Card Sharks

The Ashes of Memory

7

Emotions were warring within Cameo / Nickie. Her shoulders lifted in silent, gulping sobs, mixing incongruously with Nickie's narrative.

"I've seen the birthday party clip a dozen times or more," Hannah said into Cameo's weeping. "Marilyn singing 'Happy Birthday' to JFK, blowing out the candles on the cake, and handing him a stuffed toy. It wasn't a tiger, though - I remember a penguin."

"Cameo ... told me," Nickie / Cameo said between sniffles. "Maybe she gave the stuff to the Sharks, maybe she just got scared, maybe she decided to tell Jack later. If she'd given all we had to him, everyone would know. There would have been a public scandal, high-ranking, wholesale firings in the White House staff and cabinet, an uproar within the FBI. None of it happened. Instead, Kennedy was assassinated. Makes you wonder about that, too, doesn't it?"

Hannah shrugged, but it didn't keep away the shivering chill that crawled her spine. "I'll have to look up Blythe. I don't remember seeing it."

"The picture was never released," Nickie told her. "Hedda got her way. Marilyn had a nervous breakdown and couldn't finish the shooting, and they didn't have enough in the can to edit around it. Welles tried to redo the picture with a different actress, but he couldn't keep the rest of the cast or the production staff together. Then the funding dried up."

"And he ended up doing wine commercials."

"Everyone has to make a buck. Welles never starved - not anywhere close - at least he got to live his life. I don't exactly feel sorry for him."

Cameo had bowed her head forward, still sobbing between Nickie's words. The fedora slipped off. With that, some inner dam was rent. She brought her legs up and hugged them to her chest, burying her face as the tears came fully. "Ahh, Nickie," Cameo wept "Why did you have to die?"

Hannah rose from her chair and went to the woman. Sitting alongside Cameo, she hugged her, and Cameo clung to her briefly before pulling herself away again. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Thank you for letting us meet Nick. I know it must have been hard for you."

Cameo nodded, red-eyed. Hannah hugged her again, then picked up the fedora from where it had fallen to the floor. She set it carefully on the couch next to Cameo. Rising to her feet, she caught Quasiman's eye and nodded toward the door.

Hannah closed it softly behind them.

"I don't understand," Quasiman said. "Why is that woman crying? Who is she?"

"She's someone who fell in love with a ghost, a man who died before she was born." Hannah bit her lower lip. Suddenly the dreary decor of the Dead Nicholas seemed appropriate. She slid her mask back over her face. "C'mon," she said to Quasiman. "I think we need a drink."

***

"I shouldn't have had that last drink," Hannah said. Her voice seemed to be coming from someone else. She frowned hard, trying to concentrate. "What a lovely list: Meyer Lansky, Henry van Renssaeler, both dead; Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen, still around and moving in high circles; Dr. Faneuil and his kindly nurse Margaret Durand lurking around in the background; Zb ... Zbag ... Zbingniew Brzezinski - my, I sure mangled that name - making a fortune as a Washington consultant, no doubt; George G. Battle, last seen having fun wasting jokers on the Rox. Now we can add Hedda Hopper, William Randolph Hearst, J. Edgar Hoover, and Howard Hughes. At least they're all dead - everyone but Hughes, but then no one's seen him in years. Oops, I left out Marilyn. And did I mention Pan Rudo? I think I did, didn't I?"

Quasiman didn't answer. She hadn't expected him to, since he'd been sitting motionless at the table for the last half an hour. "I should probably put old Malcolm Coan on the lish ... I mean list ... You know, I do believe I'm just the slightest bit drunk," she said to the comatose joker. "Hope you don't mind."

Hannah downed her Rusty Coffin Nail. There were five empty glasses in front of her. The ghostly waiter drifted toward their table and whispered to her in a sibilant voice. "We all know Quasiman. He's all right here. If you need to leave ..."

It seemed a good idea, somehow. Hannah, scowling in concentration, paid her bill and called Father Squid. "Don't worry about him," the priest said. "He has his own ways home. And, Hannah, I know it's just a few blocks, but please don't walk. Call a cab." Hannah did that; twenty minutes later, it still hadn't arrived. Hannah called again. "He's on his way, lady. He should be there any second." With a glance back at Quasiman, still sitting motionless at the table, Hannah went outside to wait.

