Wild Cards 15 - Black Trump

by George R. R. Martin

  "Harvest," Ray said as a conversational gambit. "What kind of name is that?"

  April Harvest looked up from the dossier. "A last name," she finally said.

  "Well, it's an unusual last name."

  She looked at Ray expressionlessly. "Not to me it isn't."

  "Well ..." This wasn't going very well. Ray didn't know if he should be exasperated or angry. He suspected he'd reach the latter stage soon enough. She continued to look at him. He felt trapped by the gaze of her killer blue eyes. "Well ..." he said again. He felt like an idiot. This wasn't going well at all.

  A knock on the door rescued him.

  "Who is it?" he barked, louder and harsher than necessary.

  There was a momentary silence, then a voice on the other side of the door said, "No one. No one's here "

  Ray frowned. He looked at Harvest. She was frowning, too.

  "Yes there is," another voice said. "It's me."

  Ray growled. He got off the bed and glided to the door with his usual effortless grace. He yanked it open. "Oh. It's you." Ray stepped back. "Come in."

  "No, I have to be going," Mick Dockstedder said. "Nice seeing you again." He gave a jaunty little wave and tried to walk away, but his conjoined twin wasn't having it.

  "Now just wait a minute, Mick," said Rick. "I want to talk to Ray."

  "I don't!" Mick said a bit sharply. "Let's go."

  "No!"

  "Yes!"

  "No!"

  Ray silently watched the twins' struggle for control of their single pair of legs. This was it, he told himself. There was no doubt, now. It was anger.

  "Get inside," he growled in a low, dangerous voice, "before I knock the crap out of you ... out of both of you ... and drag you in."

  Mick looked at his brother with hurt in his eyes. "You've done it, now, Rick."

  "No I haven't," Rick said as Ray closed the door behind them. "It'll work out just fine. Won't it?"

  "You bet," Ray said without enthusiasm.

  Rick and Mick stopped when they saw Harvest look at them with disbelief and disgust on her finely-chiseled features.

  "Who's that?" Mick asked.

  "You remember her," Rick answered. "She was at Squisher's."

  "I know that," Mick said. "I want to know who she is."

  "She's on the Special Executive Task Force," Ray said.

  "I'm his boss," Harvest added.

  "Maybe we can trust Ray," Mick said, "but we don't know anything about her."

  "You a wild carder, lady?" Rick asked.

  Harvest shook her head.

  "That's it," Mick shouted. "I'm out of here."

  "No, you're not," Rick shouted back. "You wait right here for me."

  "I won't!"

  "Oh, yes you will, you dummy!"

  "Well, yeah, I'm smarter than you any day of the week!"

  "Are not!"

  "Are too!"

  The two shouted invectives at each other as they moon-walked back and forth across a patch of carpet, heading to the door and back, the door and back. Ray planted himself in front of them, grabbed them, and spun them around.

  "What the hell do you guys want?" he roared.

  "Nothing!" Mick said "My mouth is shut."

  Ray grabbed his nose and twisted. "Keep it shut," Ray barked. "Or I'll tear your nose off." He looked at Rick. "How about you?"

  Rick licked his lips. "You said there'd be money in it if we told you where Hartmann was."

  Ray nodded, suppressing a smile. "That's right."

  "How much?"

  "A thousand."

  Rick looked at his brother.

  "Tell him to let go of my nose," he said. Ray sighed and did. Mick refused to meet his brother's eyes. Rick nudged him, but Mick shook his head. "Nope. This is your doing. I want no part of it."

  "Okay," Rick said. "Suit yourself." He looked at Ray. "I been around, you know. I know a lot of what's coming down."

  Ray nodded impatiently. "Sure. But what do you know about Hartmann?

  "He's been seen in the company of some blond nat bimbo - oh." Harvest had cleared her throat and stared at him with her hard blue eyes. "No offense, lady, um, ma'am. He's been hanging with Fatter Squid, too."

  "We know that," Harvest said briefly.

  "He's been on his own since Father Squid and the others were picked up by the police. But he wants to get out of the city. I overheard him in Squisher's."

  "How's he trying to get out?" Ray asked.

  "A plane," Rick said. "He's trying to hire a plane. Ain't that right, Mick?"

  Mick shook his head. "I ain't saying."

