Wild Cards V

by George R. R. Martin

  “I didn’t know you were taking part in all this,” said Finn.

  “I organized it … helped organize it. I should share in the risks.” The alien drained his drink and bowed to Video and Chrysalis. “Ladies, I thank you.” He paused at the door. “By the way, Chrysalis. How do you think we’re doing?”

  “I think we’ve got them on the run. I just hope they don’t decide to take a crack at us.”

  “Scared?”

  “You bet your sweet little alien ass I am. I know more about this situation—who’s behind it—than you do.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  JUNE 1987

  All the King’s Horses

  V

  ADMISSION ONLY $2.50 SAID the sign over the darkened ticket booth in front of the Famous Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum.

  The booth was empty, the museum doors locked. Tom rang the bell by the ticket window. After a minute he rang it again. There were shuffling noises from within, and a door in the back of the booth opened. An eye appeared, a rheumy pale-blue eye on a long fleshy stalk that curled around the doorframe. It fixed on Tom, blinked twice.

  A joker stepped into the booth. He had a dozen eyes on long prehensile stalks that sprouted from his forehead and moved constantly, like snakes. Otherwise he was unremarkable. “Cancha read?” he said in a thin, nasal voice. “We’re closed.” In one hand he had a small sign, which he slid in front of the ticket window. It said CLOSED.

  The way the joker’s eyes kept moving gave Tom a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Are you Dutton?”

  One by one the eyes turned, stilled, until every last one of them was fixed on him, studying him. “Dutton expecting you?” the joker asked. Tom nodded. “All right, c’mon round the side.” He turned and left the booth, but two or three of his eyes stared back at Tom, curious and unblinking, until the door shut.

  The side entrance was a heavy metal fire door opening on an alley. Tom waited nervously while locks were unlocked and bolts lifted inside. You heard stories about Jokertown alleys, and this one seemed to him especially dark and gloomy. “This way,” eye-stalks said when the door finally opened.

  The museum was windowless, its interior hallways even gloomier than the alley. Tom looked around curiously as they passed down several long corridors, with dusty brass railings and waxwork dioramas to either side of them. He had floated over the Dime Museum thousands of times as the Turtle, but he’d never set foot inside.

  With the lights out, the figures in the shadows seemed remarkably lifelike. Dr. Tachyon stood on a mound of white sand, his spaceship painted on the backdrop behind him, while nervous soldiers climbed from a Jeep. Jetboy clutched his chest as steel-faced Dr. Tod pumped bullets into him. A blond in a torn teddy struggled in the grasp of the Great Ape as he scaled a model of the Empire State Building. A dozen jokers, each more twisted than the last, writhed suggestively in some dank basement, clothing strewn all around them.

  His guide vanished around a corner. Tom followed, and found himself face-to-face with a roomful of monsters.

  Drenched in shadow, the creatures looked so real that they brought him up short. Spiders the size of minivans, flying things that dripped acid, gigantic worms with rings of serrated teeth, humanoid monstrosities whose skin quivered like gelatin; they filled the room behind the curving glass, surrounding him on three sides, crowding each other, slavering to break out.

  “Our newest diorama,” a quiet voice said behind him. “Earth versus the Swarm. Try the buttons.”

  Tom looked down. A half dozen large red buttons were set into a panel by the railing. He pressed one. Inside the diorama a spotlight picked out a wax simulacrum of Modular Man suspended from the ceiling, as twin beams of scarlet light flashed down from his shoulder-mounted guns. The lasers struck one of the swarmlings; thin tendrils of smoke rose, and a long hiss of pain issued from unseen speakers.

  Tom pushed a second button. Modular Man vanished back into the shadows, and the lights found the Howler in his yellow fighting togs, outlined against a plume of smoke from a burning tank. The simulacrum opened its mouth; the speakers shrieked. A swarmling quivered in agony.

  “The children love it,” the voice said. “This is a generation raised on special effects. I’m afraid they demand more than simple waxworks. One must adapt to one’s times.”

