Wildcards wc-1

by George R. R. Martin

  He had to leave before the police arrived. He had to follow the slim lead that Minh had left him. Chrysalis. Crystal Palace.

  But he stopped, turned to the freed hostages. "… eed a pen," he said.

  One of the waiters had a felt-tip marker that he wordlessly handed to Brennan. He paused for a moment. He wanted Kien to wake up at night in a cold sweat, thinking, wondering.

  It wouldn't get to him right away, but, with enough messages, enough dead agents, it eventually would.

  He scrawled a message next to the man nailed to the wall by his arrow. It said: "I'm coming for you, Kien."He stopped before signing it. His name wouldn't do. It would take the fear of the unknown from his attacks and give Kien, his agents, and his government contacts too concrete a clue to follow. He smiled as sudden inspiration struck him.

  The code name of his last mission in Vietnam, when Kien had betrayed him and his unit into the hands of the North Vietnamese, had been Operation Yeoman. That name would make Kien think. He might suspect that it was Brennan who stood behind the name, but he wouldn't know for sure. It would gnaw at him in the night and salt his dreams with memories of deeds he'd thought long buried. It was also an appropriate name in a grimly ironic way. It suited him well.

  He signed the short message Yeoman and then, in a burst of final inspiration, drew a small ace of spades, the Vietnamese symbol of death and ill-fortune, and colored it in. The Vietnamese waiters and kitchen help muttered to themselves at the sight of the mark, and the waiter from whom Brennan had borrowed the pen refused to take it back with quick, birdlike shakes of his head.

  "Suit yourself," Brennan said. "How do I get to the Crystal Palace?"

  One of them stammered directions and Brennan went back out through the kitchen, into the dark alley. He disassembled his bow, slipped it back into its case, and was gone before the police arrived. Still wearing his mask, he kept to the alleys and dark streets, passing other phantom figures in the darkness. Some watched him, some were absorbed in their own doings. None tried to stop him.

  The Crystal Palace, on Henry, was part of a block-long three-story rowhouse. About half the row had been destroyed in the Great Jokertown Riot of 1976 and had never been rebuilt. Some of the debris had been cleared away, some remained in great piles sitting next to tottering walls. As Brennan passed he saw eyes, whether human or animal he couldn't tell, gleaming out from cracks and crevices within the piles of wreckage. He wasn't tempted to investigate. He went farther down the street to where the rowhouse was still intact, up the short stone staircase under a canopied entrance, through a small antechamber, and found himself in the main taproom of the Crystal Palace.

  It was dark, crowded, and smoky. There was an occasional obvious joker, like the short, blubbery, tusked fellow peddling newspapers by the door and the bicephalic singer on the small stage managing some nice harmony on a Cole Porter tune. Some were normal enough until one looked close. Brennan noticed one man, normal, handsome even, except that he lacked a nose and mouth and had instead a long, curled proboscis that he extended like a straw into his drink as Brennan watched. Some wore costumes that called attention to their strangeness, as if to proclaim their infection in a defiant manner. Some wore masks to hide their deformities, although some who wore masks were naturals, or nats, in joker slang. "You a salesman?"

  It took Brennan a moment to realize that the question was directed at him. He looked over to the end of the long wooden bar where a man sat on a high stool, swinging his short, stubby legs well clear of the floor. He was a dwarf, about four feet tall and four feet wide. His neck was as tall as a can of tuna fish and as thick as a man's thigh. He looked as solid and expressionless as a slab of marble.

  "Those your samples?" he asked, gesturing at Brennans case with a hand that was twice the size of Brennan's. "Just the tools of my trade."

  "Sascha."

  One of the bartenders, a tall, thin man with a pencil mustache and an oily curl of hair falling limply over his forehead, turned toward the dwarf. Brennan had noticed him out of the corner of his eye, mixing and dispensing drinks with incredible speed and surety. When he turned at the dwarf's call Brennan saw that he had no eyes, only a blank, unbroken expanse of skin covering his sockets. The bartender looked in his direction and nodded rapidly.

