Wild Cards 15 - Black Trump

by George R. R. Martin

  "Where does he live?"

  "Well, he owns houses in Townsville, Brisbane, Melbourne, London, and New York, but Peter says he spends most of his time at a private island off the Great Barrier Reef."

  Jay groaned. "Another island. Real good. Topper was the only one we had who knew a rudder from a rutabaga. Five'll get you ten that's where he's stashed van Renssaeler, too."

  Jerry fingered his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I could - "

  "If you say one word about the Creature from the Black Lagoon, I'll leave you here," Jay warned him. "What else do we have? Any personal stuff?"

  Jerry looked back at his notes. "Nothing good. Just the usual Who's Who junk on his marriages. Let's see, he's been married four, no, five times." His finger moved down the page as he read the names. "Married Lucy Taylor 1971, divorced 1973. Married Jane Carson 1973, divorced 1974. Married Jennifer Simms 1977, divorced 1984, two children, Thomas and Stephen. Married Cassandra Webb, an American actress, 1985. She died in a boating accident in 1988. Remember her? I was an ape when most of her movies came out, but I caught some of them on tape. Hoo boy, there was a girl with a figure. She was in Black Roses. And Doc Holliday, remember, with Donald Sutherland? She was the dancehall girl who gets killed in the crossfire. Peckinpah directed that one ..."

  "Did I ask for a filmography?" Jay said. "You said five wives. Who was the last one?"

  Jerry flushed. "Sheila McCaffery," he muttered, glancing back down at his notes. "She was a model. She married Fleming in 1990, divorced 1992. one child, a daughter named Joan.

  "A model and an actress," Jay said. He rubbed at the bandage over his nose. The pain was creeping back, a dull ache now, but soon it would be a throbbing. "He liked a good-looking woman."

  "You have an idea?"

  "Maybe the beginnings of one," Jay admitted.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Ray watched the night go by through the ripples of rain sliding down the plane's window. There was little enough to see. It was dark, they were flying through masses of clouds, and they were over the ocean. Infrequent flashes of lightning tore the darkness, illuminating nothing.

  Ray was in a bad mood. In the best of times he hated transatlantic flights. They were dead boring. He had nothing to do but squirm in his seat for hours and hours, and think. But this was not even the best of times. His burns were healing, but they still hurt like a motherfucker. And his throat was raw. It often was when he had to breathe stale, recycled airplane air. But now he had to worry about whether the rawness was caused by bad air or the Black Trump. Maybe a colony of the vicious little viral bastards were sitting in his lungs, enjoying the steamy wetness, laughing and partying and having a jolly old time as they replicated like maniacs, sending out fine tendrils to clog and choke his system, spreading like some damn killer fungus from his head to his toes.

  Life had been so much simpler, Ray thought, when he'd believed himself invincible. He sighed, glancing at April Harvest in the seat next to him. She was sleeping. Some women looked goofy when they slept, mouth open, hair mussed, makeup tracked all over the sheet or pillowcase. Harvest lost none of her beauty. It became softer, lost a little of its edge. It made Ray feel more confident when he looked at her while she slept. It made her look like maybe she wasn't too quick for him, too fast and sharp.

  It was hard to say what made him more uncomfortable, thoughts of April Harvest or the Black Trump. He'd have to deal with both when they arrived in Scotland, where radar had traced Bushorn's plane. Right now, he just wanted to turn off his brain and rest, but he couldn't.

  Somehow the hours passed. Harvest woke up after a while and buried her nose in one of the thick dossiers she was always reading. When they finally disembarked at the Glasgow airport Ray had that unfortunate mixture of wiredness and tiredness common at the end of transatlantic flights. And the greeting committee did little to improve Ray's mood.

  "What'd you say?" he asked with an irritated frown, leaning closer to the giant of living stone who loomed before him and Harvest in the mouth of the disembarkation gateway.

  The giant sighed. The sigh, like his voice, was a soft whispering that contrasted weirdly with his immense, sharp-edged appearance.