Outside, the streets were only sparsely inhabited. It was Wednesday, hardly a party night anyway, and Jokertown had lost much of its luster as a tourist attraction in the last few years. The first problem had been the jumpers, gangs of sadistic teenagers with the ability to take over someone else's body while imprisoning that person in theirs. Then the joker named Bloat had taken over Ellis Island and renamed it the Rox, proclaiming it to be a refuge for the jumpers and all jokers. The invasions of Ellis Island by the various authorities had been bloody and bitter, leaving behind a legacy of hatred between jokers and nats. Positions had polarized. Even with the masks, even in the "safe" streets around the edges of Jokertown, this was not a place where nats felt comfortable anymore. There'd been too many reminders that hatred was a sword that cut both ways.

A black and yellow-checked taxi idled at the light half a block up. Hannah stepped out into the street to wave at him, but when the light turned green, the fare light went off and the taxi turned right and away.

"Hey! Damn it!" Hannah looked up and down the street. No other cabs in sight. The bus stop was a block and a half down and the streetlight was out next to it. Hannah started back to the sidewalk. Her head was spinning.

A car pulled around the corner. Hannah didn't know why she suddenly felt fear that dissolved the fumes of scotch in her head. Maybe it was the way the car hugged the curb as it turned, maybe the fact that all the windows of the Lincoln were tinted so dark as to be almost black or the slow way it approached. Hannah watched it, held for a moment like a deer in its headlights, then backed toward the curb. Tinted windows shushed down in the rear, and a head wearing an H. Ross Perot mask stared at her.

Hannah started to run for the entrance of the Dead Nicholas.

The Lincoln accelerated.

It was such a small sound. A cough. Something hot and fast slammed into Hannah and spun her around. She screamed at the pain, surprised to find herself sprawled face down on the sidewalk. Someone - she could only see the feet - came out from the Dead Nicholas and she heard the Lincoln squealing away around the next corner. Hannah tried to turn her head to follow the car, to see if she could see the license plate, but her head wouldn't turn and it seemed that the lights had gone out anyway. Even the entrance to the club was dim now and the pain and the wetness on her back seemed to be feelings experienced by someone else and there was yelling and a person was screaming but it all sounded distant ...

... so distant ...

***

The arms of the octopus coiled about her. Screaming, she ripped one of the sucker-laden arms away, tearing her flesh, but a tentacle still curled around her waist, another at her throat, yet another around her legs. The beast, an unseen, black presence just below the surface of the water, pulled her inexorably toward itself. Rising now above the waves, its great, lidless eyes glaring at her, the hooked beak of its maw clicked as it brought her nearer and nearer. She struggled, but it was useless. She could smell the creature now, and it smelled like the open door of a slaughterhouse. It smelled of open sewers and piss and corruption.

It smelled of death.

"Hannah? I'm sorry, Hannah."

She opened her eyes. Quasiman was standing in the far corner of the hospital room, away from the hospital bed, like a child sent to his corner. An IV drip burned in Hannah's arm and her chest and shoulder were swaddled in gauze underneath the thin gown. Her lips were dry and cracked, and she'd scraped her face on the concrete when she'd fallen. One eye seemed swollen shut. "It wasn't your fault," she said, her voice cracking. Hannah frowned. There were vague memories: of an ambulance, of serious faces hovering over her and someone saying something about an exit wound. "Who did it?"

Quasiman snorted. He lifted his powerful shoulders. "No one knows. No one cares. The police came, wrote down their reports and left." His fist pounded slowly against the wall: Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. "I had to have seen it before. I must have known. Why didn't I remember?"

"Quasiman." Thunk. He looked at her with bleak eyes. "Stop it. It's not your fault. No one blames you. You can't control when and where your mind goes." Without warning, then, the tears came, and the fright. Hannah shuddered, gasping for breath, then fought back her control. She forced herself to breath slowly, biting her lips. She sniffed, dabbing at her nose with a Kleenex from the box alongside her. "Ouch," she said, and gave a short laugh. Quasiman was watching her, her own anguish reflected in his gaze. "That's the second time someone's tried to kill me," she said. "Y'know, I don't really like the experience." She tried to smile at her joke and couldn't.

