Wild Cards Read online

  He walked to the stairs. As he was going down, a guy in a modified zoot suit—pegged pants, long coat, watch chain, bow tie the size of a coat hanger, hair slicked back, reeking of Brylcreem and Old Spice—went up the stairs two at a time, whistling “It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion.”

  Jetboy heard him knocking at Belinda's door.

  Outside, it had begun to rain.

  “Great. Just like in a movie,” said Jetboy.

  The next night was quiet as a graveyard.

  Then dogs all over the Pine Barrens started to bark. Cats screamed. Birds flew in panic from thousands of trees, circled, swooping this way and that in the dark night.

  Static washed over every radio in the northeastern United States. New television sets flared out, volume doubling. People gathered around nine-inch Dumonts jumped back at the sudden noise and light, dazzled in their own living rooms and bars and sidewalks outside appliance stores all over the East Coast.

  To those out in that hot August night it was even more spectacular. A thin line of light, high up, moved, brightened, still falling. Then it expanded, upping in brilliance, changed into a blue-green bolide, seemed to stop, then flew to a hundred falling sparks that slowly faded on the dark starlit sky.

  Some people said they saw another, smaller light a few minutes later. It seemed to hover, then sped off to the west, growing dimmer as it flew. The newspapers had been full of stories of the “ghost rockets” in Sweden all that summer. It was the silly season.

  A few calls to the weather bureau or Army Air Force bases got the answer that it was probably a stray from the Delta Aquarid meteor shower.

  Out in the Pine Barrens, somebody knew differently, though he wasn't in the mood to communicate it to anyone.

  Jetboy, dressed in a loose pair of pants, a shirt, and a brown aviator's jacket, walked in through the doors of the Blackwell Printing Company. There was a bright red-and-blue sign above the door: Home of the Cosh Comics Company.

  He stopped at the receptionist's desk.

  “Robert Tomlin to see Mr. Farrell.”

  The secretary, a thin blond job in glasses with swept-up rims that made it look like a bat was camping on her face, stared at him. “Mr. Farrell passed on in the winter of 1945. Were you in the service or something?”

  “Something.”

  “Would you like to speak to Mr. Lowboy? He has Mr. Farrell's job now.”

  “Whoever's in charge of Jetboy Comics.”

  The whole place began shaking as printing presses cranked up in the back of the building. On the walls of the office were garish comic-book covers, promising things only they could deliver.

  “Robert Tomlin,” said the secretary to the intercom.

  “Scratch squawk never heard of him squich.”

  “What was this about?” asked the secretary.

  “Tell him Jetboy wants to see him.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking at him. “I'm sorry. I didn't recognize you.”

  “Nobody ever does.”

  Lowboy looked like a gnome with all the blood sucked out. He was as pale as Harry Langdon must have been, like a weed grown under a burlap bag.

  “Jetboy!” He held out a hand like a bunch of grub worms. “We all thought you'd died until we saw the papers last week. You're a real national hero, you know?”

  “I don't feel like one.”

  “What can I do for you? Not that I'm not pleased to finally meet you. But you must be a busy man.”

  “Well, first, I found out none of the licensing and royalty checks had been deposited in my account since I was reported Missing and Presumed Dead last summer.”

  “What, really? The legal department must have put it in escrow or something until somebody came forward with a claim. I'll get them right on it.”

  “Well, I'd like the check now, before I leave,” said Jetboy.

  “Huh? I don't know if they can do that. That sounds awfully abrupt.”

  Jetboy stared at him.

  “Okay, okay, let me call Accounting.” He yelled into the telephone.

  “Oh,” said Jetboy. “A friend's been collecting my copies. I checked the statement of ownership and circulation for the last two years. I know Jetboy Comics have been selling five hundred thousand copies an issue lately.”

  Lowboy yelled into the phone some more. He put it down. “It'll take 'em a little while. Anything else?”

  “I don't like what's happening to the funny book,” said Jetboy.

  “What's not to like? It's selling a half a million copies a month!”