  A tall man in a dark suit of old-fashioned cut stood in a doorway to one side of the diorama, the joker with the eyestalks hunched over beside him. “I’m Charles Dutton,” he said, offering a gloved hand. A heavy black cape was thrown over his shoulders. He looked as though he’d just stepped from a hansom cab in Victorian London, except for the cowl drawn up over his head that kept his face in shadow. “We’ll be more comfortable in the office,” Dutton said. “If you’ll step this way.”

  Tom was suddenly very uneasy. He found himself wondering, once again, what the hell he was doing here. It was one thing to float over Jokertown as the Turtle, secure in a steel shell, and quite another to venture into its streets in his own all-too-vulnerable flesh. But he’d come this far. There was no backing out now. He followed his host through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and down a narrow flight of steps. They passed through a second door, through a cavernous basement workshop, into a small but comfortably furnished office.

  “Can I get you a drink?” the cowled man asked. He went to a wet bar in the corner of the office and poured himself a brandy.

  “No,” Tom said. He was a cheap drunk, too easily affected by booze, and he needed all his wits about him today. Besides, drinking through the damned frog mask would be a bitch.

  “Let me know if you change your mind.” Cradling the snifter, Dutton crossed the room and seated himself behind an antique clawfoot desk. “Please, sit down. You look terribly uncomfortable standing there like that.”

  Tom wasn’t listening. Something else had caught his eye.

  There was a head on the desk.

  Dutton noticed his interest and turned the head around. The face was remarkably handsome, but the oh-so-perfect features were frozen in a rictus of surprise. Instead of hair, the top of the skull was a plastic dome with a radar dish beneath. The plastic was cracked. Severed cables, blackened and half-melted, dangled from the jagged stump of its neck.

  “That’s Modular Man,” Tom said, shocked. Numbly he eased himself down onto the edge of a ladderback chair.

  “Only his head,” Dutton said.

  It had to be a wax replica, Tom told himself. He reached out and touched it. “It’s not wax.”

  “Of course not,” Dutton said. “This is authentic. We bought it from one of the busboys at Aces High. I don’t mind telling you, it cost us quite a tidy sum. Our new diorama will dramatize the Astronomer’s attack on Aces High. You’ll recall that Modular Man was destroyed during that fracas. His head will give a certain verisimilitude to the display, don’t you think?”

  The whole notion made Tom ill. “You planning to put Kid Dinosaur’s body on display too?” he said testily.

  “The boy was cremated,” Dutton replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “We have it on good authority that the mortuary substituted a John Doe, cleaned his bones with carpet beetles, and sold the skeleton to Michael Jackson.”

  Tom found himself at a loss for words.

  “You’re shocked,” Dutton said. “You wouldn’t be, if you were a joker beneath that mask. This is Jokertown.” He reached up, pulled back the cowl that covered his face. A death’s head grinned at Tom across the desk; dark eyes sunk deep beneath a heavy brow ridge, leathery yellow skin stretched taut across a noseless, lipless, hairless face, teeth bared in a rictus of a smile. “When you’ve lived here long enough, nothing shocks you,” Dutton said. Mercifully he yanked up the cowl again to conceal the living skullface, but Tom could feel the weight of his eyes. “Now,” he said. “Xavier Desmond gave me to understand that you have a proposition for me. A major new exhibit.”

  Tom had seen th
ousands of jokers in his long years as the Turtle, but always at a distance, on his TV screens, with layers of armor plate between them. Sitting alone in a gloomy basement with a cowled man whose face was a yellowed skull was a little different. “Yeah,” he said uncertainly.

  “We are always in the market for new exhibits, the more spectacular the better. Des is not normally given to hyperbole, so when he tells me you’re offering us something truly unique, I’m interested. Exactly what is the nature of this exhibit?”

  “The Turtle’s shells,” said Tom.

  Dutton was silent for a moment. “Not a replica?”

  “The real thing,” Tom told him.

  “The Turtle’s shell was destroyed last Wild Card Day,” Dutton said. “They dredged up pieces of it from the bottom of the Hudson.”