  "Where? Tomlin? La Guardia? Where?" Harvest asked.

  Rick shook his head. "I don't know."

  Ray frowned thoughtfully. "That's not much to go on."

  Rick looked indignant. "It's the skinny. You can trust me."

  "Hah!" Mick interjected.

  "Sure you can, Mr. Ray. I wouldn't want to screw with you."

  Ray nodded judiciously. "Damn right. Okay." he reached into his pocket for his wallet. He counted five hundred-dollar bills and handed them over to Rick.

  "You said an even thou."

  "Another five hundred when we get Hartmann."

  "But - "

  Ray looked at him.

  "Okay. That's fair." Rick stuffed the bills in his pants' pocket.

  "Here." Ray handed him a sheaf of printed forms. "Sign this receipt."

  "Okay."

  Rick's signature was accomplished in a laborious scrawl. As they headed out the door they began arguing about what to do with the money. Mick was all for a big celebration dinner and maybe a visit to Chickadee's. Rick was firm that this was his money and Mick wasn't going to benefit from it. He remembered that there was a new edition of Star Trek porcelain plates rimmed in real 14-carat gold that he'd wanted for his collection. Ray stood at the door, watching them argue as they lurched off down the hall. He shook his head and shut the door.

  "Can you believe those two?" he asked Harvest.

  "I don't know. You've invested five hundred dollars of the government's money in them."

  "Plenty more where that came from. What are you doing?"

  She stopped dialing the phone and looked at him with eyes that could melt ice. "Setting up a dragnet to cover all the airports in the metropolitan area. You have a better idea?"

  Ray opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head. Nothing he felt he could go into right this moment.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  In New York, it was said the prerequisite for a taxi driver's license was that the recipient must be unable to speak English. Supposedly it was an added bonus to look more like roadkill than anything human.

  From what Gregg could gather between the plastic bars of his cage, this cabbie met both requirements. The driver of the cab Hannah flagged down near Roosevelt Park had too many arms, all of them seemingly slathered with green slime, and the parrot's beak set in the middle of the over-size wrinkled prune the joker used for a head looked disturbingly unsuited for normal speech. "Wayryegot?" he squawked at Hannah as she opened the rear door and slung the pet carrier holding Gregg across the cracked vinyl seat.

  "It's my dog," Hannah said. "Spot. We - I mean I - need to get to Tomlin. Take the Manhattan Bridge, please."

  Something round and saucerlike blinked in the center of the prune as the driver looked back at Hannah. Gregg could see a yellowed copy of the newspaper photo of himself clipped to the passenger seat visor, half obscured by someone's school picture - if it was the driver's daughter, there was no visible sign of the wild card in her. Gregg huddled back in the carrier, hoping the joker wouldn't notice his yellow skin through the vents. A slimy hand punched the meter on the dash, another plucked the microphone from the set; another waved out the window at traffic while the final one turned the wheel as the cab pulled out onto Chrystie. "Nubberhunneredfurdysebben. Goderfair," the joker garbled into the mike. "HeddbingtoTommin."

  The receiver squealed back something equally unint
elligible. Thankfully, the driver didn't try to make conversation on the way. The radio blared percussive, bass-distorted hip-hop.

  "Spot?" Gregg whispered through the bars to Hannah.

  "Hush. It was the only thing I could think of. Now lie down. Good dog." Hannah placed her hand on the carrier. Nervously, they both watched the buildings of Jokertown pass.

  They'd debated how to get to Tomlin and Bushorn's hangar. Neither of them knew how to steal a car, and everyone they knew who they could have trusted to provide transportation had disappeared. That left public transportation. Buses were full of too many people. They'd judged that with Hannah's changed appearance and the animal carrier, their odds were fair to good hailing a cab.

  The choice had been a good one, so far. As they went south, Jokertown gave way eventually to Chinatown, where they turned east, then the wharves of the East River appeared, the towers of the Manhattan Bridge appearing over the low roofs. To their right, a little further south, they could glimpse the broken-toothed ruin of the Brooklyn Bridge, destroyed when the Turtle had smashed Herne's Wild Hunt, the same night Gregg had lost his right hand to one of the hellhounds.

  That was your utter nadir: Puppetman gone, the Gift yet to come. You were reviled and weak.

