Aces Abroad wc-4 Read online

  … by the Ideal, everything else…"

  "What do you mean?" Peregrine asked.

  "You were there. That hospital was as crowded as a Jokertown bar on Saturday night and about as sanitary. Typhus patients were cheek to jowl with tuberculosis patients and elephantiasis patients and AIDS patients and patients suffering from half a hundred other diseases that have been eradicated everywhere else in the civilized world. As I was having a private chat with the hospital administrator, the electricity went out twice. I tried to call the hotel, but the phones weren't working. Dr. Tessier told me that they're low on blood, antibiotics, painkillers, and just about all medicinals. Fortunately, Tessier and many of the other doctors are masters at utilizing the medicinal properties of native Haitian flora. Tessier showed me a thing or two he's done with distillations from common weeds and such that was remarkable. In fact, someone should write an article on the drugs they've concocted. Some of their discoveries deserve widespread attention in the outside world. But for all their efforts, all their dedication, they're still losing the fight." The waiter brought Tachyon's drink in a tall slim glass garnished with slices of fresh fruit and a paper umbrella. Tachyon threw out the fruit and paper umbrella and swallowed half his drink in a single gulp. " I have never seen such misery and suffering."

  "Welcome to the Third World," Ray said.

  "Indeed." Tachyon finished off his drink and fixed Chrysalis with his lilac-colored eyes.

  "Now, what was that disturbance in front of the hotel?" Chrysalis shrugged. "The driver started beating the beggars with a stick-"

  "A cocomacaques."

  "I beg your pardon?" Tachyon said, turning to Ray. "It's called a cocomacaques. It's a walking stick, polished with oil. Hard as an iron bar. A real nasty weapon." There was approval in Ray's voice. "The Tonton Macoute carry them."

  "What?" three voices asked simultaneously.

  Ray smiled a smile of superior knowledge. "Tonton Macoute. That's what the peasants call them. Essentially means `bogeyman.' Officially they're called the VSN, the Volontaires de la Securite Nationale." Ray had an atrocious accent. "They're Duvalier's secret police, headed by a man named Charlemagne Calixte. He's black as a coal mine at midnight and ugly as sin. Somebody tried to poison him once. He lived through it, but it scarred his face terribly. He's the only reason Baby Doc's still in power."

  "Duvalier has his secret police acting as our chaffeurs?" Tachyon asked, astonished. "Whatever for?"

  Ray looked at him as if he were a child. "So they can watch us. They watch everybody. It's their job." Ray laughed a sudden, barking laugh. "They're easy enough to spot. They all have dark sunglasses and wear blue suits. Sort of a badge of office. There's one over there."

  Ray gestured to the far corner of the lounge. The Tonton Macoute sat at an otherwise empty table, a bottle of rum and half-filled glass in front of him. Even though the lounge was dimly lit, he had on dark glasses, and his blue suit was as unkempt as any of Dorian Wilde's.

  "I'll see about this," Tachyon said, outrage in his voice. He started to stand, but settled back in his chair as a large, scowling man came into the lounge and strode straight toward their table.

  "It's him," Ray whispered. "Charlemagne Calixte."

  He didn't have to tell them. Calixte was a dark-skinned black, bigger and broader than most Haitians Chrysalis had seen so far, and uglier too. His short kinky hair was salted with white, his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, and shriveled scar tissue crawled up the right side of his face. His manner and bearing radiated power, confidence, and ruthless efficiency.

  "Bon jour." He bowed a precise little bow. His voice was a deep, hideous rasp, as if the poison that had eaten away the side of his face had also affected his tongue and palate.

  "Bon jour," Tachyon replied for them all, bowing a precise millimeter less than Calixte had.

  "My name is Charlemagne Calixte," he said in gravelly tones barely louder than a whisper. "President-for-Life Duvalier has charged me with seeing to your safety while you are visiting our island."

  "Join us," Tachyon offered, indicating the final empty chair.

