“How do you wish to proceed?” he asked.
“Give me the Lugers.”
“So you can shoot me?”
I gestured with the letter opener. “This isn’t much of a knife, but if I’d wanted to, I still could have jammed it into Sly’s neck. And yours. But never mind. I probably wouldn’t give me the guns, either. Just drop the mags, and get the rounds out of the chambers.”
He did, and I sighed and started to relax. That was when something jerked tight around my right ankle and jerked my leg out from under me.
As I fell, I saw how he’d looped the end of his tail around under the parked cars to sneak it up behind me. Then I banged my head on a fender, and it clacked my teeth together.
Epunamlin dropped the Lugers, lunged at me, and reached with his wooden hands. I had a hunch it was to lift me up to make it easier to wrap his tail around me. I screamed, stiffened my hand, and stabbed my fingertips into his eye.
He let out a rasping screech and jerked backward. The grip on my ankle tightened to the point of agony for an instant, but then loosened. I kicked free and floundered backward.
Epunamlin didn’t follow. He stayed where he was and clapped one hand over his eye.
“Are we done now?” I panted.
“Yes. I think you scratched the brille.”
“The what?”
“The membrane that covers my eye. It hurts. I need to see my vet.”
I smiled. “Well, if you’ll just stop being an asshole, we can take care of that.”
We collected Sylvester, told him the fight was over, then hurried to the truck. A’marie climbed out of the cab, and Epunamlin looked her over with his good eye. “What was she going to use to incapacitate the truck?” he asked.
“She was supposed to have a screwdriver or something,” I said. “But I didn’t see one during the second I was inside the trailer. You just have to give us credit for having the right idea.”
Sylvester gave A’marie a hangdog look. “I really didn’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“Sylvester,” she said, “you wrecked my car.”
He broke down crying. She sighed, hugged him, and told him it was all right. Epunamlin and I traded looks of disbelief.
Then we hurried them through their Dr. Phil moment, and we all piled into the cab. With the modifications, Sylvester’s king-sized seat took up most of the space, but there was room for the rest of us if we didn’t mind the squeeze. Figuring that if he and Epunamlin still meant to kill me, there wasn’t much I could do about it now, I gave back the scarves. They tied them on, and I wondered which was really less conspicuous, a truck with a weeping willow man for a driver or one that looked like it was driving itself.
We got out of there before the cops showed up and had a chance to take a look at either. Then I explained my plan.
No one else who’d heard it had offered to put me up for a Nobel Prize, and Sly and Epunamlin were just as unimpressed. The snake started to tell me everything that was wrong with it, and I cut him off.
“Tough,” I said, “it’s what we’re doing. And I do mean we. Because I’m drafting you.”
They thought about it for a second, and then Epunamlin said, “Agreed. We believed our moment had come, and perhaps it really has. Just not quite the way we imagined.”
“Great. You can celebrate making the team by explaining how you tracked us down. I’m guessing the Pharaoh. White and gold are his team colors.”
“Yes,” Epunamlin said. “He told us he’d found out you and A’marie were sneaking out together during the day, so he had his servant plant a transponder on her car.”
“Then he gave you the receiver and the matching scarves,” I guessed, “along with a pep talk about how if you just killed me, it would get rid of Timon, too.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“Are you mad at us?” asked Sly. He sounded like a little kid despite his deep, slow voice.
I sighed. “I probably should be, but I’m not. How would I even know I was in hobbit land if somebody wasn’t trying to kill me, or mess with me somehow?”
“‘Hobbit land?’” repeated Epunamlin. “Are you an admirer of Professor Tolkien’s oeuvre?”
“Sure,” I said, stretching a point for the sake of male bonding. “You?”
“There was a time when I considered changing my name to Smaug.”
I didn’t tell him I didn’t know who that was.
Sylvester dropped A’marie and me off in the alley, and we sneaked back into the Icarus the same way we’d gotten out. She begged a passkey from another member of the Tuxedo Team so I could get back into my room.