  "I said, welcome to Scotland. Miss Harvest. Mister Ray." The giant nodded at them as he spoke in barely audible tones. His ghostly voice gave Ray the creeps, and Ray didn't care much for the way the guy looked, either. He towered over Ray like a cliff-face. His body, hard-edged and unyielding, looked like living rock, not human flesh. His eyes were twin flames dancing in the recesses of his roughly-hewn face. "I'm Kenneth Foxworthy."

  "Of course." April Harvest pushed past Ray. "Brigadier Foxworthy. Grand Marshal of the Most Puissant Order of the Silver Helix. I've read a lot about you and your career."

  "Oh," Ray said, the light dawning. "You're the guy they call Captain Flint."

  "Indeed." Flint glanced at the hand Ray offered, and shook his head ponderously. "Please take no insult." He held out his own massive hands. "My fingers are razor-sharp and rock hard. They would cut your fish to ribbons."

  "You must be a holy terror on the handball court," Ray said.

  "Yes," Flint said without a trace of a smile. "I have news about your quarry. Good and bad news, I'm afraid."

  Ray and Harvest glanced at each other.

  "Well," Harvest said, "let's hear the good news first."

  "This way, please," he whispered, starting off slowly down the corridor. "More privacy."

  They made their way to an empty, glassed-in debarkation lounge that was guarded by a pair of agents. British, American, whatever, Ray could spot them instantly. Flint moved about as quickly as a glacier and it took all the patience Ray possessed, to slow down to match his pace.

  "My men picked up Bushorn when he landed," Flint whispered once they were behind the glass walls.

  "Great," Ray said, "Let's go talk to him."

  Flint shook his head ponderously. "Now comes the had news. You won't get much out of him. He was the plane's only occupant. He claims that he'd been hijacked and forced to fly across the Atlantic."

  "What happened to the hijackers?" Harvest asked.

  "He says they bailed out when they were passing over Dublin."

  "I see," Harvest said. She looked thoughtful. "That's all we have to go on."

  "Yes." It was positively creepy the way Flint said that word in a sort of whispery hiss.

  "Then," Harvest said, "I guess we'd better go to Ireland."

  Flint nodded, his head teetering like a boulder on the edge of a cliff, trying to decide whether or not it wanted to roll down the slope of his chest. "I have a plane waiting."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  The sign pointing south said CARRYDUFF 2; below, another plank pointed north with the legend BELFAST 10. The road was cracked blacktop barely two lanes wide, but it was a highway compared to the rutted dirt track they'd been following. A dry goods store with a petrol pump sat at the intersection. Since the sun had just risen, they'd decided to hole up in a dense growth of trees and brush on the top of a small hill not far off the road. They watched the occasional lorry and car pass, most of them traveling north to Belfast. A woman came and opened the store. Gregg breakfasted on a hubcap they'd found in the gulley alongside the road. Hannah had contented herself with raiding a cottage garden they'd passed before dawn.

  "What do we do now?" Hannah asked Gregg. Below them, a small pickup truck had stopped. An older man got out and went into the establishment.

  "I don't know," Gregg said. "We need to get to Belfast. There's a small jokertown there - I've toured it a few times. We should be able to lose ourselves in the city - Peter Horvath's here; he might be able to lead us to Rudo."

  "If we can get to Belfast before someone finds us," Hannah said.

  She was grinning at him. "Yeah. If," Gregg answered.

  "Then I think I can do something about it. Just make sure you pick up on your cue." With that, Hannah got up, brushed the dirt from her jeans, and started down the hill to
ward the grocery.

  "Hey!" Gregg called "What are you doing?"

  "I'm just a poor American girl from Belfast whose boyfriend took her on a ride out this way. We had a terrible argument, and he left me here. I'm lost and and a little scared. I just need a ride back to town." She smiled at him. "You'd give me a ride, wouldn't you?"

  "Thats not going to work," Gregg told her.

  Hannah stopped. "You have a better idea?" she asked.

  Something in her tone put wrinkles around the round balls that served Gregg for eyes. You're just a joker, after all ... "No," Gregg admitted.

  "Then get ready to hop on. Our bus is leaving in a few minutes."

