High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel Read online

  With that, he picked up the pen placed alongside the document, and with a flourish signed his name to the paper. He slid the document to Klaus, who also signed it, then in turn passed the bound papers down the line until the signature page faced President Fujimori.

  The president had a polite smile plastered on her face. Cocomama’s frown, Babel noticed, did not match President Fujimori’s smile, while Curare’s lipless, amphibian’s face was impossible to read. The New Shining Path had been the most difficult of the opposing sides to bring to the table. They, after all, had the option to slide back into the mountains and the jungles from where they’d come and hide away once more. Babel wondered if Cocomama, especially, had reconsidered the agreement they’d finally hammered into final shape the night before.

  Neither Klaus nor Jayewardene seemed to be aware of how Cocomama’s frown deepened as President Fujimori now stood and returned Jayewardene’s opening volley with her own flowery predictions of harmony and peace. Babel continued to regard Cocomama as Fujimori finished her speech, as the cameras chattered and video cameras panned the assembly. As the president finished her short speech and also signed the document, as her people in turn slid the document around the table toward Curare, in the myriad languages in her head, Barbara heard Cocomama whisper to Curare: “Fujimori is right there. You could reach her before anyone could stop you. Grab me, and leap through this tent canopy. We could be away before they know it.”

  The frog’s golden eye flicked over to his companion. “We shouldn’t…”

  “We should. You should,” Cocomama insisted.

  Babel knew then: she saw the way Curare glanced toward President Fujimori, saw the muscles tighten under his slick, glossy body. Babel shifted the pattern on her power, still allowing the others to talk among themselves, but putting a wall around herself, Curare, and Cocomama. “Curare is right. You can’t do that,” she told Cocomama, as heads around the table, puzzled by the nonsense words they heard her speaking, turned toward them. “That’s not a solution.”

  Cocomama’s face twisted in a sneer. “We’ve given away too much,” Curare told Barbara in a croaking, cartoon-figure voice. Barbara knew the words were likely more Cocomama’s than his own—or perhaps those of the Messenger In Black. His tongue flicked out, as if tasting the air, and translucent eyelids slid over the globes of his eyes. “This isn’t all we wanted. We asked for so much more. We needed much more.”

  “I understand that,” she answered. “But diplomacy is the art of compromise, and you can have a portion of what you wanted now, gained with nothing more than your signature. You’ll have a voice in the government, to which everyone will be required to listen. You and the New Shining Path will have immediate legitimacy.”

  They were all watching the three of them now, quizzical and unable to understand what they were saying. Jayewardene stared at Babel, puzzled but with a quizzical smile, his hands clasped before him as if they could hold him in his seat. Lohengrin did stand, a winged helm now covering his face, and Barbara saw his hands flexing on the greatsword as he glared at the New Shining Path aces through the eye slits. Cameras flashed all around them, everyone sensing that there was a problem. Barbara shook her head slightly to Klaus and Jayewardene as she continued to speak to Curare and Cocomama.

  “If you falter now, if your great courage in taking this step fails,” she told them, knowing that they too were seeing Lohengrin’s growing impatience and anger, and must feel the tension increasing around the table, “if you choose revenge over compromise, you both lose everything. Believe me, I understand this situation better than you might think. Isn’t it wiser to eat the meal offered to you than to shove it away and go entirely hungry? This way, you have the energy and the opportunity to gain all you wanted another day; the other, you will inevitably starve and die.”

  She realized that she understood Cocomama’s feelings quite well. She understood wanting more. All the times you have been the one with the negotiated solution, the diplomatic and correct answer, yet Klaus or Jayewardene was given the credit. All the times you were in the background of the picture, never the one on which the cameras were focused …

  “We should listen to her, Lorra,” Curare croaked urgently. Curare’s long tongue flicked out, then back. The sticky pads of his fingers touched the paper and pen in front of him as he stared hard at Cocomama.

  A moth fluttered down from the canopy to land on the signature page of the treaty, its wings rising and falling; Barbara saw Cocomama stare hard at the insect. “If you want to win today, Lorra, you need to do so with ink, not blood,” Barbara continued, using the woman’s name to gain her attention, her voice urgent. “And if your victory isn’t everything you wanted, well, you’ll still be alive to strive for more tomorrow.”

