Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty Read online

  “You’re gonna sit down,” said C.C. firmly.

  Jack looked toward the stage. This was probably the only rock concert he’d been to that wasn’t choked with smoke. But in the confined space of the Funhouse, the management, the Health Department, and some of the performers had begged for abstinence. The tech crew was using a fog machine to get the right lighting. With the lights in his face Jack could see nothing. But he knew who was out there.

  Cordelia was sitting next to the small, roped-off space where the floor director was sequestered with her video monitors. Everything looked good. The satellite feeds were webbing the globe satisfactorily, though god only knew if any eyes out there were actually watching.

  Every seat was taken. People had paid two grand just for standing room. Cordelia had checked around her chair before U2 had been announced. The table immediately behind her was occupied by New Jersey’s junior U.S. senator, the senator’s wife—Hoboken’s head of cultural development—a hot, teen heartthrob actor, and the actor’s ICM agent. The next table to the left held Senator Hartmann and his party. Tachyon was back there too. A beaming Xavier Desmond was right up front.

  Off to her right, Miranda and Ichiko had seen her looking and had waved and smiled. Cordelia had smiled back. Luz Alcala and Polly Rettig, GF&G’s top management, also sat at Cordelia’s table. Now and then they said appropriately laudatory things to her. Obviously they were enjoying how the benefit concert was progressing. Boffo, thought Cordelia. That’s how Variety will describe this. Dey better damn better.

  U2 ended its set and the Irish quartet trooped offstage. The applause thundered on, and they came back for a quick encore. That had been budgeted into the schedule. It was assumed.

  After the encore the screen dropped down from the Funhouse’s ceiling, barely missing the Louma crane, and the slick, donated media spot for the New York AIDS Project blazed forth. This was the commercial. No one minded.

  Cordelia wondered if she should go backstage and check that all was in order. No, she decided. She needed to be in place where she was—waiting for hideous crises. No use seeking them out.

  The Coward Brothers came out to a storm of applause. T-Bone and Elvis burned the place up with “People’s Limousine” and another sixteen minutes that flashed by like no time at all.

  Between sets, when the broadcast had gone to a taped message, the lighting director turned the spots on the Funhouse’s mirror balls and chandelier. The interior of the club exploded in a phantasmagoria of shattered light.

  Little Steven and his band came on. The roadies had been fast and accurate. The musicians plugged into the house system and were off. Little Steven had a new scarf for each song in the set. The crowd loved it.

  It was C.C. Ryder’s time. She held the neck of her shining black twelve-string with both hands.

  “Don’t strangle it,” said Holley. He wrapped his hands loosely around hers.

  “Break a leg.” Jack gave her a hug. Bagabond didn’t seem to mind.

  The latter hugged C.C. in turn for a few seconds and said, “You’ll be great.”

  “If I’m not,” said C.C., “I hope this time I’m an express.”

  Jack knew she was referring to her years-ago wild card transformation when trauma had catalyzed her into becoming a more than reasonable facsimile of a local subway car.

  C.C. hit the stage running and never stopped. It was as though she was casting a net of power over the audience. There was a moment at first when she faltered. But then she seemed to gather strength. It was as though energy were flowing out into the people in their seats, then being amplified and broadcast back to the singer. The magic, Jack thought, of genuine empathy.

  She started with one of her old standards, then quickly segued into her new ballads. Her twenty minutes flashed past for Jack. C.C. ended with the song she had publicly debuted at the first rehearsal.

  Baby, you never have to fold

  ’Cause what you’ve got

  Is a winning hand

  … Is a winning hand, came the refrain. Never forget.

  C.C. bowed her head. The applause had megatonnage.

  When she came offstage, she waited until she was past the curtains before collapsing. Jack and Bagabond both caught her.

  “What’s the matter?” said Bagabond. “Oh, C.C.—”

  “Nothing,” said C.C. She grinned up at them, her face lined with exhaustion. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Okay,” Cordelia muttered as the Jokertown Clinic spot unspooled above her. “Buddy Holley’s next.” In spite of what Uncle Jack said, she wondered if she should cross her fingers. Maybe toes too.

