Wild Cards VIII: One-Eyed Jacks Read online

  Yes, Dan, Trudy thought. It did. She watched as another panel across the room, sixteen feet high, the one with the Florentine mosaic of Touch & Smell she’d liked so much, quivered as it came loose from the wall and shrank. That disappeared into her purse as well.

  Trudy had been the one to come up with the random pattern, with the help of Jessica. There were fifteen panels on the walls of the Amber Room. There were eleven people seated at their table that Trudy knew the names of and four more on the dais, which was an easy math problem. And Jessica, being eight, knew alphabetical order as well. Fantasy’s first name was Asta, so the A panel went first, with the painting and the mirror. B was for Beth.

  “Another one disappeared!” Quayle cried.

  C was for Croyd and the panel with the mosaic for Hearing to the right of the main doors as they’d come in quivered, dwindled, and vanished.

  It had been Croyd who’d decided that the signal would be playing it like a drinking game. The rules were simple: Any time Towers said “big,” “big league,” “great,” “huge,” or “best ever,” they took another panel. Ditto when Quayle said anything stupidly obvious.

  “Cyclone!” Towers barked at the ace beside him. “Do something! We’ve got a big problem! Big problem!”

  There were four Ds. The first two were Dan and David. Trudy had decided to skip Quayle’s first initial, out of respect. Two panels, on opposite sides of the room, shivered, shrank, and shifted out of existence, at least where they were. The first of the two was the new panel with the campaign portraits of Bush and Quayle, the picture of The White House, and the Presidential Seal. The second was the panel with the mosaic of Sight.

  Cyclone did something. He flew in the air, the sudden updraft sweeping Tower’s hair back into the Struwwelpeter hairdo. The SCARE ace floated in the air like a man-size piñata, spinning around in all directions, searching the room for something out of place, the wind blowing peoples’ napkins and ruffling the flower arrangements. Trudy had an urge to sing “La Cucaracha” and look for a blindfold and a baseball bat. Jessica giggled.

  “Do you think this is funny, young lady?” Towers demanded.

  “Please don’t upset my daughter, Mr. Towers,” Jasper warned him. “If you do, you’ll have an even bigger problem.”

  “You’ll have a big problem, too,” Towers threatened back.

  D continued with Diane and the next panel over, Diane sitting next to David: a relatively ordinary panel, with nothing to distinguish it except the Russian imperial eagle and a mirror. It shimmied. It shrank. It vanished.

  “What the hell is going on?!” demanded Towers.

  “Someone’s using an ace,” Quayle told him.

  Three aces, actually. The final D was for Duncan. The panel at the top of the room by the windows, the other new panel, the one with the Towers crest, the Golden Tower, and Duncan Towers’s own portrait, came alive. The Nagel nymphs heaved their bounteous bosoms, both turning their heads from looking at Towers’s amber portrait to looking at him, then the whole panel wiggled and jiggled, dwindled and spindled, then vanished with a pop.

  Towers stood up, looking around, then pointed to Croyd, who was sitting close to him. “You. Who are you? Your eyes … you’re doing this.”

  “I am not.” Croyd’s eyes brightened. “I’m just a guy with glowing eyes and a weird shimmer who paid ten thousand dollars for an overcooked steak. I was told jokers were welcome in the Republican Party, or was that ‘big tent’ talk just a bunch of horseshit?”

  “I, uh…” Dan Quayle faltered, looking in desperation to Marilyn.

  Marilyn was no help, but Towers gestured to his security. One of them tried to grab Croyd by the arm. The Sleeper swung his arm hard, sending the moonlighting cop into the ugly bare wall where Towers’s panel had been. “I’m also pretty strong, so I guess I’m an ace, too. But strong guys are a dime a dozen, so big whoop. If you’re going to accuse aces, why don’t you accuse the human piñata?” He pointed to Cyclone.

  “I work for SCARE,” Cyclone pointed out, “and I just do wind.”

  “You say.” Croyd popped another black beauty. “But I’ve seen you on television. You’ve got a pretty sweet pad for a guy on a government salary.”

  “I’m from a wealthy family.”

