Dealer's Choice Read online

  Cordelia honked into the tissue. “There has to be a way to get him back.”

  “But he will die,” said Dr. Bob, as though belaboring the obvious to an audience of simpletons. "There’s got to be something,” said Cordelia. She added forlornly, “Maybe Uncle Jack wouldn’t want to go on living this way.”

  “Easy enough for the young to say,” said Dr. Bob.

  For a while they all stared at each other silently or at the floor. The great bulk of the alligator on the table shifted uneasily from time to time. The reptile breathed with an openmouthed snoring sound.

  “You can go inside his head?” said Finn, inclining his chin at Jack.

  Wyungare nodded.

  “And deep?”

  The Aborigine nodded again.

  “Are you a shaman?” said Finn.

  “That’s a label for others to assign,” said Wyungare.

  “Then I suspect you are,” said Finn. He looked contemplative for a few moments. Then, apparently making up his mind, he said, “I think we all ought to adjourn to the cafeteria. I’ve got an idea.” He turned to Dr. Bob. “And you, I believe, have rounds to complete.”

  “Oh, I can take a break,” said Dr. Bob, grinning.

  “You have rounds,” said Finn firmly. He led Cordelia and Wyungare through the outside hail. The centaur followed up at the rear of the small procession. The black cat had stayed with his friend Jack. There could be no more faithful guardian, Wyungare thought.

  “Do you know of Bloat?” Finn said over his shoulder to Wyungare.

  “The fat boy?”

  “Succinct.” Finn uttered a short laugh. “Yes, the fat boy. Think you could visit his head?”

  Wyungare said, “I think I must.”

  “Then yes,” said Finn, “we really do all need to talk.”

  Zappa, the Turtle, and Hartmann were conferring on the first base line. Snotman stood with the other aces near the dugout and regarded Modular Man with wary intensity.

  The Turtle and Hartmann would be paying a final visit to the Rox in a few hours to present an ultimatum and talk Governor Bloat and his people into surrendering. If they failed, the rest of the aces would be going in with the armed forces. Cyclone turned to Modular Man. “At least we’ve got a deadline now. They surrender by sundown or we take care of them.”

  “Do you think they stand a chance?” the android asked.

  “Against me they don’t stand a chance. Against all of this… ?” He grinned. “No jungle to hide in. No international borders to hide behind. No hostages. No chicken-shit politicians on their side — even Hartmann’s more worried about the political consequences of the Joker Republic than over the fate of these particular jokers themselves. And castles couldn’t stand up to artillery even in the Middle Ages, they’re not likely to start now, and in any case it’s not going to stand up to me. They may have a few surprises to throw our way, but it’s still going to be very one-sided.”

  “I hope so.”

  Cyclone looked over his shoulder at General Zappa. “That weirdo, though… I wonder why they picked him? He was with the Joker Brigade at Firebase Reynolds, and he said some things afterward … I got the impression he likes jokers too much.”

  “General Zappa’s father,” said a voice, “died of the wild card.”

  Cyclone was startled. Modular Man, however, had seen von Herzenhagen’s quiet approach on his radar.

  Cyclone nodded. “So he’s got a grudge, then?”

  “That might be inferred,” said von Herzenhagen.

  “Though of course the general has not confided in me.” His

  face held an expression of polite attention.

  “Modular Man? May I see you?”

  The speaker was Zappa, calling from home plate. Modular Man excused himself and followed Zappa and Vidkunssen down a tunnel under the old grandstand and then into the owners’ offices. The elegant affect of the plush, tasteful furnishings, the soft carpet, and the rows of pennants and trophies was subverted by military accretions: maps and photographs, communications apparatus, metal shelves holding equipment. A short, powerfully built, red-faced man in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel was scowling at a young officer.

  “I did not find that salute sufficient, soldier!” he said. His rural Deep South accent was thick as molasses. “I found it careless and negligent in the extreme! I will ask you to repeat it!”

  “Knock it off, cracker,” Zappa said. “Come with me.”

  “I’m still waiting for my salute.”