"You can give it up," Quasiman said. "I'd understand that."

"So would I."

The voice came from the doorway. Hannah turned her head. David was standing there, a bunch of carnations drooping from his hand. He seemed to remember the flowers at the same time. He held them up apologetically, then set them on the stand alongside the bed. "You look like hell," he said.

"You were always such a romantic, David." Hannah didn't know what to say or feel. The last time I saw you I was leaving. You were telling me how stupid I was. Not knowing how to reply, she retreated into polite nothings. "Thanks for the flowers."

"Uh-huh." He was dressed in the Italian-styled tailored suit he'd bought that summer, his expensive Hart & Dunlop overcoat on his arm. His hair was newly trimmed. "You going out, David?" Hannah asked.

"The Governor's in town. There's a party. Lots of high muck-a-mucks will be there: the Mayor, Judge Bradley, Brandon van Renssaeler of Douglas, Mannerly ..." The familiar last name gave Hannah a physical shock, but David didn't notice. He wasn't even looking at her. David was only too happy to be talking about himself. "In fact, Brandon's responsible for inviting me. I've been handling some litigation for the firm. There's talk that maybe President Barnett will come up from Washington, and -"

"I'm so happy for you."

David stopped in mid-sentence. His mouth clamped shut and Hannah saw him slip into his lawyer face, the non-committal, oh-so-serious and oh-so-rational mask. "I see you've worked on your sarcasm since you've been gone."

"Hey -" Quasiman said, and David nodded toward the joker without looking away from Hannah, frowning.

"The nurses tell me the hunchback's been in here since you were brought in. They don't like it. Why don't you tell your friend to take a hike? You and I have things to talk about."

Any remaining illusions Hannah might have had dissolved with the words. "I won't tell him that because he is my friend," she told him.

"Hannah -" David began, but Quasiman cut in.

"It's okay, Hannah," he said. The joker shot David a glance that Hannah couldn't decipher. Some silent communication seemed to pass between the two men. "I'll be right outside," Quasiman added.

And the joker vanished, soundlessly. Hannah enjoyed the involuntary yelp that David, let out. "Goddamn freaks ..." Then the lawyer mask slipped back into place. "Hannah, I won't beat around the proverbial bush with you. I've talked with Malcolm, and believe me it took a lot of talking, but because of the good publicity the Bureau's received after you solved the case, he's agreed to ignore your little scene with him. The job's still yours." He smiled. Like I'm a puppy being handed a bone: "Sit up, girl. Roll over, girl. Good girl." Looking at him, Hannah knew that David expected gratitude, that he expected her to thank him, maybe even to cry in relief. Disbelief at his arrogance drove away her pain and she sat up in the bed, ignoring the pulling of torn muscles in her shoulder.

"I didn't solve the case - it was handed to me practically tied up in a bow. I'm still working on the case."

"Hannah, the arsonist has been found. Please do yourself and everyone a favor and drop this paranoid joker fantasy of yours. There's no conspiracy. There's no hidden agenda. It was a psychotic's lone deed and it's over."

"Yeah," Hannah said bitterly. "That's why someone tried to kill me last night."

David leaned over the bed, his well-tailored bulk throwing a shadow over her. He shook his head. "No one tried to kill you, dear," he said softly. "Not this time. Believe me, if someone had actually wanted you dead, you would be dead."

Something in his tone made her stomach churn. "What are you saying, David?"

"I'm saying that if I had my pick of weapons and wanted to take someone out, a .38 handgun wouldn't have been my choice. And even as few times as I've fired a gun, I'll bet I could hit something more than your shoulder at the kind of range you were hit."

"You're telling me this was some kind of accident? A driveby shooting by someone out for thrills? ust another psychotic, right?"

"I'm saying that it might have been a warning, Hannah." He was a silhouette against the room's overhead light, but she could see his eyes, gleaming down at her. She chose her reply carefully.

"If it was a warning, David, then someone has something to hide. If it was a warning, then my fantasy plot exists. You can't have it both Ways." It came to her then. She wondered how she missed it until now. "Are you part of this, David? Is that why you're here tonight, to make sure the message is delivered and I understand?"