  Towers looked over to a far table, the one with the amber music box and a beautiful boreal shimmer floating in the air above one guest like an accusatory beacon. “You, then.” He pointed to Aurora. “Rainbow Girl or whatever the hell your name is.”

  The glow of the aurora borealis above her dimmed, but Aurora couldn’t hide her diamonds, or at least cubic zirconias. “I just make pretty lights. They’re harmless,” she said plaintively, looking desperately to the wealthy men and women with her.

  Trudy finally put two and two together. Of course. Aurora was trying to relaunch her career, so she was courting theater angels and investors for a new show.

  “Fine.” Towers looked around for someone else to accuse, only to have Jasper von der Stadt rise and stand in front of Jessica. “Don’t you dare accuse my daughter, Mr. Towers.”

  “She shrinks things, doesn’t she?”

  “Not until they disappear,” Jasper snapped, “and she only shrinks living things. Trust me, I’ve got the doll-furniture receipts to prove it.”

  “Maybe she discovered a new power.”

  Jasper von der Stadt gasped. “Have you no shame?”

  Towers seemed to take this as a rhetorical question. “Well, someone’s doing it. We can just wait for the police then and do blood tests to find out who’s the secret ace.”

  “And be in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Kenneth Strauss pointed out, “not to mention the First, depending on how many in this room are Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

  “Kenneth,” warned Latham.

  “No, Sinjin,” Strauss shot back. “My brother is already dealing with this witch hunt, but a child? Mere presence of the virus proves nothing anyway.”

  Towers waved dismissively. “We’ll get a telepath.”

  “Again the Fourth,” Kenneth Strauss pointed out, “plus I’d object on the grounds of attorney-client privilege. Besides, would the Party really want a telepath in the room with our next vice president?”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that,” said Dan Quayle, causing Marilyn to roll her eyes. And since G was for Gyro, the panel across the room, the one with the double doors to the left and Castor or Pollux and his gilded chest sticking out of the thicket of rocaille, suddenly came to life, smiling at everyone as the doors began to open. It shrank to less than nine inches high, the Gemini twin now looking like a gilded Ken doll. Then it disappeared, dollhouse doors and all.

  A very surprised-looking group of waiters stood in the hall outside, looking in through the space where the doors had been.

  “Great!” Towers screamed, losing his shit along with his Amber Room. “Just great!”

  The two panels making up the far corner of room danced, diminished, and disappeared in quick succession, one another relatively plain panel with mirror and eagle, the other with the mosaic for Taste, for J was for Jasper and Jessica.

  “They just keep going away,” said Dan.

  J was also for St. John. The panel right beside them, containing the double doors to the right and the other star twin and his gilded chest, quickly wiggled, squinched, and winked out of existence, doll head, doors, and all.

  Through the archway lay a parlor decked out with rich eighteenth-century furnishings. Jessica, for once, beat Dan to stating the obvious. “Daddy!” she cried, pointing. “There’s a table made out of giant pee-pees!”

  It was, indeed, Catherine the Great’s notorious dick table, supported by four huge erect phalluses spouting wooden jizz like whales. Their enormous balls doubled as breasts because they had nipples on them and the gilded round tabletop was edged with even more phalluses, the table the centerpiece of a suite with even more lewd furniture.

  Gyro and David began to laugh uproariously at this sigh
t, exactly as you’d expect from two drunken teenage boys, while Jasper von der Stadt cried, “Cover your eyes, Jessica! Cover your eyes!”

  K was for Kenneth, Beth’s husband. Jessica squirmed free of her father’s hand, and the corresponding panel, another relatively plain one across the room, squiggled, squinched, and vanished as well. Trudy’s purse was getting full and wiggly with sections of disassembled miniaturized living amber dollhouse, but she held the handles and kept it sandwiched between her chair and Croyd’s.

  “There are only three panels left,” said Dan.

  M was for Marilyn, his wife. The matching panel, the one with the other armorial painting and nymph-topped mirror, shrugged, shrank, and shifted to Trudy’s purse.

  “It’s happening just after you say something, Dan,” Marilyn realized as Towers motioned for his security to form a human wall to block the view of the erotic parlor, the charming Ernie Martin among them.

  “It is?” asked Dan.