  “Hold on a sec,” said the floor director. She leaned toward Cordelia. “Change in plans.”

  Shit, thought Cordelia. “What?”

  “Seems to be a minor rebellion among the musicians. It’s still getting sorted out.”

  “Better be quick.” Cordelia glanced at the LED counting down on the director’s console. “Like in about twenty-two seconds.”

  “But I’m supposed to go on now,” said Buddy Holley stubbornly.

  “The deal is,” said Jack, “both the Boss and Girls With Guns have decided they want to go now and let you be the final act.”

  Bagabond glanced beyond them. “The Boss and that girl Tami are arm wrestling. Looks like she’s winning.”

  “But it’s my gig,” said Holley.

  “Shut the fuck up,” said the Girls With Guns’ leader, Tami, as she strutted up, rubbing her right shoulder. She uttered the words with considerable affection. “Him and I”—she gestured at the Boss, who was ruefully grinning—“we both figure we learned most all we know from you. So you’re gonna be the climax. That’s it, Bud.” She leaned up on tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. Holley looked startled.

  The stage director was signaling frantically.

  The glass eyes of the SteadiCams implacably zoomed in.

  Girls With Guns upped the energy ante by tearing out the heart of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s bubblegum standard “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight,” stomping it into jam, smearing the residue on their sneering lips, and just generally raising hell. They ended up with “Proud Flesh,” a razor-edged anthem of romance and nihilism.

  “So,” said Tami to the Boss as she led her sisters swaggering offstage, “top that.”

  The Boss did his best.

  Oh, god, thought Cordelia as the echoes finally died. She watched the Boss raise his guitar in one hand and elevate a fist with the other. Let Buddy work out. Please. The Boss gave the audience another bow, then led his band backstage.

  Cordelia blinked. She thought she’d seen St. John Latham at a table in the back of the club. Latham, Strauss’s cash is as good as anyone else’s, she thought. The problem was, Latham seemed to be staring directly at her.

  She sighed as the penultimate PSA faded to black and the director cued in the Louma. The monitor showed a wide tracking shot sweeping back and up from the stage.

  “And … go!” said the director into her mike.

  Please, Cordelia again mentally implored.

  “Hello, Lubbock!” Buddy Holley said to the immediate audience and their five hundred million electronic shadows. The crowd smiled.

  Jack smiled too from his vantage at the edge of the stage. He crouched down to avoid getting in the way of the camera dollying past on its track. The pain was gnawing regularly at his gut, and he didn’t know how long he’d be able to hold this position. He realized that what he wanted now more than anything else was simply to lie down. He wanted to rest. Soon enough, he thought morbidly. I’ll rest all I want. For good.

  Holley hit his first note, then brushed his fingers across the chord. The magic Buddy Holley touch. Now it might be a standard technique, but three decades before, it had signaled a revolution.

  Rou-ou-ou-ou-ough beast

  The characteristic hiccup was still there, though no one in the paying audience had ever heard this Buddy Holley tune before.

  When the m
oon slides low

  And lo-ove rubs thin

  I’ll be knockin’

  Askin’ to be let in

  To Jack it seemed a little like vintage Dylan. Maybe a dash of Lou Reed. But most of it was just pure Holley.

  Rou-ou-ou-ou-ough beast—almost a wail.

  Jack realized he could easily cry.

  When my friends

  Like my center

  Cannot hold

  And every feeling I got

  Has just been sold

  He was crying.

  I’m the rough beast’s prey

  In the rough beast’s way

  Buddy Holley’s Telecaster sobbed. Not in self-pity, but in honest grief.

  Without friends

  Without love

  Forever

  Jack loved the music, but the pain was horrendous. When he could no longer withstand it, he got up and quietly left. He missed the encore.

  Cordelia was already looking ahead to the final extravagant encore when every performer would come onto the stage and all would stand there with hands and arms linked. She blinked and registered a double take as she realized Buddy Holley looked about ready to fall flat on his face as he stood there taking the applause from his final song. She was close enough that she could see the flush in his face. Holley staggered. Oh, Jesus, she thought, he’s sick. He’s going to collapse.