  “That was one shell. There were earlier models. I’ve got three of them, including the very first. Armor plate over a Volkswagen frame. It’s got some burned-out tubes, but otherwise it’s pretty much intact. You could clean it up, rig the TV screens for closed circuit, make a real ride out of it. Charge extra for people to crawl inside. The other two shells are just empty hulls, but they’d still make quite a draw. If you have a big enough hall, you could hang ’em from the ceiling, like the airplanes in the Smithsonian.” Tom leaned forward. “If you want to make this place into a real museum instead of just a tacky freak show for nat tourists, you need real exhibits.”

  Dutton nodded. “Intriguing. I’ll admit I’m tempted. But anyone could build a shell. We’d need some kind of authentication. If you don’t mind my asking, how did they chance to come into your possession?”

  Tom hesitated. Xavier Desmond said Dutton could be trusted, but it was not easy to set aside twenty-four years of caution. “They’re mine,” he said. “I’m the Turtle.”

  This time Dutton’s silence was even longer. “There are those who say the Turtle is dead.”

  “They’re wrong.”

  “I see. I don’t suppose you’d care to give me proof.”

  Tom took a deep breath. His hands curled around the armrests of his chair. He stared across the desk, concentrated. Modular Man’s head rose a foot into the air and turned slowly until its eyes were fixed on Dutton.

  “Telekinesis is a relatively common power,” Dutton said, unimpressed. “The Turtle is distinguished not by the mere fact of his teke, but by its strength. Lift the desk and you’ll convince me.”

  Tom hesitated. He didn’t want to queer the deal by admitting that he couldn’t lift the desk, not when he was out of his shell. All of a sudden, without thinking, he heard himself say, “Buy the shells, and I’ll fly them here. All three of them.” The words slipped out glib and easy; it wasn’t until they were there hanging in the air that Tom realized what he’d said.

  Dutton paused thoughtfully. “We could videotape the arrival, run the loop as part of the exhibit. Yes, I’d think that would be all the authentication we’d need. How much are you asking?”

  Tom felt a moment of blind panic. Modular Man’s head thumped back onto Dutton’s desk. “One hundred thousand dollars,” he blurted. It was twice what he’d intended to ask.

  “Too much. I’ll offer you forty thousand.”

  “Fuck that,” Tom said. “This is a one-of-a-kind exhibit.”

  “Three-of-a-kind, actually,” Dutton pointed out. “I might be able to go to fifty thousand.”

  “The historical value alone is more than that. This is going to give this fucking place respectability. You’ll have lines going around the block.”

  “Sixty-five thousand,” Dutton said. “I’m afraid that’s my final offer.”

  Tom stood up, relieved but somehow disappointed as well. “Okay. Thanks for your time. You don’t happen to have a number for Michael Jackson, do you?” When Dutton didn’t answer, he started for the door.

  “Eighty thousand,” Dutton said behind him. Tom turned. Dutton coughed apologetically. “That’s it. Really. I couldn’t do better if I wanted to. Not without liquidating some of my other investments, which I’m not prepared to do.”

  Tom paused in the doorway. He’d almost escaped. Now he was stuck again. He didn’t see any way out that wouldn’t make him look like a fool. “I’ll need cash.”

  Dutton chuckled. “I don’t imagine a check made out to the Great and Powerful Turtle would be very easy to negotiate. It will take me a few weeks to raise that much cash, but I imagine I can work it out.” The cowled man unfolded from his chair and came around the desk. “Are we agreed, then?”

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “If you’ll throw in the head.”

  “The head?” Dutton sounded surprised, and a little amused. “Sentimental, aren’t we?” He picked up Modular Man’s head and stared into the blind, unfocused eyes. “It’s just a machine, you know. A broken machine.”

  “He was one of us,” Tom said with a passion that surprised even him. “It doesn’t feel right, leaving him here.”

  “Aces,” Dutton sighed. “Well, I suppose we can do up a wax replica for the Aces High diorama. It’s yours, as soon as we can take delivery on the shells.”

  “You get the shells when I get my money,” Tom said.

  “Fair enough,” Dutton replied.

  Jesus, Tom thought, what the fuck have I gone and done? Then he got a grip on himself. Eighty thousand dollars was one hell of a lot of money.

