Dealer's Choice Read online

  He was taller than Ray, and broader-built, though he carried no extra flesh on a body that was all taut muscle and prominent bone. He smelled bad, as if he never bathed. He also smelled as if he’d just drunk his breakfast out of a whiskey bottle. The distillery odor mixed with his pungent body odor, and something else, some smell that was unidentifiable but disgusting.

  The man sitting at the desk looked up. smiled, and stood. He was short and slimly built with a suggestion of a certain amount of wiry strength. His dark hair was receding from his broad, lined forehead and a thick. carefully groomed mustache covered his upper lip. His eyes were large and animated. He smiled a quick, incandescent smile and held out his right hand.

  “Agent Ray, glad to finally meet you.”

  Ray looked at the man’s right hand, then to his left where he held the cigar. An inch of dark, fine ash disintegrated from the cigar’s tip and drifted into a little pile beside the blotter set in the precise center of Ray’s desk.

  “Who,” Ray said between clenched teeth, “the hell are you?”

  “Ah.” The man took his right hand away, dipped into the inside pocket of his expensively tailored suit, and took out an ID wallet. He flashed it at Ray. “Special Agent George 0. Battle,” he said.

  Ray studied the ID. He’d never seen one like it before.

  “Special duty,” Battle said. “Attached to the White House.”

  Ray nodded slowly and Baffle’s grin flashed again across his face.

  ’Have a seat,” the special agent said, gesturing expansively as he sat down again behind Rays desk. Ray remained standing, staring at Battle unblinkingly. After a moment Battle stood again. “Oh, I get it.” He sidled out of the chair, around the edge of the desk, between the desk and filing cabinet. The man dressed in black followed him, always remaining at his back. “You want your own chair. I like that. I like a man who knows what he wants and refuses anything less.”

  He sat cheerfully in the visitor’s chair while Ray took the one behind his desk, glancing distastefully at the ashes beside his blotter. Battle didn’t seem to notice.

  “All right,” the special agent said. “Let’s get right to the point.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I like a man I can afford to be blunt with,” Battle said, “and I like you. I’ve had an eye on you for quite a while now. You’re a good soldier, Ray. You follow orders well. You’re not afraid to obey your superiors. I can use a man with that attitude.”

  Ray leaned back warily in his chair. He disliked Battle instinctively. He disliked effusive men, and Battle couldn’t seem to sit still. He gestured animatedly when he talked, uncaringly flicking cigar ash all over Ray’s carpet.

  “How’d you like that little piece of action this morning?” Battle asked suddenly.

  “It was…” Ray was taken aback by the direct question. He started to answer, but then thought better of it. It had been fun. He had felt alive for the first time in months. But he knew that if he said that to Battle he’d only get a weird look. Others rarely understood him.

  “Exhilarating!” Battle said suddenly. He locked eyes with Ray and Ray found himself slowly nodding. “Invigorating,” Battle added, and Ray nodded again. The special agent’s voice dropped again to a conspiratorial whisper. “It was fun.”

  Ray only nodded again, surprised.

  “Well,” Battle said. “You have me to thank for it. I pulled some strings to get you there.”

  “Why?” Ray asked. He certainly appreciated it, but he wasn’t used to strangers doing nice things for him.

  Battle leaned back in his chair and to Ray’s irritation took a long pull on his cigar. “Call it a test. You’d been badly hurt. You hadn’t seen any combat in months. Sometimes that takes it out of a man.”

  “And did I pass the test?” Ray asked tightly.

  Battle waved his cigar, dropping more ash on the floor. “Most certainly. I thought you would. I know you’re one of the toughest sons of bitches in government service. But I had to make sure. You know how it is.”

  Ray found himself nodding despite himself, and he felt a sudden warmth at Battle’s unexpected praise.

  “And it wasn’t only a test. Call it” — and Battle’s voice dropped an octave — “an introduction to the worst menace facing the nation today: the radicals who have taken over Ellis Island, defied the government, killed and maimed our brave soldiers, and had the actual unmitigated gall to declare themselves independent from our holy union.”

  “I didn’t realize they posed that great a threat,” Ray said.