“Well,” she said, “I need to change, too. And then spread the word.”
“I really am sorry about your car,” I said.
“It wasn’t in the best shape,” she said. “But it was the nicest thing I had. But if you can make this work, it’ll be worth it.” She took my hand, gave it a squeeze, then left me standing beside the service stairs.
I groped my way up and made it back to my room without anybody else trying to whack me. I showered the smell of the bay off me, dressed, and took a couple of my Tylenol 3’s to kill the ache in my head and feet. I could have asked Red to do it. By then, the mojo tank was filling up again. But I was liable to need it for other things.
When I was ready to go out, I had to decide who to track down first. I decided to let anger be my guide and find the Pharaoh.
I found him playing billiards.
The pool, snooker, and billiards room, with one table for each, was on the first floor, and candle-lit like the rest of the hotel. The Pharaoh looked better than the last time I’d seen him. Somehow he’d reattached his head and leg, or Davis had done it for him. Fresh bandages, looking very white on top of the dirty, ragged old ones, wrapped the joins. He also had a steel head brace, and extra plastic splints to immobilize the leg. He was sucking on a cheroot and sitting in a wheelchair.
That all makes it sound like he shouldn’t have been able to play. But magic made his cue float around and shoot on its own. As I came in, he made a semi-massé.
When he saw me, his shriveled lips quirked into a smile. “Billy,” he said in his high-class, jolly British voice. “Would you care to join me?”
I glared at him. “Listen, you son of a bitch.”
That brought Davis surging up out of his chair. But the Pharaoh lifted a hand to signal him that he didn’t need to kick my ass just yet.
“I take it that you not only survived your encounter with Epunamlin and Sylvester,” the mummy said, “you prevailed on them to disclose who set them on your trail.”
“Bingo,” I said.
“Then let me offer my sincere congratulations. I found myself quite uncharacteristically ambivalent about dispatching them in the first place. But it’s pointless to play unless one does one’s very best to win. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Here’s how it is,” I said. “You can take your best shot at me. But when you put somebody else in danger, that’s over the line. If you do it again, I’ll find those special jars of yours, break them, and piss all over what’s inside. Are we clear?”
“Entirely,” the Pharaoh said. “If I apologize, and agree to your stipulation, can we put the incident behind us?”
I hesitated. I still had mad in me that wanted to come out. But I realized that, like most of the time at the poker table, there was no advantage in letting it out. “I guess.”
“Then, assuming you care for the game…?”
I picked out a cue from the rack. Since I was more used to pool cues, the shorter, lighter stick felt a little funny in my hands. I chalked it and lined up a shot.
“Did all of Timon’s servants survive the encounter?” the Pharaoh asked.
“Everybody’s fine,” I said. I shot, then smiled when my cue ball clacked into his and the red ball, too. Maybe I wasn’t as rusty as I thought.
“That’s all for the best,” the Pharaoh said. “I don’t suppose I’d look like an es
pecially gracious guest if I were getting my host’s subjects slaughtered willy-nilly.”
“Probably not.” I used some outside English to make another shot.
“Where exactly did they catch up with you?”
I grinned as I bent back down over the table. “What you really want to know is why I left the hotel.”
“True. Can you blame me? I know Timon must have explained that you’re safer here, yet you persist in slipping off anyway. You decamped with the little horned nymph again today even though rumor has it that she played you false yesterday. To say the least, it’s curious.”
“Oh, not really. I like fresh air, and she’s hot.” I hit his cue ball but missed the red ball by a quarter of an inch. “Your turn.”
His stick floated around the table, then swung down and lined itself up for the stroke. “You realize,” he said, “I can simply ask Epunamlin or Sylvester where you went.”
“Sure,” I said. “Good luck with that.”
He tried a kick shot. He clipped the red ball but missed my cue.
I had a tough leave, but I made my shot anyway, just barely grazing the second ball.