  Enough money to make it worth turning turtle one last time.

  Concerto for Siren and Serotonin

  V

  AFTER RUNNING A SMALL favor for Veronica, reporting his progress to Theotocopolos, and phoning Latham, Strauss for an appointment, Croyd met Veronica for dinner. As he told her of the day’s doings, she shook her head when he told her about St. John Latham.

  “You’re crazy,” she told him. “If he’s that well-connected, what do you want to fool around with him for, anyway?”

  “Somebody wanted to know about something he was up to.”

  She frowned. “I find a guy I like, I don’t want to lose him so quick.”

  “I won’t get hurt.”

  She sighed, put a hand on his arm. “I mean it,” she said.

  “So do I. I can take care of myself.”

  “What does that mean? How dangerous is it?”

  “I’ve got a job to finish, and I think I’m almost there. I’ll probably wrap it up soon without any sweat, get the rest of my money, and maybe take a little vacation before I sleep again. Thought we might go someplace real nice together—say, the Caribbean.”

  “Aw, Croyd,” she said, taking his hand, “you’ve been thinking of me.”

  “Of course I’ve been thinking of you. Now, I’ve got an appointment with Latham for Thursday. Maybe I can finish this thing by the weekend. Then we’ll have some time for just the two of us.”

  “You be careful, then.”

  “Hell, I’m almost done. Haven’t had any problems yet.”

  After stopping at one of his banks for additional funds, Croyd took a taxi to the building that held the law offices of Latham, Strauss. He had made the appointment by describing a fictitious case designed to sound expensive, and he arrived fifteen minutes ahead of time. On entering the waiting room he suppressed a sudden desire for medication. Hanging out with Veronica seemed to have him thinking about it ahead of schedule.

  He identified himself to the receptionist, sat and read a magazine till she told him, “Mr. Latham will see you now, Mr. Smith.”

  Croyd nodded, rose, and entered the inner office.

  Latham rose from his seat behind his desk, displaying an elegantly cut gray suit, and he offered his hand. He was somewhat shorter than Croyd, and his refined features remained expressionless.

  “Mr. Smith,” he acknowledged. “Won’t you have a seat?”

  Croyd remained standing. “No.”

  Latham raised an eyebrow, then seated himself. “As you would,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me about your case now?”

  “Because there isn’t one. What I really ne
ed is some information.”

  “Oh? That being?”

  Instead of replying Croyd looked away, casting his gaze about the office. Then his hand moved forward, to pick up an orange and green stone paperweight from Latham’s desk. He held it directly before him and squeezed. A cracking, grinding sound followed. When he opened his hand, a shower of gravel fell upon the desk.

  Latham remained expressionless. “What sort of information are you seeking?”

  “You have done work for the new mob,” Croyd said, “the one trying to move in on the Mafia.”

  “Are you with the Justice Department?”

  “No.”

  “DA’s office?”

  “I’m not a cop,” Croyd responded, “and I’m not an attorney either. I’m just someone who needs an answer.”

  “What is the question?”

  “Who is the head of this new family? That’s all I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps someone wishes to arrange a meeting with that person.”

  “Interesting,” Latham said. “You wish to retain me to arrange such a meeting?”

  “No, I only want to know who the person in charge is.”

  “Quid—pro—quo,” Latham observed. “What are you offering for this?”

  “I am prepared to save you,” Croyd said, “some very large bills from orthopedic surgeons and physiotherapists. You lawyers know all about such matters, don’t you?”

  Latham smiled a totally artificial smile. “Kill me and you’re a dead man, hurt me and you’re a dead man, threaten me and you’re a dead man. Your little trick with the stone means nothing. There are aces with fancier powers than that on call. Now, was that a threat you just made?”

  Croyd smiled back. “I will die before too long, Mr. Latham, to be born again in a completely different form. I am not going to kill you. But supposing I were to cause you to talk, to stop the pain, and supposing that later your friends were to put out a contract on the man you see before you. It wouldn’t matter. He would no longer exist. I am a series of biological ephemera.”