  "He's okay, Elmo, he's okay." The dwarf nodded and took his eyes off Brennan for the first time since he had spoken. Brennan frowned, was about to speak, but the bartender beat him to it. He pointed down to the other end of the bar and said, "She's over there."

  Brennan pursed his lips. The eyeless man smiled briefly and turned away to mix another drink. Brennan looked in the direction the bartender had indicated and caught his breath.

  A woman sat at a corner table with a slim, light-skinned black man who was wearing a red kimono splashed with yellow dragons and embroidered with what Brennan took to be mystical formulae. He was handsome, but for the bulging forehead that marred his profile. The chair he sat in was ordinary. The woman's chair was throne-sized, with a black walnut frame and red velvet cushions. She set down the thimble-sized crystal glass from which she was sipping a honey-colored liqueur, looked directly at Brennan, and smiled.

  She wore pants that clung to her lithe figure and a sheathlike wrap that gathered over her right shoulder, leaving half her chest naked. Her skin was completely invisible, exposing vague, shadowy muscles and the organs that labored underneath them. Brennan could see blood pulsing in the network of veins and arteries that ran through her flesh, could see her ghostly, semitransparent muscles shift and glide at her slightest movement, could even see, faintly, the beating of her heart within the cage of her ribs and the fluttering of her lungs as they labored evenly and unceasingly.

  She smiled at him. Brennan knew that he stared, but he couldn't help himself. She looked too bizarre to be beautiful, but she was fascinating. Her exposed breasts was totally invisible, save for its fine network of interlacing blood vessels and its large, dark nipple. Her face-well, who could tell? Her eyes were blue; her cheekbones, under the sheath of jaw muscle, high; her nose a cavity in her skull. Her lips, like the nipple of her breast, were visible. They were full and inviting and curved in a sardonic smile. She had no hair to hide her white skull. He threaded his way through the crowd toward her table and she watched him with what seemed to be, if he could read her bizarre expression, detached amusement. He watched the mechanism of her throat work as she sipped her drink.

  "Forgive me," he began, and ran down to silence. She laughed. It was good-humored, with no bitterness, reproach, or anger. "Forgiveness granted, masked man," she said. "I'm a sight to behold. No one seeing me for the first time can act casual about it. I'm Chrysalis, owner and proprietress of the Crystal Palace, as I guess you know. This is Fortunato." The black looked at Brennan and he could see the man's eastern blood in the shape of his eyes. They nodded at each other wordlessly. There was, Brennan realized, an aura of power about this man. He was an ace, of that Brennan was suddenly sure.

  "What's your name?" Chrysalis asked him.

  She spoke in a cultured British accent, which would have surprised Brennan if he hadn't already exceeded his surprise quotient for the evening. Her voice had grown thoughtful, her expression seemed calculating.

  "Yeoman," Brennan said, wondering how open he could afford to be.

  "Interesting. Its not your real name, of course." Brennan looked at her silently.

  "Would you like to know it?" her companion asked. Fortunato smiled lazily and she shrugged and smiled back noncommittally.

  Fortunato looked at Brennan. 'His eyes grew deeper, darker. Brennan sensed a swirling vortex of power growing in them, power he suddenly realized was directed toward him.

  He flashed with anger, his fists clenching, and he knew that he couldn't keep the spore-given ability of Fortunato from penetrating into the core of his brain. There was only one thing he could do.

  He took a deep breath, held it, and let all thought drain from his mind. He was back in Japan
again, facing Ishida, trying to answer the riddle the roshi has posed him when he had first sought entry to the monastery.

  "A sound is heard when both hands are clapped. What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

  Wordlessly Brennan had thrust forth one hand, clasped into a fist. Ishida had nodded, and Brennan's training began in earnest. He called upon that training now. He entered deeply into zazen, the state of meditation where he emptied himself of all thought, feeling, emotion, and expression. A timeless time passed and, as if from a long distance away, he heard Fortunato mutter, "Extraordinary" and he brought himself back.

  Fortunato looked at him with a modicum of respect in his eyes. Chrysalis watched them both carefully.

  "You're into Zen?" Fortunato asked.

  "A humble student," Brennan murmured, his voice sounding even to him as if coming from a distant mountain peak.