As I straightened up, the Pharaoh said, “We could start a real game, and play for the answer to a question. You already know what I’d ask, and I daresay you can think of something to ask me.”
“I can think of a bunch of things,” I said. “But I figure that a guy who can move a cue with his mind can move the balls, too, and that just might explain this little hot streak I’ve been on. But I like the way you let me miss one shot, and just barely make another. You didn’t oversell it.”
He laughed. “You continue to impress me.”
“And just think, I’m saving all my best stuff for the poker table.”
“I have every confidence. But seriously, have you thought about the future? More specifically, have you thought about the implications of what happened after I caught your astral body in my snare?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The cleaving into five. I suspect that it marked you, and that whenever you work magic now, particularly when you’re improvising, you tend to achieve your effects by drawing one of the five souls to the forefront.”
Just like I’d told Timon. Jesus, this guy was sharp. “Okay. So what?”
“So nothing bad, I assure you. You’ve set your feet on a noble path. But it is your path now, and Timon, powerful though he is, can’t teach you to walk it all the way to the end.”
“But you could.”
“Yes. Unlike anyone else you’re ever likely to meet.”
“So I need to throw the tournament to buddy up to you.”
The Pharaoh stubbed out the butt of his smoke in a cut-glass ashtray. “You have an unfortunate tendency to put things crudely. But yes, of course, that is what I’m proposing.”
“Sorry,” I said. “If you want to win, you’ll have to knock me out the old-fashioned way.” I leaned my cue against the wall and went back out into the hall.
Where I needed to fix my expression and body language. I’d wanted to look tough for the Pharaoh’s benefit, but now it was time for something different.
So I imagined myself back in Georgie’s coffin. Back running with Epunamlin’s Lugers cracking behind me. Back reeling through the dark, endless house with the floating skull snapping at my back.
Either I’ve got a good imagination or I’d just gone through too much shit in too short a time, because it almost worked too well. I started panting, and a shudder ran through me. I even felt like I might start crying.
But I made myself take slow, deep breaths, and after a few seconds, I managed to dial it back. Then I only looked like a guy suffering from panic attacks, or at least I hoped I did.
I climbed the marble stairs to the mezzanine. Gaspar was outside the door to Timon’s hideout. When he saw me coming, he said, “Here he is!”
“Get him in here!” Timon snapped.
When I stepped through the door, I saw that he once again had a deck of cards scattered across the table, along with an assortment of drugstore reading glasses. The irises were mostly distinct from the whites of his eyes, and the pupils were pretty round, though still not the same size.
I could tell he was relieved that I’d turned up, which meant he still couldn’t see well enough to play poker. But he was getting there. I needed to wrap up the game while he still needed me.
But I’d suspected it might well end tonight anyway. One reason poker tournaments don’t last forever is that the blinds get bigger as you go along. That means you reach a point where you can’t afford to sit and wait for premium cards. My opponents and I were going to have to play more starting hands and get aggressive.
Timon sniffed, pulling in my scent, and the wet sound yanked me back from thinking about the game to the here and now. I hoped that wallowing in some of my nastier memories from the past couple days had left me smelling scared.
“I’m here,” I said sullenly, trying not to seem too much like a beaten, broken man. He was more likely to buy my act if I appeared to be trying to walk and talk like my same old insolent self, but the damage showed through underneath.
“Please sit,” he said, waving to the chair across the table. I hesitated like a dog that’s scared its master will hit it, then did as ordered. I tried not to wince at a whiff of sour BO.
“I didn’t necessarily expect you to be out and about early today,” he continued. “But when the afternoon was well underway, I sent Gaspar to check on you. And then, when he reported you missing, I had to hope our little lesson in respect hadn’t rattled you so much that you’d run away.”
I sighed. “That wouldn’t have been very smart, would it?”
Timon smiled. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“I was just walking. I needed to clear my head, and I… I didn’t trust myself to drive.”