  The young officer clenched his teeth and raised his hand in a picture-perfect salute. The red-faced man grinned and returned it.

  “I love this chicken-shit Army.” he said.

  Zappa led the colonel and Modular Man into an inner office, then sat with relief behind the owner’s massive desk. There was a thin civilian already in the room. He wore black-rimmed glasses and a necklace of what seemed to be baby teeth. He carried a miniature poodle whose hair was dyed a pastel blue.

  “Big Swede,” Zappa said, “get me some mineral water. Anybody else want anything?”

  “Pepsi.” said the civilian.

  “Bourbon on the rocks,” said the colonel.

  Vidkunssen went to the wet bar and opened a commodious refrigerator. It seemed well stocked.

  Zappa waved a hand. “Pepsi over there is Horace Katzenback,” he said. “I met him in the Nam, when he was with AID. He’s my adviser.”

  “Token intellectual is what he means,” said Katzenback.

  Modular Man shook his hand.

  “Bourbon on the rocks over there is Sgt. Goode, my stepfather,” Zappa said.

  Modular Man looked at the colonel’s uniform. “Sergeant?” he said.

  “U.S.M.C.,” said Goode. “Retired.”

  “I got him a light colonel’s commission,” Zappa said. “If I’m going to have to make a landing on an island, I want to have someone around who was in the first wave on Tarawa and Saipan.” Goode grinned. “I get to make them all salute me. It’s quite a change.” He looked at Zappa. “Even if I am in the wrong fucking branch of service.”

  Vidkunssen handed everyone their drinks. Zappa took a sip of mineral water, then said, “Let’s have some music.”

  Vidkunssen punched a button on the boom box and

  Arab music began to wail. Zappa grinned. “The opposition might be listening,’ he said. “Or our own side. You never know.” He looked up at Katzenback. “You’ve had time to poke around. What do you make of Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen?”

  The thin man twitched a smile. “Spook City. I was around enough of them in the Nam. I’ve got the smell of them by now.”

  “Von Herzenhagen himself.”

  “The people around him sure as hell are. The baron himself” He shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “We’re ordered to turn any prisoners over to his unit.”

  “Well, he’s a bigwig with the Red Cross, right? So that sort of makes sense. But those guys around him sure as hell aren’t Clara Barton.”

  Zappa gnawed his mustache. “I don’t like the vibe. I was with von Herzenhagen when he interrogated Tachyon, and he damn near tore the girl apart. He’s either a pro, or he’s crazy.”

  “I don’t like the vibe either.”

  “But the fewer jumpers my men have to handle themselves, the better.”

  “My guess is that a whole lot of our prisoners are gonna end up working for the spooks.”

  “If we take any prisoners, that is. If they don’t give up, I don’t hold out a lot of hope.” Zappa leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. “Anybody here think they’re going to listen to Hartmann’s appeal?”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Katzenback finally spoke. “We’ll probably get a few of the more unmotivated types. The ones that wouldn’t give us much grief anyway.’

  Zappa looked up at Modular Man. "I’ve assessed the previous assaults,” he said, “both in light of my own experience and that of” he nodded at Goode “the Georgia crack
er here. I have no intention of repeating previous mistakes. In the past the goal of the military was to retrieve a national monument without damaging it in any significant way.”

  “That led to a lot of restraint,” Goode said. “And a lot of dead marines.”

  “But now.” Zappa continued, “the national monument simply doesn’t exist anymore, and nobody in their right mind wants to protect that freaky castle. I have the authority to use any means necessary to deal with this emergency.”

  “The island’s too fucking small for a landing.” Goode added. “You can’t put enough soldiers in, and you can’t use heavy weapons for fear you’ll hit your own people. And that outer wall well, if we got people on it, we could use them as artillery spotters. But that’s about all.”

  “Therefore,” Zappa said, “I’m not putting any more troops on that island until resistance is over. Not until I can get my men onto the Rox by walking there on a bridge of spent shell casings.