  What have I got now ? Gregg responded to the voice. What makes this any better? I'm hunted, reduced to pretending to be a goddamn fluorescent-yellow dachshund. I feel so fucking useless.

  Inside, someone seemed to chuckle.

  They were nearing the approach to the bridge when Gregg felt the cab slow and come to a stop in a miasma of gasoline fumes. Hannah leaned forward "What's going on?" she asked.

  "Rodeblog," the driver said. Assorted arms lifted in what might have been an attempt at a shrug. "Noddineyekundoabohdit" The meter clicked metallically.

  "Shit." Hannah sunk back in the seat. Gregg saw muscles tensing in her jawline. He could almost feel her quick fear - a taste in his mouth, a tang like steel, as delicious as iron. Hannah leaned over to him; he inhaled the warmth of her breath as she whispered. "Police," she said. "It looks like they're checking cars. They're looking for us, don't want us to get out of the city. I know it. I just know it. Damn!"

  Hannah lurched forward again before Gregg could say anything. She gestured at the driver. "Turn around," she told him. "I want to go back."

  Another multi-armed shrug. "Iztoolade, Candoit." One arm pointed at the car in front, another at the one in the rear. They were jammed in bumper-to-bumper. Uniformed police were moving down the line, peering into cars and then waving the drivers on, sometimes looking into trunks. The car ahead crawled forward; their cab driver didn't move, looking to turn around in the open space. The cars behind started to honk their horns, and the cops looked up to see what the disturbance was down the line. Two of them began walking toward them.

  It wouldn't be a problem with Puppetman. Cops were always easy, nice, big, fat strings to pull. But now - you're trapped, already nicely packaged for them. "Hannah, let me out!" Gregg said, and the driver jumped wide-eyed at the sound of Gregg's voice even as he started to turn the cab.

  At which point he got another surprise.

  There was someone else crowding into the front seat: Quasiman. The cab driver squawked like a distressed parrot at the joker's sudden appearance and jammed on the brakes. Gregg's carrier hit the back of the front seat and rebounded. Hannah yelped, half in distress and half in joy.

  "Hannah," Quasi said. "Going wrong way."

  "I know, Quasi," she said. "We need your help. Take us to Tomlin."

  "Can't," Quasiman said. "Not with him." Gregg could see Quasiman's gaze locked on him through the vents of the carrier, and there was no friendliness in the hunchback's eyes at all. They were not the eyes of a fool; rather, they seemed to see too much. "Charon," Quasiman said.

  "What?" Hannah asked.

  Quasi looked back at Hannah. "Charon. I saw you. The river at night. Charon." Quasiman blinked. "My friend," he said. "I love you."

  "I love you too, Quasi," she answered softly, and glanced up at the approaching officers. "Quasi, you're going to have to help us now. I need you to stop those men. Do you understand? You need to get out of the car and help us get away from here." Quasiman just stared dumbly at her, and Gregg knew the joker was lost in a fugue once more.

  "Hannah!" Gregg said again. "Open my goddamn cage!"

  She ignored him. "Quasi, please," she crooned softly. Gregg saw her reaching toward him, but Quasiman was gone.

  And just as quickly back, just outside the cab. The cops, a few car lengths away now, shouted at him. Quasiman stooped down and grasped the rear bumper of the late-model Toyota Camry in front of them. He grimaced.

  The car lifted slowly, the metal creaking. A trio of teenagers scrambled from the tilting vehicle as Quasiman lifted it up and sideways. He grunted and pushed: the Camry went sliding on its side, screeching against pavement. The cops made a judicious retreat.

  "I believe there's room for you to turn around now," Hannah told their driver. Several of the cars behind them were doing the same. He nodded. Quasiman had taken the next car and stacked it on top of the Camry. The cops had moved well back and were calling for backup.

  "Godcha," their driver said. "No problem."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  "This is insane," Peter Pann complained as the sailboat sliced through the cold green waters of New York Bay. He was wearing shorts, sneakers, and a Dodgers T-shirt. "Governor's Island is a maximum security installation. I told you what the tink saw. Armed guards, security cameras, computerized cellblocks, titanium bars. We can't just sail in, hop out, and let everybody loose."

  "You got a better plan?" Jay asked. The boat was leaning perilously to one side, and Jay was turning green. "Don't worry, whatever happens, you're home free. Nobody's going to shoot a guy looks just like Opie Taylor."