  Calixte shook his head as precisely as he'd bowed. "Regretfully, Msie Tachyon, I cannot. I have an important appointment for the afternoon. I just stopped by to make sure everything is all right after that unfortunate incident in front of the hotel." As he spoke he looked directly at Chrysalis. "Everything's fine," Tachyon assured him before Chrysalis could speak. "What I want to know, though, is why the Tomtom-"

  "Tonton," Ray said.

  Tachyon glanced at him. "Of course. The Tonton whatevers, your men, that is, are watching us."

  Calixte gave him a look of polite astonishment. "Why to protect you from that very sort of thing that happened earlier this afternoon."

  "Protect me? He wasn't protecting me," Chrysalis said. "He was beating beggars."

  Calixte stared at her. "They may have looked like beggars, but many undesirable elements have come into the city." He looked around the almost empty room, then husked in a barely intelligible whisper, "Communist elements, you know. They are unhappy with the progressive regime of President-for-Life Duvalier and have threatened to topple his government. No doubt these `beggars' were communist agitators trying to provoke an incident."

  Chrysalis kept quiet, realizing nothing she could say would make any difference. Tachyon was also looking unhappy, but decided not to pursue the matter at this time. After all, they would only be in Haiti one more day before traveling to the Dominican Republic on the other side of the island. "Also," Calixte said with a smile as ugly as his scar, "I am to inform you that dinner tonight at the Palais National will be a formal affair."

  "And after dinner?" Ray said, openly gauging Calixte with his frank stare.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Is anything planned for after dinner?"

  "But of course. Several entertainments have been arranged. There is shopping at the Marche de Fer-the Iron Market-for locally produced handicrafts. The Musee National will stay open late for those who wish to explore our cultural heritage. You know," Calixte said, "we have on display the anchor from the Santa Maria, which ran aground on our shores during Columbus's first expedition to the New World. Also, of course, galas have been planned in several of our world-famous nightclubs. And for those interested in some of the more exotic local customs, a trip to a hounfour has been arranged."

  "Hounfour?" Peregrine asked.

  "Oui. A temple. A church. A voodoo church."

  "Sounds interesting," Chrysalis said.

  "It's got to be more interesting than looking at anchors," Ray said insouciantly.

  Calixte smiled, his good humor going no farther than his lips. "As you wish, msie. I must go now."

  "What about these policemen?" Tachyon asked.

  "They will continue to protect you," Calixte said depreciatingly, and left.

  "They're nothing to worry about," Ray said, "leastways while I'm around." He struck a consciously heroic pose and glanced at Peregrine, who looked down at her drink.

  Chrysalis wished she could feel as confident as Ray. There was something unsettling about the Tonton Macoute sitting in the corner of the lounge, watching them from behind his dark glasses with the unblinking patience of a snake. Something malevolent. Chrysalis didn't believe that he was there to protect them. Not for one single, solitary second.

  Ti Malice particularly liked the sensations associated with sex. When he was in the mood for such a sensation he'd usually mount a female, because, on the whole, females could maintain a state of pleasure, particularly those adept at self-arousal, much longer than his male mounts could. Of course, there were shades and nuances of sexual sensation, some as subtle as silk dragged across a sensitive nipple, some as blatant as an explosive orgasm ripped from a throttled man, and different mounts were adept at different practices.

  This afternoon he wasn't in the mood for anything particularly exotic, so he'd attached himself to a young woman who had a particularly sensitive
tactile sense and was enjoying it enjoying itself when his mount came in to report.

  "They'll all be at the dinner tonight, and then the group will break up to attend various entertainments. It shouldn't be difficult to obtain one of them. Or more."

  He could understand the mount's report well enough. It was, after all, their world, and he'd had to make some accommodations, like learning to associate meaning with the sounds that spilled from their lips. He couldn't reply verbally, of course, even if he'd wanted to. First, his mouth, tongue, and palate weren't shaped for it, and second, his mouth was, and always had to be, fastened to the side of his mount's neck, with the narrow, hollow tube of his tongue plunged into his mount's carotid artery.

  But he knew his mounts well and he could read their needs easily. The mount who'd brought the report, for instance, had two. Its eyes were fastened on the lithe nakedness of the female as it pleasured itself, but it also had a need for his kiss.