David gave an exhalation of disgust and moved away. "You are getting paranoid," he said. "I meant a warning from God or fate or whatever. A warning that fooling around in Jokertown is stupid. Just listen to yourself, Hannah. You've gone totally around the bend on this. All I'm doing is trying to find some way to convince you, one way or the other, that it's over. Drop it, Hannah. Please. For your own safety and sanity, drop it."

"No." The quickness and vehemence of the decision surprised even Hannah. "I can't."

David was shaking his head, as if he were confronting a rebellious teenager. Then he waved his hands in disgust. "Then I give up. Have it your way, Hannah. I've tried to help you, but you won't let me." He put on his overcoat and started for the door.

"David?"

He turned.

"Take your fucking flowers with you. Give them to the Governor for me. Better yet, stick them up your ass."

"That's cute, Hannah. Very cute. Almost a great exit line, but I have a better one for you."

David smiled at her. "Goodbye, Hannah," he said, and left.

***

The nurse came in about an hour later. Hannah was drifting off to sleep; Quasiman was again at his post in the corner of the room, his eyes staring unfocused at some inward vision. "How are you feeling?" the nurse asked.

"About as well as I could expect, I guess. When can I get out of here?"

The nurse smiled. "Tired of the food already, eh? The doctor will be in tomorrow morning. We'll see what he says then." She went to the IV stand and checked the bag of saline. She adjusted the drip, then reached into her pocket for a large syringe. She opened one of the feed lines to the IV and inserted the needle.

"No," Quasiinan said. He'd stirred and moved silently next to the nurse. His massive hand was around her, preventing the woman from pressing down on the plunger.

"Hey!" the nurse said. "Get off me!"

"No," Quasiman repeated. "Hannah ..."

"What is that?" Hannah asked the nurse.

"It's just a sedative, to help you sleep." She struggled; Quasiman kept his grip and at the same time pulled the syringe from the IV. "Tell him to let go or I'm going to have to call security."

"It's a lie, Hannah. I saw it," Quasiman said stolidly. His other hand pried her fingers from the syringe; with a cry of pain, the nurse let go. Quasiman glared at the woman, then turned to the bed. "Hannah, we can't stay here any longer."

"Go! Now!" Quasiman yelling at Croyd, the explosion just behind them ... "All right," Hannah said. She threw the covers aside. Grimacing, she ripped off the tape holding the IV and slid the needle out of the vein. "You can't do that -" the nurse said in alarm as Hannah stuffed a tissue in the crook of her elbow to stop the bleeding and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

The nurse was very nearly right. The room did a lumbering waltz around Hannah and the stitches in her left shoulder screamed. Hannah gasped, then forced herself to stand. She nearly fell.

The nurse had gone to the wall and slapped a button. A red light flashed above the door and an alarm sounded distantly. Hannah started for the door and realized she wasn't going to make it.

"Hannah -" Quasiman was talking to her, one hand still holding the syringe. His arms were open wide, as if he wanted to embrace her. "Come here."

"No ..." Hannah took another step toward the door. The nurse was yelling, and she heard running footsteps from outside.

"Hannah!"

She looked at him. She was sobbing now, in hurt and panic and fright. "I never let you get near me," she said.

He simply held his arms wide. Someone appeared at the door and Hannah threw herself toward Quasiman. His arms closed around her. He smelled like anyone else, his skin felt like anyone's skin, and his embrace was strong yet gentle, like a lover's.

"Now, Hannah," he said. Hannah hugged the joker tightly, one-armed.

And they were gone.

***

Dr. Finn came into the bedroom of Father Squid's apartment. The centaur looked as if he'd had a hard night at the clinic. "Insulin," he said Without preamble. "A nice heavy dose of it."

"What would have happened?" Hannah asked him.

"You'd have drifted into insulin shock. Considering that you've been shot, the resident's best bet probably would have been that the shock was due to some continuing internal blood loss they'd missed. Because of the shock and supposed loss of blood, the book response would have been to give you fluids - so the first thing they'd've done is crank your IV wide open, giving you even more insulin."

"And?"

"Convulsions. Then death." Dr. Finn sniffed. "In a busy hospital, they might never have figured it out, unless someone knew what to look for."