  “Few have!” Battle exclaimed. “Few have. But thank God the few that have are in a position to do something about it.”

  “The military’s already tried —” Ray started, but Battle interrupted him.

  “They tried, and failed. But they’ll try again. This time with some special help.” Ray remained silent. He could see that Battle was getting himself worked up. The agent’s breathing was agitated. He fidgeted in the chair as if something in it were continually goosing him. “Forces in the media — and even some within the government — have been urging special treatment for those radicals on Ellis Island. But Bloat and his scum are criminal dirt, pure and simple, and the U.S. is about to get out the broom and sweep them into the sea, joker trash and jumper hoodlums alike.”

  “But what about the peace conference that’s been scheduled for today? Surely”

  “You really expect it to resolve anything?” Battle asked.

  Ray considered, then shook his head. “Probably not,” he said slowly.

  “Of course it won’t. That scum understands only force,” Battle said, leaning so far forward that he almost toppled out of his chair. “I’ve put together a team of aces to clean out that rats’ nest.”

  Ray pulled at his uneven chin. “And you want me for this team?”

  Battle nodded.

  “Who else do you have?”

  Battle held up a hand without looking back and the guy in black reached down to a briefcase at his feet. He fumbled with it for a moment and finally handed Battle a three-ring binder. Battle opened it to the first page and flopped it down on Ray’s desk, facing him.

  Ray looked down. The first page was a glossy eight by ten candid shot of a black guy in a cape clinging to a wall. Ray flipped the photo over and read the info on its back and nodded. Then his eye was caught by the photo of a very attractive blonde on the next page. She was young and very cute. He turned the page to read the stats on the photo’s back, and saw the picture of another attractive girl. He checked her vitals. “Cameo,” he said aloud. “Never heard of her.”

  “She’s new,” Battle said, “but we’ve had our eye on her for a while. Not much gets past us.”

  Ray nodded and flipped by an unimpressive-looking oriental guy, then stopped at the photo of the man in black standing beside Battle. The only information on the back of the picture was the name “Bobby Joe Puckett: Crypt Kicker.”

  “Ah,” Battle said. “You can meet one of the team right now. This is Special Agent Bobby Joe Puckett. Shake hands with the man, Bobby Joe. Leave your glove on.”

  Puckett… the name was familiar, Ray thought as the agent slowly put his hand out. Ray took it cautiously. The smelly guy had a strong grip, but Ray did too. He put a little more into his handshake and Puckett answered right hack. Ray fought to keep the surprise and pain off his face. He put all the strength he had into his grip, but Puckett, seemingly unimpressed, bore down on his hand with overwhelming pressure. Ray clenched his jaw, determined not to give in, but knowing that this guy was way stronger than him. What would happen, Ray wondered, if! kicked the stinking bastard in the face?

  “Now, Bobby Joe,” Battle intervened, “don’t hurt the man. He’s going to be working with us.”

  Puckett let go instantly and Ray took his hand back, determined not to rub it. “He’s strong all right,” Ray said. “But can he fight?”

  Battle laughed. “Oh, that he can, can’t you. Bobby Joe?”

  “Tha
t’s right, Mr. Battle, with the strength of the Lord.” Puckett’s voice was slurred, difficult to understand. He spoke with a southern drawl, but also had a bad speech impediment. It was as if he’d had a stroke or a wound that had damaged his throat.

  “So who’s leading the team?” Ray asked, making a surreptitious fist in an attempt to get some blood back in his hand.

  “I am,” Battle said.

  Ray looked at him carefully. “Are you an ace?”

  Battle drew back with a look of distaste. “I don’t need twisted genes to fight that scum. I have something they don’t.”

  Battle didn’t seem aware that he’d just insulted someone he was trying to recruit for a dangerous mission, but Ray couldn’t resist asking, “What’s that?”

  Battle pointed a finger at his temple. “Superior intellect backed by an unbreakable will.” He saw the skepticism that flashed across Ray’s face and smiled a narrow little smile. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Well —”

  Battle’s smile fixed and he pulled back the sleeve of his suit coat to show an expensive watch and a muscular forearm splashed by a number of pale circular scars.