  "Maybe I'd better speak to Yeoman alone," Chrysalis said. "If you want." Fortunato stood.

  "A moment." Brennan shook himself like a dog shedding water and returned entirely to the room. He looked at Fortunato. "Don't do that again."

  Fortunato pursed his lips, nodded. "I'm sure we'll meet again."

  He left the table, threading his way through the crowded room.

  Brennan took his chair as Chrysalis gazed at him with what seemed to be a calculating expression.

  "Strange that I haven't heard of you before," she said. "I've just come to town."

  Her gaze had become penetrating, captivating. It was with some effort that Brennan pulled his gaze away from her eyes floating naked in their hollow sockets.

  "On business?" she asked. Brennan nodded and she sipped her drink, sighed, put her glass down. "I can see that you're not in the mood for small talk. What do you want of me?"

  "Your bartender," he began. "How does he get along so well without eyes?"

  "That's an easy one," Chrysalis said with a smile. "I'll give it to you for free. Sascha's a telepath, among other things. Don't worry. Whatever secrets you're hiding behind your mask are safe. He's a skimmer. He can only read surface thoughts. Makes his job easier, makes the Crystal Palace safer. He tells Elmo who the dangerous, the sick, the twisted, are. And Elmo gets rid of them."

  Brennan nodded, feeling a little safer. He was glad to learn that the bartender's ability was limited. He didn't like the thought of anyone poking about in his brain.

  "What else?" Chrysalis asked.

  "I need to know about two men. A man named Scar and his boss, Kien."

  Chrysalis looked at him and frowned. At least, the muscles of her face bunched up. Like her bodily musculature, they looked wispy, insubstantial, as if that which made her flesh and skin totally invisible affected them to the point of translucency.

  "You know that they're connected? That's something maybe only three people outside their own circle know. Are they friends of yours?" Sudden anger blazed across Brennan's face and she flinched. "No. I guess not."

  Her words brought to life memories of treachery and violence. Sascha turned his blind gaze to their corner. Elmo stood on tiptoes, craning his thick neck. Around the room half a dozen people fell silent. One man clutched his temples and fainted dead away. He whimpered like a whipped dog as the others at his table tried to bring him out of his trance. Chrysalis broke her gaze from Brennan's, waved Elmo off, and the tension began, slowly, to dissipate.

  "They're dangerous, both of them," she said calmly. "Kien's Vietnamese, an ex-general. He showed up about, oh, eight years ago. He quickly insinuated himself into the drug trade and now owns a large share of it. In fact, he has his fingers in most other illegal activities in the city, while maintaining a facade of solid respectibility. Owns a string of dry-cleaning establishments and restaurants. Donates to the proper charities and political parties. Gets invited to all the big social events. Scar's one of his lieutenants. He doesn't report directly to Kien. The general keeps himself well insulated."

  "Tell me more about Scar."

  "Local boy. I don't know his real name. He's called Scar because of the strange tattoos he's had smeared all over his face. They're supposed to be Maori tribal markings."

  Brennan must have looked incredulous because Chrysalis shrugged. He watched muscles shift and bones rotate in their sockets. The nipple of her exposed breast bobbed up and down on its pad of invisible flesh.

  "He supposedly got the idea from an anthropologist from NYU. who was studying his street gang. Something about urban tribalism. Anyway, he's one mean dude. He's Kien's chief muscle. Unbeatable in a fight." She gazed at him shrewdly. "You're going up against him."

  It was a statement, not a question.

  "What makes him unbeatable?"

  "He's an instantaneous teleport. He can vanish quicker than anyone can move and reappear anywhere he wants to. Usually behind his opponent. He's also mean as hell. He could be big stuff, but he likes to kill too much. He's content with being one of Kien's lieutenants. Not that he does badly for himself." She toyed with her glass for a moment, then looked directly at Brennan. "Are you an ace?"

  Brennan said nothing. Their eyes locked for a long moment and then Chrysalis sighed.

  "You have nothing. You're just a man. A nat. What makes you think you can take Scar?" she repeated.

  "As you said, I'm a man. He's kidnapped the daughter of a friend of mine. I'm the only one left to go after her."

