Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild Read online

  Gills turned away, replaced the lobster in its barrel. “You want to see another one?” he asked, tossing aside a handful of the wet seaweed and extracting a second lobster for Hiram’s inspection. It was larger than the first, and more lively. It moved its claws vigorously. “Look at ’im kick,” Gills said. “Did I say fresh or did I say fresh?”

  Hiram’s smile was a quick flash of white teeth through the black of his spade-shaped beard. He was very particular about the food he served in Aces High, and never more so than for his Wild Card Dinner. “You never let me down,” Hiram said. “These will do handsomely. Delivery by eleven, I assume?”

  Gills nodded. The lobster waved its claws at Hiram and regarded him sourly. Perhaps it anticipated its fate. Gills put it back in the barrel.

  “How’s Michael?” Hiram asked. “Still at Dartmouth?”

  “He loves it there,” Gills said. “He’s starting his junior year, and already he’s telling me how to run the business.” He put the top back on the barrel. “How many you need?”

  Hiram anticipated feeding about one hundred and fifty persons, give or take a dozen—eighty-odd aces, each of whom would bring a spouse, a lover, a guest. But of course lobster would hardly be the only entrée. Even on this night of nights, Hiram Worchester liked to give his guests a choice. He had three alternatives planned, but these lobsters looked so splendid, undoubtedly they would be a popular choice, and it was better to have too many than too few.

  The door opened behind him. He heard the bell ring.

  “Sixty, I think,” Hiram said, before he realized that Gills was no longer paying attention. The joker’s oversized eyes were fixed on the door. Hiram turned.

  There were three of them. Their jackets were dark green leather. Two looked normal. One barely topped five feet, with a narrow face and a pronounced swagger. The second was tall and wide, a rock-hard beer belly spilling over his skull-and-crossbones belt buckle. He’d shaved his skull. The leader was an obvious joker, a cyclops whose single eye peered out at the world through a monocle with a thick coke-bottle lens. That was strange; jokers and nats didn’t often run together.

  The cyclops took a length of chain out of the pocket of his jacket and began to wind it around his fist. The other two looked around Gills’s establishment as if they owned the place. One began to kick at the sawdust with a heavy, scuffed-up boot.

  “Excuse me,” Gills said. “I have to . . . I . . . I’ll be right back.” He moved off toward the cyclops, abandoning Hiram for the moment. Across the room, two of his employees leaned close and began to whisper together. A third man, a feeble-minded joker who’d been moving the wet sawdust around with a push broom, gaped at the intruders and began to edge toward the backdoor.

  Gills was expostulating to the cyclops, gesturing with his broad web-fingered hands, pleading in a low urgent tone. The youth stared down at him from that single implacable eye, his face cold and blank. He kept wrapping the chain around his hand as Gills talked to him.

  Hiram frowned and turned away from the tableau. Trouble there, but it was none of his business, he had enough to think about today. He wandered down a sawdust-covered aisle to inspect a shipment of fresh tuna. The huge fish lay atop each other in rough-hewn wooden crates, their eyes fixed on him glassily. Blackened tuna, he thought. The inspiration brought a smile to his face. LeBarre was a genius at Cajun food. Not for tonight, that menu had been planned weeks ago, but blackened tuna would make an excellent addition to his regular bill of fare.

  “Fuck that shit,” the cyclops said loudly from across the room. “You shoulda thought of that a week ago.”

  “Please,” Gills said in a thin, frightened voice. “Just a few more days . . .”

  The cyclops put one booted foot up on a bin of fish, kicked, and sent it crashing over on its side. Whitefish spilled out all over the floor. “Please, don’t,” Gills repeated. His employees were no longer in sight.

  Hiram turned and walked toward them, hands shoved casually into the pockets of his jacket. For such a huge man, his pace was surprisingly brisk. “Excuse me,” he said to the cyclops. “Is there a problem here?”

  The joker youth towered over Gills, who was a small man made even smaller by his twisted spine, but Hiram Worchester was another matter. Hiram stood six foot two, and most people took one look at his girth and guessed that he weighed around three hundred fifty pounds. They were off by about three hundred twenty pounds, but that was another story. The cyclops looked up at Hiram through his thick monocle, and smiled nastily. “Hey, Gills,” he said, “how long you been selling whale?”