  “Watch,” Battle said. His smile still in place, he puffed at his cigar until the tip glowed a bright red. Then he jabbed it right into his forearm, still smiling.

  Ray watched in horrified fascination as the flesh on Battle’s arm blistered, blackened, and puckered into a raw circular crater under the cigar tip. The stench of seared meat speared the air and Ray sat back in his seat Battle removed the cigar tip from his forearm and proudly displayed the wound to Ray. He held his arm steady and his voice was unshaken. “Will,” he said. “That is all a man needs to survive, not an unclean genetic heritage.”

  Battle, Ray thought, is deranged.

  Battle’s smile turned to something of a grimace as he wrapped his handkerchief around the fresh burn on his forearm and pulled the sleeve of his jacket over it. “I’ll have that attended to later,” Battle said. He caught Ray’s gaze with his own. “Are you in or out?”

  Ray hesitated. The guy was a geek. No normal person hurt themselves like that just to impress someone. He looked at Battle. “I’m in,” he said, unable to deny the overwhelming need for action that drove him every minute of his life.

  Battle smiled and shot to his feet. “Good! I knew I could count on you. Let’s get going.”

  “Where to?” Ray asked.

  “You have some recruiting to do. Two of my prospects haven’t committed themselves firmly to the team yet.” Battle flipped through the book until he came to the picture of the oriental guy. “Him,” Battle said, stabbing the picture with his forefinger. Then he turned to the back of the hook and a photo Ray hadn’t noticed before. “And him. I want you to have a word or two with both and convince them of the desirability of joining our group.”

  Ray glanced down at the second photo and barely repressed a groan. It was that smartass P.I., Jay Ackroyd.

  “All the information you need is in the book,” Battle said. He stood and strode from the office, Puckett lumbering after him.

  Ray sat at his desk, watching them leave, realizing suddenly that he’d never, ever be able to eradicate the stench of burnt flesh from his office.

  Wyungare had been rather impressed by Cordelia’s coolness under fire. It wasn’t every European woman who could have gathered her self-possession and her clothing after being caught naked and impassioned, astraddle her Aboriginal lover, by the doctor. Wyungare wasn’t even sure that a woman of the People would have remained so calm under the circumstances.

  The lights were on now, and Dr. Finn fussed about the ’gator avatar of Jack Robicheaux. Troll, the clinic’s head of security, hulked against the wall just inside the door and looked vaguely embarrassed. Cordelia and Wyungare stood by the head of Jack’s bed: the black cat rubbed against their ankles. Their clothed ankles.

  Finn glanced at Cordelia and smiled faintly. “Your uncle does need his rest, you know.”

  Cordelia winced. “Okay, I deserve that. Now let’s get back to the point here. Wyungare went directly into Uncle Jack’s mind. He found my uncle staked out on the ground. That was when the cavalry came in with all four feet.”

  “Now” Finn started to say, shaking his mane indignantly. His palomino colors seemed to shimmer iridescently.

  “Okay, Doctor Cavalry,” said Cordelia. “Christ, you spend a couple hundred thou in medical school and you think you deserve respect.”

  “Just settle down,” said Finn evenly. “Is your Australian, um, friend there a trained psychotherapist?”

  Cordelia’s voice turned fierce and Wyungare smiled. “He’s spent the better part of his young life in the dreamtime, you know? He’s lived in other people’s heads. He can navigate the brain like you can find your way uptown on the A train.”

  Finn’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was aborted as another doctor entered the increasingly crowded room. This one was male, short, and bland-looking. It seemed to Wyungare that the physician’s short blond hair must be prematurely thinning. There were no wrinkles in the man’s face.

  The new doctor glanced from face to face, frowning a little. Then he turned to the bed. “So, how’s my patient today?” he said to the large reptile. Jack the Gator slumbered restlessly on. The doctor glanced at the digital readouts, tapping one meter when he apparently didn’t get the numbers he wanted at first.

  He said to Cordelia, “Looking good, girl. He’s floating perhaps a bit too close to the surface, but I’ll up the sleepy-time doses.”

  “You do,” said Cordelia, “and they’ll find you with one of those telemetry gadgets up your ass, and another one square in the center of the dent in your skull that killed you.”