  Peter made a face, took a fat black cigar out of his pocket, and bit off the end. His tink buzzed at him furiously as he lit up. He sucked in a lungful and blew a cloud of smoke at the dancing light. The tink dimmed and fluttered and fell, extinguished.

  "You're so mean to them," Melissa Blackwood called out from the back of the boat. The aft or the stern or whatever the fuck it was, Jay wasn't nautical enough to be sure. She was holding the tiller or the rudder or whatever with one hand and her top hat with the other. A brisk salt wind kept trying to snatch it off her head.

  Peter Pann slammed his foot down on the fallen tink, crunching it under his heel. "They're like flies," he said. "How'd you like to have a glowing housefly buzzing around your head twenty-four hours a day?" He blew a smoke ring. The wind ripped it apart.

  Governor's Island loomed ahead, dominated by the red brick walls of its Civil War fort. "Here we go," Jay shouted. "Remember, we're just some salty dogs out for a family sail," He adjusted the jaunty white captain's cap he'd bought on Times Square. "Peter, put out the fucking cigar, you're supposed to he eleven years old. And you, Melissa, off with the top hat, you'll give the game away."

  Peter Pann sucked in one last lungful ot smoke and flicked the cigar out over the side of the boat. It hissed as it hit the water. Melissa grinned at Jay, doffed her hat, gave a practiced flick of the wrist. The topper folded up neat as a pancake. She sat on it.

  A Coast Guard patrol boat appeared from behind the island as they headed for the landing, booming out commands on a loudspeaker. Melissa pretended not to hear. Ahead of them, a dozen uniformed men with semiautomatic rifles were waiting on the pier. Jay wondered if this had been such a terrific plan after all. He hadn't expected such a large reception committee.

  "SHEAR OFF," the voice from the patrol boat boomed. "YOU ARE ENTERING RESTRICTED WATERS." It was a smallish boat, scarcely bigger than a cabin cruiser, but the machine gun on the roof gave it a certain authority.

  "How many crew on that size boat?" Jay asked Peter Pann as they bounced and rolled through the waves.

  "Oh, six or eight," Peter said. "This is a felony, you know. We're all going to lose o
ur licenses, at the least."

  "Only if we get caught," Jay said.

  The patrol boat was coming up fast. "SHEAR OFF IMMEDIATELY."

  Melissa shouted out a reply. "I don't know how to steer this thing," she cried, doing her best to look helpless and lost.

  "PUT ABOUT AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED," the patrol boat thundered. It was very close now, racing in toward them. Two guardsmen scrambled over its deck, lowering some kind of padded fenders. There was a third man visible at the wheel, speakerphone in hand and a fourth taking up position by the machine gun.

  Jay cracked his knuckles. "Here goes nothing," he announced to his stalwart crew. He made a gun and pointed over the water at the captain of the patrol boat.

  "THIS IS YOUR LAST - " the patrol boat warned. The motor was too loud to hear the pop as the speaker vanished in mid-sentence. The wheel spun and the boat veered wildly off course. Jay moved his finger and teleported off the guy by the machine gun.

  The guards on the pier hadn't figured out what was happening yet. Jay swung his hand around and starting popping. One, two, three, and someone finally saw his buddy disappear before his eyes. He started to shout, but Jay nailed him before he'd gotten out much more than, "Hey!" That was four. Five, six, and now several of them were shouting. Seven, eight, and someone began shooting at them, the bullets kicking up the water around the sailboat. Nine, and the shots stopped, but two of the remaining trio dropped flat, and the last guy started running up the hill screaming. Jay got him on the run, ten, but the two on their bellies were firing. A bullet ripped the sail behind him, another punched through the plastic hull, Peter Pann was yelling something at him and the sailboat was coming around hard lifting him up in the air. Jay tried to keep a bead on the guardsmen as a stream of bullets came ripping out of one muzzle and tore up the water. There! He popped on the bounce, eleven, and a shot knocked his jaunty little captain's cap right off his head and reminded him of how much he hated guns. He locked his left hand around his right wrist to steady his arm, took careful aim, and brought down the hammer of his thumb. The last man blinked out with a surprised look on his face. The last bullet, whizzed harmlessly over their heads.