  His companions, who had been standing by the door trying to look bored and dangerous simultaneously, drifted closer. “Look, it’s the fucking Goodyear blimp,” the short one said.

  “Please, Hiram,” Gills said, touching him gently on the arm. “I appreciate it, but . . . everything is fine here. These boys are . . . ah . . . friends of Michael’s.”

  “I’m always pleased to meet friends of Michael’s,” Hiram said, staring at the cyclops. “I’m surprised, though. Michael always had such good manners, and his friends have none at all. Gills has a bad back, you know. You really ought to help him clean up these fish you knocked over.”

  Gills’s face looked greener than usual. “I’ll get it cleaned up,” he said. “Chip and Jim can do it, don’t . . . don’t worry about it.”

  “Why don’t you leave, lard ass?” the cyclops suggested. He glanced at the short kid. “Cheech, get the door for him. Help him squeeze his fat ass right through.” Cheech stepped back and opened the door.

  “Gills,” Hiram said, “I believe we were discussing terms on these excellent lobsters.”

  The tall boy with the shaved skull spoke up for the first time. “Make ’im squeal, Eye,” he said in a deep voice. “Make ’im squeal before you let ’im go.”

  Hiram Worchester looked at him with genuine distaste and a calm he did not really feel. He hated this sort of thing, but sometimes one was given no choice. “You’re trying to intimidate me, but you’re only making me angry. I doubt very much that you’re actually friends of Michael’s. I suggest you leave now, before this goes too far and someone gets hurt.”

  They all laughed. “Lex,” Eye told the bald one, “it’s too fuck in’ hot in here. I’m sweating. Need some fresh air.”

  “I’ll cool it right off,” Lex said. He looked around, grabbed a small barrel in both hands, hoisted it above his head in a single smooth, powerful jerk, and took a step toward the big plate-glass windows that fronted on Fulton Street.

  Hiram Worchester took his hands out of his pocket. At his side, his right hand curled into a tight, hard fist. A meaningless little tic, he knew; it was his mind that did it, not his hand, but the gesture was as much a part of him as his wild card power. For an instant, he could see the gravity waves shifting hazily around the barrel like heat shimmers rising from the pavement on a hot summer’s day.

  Then Lex staggered, his arms buckled, and a barrel of salt cod that suddenly weighed about three hundred pounds came crashing down on his head. His feet went out from under him, and he hit the floor hard. The barrel staves shattered, burying Lex under the fish. Very heavy fish.

  His friends stared, uncomprehending at first. Hiram stepped briskly in front of Gills and pushed the fishmonger away. “Go phone the police,” he said. Gills edged backward.

  The short one, Cheech, tried to drag Lex out from under the shattered barrel. It was harder than it looked. The cyclops gaped, then looked sharply back at Hiram. “You did that,” he blurted. “You’re that Fatman guy.”

  “I loathe that nickname,” Hiram said. He made a fist, and Eye’s monocle grew heavier. It fell off his face and shattered on the floor. The cyclops screamed an obscenity and swung at Hiram’s ample stomach with a chain-wrapped fist. Hiram dodged. He was a lot nimbler than he looked; his bulk varied, but he’d kept his weight at thirty pounds for years. Eye came after him, screeching. Hiram retreated, clenching his fist and making the joker
heavier with every step, until his legs collapsed under his own weight and he lay there moaning.

  Cheech was the last to make his move. “You ace fuck,” he said. He held his hands out in front of him, palms flat, some kind of karate or kung fu or something. When he leapt, his metal-shod boot came pistoning toward Hiram’s head.

  Hiram dropped to the sawdust. Cheech leapt right over him, and kept going, weighing rather less than he had a moment ago. The force of his leap carried him into a wall, hard. He hit, rolled, tried to come up with a bounce, and discovered he was so heavy he couldn’t get up at all.

  Hiram rose and brushed the sawdust off his jacket. He was a mess. He’d have to go home and change before going on to Aces High. Gills edged up to him, shaking his head. “Did you get the police?” Hiram asked.