  The doctor grinned at her.

  Wyungare stared. He didn’t remember Cordelia ever displaying this much open hostility.

  The physician nodded to Finn. “Doctor.” He held out his hand to Wyungare. “You would be a friend of the patient, or perhaps of the patient’s niece? My name is Mengele, Dr. Bob Mengele. You can call me Dr. Bob.”

  Wyungare shook his hand. It felt like grabbing a piece of dry, white bone.

  “And no,” said Dr. Bob, as though answering an expected but unasked question, “no relation. Just a coincidence in names.” "I’m not so sure,” said Cordelia nastily. “I’ll bet you sing German camp songs in your sleep.”

  “Cordelia,” said Finn. “that kind of remark is out of line. It’s beneath you. Dr. Mengele is a first-rate physician. His work here at the clinic has been above reproach.”

  Dr. Bob smirked.

  “He’s a fucking butcher,” said Cordelia. “If I’d let him, he’d vivisect Uncle Jack. As it is, he’s done his best to exterminate Jack’s humanity.”

  Dr. Bob said, “My girl”

  Cordelia’s voice rose to something approaching an enraged shriek. “I’m not yours, and I am not a girl!”

  She looked like she might physically attack Dr. Bob. Wyungare took her arm. He could feel the tension tautening the muscles. “I am not entirely sure I understand why you both act like mortal enemies.”

  “I’m not an enemy,” said Dr. Bob. “I’m only here to help.”

  “The check’s in the mail,” said Cordelia venomously. “I won’t come in your mouth.”

  “Cordelia,” said Finn. He looked as close to embarrassed as Wyungare guessed a centaur could look. His hooves clicked on tile as he shifted his weight.

  “All right, then,” said Wyungare. “Tell me the issue.”

  “Are you related to the patient?” Dr. Bob inspected Wyungare with a merry grin. “I should guess not. Friend of the family?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how conversant are you with this case?” There was an unpleasantly smug arrogance in Dr. Bob’s words.

  “I am aware that Jack Robicheaux is an AIDS sufferer. I know that he is under treatment here at this clinic.”

  “You know,” said Dr. B
ob, “that AIDS is invariably fatal.”

  Wyungare nodded. “Would that it were not.”

  “But it is,” Dr. Bob said briskly. “Mr. Robicheaux was dying.”

  “Is dying,” said Cordelia, voice dropping and wavering a little. "We all are dying,” said Dr. Bob, “in one way or another.” He reached out and patted Jack’s snout. “Mr. Robicheaux is now dying rather more slowly than he was previously.”

  “You tricked me into granting consent,” said Cordelia.

  “You were miserable with grief,” said Dr. Bob matter-of-factly, brutally. “You agreed because you know I hold the only possibility for his continued existence.”

  “But he’s continuing as an alligator,” said Cordelia.

  “Give me a translation, please,” said Wyungare.

  “Heavy drugs,” said Cordelia. “Mengele used psychosurgical techniques. He screwed around with my uncle’s reptile brain.”

  Dr. Bob said, “The patient was dying with AIDS. He was shuttling back and forth between the reptile state and the human. To oversimplify, when he was in human form, the AIDS virus was fatal, but that virus meant nothing to the reptile form.”

  “I think I’m seeing your meaning,” said Wyungare.

  Dr. Bob nodded violently and triumphantly. “It was a simple stroke of genius. I’m ensuring his life by giving him a permanent form that is safe from viral predators.”

  Cordelia said. “You’re ensuring a life where he’ll be murdered as a human being. He’ll spend the rest of his born life as a reptile.”

  “But he will live.”

  “At such a cost,” murmured Finn.

  “There has to be another way,” said Cordelia stubbornly.

  “Acupuncture?” mocked Dr. Bob. “Peach pits? Positive imaging? No, girl, this is the only viable alternative. And in another few days, the process will be permanent. Irreversible.”

  Cordelia stared back silently. Tears started to well. Finn trotted forward and extracted a Kleenex from his lab coat.

  “The human being is still there,” said Wyungare. “But he is deep inside. He is a passenger in the alligator’s being.”