  T was for Trudy. She took great pleasure in watching Croyd secretly animate her panel, the one with the attached corner table, and Jessica just as stealthily miniaturize it. Trudy popped it into her purse as the tiered dish of amber candies fell to the floor and shattered, scattering porcelain shards and confectionary fossils across the floor.

  “Don’t. Say. Anything. Dan,” Marilyn ordered as everyone in the room looked at the last panel, the one at the far side of the room with the original entry doors, or at least everyone who wasn’t trying to look past Towers’s security, some of whom, Ernie included, were oggling Catherine the Great’s naughty furniture collection.

  “That’s a great idea,” said Towers.

  V was for Vernon, as in Vernon Henry Carlysle, the legal name of Cyclone. The final panel, including the ornate crown with the spraying rays over the rococo double doors, which took on a somewhat different interpretation when compared with the fountaining phalluses in the next room, shivered and shrank, doors and all, and Trudy took even more pleasure as she popped it into her purse, which was now almost full and quite squirmy.

  Trudy glanced to Croyd and Jessica. As they’d arranged, the floor followed. The beautiful parquet began to peel up at the corners like some weird wooden sea creature, then just as quickly shrank to something that looked like nothing half so much as a possessed slab of the promised Tula gingerbread lying on the bare concrete in the middle of the room between the two dozen banquet tables, pulled out from under them like a magician pulling out a rug.

  Then it was in Trudy’s purse, almost the last thing that would fit.

  Almost.

  The central painting on the ceiling fell down next, wafting like the cape of a giant blanket octopus painted with clouds and a vision of Paradise as everyone in the room caught their breath, then it shrank to the size of a painted silk scarf, then it vanished into Trudy’s purse, the absolute last thing her purse would hold. She snapped it shut before any of the wriggly treasures could escape.

  But there were still the four inset portraits at the corners of the ceiling. One by one they popped free, shrank, and then disappeared, fluttering postage stamps appearing beneath Trudy’s hand in her pocket. All except for the last, for Cyclone had gotten wise to what was going on and flew over to seize the final panel at the far corner of the room as it popped free from its frame, his billowing cape blocking both Jessica’s and Trudy’s sight as he caught it, struggling to keep hold of the fluttering painting as the stray corners of the artwork smacked him in the face, like trying to wrestle a rococo manta ray. Then it shrank down to the size of a fluttering postage stamp as he landed, proudly saying to Towers as he still held it, “I have—”

  He said nothing more, since it had just joined the other three in Trudy’s pocket.

  The grand finale was fast. Trudy kept her hand in her pocket. Around the room, the amber centerpieces began to quiver: the crown, the Easter egg, the music box, the jewelry chest, the fruit bowl, the stein, the clock, the two cathedrals, the beehive, the owl, the ship, the vase, the dog, the cat, the toad, the tortoise, the troika, the samovar, the carp, the bull, the apple tree, the grapes, and the statuette of the Three Graces. All save the chess set, which had too many fiddly little bits to deal with.

  The foo dog and the tabby cat turned to snarl and hiss at each other, the toad blinked its round eyes, and the carp fell over on its side, gasping. Then the two dozen amber treasures shrank one by one—all except the jewelry chest. Then, with a string of pops like a chain of soap bubbles, they disappeared, wriggling charm bracelet baubles falling into Trudy’s pocket—all except for the jewelry chest again, which remained at full size, then faded out of existence like a desert mirage, with no pop and no bauble in Trudy’s pocket.

  But whatever had just happened, it was gone as well. All that was left was the chess set.

  Duncan Towers shoved his plate with his overcooked, ketchup-drenched steak aside and dragged the chess set toward him, guarding it jealously like an orange dragon with a blond toupée. The chessmen, fashioned from orange and yellow amber, were almost camouflaged against him. “Get out,” he snarled. “Get out! All of you! Especially that creepy brat and her freaky little elephant!”

  A silence fell over the room, broken by Jasper von der Stadt saying, “Don’t get upset, pumpkin. Please.”

  “No, Daddy,” Jessica said, pushing past her father. “Only a big bully would send everyone to bed without dessert for something someone may have done. It’s not fair.”