Hannah took a deep breath. She looked at Quasiman, sitting next to the bed. She found his hand, squeezed it. "Thank you again," she said.

"I should report this." Dr. Finns tail lashed. "It makes me sick."

Hannah shook her head. "You can't," she told him. "We don't have any evidence. None. Anyone in the hospital could put the insulin in a syringe. For all we know, the nurse may have been entirely innocent - someone else could have prepared the syringe and told her to give it to me ..."

"Then what can we do?"

"Let me work. Let me figure this out. And ..."

"Yes?"

"Could you leave us alone for a minute?"

Dr. Finn glanced at Quasiman. Shrugged. "Sure." With a graceful turn of his palomino body, Dr. Finn left the room. Hannah looked at Quasiman. "What's my name?" she asked.

"Hannah. I remember."

"I haven't been very nice to you. Do you remember that, too?"

"That wasn't important. I didn't write those parts down, and I never told Father."

"Quasi -" She stopped, her voice breaking. "Come here a second. Yes, that's it. Now, bend down ..."

She grasped his head with her good arm. Kissed him. His lips were warm and soft, and they yielded slowly. "Why?" Quasiman asked when she released him. He remained stooped over her bed, close to her.

"I don't really know," she answered truthfully. "Just tell me that you'll remember it, okay?" She smiled at him, stroked his cheek. "I don't care if you forget the rest."

"I'll try," he said earnestly. "I'll try very hard."

***

Brandon van Renssaeler ... In fact, Brandon's responsible for inviting me....

Van Renssaeler had an interesting history, Hannah discovered, almost as interesting as his father's. In the late sixties and early seventies, a rising young lawyer in a powerful firm, he'd also performed gratis work for the UN and WHO. Now established and well-respected, blessed with his family's wealth, with looks and with a brilliant legal mind, Brandon moved in high circles. Among his friends and companions were senators and representatives, corporate executives, and presidential advisors. He separated from his first wife in the late sixties, though they never officially divorced. He and his current paramour attended all the right functions and appeared regularly in the Society pages of the Times. They looked to be very happy.

Brandon van Renssaeler's marriage had not been so pleasant.

And it seemed his ex-wife lived in Jokertown.

***

"It's hot, Hannah," Quasiman said.

"Like Saigon, huh?"

"Have I been there?"

Hannah sighed. "Yes." The side parlor of the brownstone was at least 90В° inside, though the foyer had been cool enough. The person who escorted them in - an older man who looked perfectly normal - had begun sweating. "She needs the heat," he said and smiled. "You'll see. She's waiting for you in the rear room."

The man left them. The heat was quickly transforming Hannah's bangs into matted, dripping ringlets. Hannah had Worn a coat against the early October chill; she took it off and loosened the first button on her blouse with her good hand. It didn't do much good; under the sling that held her left arm, her blouse was already soaked. Her pantyhose were sticking to her uncomfortably. "Let's go in," she said to Quasiman. He didn't answer. His legs were missing below the knee. Hannah touched his arm softly, squeezing. "Wait for me," she told him, even though she knew he couldn't hear, then called out loudly "Hello? Mrs. van Renssaeler?"

"Come on in, my dear. Don't be shy." The voice sounded like that of a mature woman - a soft, pleasant alto.

Hannah followed the sound of the voice into the back room.

The room was dominated by a thick oaken branch, as if a tree had jabbed one of its lower limbs into the house from outside. The only other furniture in the room was a small couch with a coffee table on which sat a plate with pastries and a sterling tea service with a cup and saucer set alongside it. The couch was obviously a concession for visitors. Hannah knew that the woman in the room could never use it.

The joker's bald head and upper body was that of a human melded with a cobra. The skin was covered with bright, multi-colored scales, and the folds of a fleshy hood hung on either side of her neck. The arms were human enough in appearance, but scaled like the rest of the body. Even the naked breasts were scaled, the nipples still faintly present as patches of darker color. Below the breasts, she was entirely serpent; the long, thick body coiled around the oaken branch. Hannah estimated that, stretched out, the woman might be fifteen feet long or more.