  "The police?" Chrysalis began reflexively, then laughed at her own suggestion. "No. Scar, through Kien, has enough police protection. I take it you have no solid evidence that Scar has the girl? No. What about one of the other aces? Black Shadow, Fortunato perhaps…"

  "There's no time. I don't know what he's doing to her. Besides"-he stopped for a moment and looked back ten years, "this is personal."

  "So I suspected."

  Brennan drew his gaze back into the room. He stared hard at Chrysalis.

  "Where can I find Scar?"

  "I'm in the business of selling information and I've already given you plenty for free. That tidbit will cost you."

  "I have no money."

  "I don't need money from you. I do you a favor, you do me one."

  Brennan scowled. "I don't like being in anyone's debt."

  "Then find your information elsewhere."

  The need to be doing something was burning in Brennan. "Very well."

  She took a sip of her liqueur and regarded the crystal goblet, held in a hand whose flesh was as clear as the goblet itself.

  "He has a big place on Castleton Avenue, Staten Island. It's isolated and fenced in and sits on extensive grounds. He likes to hunt. Men."

  "He does?" Brennan asked, his gaze thoughtful, considering.

  "Why did Scar kidnap this girl? Is she special in any way?"

  "I don't know," Brennan said, shaking his head. "I thought it was to keep her father quiet because he had seen Scar and Kien together, but the sequence of events is all wrong. Minh saw them together when he was following Scar, trying to pick up clues about the kidnapping. He told me that they took her for her `bloody hands.' That mean anything to you?"

  Chrysalis shook her head.

  "Can't you get him to be less cryptic?"

  "He's dead."

  She reached out, put one of her hands on his and something passed between them. "You probably won't heed my warnings, but I'll give them anyway. Be careful." Brennan nodded. Her hand, invisible on his, was warm and soft. He watched blood pulse rhythmically through it. "Possibly," she continued, "you'd like to discharge some of your debt?"

  "How?" Brennan asked, meeting the subtle challenge of her tone and expression.

  "If you survive your encounter with Scar, come back to the Palace, tonight. Don't worry about the time. I'll be waiting for you."

  There was no mistaking her meaning. She offered entanglements that he had avoided for a long time, relationships that he had wanted no part of for years.

  "Or do you find me repulsive?" she asked matter-of-factly in the lengthy silence that stretche
d between them.

  "No," he said more curtly than he had intended. "Its not that, not that at all."

  His voice sounded harsh in his own ears. He had isolated himself so long from human contact that the thought of entering into any kind of intimate relationship was frightening.

  "Your secrets will be safe from me, Yeoman," Chrysalis said.

  He took a deep breath, nodded.

  "Good." Her smile returned. "I'll expect you."

  He turned without a word, and her smile slipped from her face. "If," she said so softly that only she heard the words, "you can do the impossible. If you can beat Scar."

  There were, Brennan thought, two ways to go about this. He could be surreptitious. He could sneak into Scar's mansion, not knowing what security system he might have, and flit from room to room, not knowing what was in each room, not even knowing if Mai was in the building. Or he could just walk in, putting his trust in luck, nerve, and his ability to think on his feet.

  He unmasked after he left the Crystal Palace and found a cab. The cabbie was reluctant to take him out to Staten Island, but he flashed a couple of twenties and the hack became all smiles. It was a long ride, by cab and ferry, and Brennan spent it in unhappy reminiscence. Ishida would have disapproved, but then, Brennan knew, he had never been the best of the roshi's students.

  He had the cabbie drop him off a block or so from the Castleton address that Chrysalis had given him, paid the fare, and gave the hack a tip that wiped out most of his cash reserves. As the cab pulled away he moved quietly in the shadows until he stood across the street from Scar's place. It was as Chrysalis had described.

  The house itself was a hulking stone mansion set a couple hundred yards off the street. A few lights shone through scattered windows on each of the three floors, but there was no illumination on the outside. The wall that encircled the grounds was stone, about seven feet high, surmounted by strands of electrical wire. The small glass-sided guardbox that stood by the wrought-iron gate held a single sentinel. It didn't look as if the security would be very difficult to breach, but the mansion was definitely too big to search room by room.