  “Fuck fairness,” snarled Towers.

  “You promised everyone the most beautiful slice of chocolate cake ever,” Jessica pointed out. “I’d like my chocolate cake. All of us would. Please.”

  “Such a nasty little girl…”

  “I’m not little,” countered Jessica. “You are.”

  As she said that, Duncan Towers became smaller and smaller, dwindling into his clothes as an ill-fitting white tuxedo fell to the dais beneath the amber table as he screamed in progressively smaller tones, “I’m not little! Not little! Not little…!”

  Dan Quayle got up and reached down to the pile of clothes, taking out a three-inch tall man. “Towers,” he said in awe, “you’re tiny.”

  It was still part of the rules of the game they’d set up, so Trudy teleported one of the chess rooks to her hand, one from the orange side of the board. Quayle set Towers in the empty corner, Towers now taking the place of the tower. He waved his hands in the air, raging, but was too tiny to be heard.

  Jasper von der Stadt kept looking back and forth from the tiny Towers to his daughter until Kenneth Strauss interrupted. “Here’s my card. You’ll need legal representation. Towers has a case for assault and battery, but your daughter has an easy mens rea defense plus a case for intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

  “We’re so sorry for ruining the evening,” Jasper apologized.

  “No we’re not, Daddy,” Jessica told him. “Towers was a big bully. Now he isn’t.”

  “Yes, pumpkin,” her father said. “Are you ready to go home now? Please don’t be angry at anyone else, Jessica. Please don’t be angry.”

  This was just the right thing to say to cause an absolute panic. Three hundred Republicans rushed the far archway toward the elevators. “Could you help me with my bag, Croyd?” Trudy asked. “It’s a bit heavy.”

  “Sure thing.” Croyd popped his last two black beauties, picked up the bag, then glanced toward the mob of security massed by the archway to Catherine the Great’s erotic furniture collection. His eyes glowed brighter as he looked intensely in their direction. “Follow me. Quick,” he told Trudy. They headed for the elevators, shoving his way through the bottleneck of Republicans.

  Trudy dropped the chess tower into her other pocket, glancing back to Towers on the board, then to Jessica and Jasper von der Stadt. “Want to take the elevator down with me?”

  “Okay,” Jessica agreed happily. “C’mon, Timothy.”

  She skipped across the bare concrete toward the elevators, carrying her elep
hant in his cricket cage, while Jasper von der Stadt mouthed Thank you to Trudy again.

  “She’s a lovely child,” Trudy complimented. “And such a wonderful ace.”

  Then Trudy realized why Croyd was in a hurry and security hadn’t tried to grab him: They were busy with a commotion in the next room.

  A chaise longue or fainting couch bowled through the line of cops. Trudy hadn’t seen it in the notorious photographs, but it was definitely part of Catherine’s collection. Its legs were penises. The uprights of its arms were penises. The arms themselves ended with the faces of open-mouthed nymphs or succubi that had stopped sucking the wooden woodies and were trying to suck Ernie Martin, who was lying on it, while the face of a lascivious satyr or incubus at the top of the furnishing stuck its tongue in his ear and a pair of nubile wooden legs had locked themselves around his neck. “Get it off me!” Ernie screamed. “Get this fucking thing off me!”

  Jasper von der Stadt took off running, scooping up Jessica and Timothy and shoving his way through the logjam of Republicans, Trudy right behind him, the Strausses following. Trudy was afraid they wouldn’t get to the elevators in time, but she’d not countenanced the power of Jessica’s polite “please.” They went to the head of the line and had an elevator all to themselves, the Republicans either not knowing what was behind them or still preferring to take their chances with Cathy’s possessed porn rather than risk crossing Jessica von der Stadt.

  On the way down, Trudy felt around in her pocket until she found the pirate ship. It had stopped squirming and was now just a tiny amber charm. She popped it to her other hand. She gave Jessica a glance, touching her finger to her lips for silence while Jasper stared at the elevator doors in front of them, listening to Kenneth Strauss’s legal advice, while Beth played the dutiful wife, a supportive hand on her husband’s shoulder as she nodded in agreement with what he said. Trudy stealthily showed Jessica the dollhouse-size amber pirate ship.