The head bobbed, swaying back and forth. The eyes were round like a human's and lidded, but with the vertical golden irises of a snake; from her scaled woman's lips, a long forked tongue darted quickly out and back. The hood swelled briefly, then subsided. "Aah," she said. "There you are. My goodness, what happened? Your poor arm, and the scratches on your lovely face."

"I'm much better than I was a few days ago," Hannah answered.

"I'm happy to hear that. Father Squid told me that you'd been injured helping find the awful person who burned down the church. Come in. Please, don't let my appearance alarm you, my dear girl, and call me Lamia - Mrs. van Renssaeler is too long and tiresome, and not really true anymore, after all. Sit down, sit down. The scones are cranberry; I had them delivered from the corner bakery this morning and they've assured me that they're absolutely delicious. Normally, I would go myself and pick them out, but I'm afraid that I become rather torpid in the cold. I'd fall asleep halfway there. Ahh, well ... I'll be most upset if you don't try one. The tea's Earl Grey - do you use cream? Some of us Americans don't, I know, but there's cream next to the service."

The woman smiled, and the tongue slithered in and out again. "Thank you," Hannah said. "This is, ummm, just fine." Under Lamia's intent gaze, Hannah one-handedly poured tea into the cup and took a scone. She took a polite bite and set it down on the linen napkin folded on the table. "Your baker was right," Hannah said. "They're delicious."

Lamia seemed pleased. Her smile went wider as Hannah took a sip of the tea. "Now then, what can I help you with? Father Squid asked that I tell you anything I know, but you were rather vague over the phone. I understand this has something to do with Brandon?"

Hannah set the cup down; the china rang delicately. Expensively. "I'm not entirely sure, Mrs - ... Lamia. Maybe. Does the name Card Sharks mean anything to you?"

It did. Hannah could see it in the way the woman's head drew back, the sudden brilliant color that washed through the scales of her chest, and the spreading of the cobra-like hood. Hannah pressed the advantage. "It's possible that an organization by that name was responsible for the fire. They may also be responsible for many more acts of violence against wild card victims." Lamia had regained control of her body. The color faded, the hood collapsed around her neck. "The name van Renssaeler has come up several times in the stories I've heard," Hannah continued. "And I wondered -"

The end of Larnia's tail lashed. "- whether Brandon was part of it. I suppose his dislike of jokers is fairly well documented. May I ask you something? Will you be discreet if I tell you what I know? If they knew I were telling what I know, I'm afraid that they'd do something. I'm not so worried for myself, you understand, as for my daughter. They might harm her to harm me, and I couldn't bear that. I'd rather take this secret to my grave, as terrible a burden as it has been to me these twenty-five years."

"I don't know what I can do with anything you tell me yet," Hannah said. "But if you don't tell, these Card Sharks will continue to do what they've been doing. They'll kill and hurt and destroy, if not your daughter, then someone else's." Hannah shifted on the couch, and the healing wound pulled. She grimaced.

"Oh, look at you," Lamia said. "And listen to me. You've already put yourself in danger, haven't you? And you didn't need to. You look beautiful and normal; you're safe from them. Clara's safe enough, too; she's been safe since I left when she was five. I ..." The tongue darted: in and out. The scales glittered as she rearranged her long body on the branch. "I've been using Clara as an excuse for a long time. This is rather like lancing a boil, isn't it? The infection can't heal while it's buried beneath the surface. Everything has to be exposed to light and air to clean away the toxins. My God, the lives that were lost in poor Father Squid's church - I weep for those poor souls! If only I'd spoken sooner...."

Her voice was so pained that Hannah leaned forward and shook her head. "No. You couldn't have known about that. Even if you had, who would you have told that would have believed you?"

Lamia smiled at her sadly. "You're so kind, my dear. And you're right; I mustn't blame myself. This guilt I've carried, it's like a rock in my gullet or a meal that won't digest."

"Guilt because you didn't tell anyone about the Card Sharks?"

Lamia's head moved slowly back and forth. "No. Not that. You don't have any children, do you? When you do, you'll understand. There are joys to children that only a parent - a mother - can know. You love them sometimes more than you love yourself. And because of that, there are pains...."

Lamia's body wriggled, the muscles rippling in a wave down the length of her body as she moved closer to Hannah. The joker sighed, the hiss of a serpent. "Let's get on with this, then...."