  He flapped a pale, skinny hand and the mount came forward eagerly, dropping its pants and climbing atop the woman. The female let out an explosive grunt as it entered.

  He forced a stream. of spittle down his tongue and into his mount's carotid artery, sealing the breach in it, then gingerly climbed, like a frail, pallid monkey, to the male's back, gripped it around the shoulders, and plunged his tongue home just below the mass of scar tissue on the side of its neck.

  The male grunted with more than sexual pleasure as he drove his tongue in, siphoning some of the mount's blood into his own body for the oxygen and nutrients he needed to live. He rode the man's back as the man rode the woman, and all three were bound in chains of inexpressible pleasure. And when the carotid of the female mount ruptured unexpectedly, as they sometimes did, spewing all three with pulsing showers of bright, warm, sticky blood, they continued on. It was a most exciting and pleasurable experience. When it was over, he realized that he would miss the female mount-it had had the most incredibly sensitive skin-but his sense of loss was lessened by anticipation.

  Anticipation of new mounts, and the extraordinary abilities they would have. ii.

  The Palais National dominated the north end of a large open square near the center of Port-au-Prince. Its architect had cribbed its design from the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., giving it the same colonnaded portico, long white facade, and central dome. Facing it on the south end of the square were what looked like, and in fact were, military barracks.

  The inside of the Palais stood out in stark contrast to everything else Chrysalis had seen in Haiti. The only word to describe it was opulent. The carpets were deep-pile shags, the furniture and bric-a-brac along the hallway they were escorted down by ornately uniformed guards were all authentic antiques, the chandeliers hanging from the high vaulted ceilings were the finest cut crystal.

  President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier, and his wife, Madame Michele Duvalier, were waiting in a receiving line with other Haitian dignitaries and functionaries. Baby Doc Duvalier, who'd inherited Haiti in 1971 when his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, had died, looked like a fat boy who'd outgrown his tight-fitting tuxedo. Chrysalis thought him more petulant-looking than intelligent, more greedy than cunning. It was difficult to imagine how he managed to hold power in a country that was obviously on the brink of utter ruin.

  Tachyon, wearing an absurd peach-colored crushed-velvet tuxedo, was standing to his right, introducing Duvalier to the members of his tour. When it came Chrysalis's turn, Baby Doc took her hand and stared at her with the fascination of a young boy with a new toy. He murmured to her politely in French and continued to stare at her as Chrysalis moved down the line.

  Michele Duvalier stood next to him. She had the cultivated, brittle look of a high-fashion model. She was tall and thin and very light-skinned. Her makeup was immaculate, her gown was the latest off-the-shoulder designer creation, and she wore lots of costly, gaudy jewelry at her ears, throat, and wrists. Chrysalis admired the expense with which she dressed, if not the taste.

  She drew back a little as Chrysalis approached and nodded a cold, precise millimeter, without offering her hand. Chrysalis sketched an abbreviated curtsy and moved on herself, thinking, Bitch.

  Calixte, showing the high status he enjoyed in the Duvalier regime, was next. He said nothng to her and did nothing to acknowledge her presence, but Chrysalis felt his stare boring into her all the way down the line. It was a most unsettling feeling and was, Chrysalis realized, a further sample of the charisma and power that Calixte wielded. She wondered why he allowed Duvalier to hang around as a figurehead.

  The rest of the receiving line was a confused blur of faces and handshakes. It ended at the doorway leading into the cavernous dining room. The tablecloths on the long wooden table were linen, the place settings were silver, the centerpieces were fragrant sprays of orchid and rose. When she was escorted to her seat, Chrysalis found that she and the other jokers, Xavier Desmond, Father Squid, Troll, and Dorian Wilde, were stuck at the end of the table. Word was whispered that Madame Duvalier had had them seated as far away from her as possible so the sight of them wouldn't ruin her appetite.