  “They say that Bloat can change physical reality. My bet is that he’s not going to be able to change the five hundred artillery and mortar shells I can drop on the Rox every single minute. Or what the Air Force can do to him. Or Tomahawk missiles dropping cluster bombs. One lousy fuel-air bomb will suck the oxygen right out of the defenders’ lungs and pulverize their fortifications at the same time. So that means they surrender before sunset or get bombed until there’s no one left.”

  There was another long moment of silence. This was the man, Modular Man thought, who Cyclone thought liked jokers too much.

  Zappa looked up at Modular Man. “If I commit the forces available to me, there’s going to be a massacre that will make Wounded Knee look like a cotillion. I’d rather not be the man who goes down in history as giving that kind of order.”

  “Shit.” said Katzenback. “A lot of them are just kids. Governor Bloat is just a kid.” "He’s a kid who can change physical reality,” Goode said. “A kid who killed a lot of police and marines.”

  “He’s dangerous. I fought alongside the Joker Brigade know how formidable jokers can be when they’re properly motivated, and when they’ve got a chance to come to grips. I’m not going to come to grips. I don’t want to hold back when the time comes — that’ll just get more of my own men killed. So my men are just going to sit someplace safe and bomb that place till it sinks into New York harbor.

  “I want them to surrender before I have to give any kind of final order. There are still phone lines to and from the Rox. They haven’t been cut because our intelligence people figure they can learn things listening in. So the leaflets I’m going to ask you to drop over there will contain a toll-free number that Bloat and his buddies can call when they want to surrender. It’s 1-800-I-GIVE-UP.” Zappa smiled. “My little contribution to communications history. We’ve got leaflets printed up, but they don’t mention the deadline, so we’re having more printed off now. Once they’re finished, I’ll ask you to fly over there.”

  “Very, well,” said Modular Man.

  “I think the best way would be a low approach over Jersey City,” Vidkunssen said. “That’s what the Air Force will use on their bombing runs. Your radar profile is going to be lost in the ground clutter of the city buildings, and if you miscalculate your bomb release point the weapons will either fall in the harbor or onto the part of New Jersey that’s now occupied by the Rox…” He fell silent for a moment as he realized what he’d just said, then laughed. “I guess with you the bomb release point isn’t going to matter much, is it?”

  “Is my radar profile?”

  “Maybe.” Modular Man felt dismay filter through his mind. Vidkunssen’s voice was apologetic. “They captured some radars when the Rox expanded onto New Jersey soil.”

  “How many?”

  Zappa spoke up. “Three, along with three complete Vulcan 20-mike-mike antiaircraft systems, four 60-mm lightweight company mortars, two .50-caliber heavy machine guns, and a pair of Bradley fighting vehicles. Ammunition for the above, plus assorted small arms. Also some bridging equipment, boats, and plastic explosive.”

  “Plastic explosive?” the android wondered. “What was plastic explosive doing there?”

  “There was an engineer company present, trying to figure out a way to get onto the island. The explosive and the bridging equipment was part of their TO&E. When the castle’s curtain wall expanded onto the mainland at Liberty State Park, all the soldiers abandoned their gear and ran for it.”

  “Do the jokers know how to operate any of this equipment?”

  “It’s safe to assume that there are a few veterans among them. Perhaps” — he looked troubled — “some of those I knew from the Nam. And they captured maintenance and instruction manuals and the like. We know they’ve been trying to use the radars because we’ve picked up their signals.”

  “What if they try and shoot at me with any of these weapons?”

  Zappa frowned up at him. “Take them out. Take out anything that’s threatening you. I won’t tell my people not to defend themselves just because it isn’t in somebody’s op plan.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Our last photos, taken earlier this morning, show the Bradleys, the fifties, and one of the Vulcans dug in behind the Jersey Gate, with the rest moved to the island. But if you can update that picture we’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” It should be easy enough, the android thought, to use his radar to spot the point of origin of all the bullets coming at him.

  “Any questions?” Zappa asked.

  Modular Man tried to think. “I suppose not. It seems straightforward enough.”