  She looked significantly from Curare and Cocomama to Lohengrin. She narrowed the focus of her power, so that only the two Peruvian aces and perhaps the moth could hear and understand her. “Don’t believe that you two alone can stand against Lohengrin’s sword or the other aces here,” she finished. “I know him well. He’s not a patient man, I’m afraid, and the pen is right there in front of you. Ink is far less painful to spill than blood. Ink will give your people the chance to gain everything you want in the future. Choose otherwise, and you might kill President Fujimori, but you will also both die here. I know you think you won’t. I know that you—like my husband—think your powers will always protect you and despite the odds, you’ll escape. I know you believe that because you’ve always been able to do so before. But I’m telling you: that won’t happen here. Look around; there are too many others with powers of their own—my people—and if you do this, they will all consider you enemies. I guarantee you won’t leave this terrace alive.”

  A flock of moths entered the tent, settling around Cocomama’s shoulders like a shawl. The open fury in her face slowly dissolved, and the moths flew away a few moments later, flowing down the slope of the terrace. Cocomama said nothing directly, but nodded to Curare. “Thank you,” Barbara told the woman.

  Babel dissolved the language barrier around them, bringing them back into the larger circle of understanding: as Curare clumsily picked up the pen in his large-padded fingers, as the moth on the treaty flicked its wings and rose from the signature page. Cocomama still frowned, but remained silent.

  Curare scrawled his name on the paper as the cameras clamored and Lohengrin’s hands relaxed around the hilt of the ghost steel sword. Klaus’s helm vanished, his long blond hair falling around the shoulder of the white armor. Jayewardene applauded softly.

  They both smiled into the flashes of the cameras.

  The lenses paid little attention to the woman seated with them.

  “That’s basically it for procedures,” Michelle said, sipping her coffee and then digging into her cheesecake. “Of course, there are the trickier bits. Like dealing with the press. They’re slippery bastards.”

  Cesar wiped his mouth. “I had some experience with them when I was in Spain. It was … unpleasant.”

  “It’s going to be worse here. At least in the beginning it will be. You’re a good-looking guy with a sexy accent. That’s like catnip. And you’ll be fresh copy.”

  “I wear a mask,” he replied as he began eating his dessert. “That should help keep them out of my private life.”

  “I appreciate your optimism, but—” She looked around the room. The deli was cramped like most of the restaurants in Manhattan. They had a booth and she was pretty sure they couldn’t be overheard, but she dropped her voice anyway. “They will be crawling up your ass to try and figure out who you are under that mask.” She leaned toward him. “Also, there are some topics that are flat out off-limits.”

  “I can imagine,” he replied. “We can’t talk about missions unless we have permission. At least that’s how it was in Spain.”

  She shook her head. “Not just that. There are P.R. issues. Stay off religion and also leave out the politics of what we’re doing.”

  �
�Yes, my religious beliefs would be … problematic.” He took a few more bites of his cheesecake.

  “Oh?” Most of Michelle’s wild card friends just didn’t talk about it. Then there was Angel, who was deeply religious and wasn’t shy at all about expressing her beliefs. But by and large, wild carders had enough trouble without bringing faith into things.

  Aero smiled wanly. “When the Black Queen took my sister I was still a believer, having been raised in the Catholic faith.” His speech was slow and precise. “As a boy, the Sisters gave me a picture of Jesus in a plastic frame. I’d done well in my schoolwork and this was a reward. The picture frame had small doors that opened and closed. It was a trifle, but I kept it out of sentiment. The night my sister died I shut the doors and prayed to Jesus to open them so that I would know my sister was in heaven. Surely, such a small thing was not too much to ask to keep me from so much doubt and pain.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, knowing the words were inadequate. “But I’m guessing God didn’t open them for you.”

  “No, of course not.” He shook his head. “It was the beginning of the end of my faith. My parents scolded me for testing Jesus, but I wasn’t testing, I was begging. I truly wanted to believe.”

  Michelle didn’t know what to say. Sadness and anger were etched across his face.