  Gregg watched Hannah jog down the hill and go into the store. Gregg followed her reluctantly, crouching behind a heap of empty boxes at the side of the building. A few minutes later, Hannah came out with the driver of the truck. As she climbed into the passenger seat, she looked around, saw Gregg, and nodded slightly. "I really appreciate this," she was saying as she closed the door. "Michael just left me ..." Gregg leaped up on the bed of the pickup and wriggled his way behind a toolbox there. The truck engine coughed, the transmission whined, and they were off. Gregg contented himself by opening the box and eating a socket wrench.

  An hour later, after a slow and leisurely drive, they were in Belfast. The jokertown district lay along Belfast Lough in the western part of the city. They were passing through the area when Gregg heard the truck door open as they waited at a light. "You don't want to get out here," the driver said.

  "You're probably right, but I'm doing it anyway," Hannah answered as Gregg wriggled out from behind the toolbox and quickly leapt over the side of the cab. "Thanks for the ride." The driver was shaking his head at Hannah, who waved at him and smiled. Still shaking his head, the man threw the truck into gear and drove off. Hannah looked at Gregg, then surveyed the close-ranked buildings around them and the jokers walking the streets. "Welcome to Belfast," she said to Gregg. "I got us here. Now it's your turn."

  Not much had changed since Gregg had last been in the city, a decade ago. Belfast's jokertown was a smaller, dingier, and poorer version of the original. Most of New York's jokertown looked affluent by comparison. The buildings here were ancient, and as dark as if they'd inhaled the patina of violence and struggle which had washed over Belfast through the centuries. The briny smell of the harbor mingled with the odors of factories and fireplaces and automobile exhaust. The lowering gray sky pressed down uncomfortably, and the occasional drizzle that passed did nothing to wash away the dirt.

  As for the jokers, they were no different than those prowling Jokertown streets back home. Twisted and changed by the wild card virus, they came in the same infinite variety of shape and form, the same infinite variety of pain.

  the wild card virus had first been labeled the "Protestant Disease" here - perhaps aptly, since the initial and largest outbreak of the disease had been in Belfast. Until the early sixties, the virus had capriciously spared the island; then it had struck with a vengeance: the 1962 Belfast infection had rivaled in virulence and suddenness that of the original New York City outbreak. The IRA had originally claimed credit, a claim that many still believed. It may even have been true. The wild card indeed struck the Protestant areas hardest - at first, anyway. It was not to remain that way for long.

  The outbreak had fueled some of the most vicious fighting in decades. Belfast had burned; the British had brought in troopships and a cadre of diplomats to handle the violence, but - perhaps from fear of the virus - the tendency was to shoot rather than negotiate, and the level of violence simply escalated. There were reprisal bombings nearly every week in Belfast, and across the Irish Sea in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. Two hundred of the British troops were killed, along with untold numbers of Catholic and Protestant partisans, before some semblance of order was imposed on the north.

  And the virus, uncaring about such political niceties, had traveled south. The "Protestant Disease" proved to be all too catholic. It didn't care what faith its victims professed to believe. It prowled from Ulster to Connacht, Leinster, and Munster, capricious and unpredictable, and always, always deadly. Over the last thirty years, the Protestant/Catholic problems had sometimes been overshadowed by those of wild carder and nat. The events had colored the treatment of the wild card victims in all of Ireland. Three decades later, Irish jokers had reason to hate the nats who controlled them. Being Irish, they had long memories for wrongs.

  Hannah was looking at Gregg expectantly. They were drawing stares from the jokers passing them, Hannah getting most of them. Gregg noticed that she was the only nat visible other than those passing in cars. "First, let's get off the street. By now, Bushorn's told them that we bailed out over Ireland. They may already be looking for us. There's got to be a pub around here somewhere ..."

  A few minutes later they entered Joseph Coan's, a small, dim pub on the next corner. The patrons were jokers; there didn't seem to be a bartender. As they entered, the buzz of conversation stopped as if cut off by a switch; everyone glared at them suspiciously. "I thought that only happened in movies," Hannah muttered to Gregg. Gregg heard her inhale, and she pushed the door wide and went to the bar. She put her hands on the polished wooden surface ...