  “For one thing, the plane's getting to look more and more like a bullet. And the artists have swept back the wings, for Christ's sakes!”

  “This is the Atomic Age, kid. Boys nowadays don't like a plane that looks like a red leg of lamb with coat hangers sticking out the front.”

  “Well, it's always looked like that. And another thing: Why's the damned plane blue in the last three issues?”

  “Not me! I think red's fine. But Mr. Blackwell sent down a memo, said no more red except for blood. He's a big Legionnaire.”

  “Tell him the plane has to look right, and be the right color. Also, the combat reports were forwarded. When Farrell was sitting at your desk, the comic was about flying and combat, and cleaning up spy rings—real stuff. And there were never more than two ten-page Jetboy stories an issue.”

  “When Farrell was at this desk, the book was only selling a quar- ter-million copies a month,” said Lowboy.

  Robert stared at him again.

  “I know the war's over, and everybody wants a new house and eye-bulging excitement,” said Jetboy. “But look what I find in the last eighteen months . . .

  “I never fought anyone like The Undertaker, anyplace called The Mountain of Doom. And come on! The Red Skeleton? Mr. Maggot? Professor Blooteaux? What is this with all the skulls and tentacles? I mean, evil twins named Sturm and Drang Hohenzollern? The Arthropod Ape, a gorilla with six sets of elbows? Where do you get all this stuff?”

  “It's not me, it's the writers. They're a crazy bunch, always taking Benzedrine and stuff. Besides, it's what the kids want!”

  “What about the flying features, and the articles on real aviation heroes? I thought my contract called for at least two features an issue on real events and people?”

  “We'll have to look at it again. But I can tell you, kids don't want that kind of stuff anymore. They want monsters, spaceships, stuff that'll make 'em wet the bed. You remember? You were a kid once yourself!”

  Jetboy picked up a pencil from the desk. “I was thirteen when the war started, fifteen when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I've been in combat for six years. Sometimes I don't think I was ever a kid.”

  Lowboy was quiet a moment.

  “Tell you what you need to do,” he said. “You need to write up all the stuff you don't like about the book and send it to us. I'll have the legal department go over it, and we'll try to do something, work things out. Of course, we print three issues ahead, so it'll be Thanks-giving before the new stuff shows up. Or later.”

  Jetboy sighed. “I understand.”

  “I sure do want you happy, 'cause Jetboy's my favorite comic. No, I really mean that. The others are just a job. My god, what a job: deadlines, working with drunks and worse, riding herd over printers—you can just imagine! But I like the work on Jetboy. It's special.”

  “Well, I'm glad.”

  “Sure, sure.” Lowboy drummed his fingers on the desk. “Wonder what's taking them so long?”

  “Probably getting out the other set of ledgers,” said Jetboy.

  “Hey, no! We're square here!” Lowboy came to his feet.

  “Just kidding.”

  “Oh. Say, the paper said you were, what, marooned on a desert island or something? Pretty tough?”

  “Well, lonely. I got tired of catching and eating fish. Mostly it was boring, and I missed everything. I don't mean missed, I mean missed out. I was there from April twenty-ninth of '45 until last month.


  “There were times when I thought I'd go nuts. I couldn't believe it one morning when I looked up, and there was the U.S.S. Reluctant anchored less than a mile offshore. I fired off a flare, and they picked me up. It's taken a month to get someplace to repair the plane, rest up, get home. I'm glad to be back.”

  “I can imagine. Hey, lots of dangerous animals on the island? I mean, lions and tigers and stuff?”

  Jetboy laughed. “It was less than a mile wide, and a mile and a quarter long. There were birds and rats and some lizards.”

  “Lizards? Big lizards? Poisonous?”

  “No. Small. I must have eaten half of them before I left. Got pretty good with a slingshot made out of an oxygen hose.”

  “Huh! I bet you did!”

  The door opened, and a tall guy with an ink-smudged shirt came in.

  “That him?” asked Lowboy.

  “I only seen him once, but it looks like him,” said the man.

  “Good enough for me!” said Lowboy.

  “Not for me,” said the accountant. “Show me some ID and sign this release.”