“You really shouldn’t have left, but never mind. I understand you were upset.”
“I need to know that stuff isn’t going to happen anymore. Not if I do what you say.”
“You have my word. I didn’t enjoy doing it this time.” Maybe, but his little smirk said otherwise. “Embrace the role that fate has assigned to you, and I won’t ever have to do it again.”
“I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Good. And there’s no need to sound so depressed about it. You’re going to have a wonderful life.”
“Yeah, well… when I was trying to get my head together, I tried to see the up side. And I admit, Monte Carlo was pretty amazing. To go to a place like that whenever I want, to go anywhere and do anything I want… you were right. I do want to learn.”
Timon smiled a yellow-toothed smile. “Splendid! I can’t promise to teach you to do everything I can do as well as I can do it. You’d have to be born to it. But I guarantee that at a bare minimum, you’ll learn to bend dreams to your own purposes whenever I welcome you in.”
“Can I start right away?”
He hesitated. “If we’re going to work on your magic, perhaps we should stay focused on the waking world for now. That’s what might help you at the table.”
“I know, but… last night, I saw a lot of the stick. I feel like now I need a little more carrot. It might settle me down. Which will definitely help me at the table.”
“Well, all right. I suppose a few minutes won’t hurt. Have you ever been hypnotized?”
“No.” I hoped I wouldn’t end up quacking like a duck.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Timon and I worked on my magic for quite a while. After we got back from dreamland, he tried to teach me how to float a card up off the tabletop with my mind. He probably thought that if I could do that, I could use my mojo to elevate the cut or deal seconds, too.
As it turned out, I could make a card wobble a little, but that was all. I remembered how I hadn’t been able to make the fire-escape ladder drop, either. Obviously, for me, this particular kind of magic wasn’t going to come easily.
Altho
ugh Timon didn’t let me work at it as hard or as long as I could have. He and I were caught in the same trap as usual. The only way for me to learn to use my gifts was to burn mojo. But I couldn’t show up for the game with an empty tank.
When my concentration started to slip, and our stomachs started to growl, we headed down to the buffet. I noticed that as we passed, members of the Tuxedo Team looked at me differently. A’marie, Epunamlin, Sylvester, and maybe even Murk had spread word of the plan, and although I was willing to bet that nobody had a hell of a lot of faith in it, it made a difference anyway. They no longer saw me as the enemy.
I wished they did, or at least that they were better at faking it. But, maybe because his vision was still too blurry, Timon didn’t notice they weren’t giving me the covert stink eye anymore.
In the dining room, I piled my plate high with lobster ravioli, green beans, and garlic bread—as usual, a busy afternoon and evening of running for my life and working magic had left me hungry—and wandered over to Queen. Most of her children were at her feet, crawling over one another as they gobbled and slurped raw hamburger from several serving trays. They were an inch or two bigger than the last time I’d seen them.
“No Gimble tonight?” I asked.
“No,” she said. She picked up a feebly squirming tarantula from her own supper, crammed it in her mouth, crunched it up, and swallowed. “The lord of Japantown in San Francisco invited him to a Go tournament. I imagine he’ll win that one.”
I grinned. “Do you people ever spend any time actually governing all the little kingdoms you own?”
She gave me a chilly little smile. She had a couple tarantula bristles stuck to her front teeth. “Oh, yes. Some of us more than others, of course.”
“Sure. Have you got any tips for me on how to play against the Pharaoh?”
“You assume I’d want an upstart human to beat him. That I’m still holding a grudge against him, even though I paid him back already.”
“Am I wrong?” I looked down at the squirming pile of pale little jelly monkeys between us. “After all, they are your babies.”
“I’m not sentimental about them in the way a human mother would be. Still, you have a point. Up until now, the Egyptian’s established a conservative table image. Now, he’ll shift gears, even more than he needs to this deep into the tournament. He’ll also use more magic, and it’s likely to be subtle.”
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