spectacle to be endured. She should have made Ray go back to the airport stores and find something a little more appropriate for her to wear. She supposed it wasn’t his fault. She was difficult to fit in the best of times, and the clothing selection in an airport mall was not exactly extensive.
They were leaving the security office when one of the cops who’d just answered a ringing phone yelled out for them to stop.
“Hey, Mr. Ray,” he called, “it’s headquarters.”
Ray stopped with a sigh and a put-upon expression on his face. He had something, the Angel decided, of a martyr’s complex.
“They need your help.”
He looked slightly mollified. “Sure,” he said, glancing at the Angel. She looked away, rolling her eyes. “What about?”
“It’s Butcher Dagon.” The Angel had a sudden bad feeling that was quickly confirmed. “He’s escaped.”
Ray shrugged. “That’s your—”
The Angel laid a hand on his arm. “We can’t let him run lose. Think of the innocents!”
“In Vegas?” Ray asked.
“You know what I mean,” she replied.
Ray sighed again. His expression was clouded, but the Angel knew that she had him half-convinced.
“I’ll go on ahead. I can handle things at the New York end. You take care of Butcher Dagon.” She added what she realized would be the clincher. “Only you can handle him.”
Ray paused to consider. “Well. Yeah. All right.”
The Angel paused as well. She really hated to do this, but she had no choice.
“One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t have any money. I’ll need the credit card.”
Ray’s expression turned pained, but he nodded, somewhat regretfully, the Angel thought, and handed it over.
“Take good care of it,” Ray thought and added, with only the slightest hesitation, “and yourself.”
It was, the Angel thought, rather sweet of him to be concerned.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New York City: St Dympna’s Parking Lot
“Let’s go,” Cameo said flatly. She took off her old, battered hat and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Cadillac Seville she’d hot-wired moments before.
Nighthawk gave a final wave to whoever the fellow was who looked like Butcher Dagon as he and the boy peeled out of Dympna’s parking lot. He looked at Cameo. She looked back. She seemed different, somehow.
“I’m driving,” Cameo said.
Nighthawk shrugged. It was all the same to him. He went around the car and got into the passenger’s side and had just settled down when Cameo gunned it. They hit a pothole, bounced, and roared out of the lot, jouncing about like Mexican jumping beans. Nighthawk grabbed the dashboard and watched Cameo. She had a tight smile on her face. Her eyes, her whole expression, were harder, somehow tougher. As if she were a different person.
Maybe, Nighthawk thought, she was.
“You all right, missy?” he asked.
“No thanks to you,” she replied shortly. The inflection of her voice was different. Her words were as hard as her expression. Nighthawk wondered who he was dealing with now.
“You’re not Cameo, are you?”
She snorted. “We’re all Cameo, honey.”
Nighthawk nodded. “If you say so.”
“Where are we headed?”
“I’ve got some places around town,” Nighthawk said. He thought for a moment. “How about Staten Island?”
“Staten Island?” Cameo asked. “It stinks. It’s the sticks.”
“It’s quiet. It’s out of sight. We’ll be able to rest and talk some.”
“Talk?” Cameo asked. “About what?”
“About a job I want you to do for me.”
Cameo glanced at him as she skidded around a corner practically on two wheels.
“You’ve got your nerve,” she said.
Nighthawk nodded. “That I do, missy. That I do.”
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New York City: Jokertown
From far away, from under a league of water or perhaps a thousand yards of cotton batting, Fortunato heard someone call his name. But he couldn’t answer. He was wrapped in a cloak of weakness, a cocoon that isolated him almost completely from the world.
And all of his senses told him one thing: pain. Horrific, mind-numbing, soul-eating pain that should have killed him but ironically was helping him cling to the edge of life. Pain, and from somewhere far away, insignificant insect-like vibrations that touched the edge of his consciousness.
“Father! Father Squid! Jesus Christ, come here, quick!”
There was a momentary cessation of vibration, then the whole floor quivered as if something very heavy was approaching very quickly. Then there was peace again.
“Is he still alive, Father?”
Pressure on his face, gentle, as if tendrils of a willow tree blown across his features by a soft wind that smelled faintly of the sea.
“He is.”
Fortunato was still hiding too deep in his consciousness to understand the surprise in the voice.
“It’s a miracle, Father.”
“I don’t know about that. That mental cry for help must have penetrated nearly every corner of Jokertown. Only a powerful ace could have done it. Only a powerful ace could survive a beating like this.”
“Then the old Fortunato’s back?”
“I don’t know about that, either, but if we don’t get him some help fast, we’ll never find out.”
“It took a long time to find a single man hidden in a falling down building, even if he was just across the street from Our Lady.”
“We did the best we could for him, now it’s out of our hands. Call 911. Tell them to get here quick. I’m afraid to move him ourselves.”
There were shuffling vibrations along the floor of comings and goings.
“But, good God, Father, what happened to these others? It looks like they’ve been torn to pieces by wild beasts. There’s Carlos... that has to be part of that big guy... they’re all from that gang.”
The smell of the sea receded. The floor creaked as massive weight shifted upon it.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe the old Fortunato is back. And the Bruddas bit off a little more than they could chew...”
There was an eternity of silence. Then the pain that he thought was ultimate agony exploded into agony multiplied exponentially as gentle angel wings lifted him up and brought to mercifully peaceful, painless Heaven.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New Hampton: Camp Xavier Desmond
Jerry was still tired when he woke up mid-afternoon. He was still tired, but he knew tha
t he had to get going. He and John Fortune were safe for now, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. Literally, he thought, as he surveyed the forest outside the cabin window. John Fortune was still sleeping in the next bunk. The poor kid had been through Hell, Jerry thought, and he didn’t have the heart to wake him up. On the other hand, he didn’t want the boy to awaken, find him gone, and start wandering about the grounds looking for him. Even at Camp Xavier Desmond—or, as the kids called it, C-X-Dez—a new kid who glowed would attract an unwelcome amount of attention and cause unwanted speculation.
He left a note, telling him that he was not to leave the bunk under any circumstances—unless it caught fire or was hit by a meteor—and went off to the administrative office to find a phone. He dialed the office and was pleased when a sultry voice said “Ackroyd and Creighton. How may I help you?” in a sexy, French-accented contralto.
“Hello, Ezili—”
“Jerry!” the receptionist interrupted before he could say another word. “Are you still at the camp? Are you really all right?”
Jerry was touched by the authentic concern in her voice. He’d known Ezili for years, during most of which they’d had an on-again, off-again love affair, which unfortunately had recently been mostly off again. Jerry didn’t know if Ezili—who was named after the least forgiving aspect of her native Haiti’s love goddess—had been touched by the wild card and given a minor ace, or was merely very, very good at her favorite activity, which was sex. He didn’t love her, really, but he had feelings for her which he weren’t at all sure were reciprocated. As hot as she was in bed, she was cool out of it. It was nice to hear the concern in her voice.
“We’re okay. Got the message on I left on the tape?”
“Oui—”
It was his turn to interrupt. “All right. We’re still at the camp. We’re still all right. We still don’t have a clue as to what the Hell is going on. We could probably use some reinforcements, in case the bad guys show up again. I can’t imagine how they could trace us here... but...”
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