  Jetboy sighed and did. He looked at the amount on the check. It had far too few digits in front of the decimal. He folded it up and put it in his pocket.

  “I'll leave my address for the next check with your secretary. And I'll send a letter with the objections this week.”

  “Do that. It's been a real pleasure meeting you. Let's hope we have a long and prosperous business together.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” said Jetboy. He and the accountant left.

  Lowboy sat back down in his swivel chair. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the bookcase across the room.

  Then he rocketed forward, jerked up the phone, and dialed nine to get out. He called up the chief writer for Jetboy Comics.

  A muzzy, hung-over voice answered on the twelfth ring.

  “Clean the shit out of your head, this is Lowboy. Picture this: fifty-two-page special, single-story issue. Ready? Jetboy on Dinosaur Island! Got that? I see lots of cavemen, a broad, a what-you-call-it—king rex. What? Yeah, yeah, a tyrannosaur. Maybe a buncha holdout Jap soldiers. You know. Yeah, maybe even samurai. When? Blown off course in A.D. 1100? Christ. Whatever. You know exactly what we need.

  “What's this? Tuesday. You got till five P.M. Thursday, okay? Quit bitchin'. It's a hundred and a half fast bucks! See you then.”

  He hung up. Then he called up an artist and told him what he wanted for the cover.

  Ed and Fred were coming back from a delivery in the Pine Barrens.

  They were driving an eight-yard dump truck. In the back until a few minutes ago had been six cubic yards of new-set concrete. Eight hours before, it had been five and a half yards of water, sand, gravel, and cement—and a secret ingredient.

  The secret ingredient had broken three of the Five Unbreakable Rules for carrying on a tax-free, unincorporated business in the state.

  He had been taken by other businessmen to a wholesale construction equipment center, and been shown how a cement mixer works, up close and personal.

  Not that Ed and Fred had anything to do with that. They'd been called an hour ago and been asked if they could drive a dump truck through the woods for a couple of grand.

  It was dark out in the woods, not too many miles from the city. It didn't look like they were within a hundred miles of a town over five-hundred population.

  The headlights picked out ditches where everything from old airplanes to sulfuric-acid bottles lay in clogged heaps. Some of the dumpings were fresh. Smoke and fire played about a few. Others glowed without combustion. A pool of metal bubbled and popped as they ground by.

  Then they were back into the deep pines again, jouncing from rut to rut.

  “Hey!” yelled Ed. “Stop!”

  Fred threw on the brakes, killing the engine. “Goddamn!” he said. “What the hell's the matter with you?”

  “Back there! I swear I saw a guy pushing a neon cat's-eye marble the size of Cleveland!”

  “I'm sure as hell not going back,” said Fred.

  “Nah! Come on! You don't see stuff like that every day.”

  “Shit, Ed! Someday you're gonna get us both killed!”

  It wasn't a marble. They didn't need their flashlights to tell it wasn't a magnetic mine. It was a rounded canister that glowed on its own, with swirling colors on it. It hid the man pushing it.

  “It looks like a rolled-up neon armadillo,” said Fred, who'd been out west.

  The man behind the thing blinked at them, unable to see past their flashlights. He was tattered and dirty, with a tobacco-stained beard and wild, steel-wool hair.

  They stepped closer.

  “It's mine!” he said to them, stepping in front of the thing, holding his arms out across it.

  “Easy, old-timer,” said Ed. “What you got?”

  “My ticket to easy street. You from the Air Corps?”

  “Hell, no. Let's look at this.”

  The man picked up a rock. “Stay back! I found it where I found the plane crash. The Air Corps'll pay plenty to get this atomic bomb back!”

  “That doesn't look like any atomic bomb I've ever seen,” said Fred. “Look at the writing on the side. It ain't even English.”

  “Course it's not! It must be a secret weapon. That's why they dressed it up to weird.”

  “Who?”

  “I told you more'n I meant to. Get outta my way.”

  Fred looked at the old geezer. “You've piqued my interest,” he said. “Tell me more.”