  The old man nodded.

  “Good. The gravity distortion is only temporary, you know. I can keep them pinned down until the police arrive, but it takes a lot out of me.” He frowned. “It’s not healthy for them either. All that weight is a terrible strain on the heart.” Hiram glanced at his gold Rolex. It was past 7:30. “I really have to get to Aces High. Damn, I didn’t need this nonsense, not today. How long did the police—”

  Gills interrupted him. “Go. Just go.” He pushed at the larger man with gentle, insistent hands. “I’ll handle it, Hiram. Please, go.”

  “The police will want me to give a statement,” Hiram said.

  “No,” Gills said. “I’ll take care of it. Hiram, I know you meant well, but you shouldn’t . . . I mean . . . well, you just don’t understand. I can’t press charges. Go, please. Stay out of it. It will be better.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Hiram said. “These hoodlums—”

  “Are my business,” Gills finished for him. “Please, I ask you as a friend. Stay out of it. Go. You will get your lobsters, very fine lobsters, I promise.”

  “But—”

  “Go!” Gills insisted.

  His hoarse grunts and the beat of his groin against hers set a counterpoint to the ticking of the bright yellow dimestore “Baby Ben” alarm clock on the bedside table. Roulette pulled her topaz eyes from Stan’s brown ones, watched the second hand sweeping smoothly across the face of the clock.

  Time. The ticking of a clock, the wash of blood through her veins driven by the inexorable beating of her heart. Fragments of time. Fragments marking the passage of a life. Ultimately it came down to this. It respected neither wealth, nor power, nor saintliness. Sooner or later it came, and silenced that steady pulse. And she had her orders.

  Roulette reached up, softly touched Stan’s temple.

  She drew breath—a gathering of will and power—but there was no release. It required hate, and all she felt was uncertainty. She lay back, and summoned an image of horror. The agony of labor, knowing it would soon end, and she would hold her child, and all pain would be forgotten. The doctor’s eyes widening in terror. Struggling up to gaze at the thing between her legs . . .

  Her taut belly went flaccid, and an added warmth washed through her vagina, an imitation of passion as the poisonous tide flowed free. Howler’s eyes suddenly bulged, his mouth worked, and he recoiled from her, his rapidly swelling cock rasping harshly along the soft tissues of her vagina with his abrupt withdrawal. Hands wrapped protectively about his quivering discolored member, he gagged several times and emitted a choking scream. A glob of spittle ran over his chin in a thin thread, and the dresser mirror exploded in a crystal waterfall littering the bed with glass fragments. The baby Big Ben took the edge of the spreading wave of sound. Its crystal shattered, freezing the hands, and as the blow reached the clock’s inner works the alarm gave a tinny, dispirited squawk as if it were complaining about its sudden and unfair demise.

  Sound like a fist took Roulette across the right cheek raising a mottled bruise on the café au lait skin, coaxing a trickle of blood from her ear. Indrawn breath caught in her throat like a jagged block, and sickness filled her belly. Howler’s agonized face hung above her, and she knew she was looking at death. His chest was heaving, lips skinned back from teeth, and a tide of blue-black was rising from his now completely black and swollen penis into his groin and belly.

  The rumpled satin comforter gave no purchase to her flailing legs. She felt as if she were swimming on glass. With a final, desperate flounder, she got to her knees, and threw an arm around the ace’s chest. Her other hand tangled in his sweat-matted hair, and she yanked his head around so he faced the wall separating bedroom from living room. A life-ending, time-stopping scream echoed to the fringes of the universe and back again, and the wall exploded. Plaster dust spun in lazy spirals, catching at the throat, and filling the nostrils. Rubble fanned across the living room floor, and the far wall was bulging. For an instant Roulette contemplated that sagging wall; pictured it falling, pictured the fat, lower-middle-class couple in the next apartment staring at the tableau she would present. Naked woman holding naked man—cock swollen to stallion proportions, whole body swelling as the poison exploded blood cells, the trail of the poison marked by blue-black discolorations.