  But he didn’t. It was as though the flush in his skin metamorphosed into a ripple of heat that ran along his body from feet to head.

  What the hell? thought Cordelia.

  Then it was Buddy Holley’s flesh itself that rippled. A transforming nimbus of energy seemed to glow around his body. He held the Fender Telecaster out in front of him and something astonishing happened. The steel strings became ductile, melting like taffy, flashing away from the frets, stretching out and out like lines of silver sparks. They whipped around camera mounts and lights, anchoring themselves like jungle snakes.

  Illusion? Cordelia thought. Maybe it was telekinesis.

  The guitar strings formed a kind of enormous cat’s cradle.

  Buddy Holley looked around at this, then at his hands. He slowly raised his head and gazed upward. Holley seemed to be seeing something nobody else could comprehend. He smiled and the smile transformed into a joyous grin.

  And then he danced. Slow and deliberate at first, the pace grew more rapid as Holley began to whirl around the stage. The audience stared, gaping.

  She had seen this dance before—or something like it. Cordelia recalled the memory. Wyungare. She had seen the young aboriginal man dance in this manner deep within the Dreamtime, far into the desert heartland of Australia. This was a shaman’s dance.

  Holley’s grin widened. He leaped and gyrated. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and James Brown could have done no better. Then Holley leaped into the shimmering, almost invisible webwork of silver sparks.

  He whirled and his right hand came off, severed at the wrist with a gush of crimson smoke.

  Someone in the audience gasped.

  Holley continued to dance. The other hand. The right arm, up to the elbow. His left leg at the knee. Scarlet smoke fanned out like the curving trails of fire from a catherine wheel.

  Cordelia became aware the director was addressing her. “Should we go to a spot?” The director’s voice was taut.

  It was all coming clear to Cordelia. “No,” she said. “No. Leave it. Broadcast everything.”

  Buddy Holley whirled within the cradle of sparking tracers. He disassembled himself as the audience murmured and cried out.

  From the chair beside her at the table Cordelia heard Polly Rettig say, “God almighty, it’s just like with Kid Dinosaur.”

  “No.” Cordelia said aloud. “It’s not. It’s the death and resurrection show. It’s just—a joke. It’s entertainment.”

  “Entertainment?” said Rettig. “He’s … killing himself.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Cordelia. “He’s transforming, but he’s not dying. This is a shaman’s trick.”

  The last of Buddy Holley, a nearly limbless torso, wavered and tumbled to the stage. The body parts lay stacked in a haphazard heap. Curtains of bright smoke rose up. Sparks shot up in fountaining streamers.

  The audience watched, uncertain how to react.

  Cordelia felt calm and sure. She trusted Wyungare. She wondered if Holley’s transmogrification was a direct result of the wild card virus. That would explain his apparent illness.

  The pile of arms and legs stirred. The bones began to reconnect, joint to joint. The muscles and ligaments wound around them. The skin slithered onto the limbs, and the limbs rejoined the body.

  Buddy Holley stood before them, whole again. He wasn’t completely the physical original. This Buddy Holley was fitter, the spare tire around his waist and the bags under the eyes gone. His hair was a glossy black again, with no gray. His skin was smooth and unwrinkled.

  The crowd began to clap. The cheering rose as the audience’s collective tension released. Someone behind Cordelia said, “That’s the absolute fucking performance of a lifetime.”

  The guitar had also reassembled. Holley picked up the Telecaster and held it loosely.

  He got what he wanted, Cordelia thought. “He’s become a shaman,” she said aloud.

  “Buddy Holley and the Shamans,” said a voice behind her. “Bitchin’ name. After this, it’d sell like Fawn Hall’s underwear. Man, this Holley could become a presidential candidate.”