  “Outta my way, boy! I killed a man over a can of lye hominy once!”

  Fred reached in his jacket. He came out with a pistol with a muzzle that looked like a drainpipe.

  “It crashed last night,” said the old man, eyes wild. “Woke me up. Lit up the whole sky. I looked for it all day today, figured the woods would be crawlin' with Air Corps people and state troopers, but nobody came.

  “Found it just before dark tonight. Tore all hell up, it did. Knocked the wings completely off the thing when it crashed. All these weird-dressed people all scattered around. Women too.” He lowered his head a minute, shame on his face. “Anyway, they was all dead. Must have been a jet plane, didn't find no propellers or nothing. And this here atomic bomb was just lying there in the wreck. I figured the Air Corps would pay real good to get it back. Friend of mine found a weather balloon once and they gave him a dollar and a quarter. I figure this is about a million times as important as that!”

  Fred laughed. “A buck twenty-five, huh? I'll give you ten dollars for it.”

  “I can get a million!”

  Fred pulled the hammer back on the revolver.

  “Fifty,” said the old man.

  “Twenty.”

  “It ain't fair. But I'll take it.”

  “What are you going to do with that?” asked Ed.

  “Take it to Dr. Tod,” said Fred. “He'll know what to do with it. He's the scientific type.”

  “What if it is an A-bomb?”

  “Well, I don't think A-bombs have spray nozzles on them. And the old man was right. The woods would have been crawling with Air Force people if they'd lost an atomic bomb. Hell, only five of them have ever been exploded. They can't have more than a dozen, and you better believe they know where every one of them is, all the time.”

  “Well, it ain't a mine,” said Ed. “What do you think it is?”

  “I don't care. If it's worth money, Doctor Tod'll split with us. He's a square guy.”

  “For a crook,” said Ed.

  They laughed and laughed, and the thing rattled around in the back of the dump truck.

  The MPs brought the red-haired man into his office and introduced them.

  “Please have a seat, Doctor,” said A.E. He lit his pipe.

  The man seemed ill at ease, as he should have been after two days of questioning by Army Intelligence.

  “They have told me what happened at White Sands, and that you won't talk to anyone but me,” said A.E.
“I understand they used sodium pentathol on you, and that it had no effect?”

  “It made me drunk,” said the man, whose hair in this light seemed orange and yellow.

  “But you didn't talk?”

  “I said things, but not what they wanted to hear.”

  “Very unusual.”

  “Blood chemistry.”

  A.E. sighed. He looked out the window of the Princeton office. “Very well, then. I will listen to your story. I am not saying I will believe it, but I will listen.”

  “All right,” said the man, taking a deep breath. “Here goes.”

  He began to talk, slowly at first, forming his words carefully, gaining confidence as he spoke. As he began to talk faster, his accent crept back in, one A.E. could not place, something like a Fiji Islander who had learned English from a Swede. A.E. refilled his pipe twice, then left it unlit after filling it the third time. He sat slightly forward, occasionally nodding, his gray hair an aureole in the afternoon light.

  The man finished.

  A.E. remembered his pipe, found a match, lit it. He put his hands behind his head. There was a small hole in his sweater near the left elbow.

  “They'll never believe any of that,” he said.

  “I don't care, as long as they do something!” said the man. “As long as I get it back.”

  A.E. looked at him. “If they did believe you, the implications of all this would overshadow the reason you're here. The fact that you are here, if you follow my meaning.”

  “Well, what can we do? If my ship were still operable, I'd be looking myself. I did the next best thing—landed somewhere that would be sure to attract attention, asked to speak to you. Perhaps other scientists, research institutes . . .”

  A.E. laughed. “Forgive me. You don't realize how things are done here. We will need the military. We will have the military and the government whether we want them or not, so we might as well have them on the best possible terms, ours, from the first. The problem is that we have to think of something that is plausible to them, yet will still mobilize them in the search.

  “I'll talk to the Army people about you, then make some calls to friends of mine. We have just finished a large global war, and many things had a way of escaping notice, or being lost in the shuffle. Perhaps we can work something from there.