  Zappa turned to Vidkunssen. “Give Modular Man the photo file and an interpreter to tell him what he’s looking at.”

  There was a knock on the door, and an aide reported that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Powell was calling from the Pentagon.

  The conference seemed to be over.

  “It’s insane.” Cordelia had flatly said. They were sitting in the clinic cafeteria, sipping tea and contemplating the green and orange institutional walls. Finn had left them and gone about his business. Wyungare and Cordelia had been allowed space to contemplate their plan of action.

  “That’s the point,” said Wyungare. “It’s not insane. It may well be that a healer can help.”

  “You ought to hear the rumors out there,” said Cordelia. “I think something big is going down, huge trouble. More trouble than an army of healers could cope with.”

  Wyungare shrugged. “No shame in trying, even if failure follows.”

  Cordelia giggled. “That sounds like a fortune cookie.”

  “It is. I received it at a Chinese restaurant in Sydney the night before I left for America.”

  The woman reached across the table and took his hand tightly. “Understand something, ma chér. I know how well you can handle yourself. I haven’t forgotten Uluru and our little adventure with Murga-Muggai. You’re so damned competent. But you’re a healer, and I suspect there’s going to be a lot of firepower cut loose if you end up trying to contact Bloat out at the Rox.”

  Wyungare wrapped her hands in his. “I am more than a healer,” he said. “I am a warrior and a magician. I’ve got some resources I can draw upon.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I just don’t want you to die.”

  “And neither do I wish that.” He deliberately smiled at her, trying to relax the tension he felt in her muscles and saw in her face. “Trust me to know what I’m doing.”

  “And do you?” she said unexpectedly.

  He was honest. “No.” He added, “But I can vamp like crazy.”

  That made her laugh. The laughter trailed off uncertainly and died, “Is your mission worth death or worse?”

  “Worse?”

  “I think there are fates even more terrible.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Wyungare. “And my answer is yes.” She put his hand to her lips and lightly kissed it.

  “Do you want to get some idea why?”


  Cordelia looked at him questioningly, then said firmly, “Yes.”

  “And, if all goes well, would you like to visit your uncle?”

  “You mean back at the room?”

  “I mean your uncle Jack — not his avatar.”

  “Yes,” Cordelia said. “Please. Yes.” Her fingers squeezed like steel.

  Jay Ackroyd’s office was a fourth-floor walkup on 42nd Street, half a block off Broadway in a sleazy section of town that matched, Ray reflected, the P.I.’s personality perfectly.

  There were a couple of derelicts hanging around the building’s entrance, but they took one look at Ray’s snarling countenance and decamped without begging for change. Ray stepped over the snoring pile of rags in the foyer and went up the steps grumbling to himself. He didn’t mind the fact that there was no elevator, but he wished that the stairway wasn’t so damn filthy. He could hardly wait for the splendor of Ackroyd’s office.

  The frosted glass on the top half of the office door said JAY ACKROYD in a solid, block-letter arc. Spelled out below that in slightly smaller but just as solid letters was DISCREET INVESTIGATIONS.

  Ray opened the door, and stopped, surprised.

  The reception room was small, but since there was little furniture, it wasn’t exactly cramped. An almost bare desk sat next to one wall. There was a telephone answering machine on its freshly dusted surface. Sitting in a chair behind the desk was a blond, inflated plastic doll with a round, puckered mouth. Peculiar. Ray thought, but then Ackroyd was a peculiar fellow. A plastic blowup toy seemed to be just his style. The reception room, much to Ray’s surprise — and approval — was spotless. There was no dust on the furniture, no cobwebs in the corners, no grime on the one window that looked out on the grimy street below.

  Ray crossed the small reception room and knocked lightly on the door separating it from Ackroyd’s sanctum. When there was no answer, he pushed it open.

  Ackroyd was sitting behind his desk, his feet resting propped on its spotlessly polished surface, reading a magazine. The P.I. was wearing headphones to drown out the city drone coming from the open window that was letting in the warm late-morning breeze.