  “We all have our losses,” he said. “But there has been compensation. I’ve learned to value my time on this earth. There’s a discipline, even an art, to enjoying one’s life.”

  Michelle nodded. “I’m not a believer. Unlike your parents, my parents only believed in money.” She gave a bitter smile. “You shouldn’t tell that story to anyone you don’t know or trust. If the press gets wind of it, they’ll tear you to shreds. They’ll take things out of context. You’ll be fodder for the evangelical and anti–wild card movements. And you don’t need any more pain.”

  “You’re right, of course.” He dabbed his napkin at the corner of his mouth. “They’d mine my pain for public consumption. They do it everywhere. I suppose … I suppose I just wanted you to know. I’m already feeling homesick, and I just arrived. I want someone to know me.” Then he took a sip of his coffee. “The cheesecake is good,” he said.

  His sharing his story made Michelle surprisingly glad. “Hey, if you’re not doing anything this evening, why don’t you come to dinner at my house? You can meet my daughter, and then you would know at least two people in New York.”

  His eyes lit up. “I’d like that,” he said. “What time?”

  “How about seven? It should give you enough time to finish up your Committee business. Let me give you my information, then we can walk back to the office together.”

  He pulled out his phone. “Ready when you are.”

  Uncle Chowder’s Clam Bar was a long-standing Jokertown favorite. The neon sign high on its front brick facade picturing a top-hatted clam had been tap dancing on rickety stick legs for decades. It currently enjoyed a reputation vastly more refined than in its initial years when it shared the building with a bottom-floor dive called Squisher’s Basement. Squisher himself was long-gone and his basement now contained The Foxes Booze and Cruise, an upscale gay bar—though among jokers the distinction between sexes was sometimes blurred. It catered to a younger and, for Jokertown, a moderately sophisticated and upscale clientele, joker yuppies who were gentrifying nearby neighborhoods. At times both the gentrification and the gays were not, the Angel knew, totally welcomed by the locals, but in Jokertown money talked and the less fortunate, no matter how long they’d been living in the neighborhood, walked.

  Chowder’s was intimately lit, with a polished wooden buffet bar, a scattering of cloth-covered tables, and a row of plushly cushioned booths against the wall opposite the bar. The sound system was playing something from Lady Gaga, one of the current diva crop, a mystery chantreuse who refused to confirm or deny if she was a joker. The Angel only recognized the song because it was ubiquitous. She knew as much about Lady Gaga as she did about other current pop culture phenoms, or maybe even less. She and Billy didn’t get out much.

  She scanned the room. It was moderately busy with a late dinner crowd, mostly couples, quietly absorbed in their lobster bisques, raw oysters, and King Crab legs.

  He’d be in a booth, she thought, and she was right.

  The handsome young cop who was Franny Black’s partner was huddled alone in a corner of a booth near the end of the row. He looked up when the Angel slid next to him into the booth. Despite the dim lighting, she could see worry, apprehension, even perhaps a bit of fear on his face.

  “Officer Stevens,” she said in a low voice barely audible over the music.

  “Agent, uh—”

  “As I said, call me Angel, or Bathsheeba, as you will.”

  “Yes, of course.” He took a sip from the glass he held cradled in both hands, a thick, squat block of cut glass with a few ice cubes covered by a couple of fingers of dark amber liquid. “Can I get you a drink, Angel?”

  She had the feeling that he was usually good with women, but he was too worried and otherwise occupied to try to assert what she assumed was considerable charm. She could see that part of him was still appreciative of her looks and her relative closeness. But she, too, was where she wanted to be. Not across the table from him, but next to him. Well within reach. She shook her head and just looked at him.

  He nodded and glanced down at his drink, but didn’t take a sip.

  “I’m not,” he said, paused. Obviously making an effort, he started again. She could barely hear his quiet voice over the music. “I am not a snitch,” he said.

  She nodded agreeably. “Where’s your partner and Agent Norwood?”

  “You know they’re working together?” he asked, glancing up at her and then away again.

  The Angel just nodded. She’d learned things from Jamal’s notes on the computer, but there were still many missing details. One of the things she didn’t know was how much she could trust Stevens.