  Cordelia turned and saw it was the ICM man who had spoken. She gave him a frigid stare and turned back toward the stage. The new being that had been Buddy Holley smiled reassuringly. Then he brought his hand across the guitar strings. The chord throbbed as though resonating with every heart in the audience.

  The sound, thought Cordelia. It’s a trigger for states of heightened consciousness. This is the power of rock and roll.

  Then Buddy Holley, the reborn man of power, stood before the awestruck audience and played the best version of “Not Fade Away” that had ever been performed.

  It was, Cordelia suspected, a portent.

  As Jack slipped away from the alley door of the Funhouse, he felt sick in heart and body. I should have stayed for Buddy’s encore, he thought. But Buddy would do just fine.

  There was the scraping on asphalt of something inhumanly large shifting its weight.

  Jack stopped abruptly as a shadow deeper than the darkness in the rest of the alley fell across him.

  “I figured a blue-ribbon fag party like this would draw all my little buddies,” said Bludgeon. “But I didn’t even hope the first fucker would be you.” Without warning, his deformed right hand whistled out, catching Jack across the head and slamming him back into the brick side of a building.

  Jack felt something give, bone or cartilage he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he was slipping away from what light there was. He wanted the darkness, but not yet, not this way. He tried to struggle. He was aware that Bludgeon was grasping him tightly and holding him upright. Bludgeon jerked loose Jack’s belt and pulled down his pants.

  “Got a little going-away thing for you, Jack. Something I figure you’ll love. I bet your niece Cordelia’ll eat it up when I get around to her too.”

  Jack tried to will himself back into full consciousness. Then he felt what Bludgeon was shoving between his buttocks. Into him. Spreading and tearing. Nothing had ever hurt this much. Nothing!

  “I’ll save the little girl for later,” said Bludgeon.

  Jesus, thought Jack through the agony. Cordelia. “Let her alone you rat-bastard cochon!”

  “Sticks and stones,” said Bludgeon, emitting a high-pitched giggle, “but only the Fatman can hurt me…” He thrust forward and Jack screamed.

  Where was the other? Jack thought desperately, his brain seeming to heel over in a grinding haze of pain. I need you. Now. I’ve got to transform. This once. Just to kill the son-of-a-bitch.

  And then he felt the change coming.

  He al
so knew he was dying.

  Good, he thought. Good to both. And a surprise for Bludgeon.

  Jack felt the teeth springing up as his jaw elongated. Pestilence or claw, you son-of-a-bitch, you’re gon’ die. The fierce anger carried him a little further.

  Bagabond! his thought shouted into the night. Hear me! Save Cordelia.

  I’ll save the little girl for later, Bludgeon’s threat echoed. It all rippled into a void. And died.

  The dead man plunged into darkness.

  Blood Ties

  II

  THE SEVEN-TO-MIDNIGHT SHIFT WAS just coming off. The midnight-to-five-A.M. shift was preparing to sally forth from the Crystal Palace onto the streets of Jokertown. Coughs, hacks, a few subdued laughs as they lined up at the long trestle tables to be served. Hiram Worchester, the immensely large and immensely elegant owner of Aces High, oversaw the feeding effort. It was his way of showing support, and a very welcome one to the always-tired Jokertown patrols.

  Tachyon, seated on a table, with a booted foot propped on the chair, sniffed appreciatively. Coq au vin. He noticed Sascha pausing to speak with Hiram. The big ace jerked his head toward one of the secluded alcoves, and they moved away. Business of some sort, mused Tachyon. Everyone did business at the Crystal Palace.

  The door to the Palace was flung open, and Mr. Gravemold surveyed the room. He brought with him an indescribable smell, and the chill of the grave seemed to wash from his tall, wiry person. Beneath his absurd porkpie hat a skull mask decorated with black and white feathers leered about the room. There were some muttered curses from the assembled jokers. It was going to be tough to choke down even Hiram’s delicious food with Mr. Gravemold stinking up the place.

  Tachyon, a scented handkerchief held to his nose, was about to slide to the floor and join the line when the brash voice of Digger Downs riveted him in place.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, Doc, interview time.”

  “Why me, Digger?”