Jokers Wild wc-3 Read online

  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 in timidate 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 fuckin' 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 sal cod that suddenly weighed about three hundred pounds cam crashing down on his head. His feet went out from under him, and he hit the floor hard. The barrel staves shattered, buryin Lex under the fish. Very heavy fish.

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

  The short one, Cheech, tried to drag Lex out from unde 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 of his face and shattered o the floor. The cyclops screamed an obscenity and swung at Hiram's ample stomach with a chain-wrapped fist. Hira dodged. He was a lot nimbler than he looked; his bulk varied, but he'd kept his weight at thirty pounds for years. Eye cam after him, screeching. Hiram retreated, clenching his fist an making the joker heavier with every step, until his legs col lapsed under his own weight and he lay there moaning.

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

  Hiram dropped to the sawdust. Cheech leapt right ove him, and kept going, weighing rather less than he had a m ment 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. "Do you get the police?" Hiram asked. The old man nodded.

  "Good. The gravity distortion is only temporary, yo know. I can keep them pinned down until the police arrive, bu 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 fi-om 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. Howlers 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 cafe 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 oth
er 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 highheeled 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 can, with frosted 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. Fiat, bloodshot eyes raked over her, and she forced herself t face the cop's suspicious glance though fear was fluttering in her belly. It was a predominantly white neighborhood, an though she was dressed with understated elegance her dres 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 carefu to keep her expression neutral.

  A man ran out of Howler's apartment building, arms windmilling 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 Three

  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.

  Jennifer, having gone back to her apartment to have a light breakfast and to change into a conservative suit with a black skirt, black jacket, and white blouse, reached out and patted one on the side as she went by anyway, in seeming encouragement of a job well done. She let herself into the building with her key, and then locked the door again behind her. The soles of her shoes clicked loudly, echoing eerily in the library's vast antechamber.

  "Morning, Miss Maloy," an old man wearing a rumpled uniform greeted her as she made her way through the cavernous central room back toward her desk near the first-floor stacks.

  "Good morning, Hector."

  "Not going to the parade?" The old man was one of the security guards. He liked to tell stories of when he'd seen Jetboy battling the zeppelins over Manhattan back when he was a cop and what it was like in the first few horrible moments of the new age, when the wild card virus had been released and the world had changed, suddenly and forever.

  "Maybe later," she said. She liked the old man, but now was not the time to get caught up in his interminable reminiscences. "I have some work to do. A project I want to finish."

  Old Hector clicked his tongue against his dentures and shook his head.

  "You work too hard, Miss Maloy, a pretty young thing like you. You should get out more."

  "I will. I just thought that today would be a good day t finish this project of mine. What with the library being close and all."

  "I get your hint. I get your hint," the old man said goodnaturedly, moving off along the darkened row of tables. "Never saw a girl liked books so much and going out and having fun so little," he muttered half to himself.

  Jennifer went back into the stacks, keeping an eye on Hector, making sure he was going on his desultory rounds. It wouldn't do, she told herself, to have him come upon one o the reference librarians poring over a catalog with a couple o books full of rare stamps on her desk. It wouldn't do at all.

  The noise level inside the Crystal Palace was still low enough to listen in on individual conversations, but Spector wasn't interested in eavesdropping. He headed straight for the bar, sat down, and started drumming his fingers on the polished wood. Sascha, alone behind the bar, was busy making brandy alexander for a blond woman in a tight red-and-white cotton dress. Sascha's eyeless face gave Spector the creeps.

  "Hey," Spector said, just loudly enough to get Sascha's attention. "I need a double shot of Jack Black."

  "I'll be with you in a minute."

  Spector nodded and pushed his hair back out of his eyes.', He was too scared to eat, but he could always drink. Shit, he thought
, I should have agreed to whatever he wanted. That twisted old fuck can make mincemeat out of me. He put his hand over his mouth and tried to slow his ragged breathing. He turned around, afraid that the Astronomer might be right behind him. Only a few people would have the balls to start something at the Crystal Palace, but the Astonomer wouldn't even think twice about it.

  God, I really don't want that bastard after me. Maybe he'll be too busy with the others. Even the Astronomer will have trouble taking them all on.

  "Your drink."

  Spector jumped at Sascha's voice, then turned around. "Thanks." He fished in his pocket for a five and tossed the crumpled bill onto the bar. Sascha hesitated for a moment, then picked up the money and walked away.

  Spector picked up the glass and downed the whiskey. Got to keep moving. Maybe he won't look for me in Brooklyn. He laughed softly to himself. Maybe the next President will be a joker.

  The air was chill and calm as he stepped outside. He rubbed his palms together and walked quickly down the street, toward the nearest subway.

  The first time she killed it had been by accident-if such a thing can ever be termed an accident-and even now she could excuse it because toads like Sully really shouldn't be allowed to breed and multiply.

  She had just lost her job. Her fingers tightened, and sugar and stale doughnut crumbs pattered onto the plastic plate. It had been presented as a leave of absence, but she knew better. For weeks the whispers had haunted her; creeping about the corners of the office partitions, echoing in the washrooms, leaving a tangible mark on every face. Poor thing… husband is divorcing her… Is it true?… she had… a monster?

  Several of her pregnant friends dropped her as if her very presence could mutate their child, and the fear was not helped by a disquieting rumor out of the CDC that two anomalous cases of the wild card virus had arisen that could only be explained if the disease was in fact contagious. Frank had been kind that day when he called her into his office, but very firm. Her presence in the office was affecting worker morale and productivity. And didn't she really need some time alone to come to grips with What Had Happened To Her? So why not take a little time?