  “I should be with them,” he said in an even softer voice that the Angel could barely discern.

  “Why aren’t you?” she asked reasonably.

  “Franny”—he almost choked on the name—“wouldn’t let me go with them. I have a family—two wives, a young daughter—”

  The Angel’s eyebrows rose.

  “—I would have gone anyway, but Franny and your man left without me.” The dam within him burst and Stevens looked right at her and spoke rapidly and almost pleadingly. “It was the jokers, the missing jokers. They were being taken off the streets—”

  “Kidnapped?”

  Stevens nodded. “Yeah, and something wasn’t right. There was no … interest … in the case upstairs, but Franny kept pushing, kept gnawing on it. He went against orders, kept investigating. Finally he and Norwood caught a break with this TV guy, this Michael Berman. They disappeared, vanished. I don’t know where and how, but this chick, Mollie—she was on American Hero—”

  “The teleporter?”

  “Yeah. And yesterday, a bunch of the jokers just reappeared, right in the middle of the precinct. It was a fucking circus. They kept babbling about the games, death matches. Father Squid—” Stevens choked and almost broke down.

  “What about him?” the Angel asked. She had met the kindly old joker priest several times. He was, many said, the soul of Jokertown, and she believed that. She didn’t know what denomination he was, but there was no doubt in her heart that he served the Lord.

  “They say he’s dead.”

  She felt suddenly cold. “And Jamal and your partner?”

  Stevens shook his head miserably. “They weren’t among the jokers.”

  “What happened to them?” the Angel asked, her jaw clenched.

  “They’re … gone. Vanished. Supposedly the Feds swooped them up.”

  “I would have heard,”

  “I know,” the cop said. “There’s … something wrong in the precinct.” He had to force the words out of his mouth.r />
  “You think?”

  He nodded. The Angel stared at him. He didn’t avert his eyes. There was misery in them, and worry for his partner and Jamal, and more than a hint of shame because he wasn’t with them.

  “I think,” the Angel said in a much louder voice, “we can trust him.”

  Stevens looked at her, frowning. “What?”

  A man who had been sitting at a table with his back turned toward them silently stood, removed his lobster bib, and dropped it on the table, turning toward them. He was dressed in a finely tailored suit that fit his ordinary-sized frame like a dream. His shadowed face was half illuminated by one of the infrequent ceiling lights. It was lean and hard-looking, with an askew nose, and was generally too battered-looking to be handsome. He crossed to the table with a dancer’s grace. The Angel smiled a little. Even in this difficult time, with the terrible news that she’d just heard, she never tired of watching him move. But she still kept an eye on Stevens, whose expression had turned uncertain and concerned. She didn’t blame the policeman, what with the expression on the newcomer’s face.

  “If you say so,” Billy Ray said, glaring at Stevens like a disapproving angel on Judgment Day.

  Promptly at seven, there was a knock on the door, and Michelle answered it. Cesar stood in the hallway holding a bottle of wine and a small lavender gift bag encrusted with silver glitter.

  “I come bearing gifts,” he said with a smile. “The wine is for you. The other,” he said, holding up the bag, “is for your daughter.”

  “What a lovely thing to do!” Michelle exclaimed, stepping backward and gesturing for him to come in. “I should warn you, I’m a terrible cook. So I’ve ordered in an insane amount of Chinese.”

  “Fortunately, I like Chinese.”

  Michelle led him into the living room, gesturing for him to sit. “Your home is lovely,” he said with a smile. “I also like mid-century modern furniture. And your choice of colors is perfect for the period.”

  She looked around her living room with an enormous sense of pride. The walls were a creamy yellow and decorated with an eclectic collection of paintings, prints, and photographs. She loved the sofa and chairs. She’d had them upholstered in a retro grey-and-white coin pattern. Adesina’s books and computer games were scattered across the coffee table and her school backpack had been tossed on one of the chairs. It all looked like something out of an idealized sixties TV show. Except that a flat-screen TV hung on the wall across from the couch. Pillows were still bunched up on the couch where she and Adesina had lain the night before to watch Adesina’s favorite cartoons. It pleased Michelle to no end that she’d made a home for them.