  Another convulsion shook Howler, but his throat had swollen, closing off the vocal chords. The sweat-drenched skin of his back was cold and clammy against her flattened breasts, and the stink of released bladder and bowel filled the room. Gagging, she pushed him away, crawled off the bed, and huddled in on herself on the floor by the bed.

  Destruction at the Cloisters. He had implied it was Turtle who had crumbled the stone walls. . . . But he lied! He promised there would be no risk even though this was the first ace she had ever killed. And he lied. She touched a hand to her ear, and gazed in fascination at the congealed blood that stained her fingers. A sense of betrayal ate its way through to conscious thought, and resolved itself into anger. He knew, and didn’t warn me. Had he wanted her to die here? But who then would kill Tachyon for him?

  Sirens reminded her of her danger. She had been so immersed in contemplation of death and betrayal that she had forgotten reality. No one in lower Manhattan could have missed that death cry. She was running out of time. And if she wanted to survive, to attain her final goal, she too had to run. She pushed back her tangled hair, the tiny pearls and crystals braided into the long strands catching on her fingers, tugging at her scalp. She jammed stockings and garter belt into her purse, flung on her dress, and pushed her feet into high-heeled sandals.

  A last glance around the shattered room to see if she had left any trace of her presence—aside from the obvious one, of course, the bloated body on the bed.

  I always wanted to be special.

  An inarticulate cry burst from her, and she ran for the fire escape. One spiked heel slipped through the iron grating underfoot, and with a curse she pulled off the shoes. Holding one in each hand she ran down the five flights to the first floor, and lowered the ladder to the filthy, garbage-strewn pavement of the alley. Glass from a hundred broken windows lay like a sparkling snowfall among rotting lettuce leaves, plastic six-pack dividers, stinking cans. It crunched underfoot as she reached the ground, and one splinter drove deep into her heel.

  She whimpered, pulled it out, and worked on her shoes. Tetanus shot, I’ll need a tetanus shot. I haven’t had one since that month Josiah and I spent in Peru.

  The thought of her ex-husband set memory in motion. Jerking forward like a train gaining momentum. Images jostling and shattering like the frames of a nightmare film running at double speed . . . until no coherent pictures remained, just an undifferentiated blur of pain and grief and gut-burning fury culminating in a spewing sense of relief when she had released the tide, and Howler had died.

  Out of the alley and onto the street. Trying to set the right tone. It would be suspicious to simply ignore the insurance company’s nightmare and glazier’s delight that surrounded her. Yet she could not bring herself to join the gaping jostling throng, many still in pajamas and bathrobes, who gathered in clumps and gawked at the glass-littered street and the parked cars with f
rosted or demolished windows. Better perhaps to ape a young working woman; interested but concerned with getting to work on time—

  A police car shot down the street, braked suddenly as it passed her, jerking the two occupants like test-car dummies. Flat, bloodshot eyes raked over her, and she forced herself to face the cop’s suspicious glance though fear was fluttering in her belly. It was a predominantly white neighbor-hood, and though she was dressed with understated elegance her dress was clearly for evening.

  Hooker.

  The thought read clearly on the bloated, pink face, and she felt a stir of resentment. Class of ’70, Vassar, master’s in economics. Not a prostitute, you asshole. But she was careful to keep her expression neutral.

  A man ran out of Howler’s apartment building, arms wind milling about his head, mouth opening and closing though no words could be heard over the cry of the sirens. The cop, distracted, lost interest in Roulette. He growled something to his partner, and jerked his thumb toward the building. The car rolled on, and Roulette forced herself back into motion.

  The fear was back. Fueled not by the presence of the tangible pursuers who gathered behind her, but by the baying of her soul hounds who loped easily at her flanks. They were waiting for the time when the doubt and horror and guilt that had been growing with every kill would overwhelm her, bear her down, and then they would move in and destroy her. They were there now—waiting. She could hear them. She hadn’t been able to hear them before. She was going insane. And if she killed again, what would happen? But she had to. And to have Tachyon dead would make even madness bearable.

  CHAPTER 3

  8:00 a.m.

  The stone lions guarding the staircase before the main entrance of the New York City Public Library might as well have taken the day off. The library was closed and the staircase was deserted.