  However, as wine was being served with the fish course (Pwason rouj, the waiter had called it, red snapper served with fresh string beans and fried potatoes), Dorian Wilde stood and recited an extemporaneous, calculatedly overblown ode in praise of Madame Duvalier, all the while gesticulating with the twitching, wriggling, dripping mass of tentacles that was his right hand. Madame Duvalier turned a shade of green only slightly less bilious than that of the ooze that dripped from Wilde's tendrils and was seen to eat very little of the following courses. Gregg Hartmann, sitting near the Duvaliers with the other VIPs, dispatched his pet Doberman, Billy Ray, to escort Wilde back to his seat, and the dinner continued in a more subdued, less interesting manner.

  As the last of the after-dinner liquors were served and the party started to break up into small conversational groups, Digger Downs approached Chrysalis and stuck his camera in her face.

  "How about a smile, Chrysalis? Or should I say DebraJo? Perhaps you'd care to tell my readers why a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, speaks with a British accent."

  Chrysalis smiled a brittle smile, keeping the shock and anger she felt off her face. He knew who she was! The man had pried into her past, had discovered her deepest, if not most vital, secret. How did he do it? she wondered, and what else did he know? She glanced around, but it seemed that no one else was paying them any attention. Billy Ray and Asta Lenser, the ballerina-ace called Fantasy, were closest to them, but they seemed absorbed in their own little confrontation. Billy had a hand on her skinny flank and was pulling her close. She was smiling a slow, enigmatic smile at him. Chrysalis turned back to Digger, somehow managing to keep the anger she felt out of her voice.

  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  Digger smiled. He was a rumpled, sallow-looking man. Chrysalis had had dealings with him in the past, and she knew that he was an inveterate snooper who wouldn't let go of a story, especially if it had a juicy, sensational angle.

  "Come, come, Miss Jory. It's all down in black and white on your passport application."

  She could have sighed with relief, but kept her expression stonily hostile. The application had had her real name on it, but if that was as far as Digger had probed, she'd be safe.

  Thoughts of her family raced poisonously through her mind. When she was a little girl, shed been their darling with long blond hair and a naive young smile. Nothing had been too good for her. Ponies and dolls and baton twirling and piano and dancing lessons, her father had bought them all for her with his Oklahoma oil money. Her mother had taken her everywhere, to recitals and to church meetings and to society teas. But when the virus had struck her at puberty and turned her skin and flesh invisible, making her a walking abomination, they shut her up in a wing of the ranch house, for her own good of course, and took away her ponies and her playmates and all contact with the outside world. For seven years she was shut up, s
even years… '

  Chrysalis shut off the hateful memories rushing through her mind. She was still, she realized, walking on tricky ground with Digger. She had to concentrate fully on him and forget the family that she'd robbed and fled from.

  "That information is confidential," she told Digger coldly. He laughed aloud. "That's very funny, coming from you," he said, then suddenly sobered at her look of uncontainable fury. "Of course, perhaps the true story of your real past wouldn't be of much interest to my readers." He put a conciliatory expression on his pale face. "I know that you know everything that goes on in Jokertown. Maybe you know something interesting about him."

  Digger gestured with his chin and let his eyes flicker in the direction of Senator Hartmann.

  "What about him?" Hartmann was a powerful and influential politician who felt strongly about jokers' rights. He was one of the few politicians that Chrysalis supported financially because she liked his policies and not because she needed to keep the wheels greased.

  "Let's go somewhere private and talk about it."

  Digger was obviously reluctant to discuss Hartmann openly. Intrigued, Chrysalis glanced at the antique brooch watch pinned above the bodice of her gown. "I have to leave in ten minutes." She grinned like a Halloween skeleton. "I'm going to see a voodoo ceremony. Perhaps if you care to come along, we might find time to discuss things and come to a mutual understanding about the newsworthiness of my background."

  Digger smiled. "Sounds fine to me. Voodoo ceremony, huh? They going to stick pins in dolls and stuff? Maybe have some kind of sacrifice?"

  Chrysalis shrugged. "I don't know. I've never been to one before."

  "Think they'll mind if I take photos?"

  Chrysalis smiled blandly, wishing she was on familiar turf, wishing that she had something to use on this gossipmonger, and wondering, underneath it all, why his interest in Gregg Hartmann?