  ... and pulled them abruptly away. "Jesus!" she said loudly. "It moved."

  That brought laughter from around the pub. "Did'ja hear that, Joseph?" one of the jokers called.

  "Indeed I did," a bass voice answered from somewhere in front of Hannah, and she took another step back from the bar.

  "It talks, too," Hannah said to Gregg.

  "And it has a name," the bar said. "I'm Joseph Coan, and I own this establishment, or rather, I suppose you might say I am the establishment. Now, are you thirsty or did you come in looking for some local color, lass?" Hannah looked at Gregg and stepped forward again.

  "Two pints of Guinness," she said.

  "That'll be one pound five," Joseph said. The voice seemed to emanate from directly in front of Hannah.

  Hannah pulled a few notes from her pocket - Irish currency purchased in New York - and peeled off a five pound note. "Umm, where do I put it?" she said.

  "On me," Joseph answered. Another wave of laughter rippled through the bar. Hannah smiled into the laughter and stepped forward. "All right," she said. "Here you are." She laid the bill on the table.

  The wooden surface seemed to melt under the paper, and the note disappeared under the varnished surface as if drifting through thick water. A moment later, more bills and some coins wafted upward, the bar solidifying under them. "Your change," Joseph said. A glass mug slid by itself along the rear shelf and a bar tap dunked forward as the mug filled with dark brew. The tap clicked back and the glass glided toward Hannah, as if pushed by an invisible hand, as another mug slid under the tap. "There you go. Looks like all the booths are empty; have a seat by me."

  "Are you part of the seats, too?" Hannah glanced at the bar stools cautiously.

  More laughter cascaded from the booths and tables. "What's the matter, lassie? Don't want old Joseph touching your bum?"

  "At least I'm warm," Joseph said.

  "If I get splinters, I'm holding you personally responsible," Hannah said. A bar stool slid in place behind her. Hannah sat. Another one slid into place as the second glass of Guinness eased into place alongside. "For your friend," Joseph said. Gregg grimaced and scuttled across the floor to the stool. He jumped up, sitting with his rear two feet tucked underneath. He looked at the Guinness and the thin brown foam atop the black liquid. The brew didn't look or smell anywhere near as appealing as it had when he'd been normal. He wondered how accommodating Joseph would be if he asked for a side order of wing nuts.

  "Don't often get Americans in here," Joseph said conversationally while Hannah took a sip of the Guinness. Gregg noticed that he could see a faint pair of lips moving below the surface of the oak, like something glimpsed in murky water. The rest of the jokers in the pub had gone back to their p
rivate conversations now that they were sitting at the bar. Gregg peered myopically into the haze of pipe smoke. He had a sense that someone was watching, but he found it impossible to find the source. Near the back, a joker with three legs got up and left the pub by a rear door. "And one of you a nat, no less," Joseph was saying. "Very unusual. Very noteworthy."

  "Is someone taking notes like that?" Hannah asked. She gave a small, forced chuckle that took some of the edge from the question. Gregg's unease increased. He could feel something - someone - approaching, a malevolence that almost felt familiar. His body tingled with the feeling, a buzz of adrenaline that made his legs twitch.

  "I did not say that, lass. I was only making conversation. Being friendly, don't you know. No need to take offense."

  "No offense taken," Hannah told him. She seemed to jump slightly, squirming in the seat. Gregg noticed that she was careful not to touch the bar. For that matter, he didn't either. "But if you squeeze my ass again like that, I will."

  The bar chuckled, the surface jiggling with the sound and rippling the stout. "Ahh, sorry. Old habits, you know."

  "How much of this place is, well, you?" Hannah asked. Gregg was content to let her do the talking. All the hairs on his body were standing erect. The three-legged joker had come back in, and Gregg thought he saw a small shape move in the shadows behind the man as the door closed.

  "More than you'd think," Joseph was saying. "I can get feeling from most of the surfaces - the tables, the booths, but I can't manipulate them. Most of me is here in the bar, if that's what you mean. You haven't touched your Guinness," he said, and Gregg realized that Coan was talking to him.