Jokers Wild

Chapter Eighteen

11:00 p.m.

The toilet flushed. Latham paused to wash his hands, dried them on a monogrammed towel, and turned off the light as he emerged from the bathroom.

Hiram held his breath and tried to squirm closer to the ceiling. His fist was clenched very tight, and the slightest motion threatened to send him drifting across the room. He prayed Latham wouldn't look up. Thank god he hadn't turned on the ceiling light; a man of Hiram's girth floating up near the fixture would cast a noticeable shadow. He could thank Popinjay for getting him into this absurd situation.

He'd hoped Latham would head straight back to his computer, but he wasn't going to be that lucky. The attorney walked to his dresser and began to empty his pockets: money clips, keys, a handful of change. He undid his tie, removed his vest, hung them carefully in a walk-in closet, slipped into a smoking jacket. It was black silk, with a dragon motif worked in gold across the back, and it fit perfectly. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Latham untied his shoes, donned a pair of slippers. No, Hiram thought down at him, don't lie down, please don't lie down.

The phone rang.

Go away, Hiram thought wildly, go back to the other room. Loophole glanced at the door, as if he was considering it. Then he lifted the receiver off the bedside extension. "Latham."

There was a short pause. "You're not making any sense," the lawyer said curtly. "Yes, I understand that you're in pain." Silence. "He ate your foot?" The tone was incredulous. "No, I'm sorry, Mr. Spector, I don't believe you. If you've lost that much blood, perhaps you're…" A sigh. "All right, describe these books."

This time the silence was much longer. Hiram couldn't see Latham's expression from his vantage point against the ceiling, but when he spoke, his tone had changed. "No, James, don't read from it. It wouldn't be healthy. Where are you?" A frown. "Yes, but what dump, where, I don't… They're all in Times Square, she's been sighted… no, I don't know how long." He glanced at the bedside clock. "No. No, I want you here as soon as possible. Take a cab… I don't care how you get one, just do it, do you understand? You know the address."

Latham hung up the phone, rose thoughtfully from the bed, and then-to Hiram's immense relief-went directly back to the desk in the other room.

Hiram shuddered, unclenched his hand, and drifted slowly back to the floor. He touched down as lightly as a feather. Spector, he thought. Where had he heard that name before? What else had Latham called him? James, that was it, James Spector.

Suddenly it fell into place. Dr. Tachyon, that was where he'd heard the name, half a year ago, over a rack of lamb at Aces High. A man who'd escaped from the clinic and left a trail of death behind him, an accountant named James Spector, but he had a new profession now, and on the street they were calling him… Demise.

He heard Latham pick up the phone. Hiram glanced toward the front door, but to reach it he would have to cross the living room, in plain view. The window was a better bet. He tiptoed across the room, slid it open slowly and carefully, stuck his head out. It was a long fall, but not nearly as long as the fall from Aces High.

Grimacing with distaste, Hiram Worchester climbed up on the sill and pushed himself through the window. It was a tight fit, and for one horrible second he was afraid that he was stuck. Then he squirmed a little harder, the buttons gave on his jacket, and he popped free and began to fall. He only hoped that he wouldn't be blown too far off course.

And in fact there was enough power left for Fortunato to find the Rolls. He thought about Peregrine, about her mouth and her breasts and what she would taste like between her legs. Just the thought made him stronger.

He was going to have her. Even though it meant risking both of their lives. The Astronomer was not through with either one of them, and they'd be terribly vulnerable in bed.

But there was time. The Astronomer had to recharge, and so did he. He tried not to think about the Astronomer out there somewhere, maybe even now picking out his victim.

Tried not to remember that the time he had was being bought at the cost of somebody else's life.

He turned a corner and saw the Rolls. Peregrine unlocked the door for him and he got inside.

"Your business?" she asked. "Taken care of. For now"

"Good," she said. "I'd hate for you to be in a hurry."

Jennifer took a corner with enough speed to wring an angry whine from the limos tires and a few angry curses from the pedestrians who had spilled off the crowded sidewalk onto the roadway itself. She glanced quickly to her right and saw Brennan leaning back against the luxurious upholstery, smiling. "What are you so happy about?" she asked.

"Kien doesn't have the book."

"Hmmm?" Jennifer cut across two lanes of traffic and threw a fast left. She glanced into the rearview mirror. She didn't think they were being followed, but she wanted to make sure. "What makes you say that?"

"Simple," he said. "Wyrm is still following us. Or you, to be precise. Therefore Kien doesn't have the book." He suddenly lost his smile and frowned. "But if it isn't where you left it…" He left the sentence unfinished.

"Someone else must have it. Them." Jennifer realized that she was getting so caught up in Brennan's quest that she was forgetting the stockbooks full of stamps. The books that were, or at least should be, important to her. "Why do you want that damn book so much?" she asked suddenly, running through a red light. "What's your connection with Kien?"

Brennan stared out the window for a long moment. "You handle this car very well."

"Come on," she said, frustrated beyond endurance by his reticence. "Cut the stall and answer my questions. You owe me that much."

"Maybe I do," Brennan said reflectively. "All right. Kien and I go a long way back. Back to Vietnam." Jennifer slowed to a reasonable speed so she could keep one eye on Brennan as he spoke. He was looking out the window distractedly, looking, seemingly, far beyond the street outside the window. "He's an evil man. Utterly self-absorbed, utterly ruthless. He was a general in the army of South Vietnam, but he worked for anyone who'd pay him. He caused the deaths of a lot of my men. He tried to kill me." Brennan's face became expressionless. "He killed my wife."

They drove on in silence, Jennifer wondering if she had probed too far, if she even wanted to know the rest of the story. After a while, Brennan spoke again.

"I had evidence implicating him in nearly every dirty scheme that was going on in 'Nam, but I.. lost it. Kien stayed in power. I was almost court-martialed. When Saigon fell I left the army and Kien came to America. I spent a few years in the Orient, finally returning to the States a few years ago. An old comrade of mine spotted Kien a couple of months ago and sent me a letter that brought me to the city."

"I'm convinced that the diary would implicate Kien in countless criminal activities. Maybe it contains enough evidence to put him away for good… like he should have been put away by the evidence I'd gathered twelve years ago…"

"I don't know if this diary would be accepted as evidence in court."

"Perhaps not," Brennan conceded, "but it would contain innumerable clues to his activities, to his associates and underlings." He looked at Jennifer seriously. "Killing Kien would be simple, but, first, it wouldn't necessarily bring down the network of corruption that he's built up here in New York, and, second, it would be too easy on him." Brennan's eyes became shadowed with introspection. "I want him to lie awake at night and worry about the slightest noise, the fleetingest shadow that cuts across his dreams. I want him stripped of everything he has, all his wealth, all his power and riches. In the end I want him to have nothing but time, time weighing heavily on his head with nothing to change the endless succession of his dull and eternal days… And if he doesn't end up in a jail cell, I'll strip him of everything he has and make his life an inescapable hell of grinding poverty and fear. To do it I'll need the diary."

Brennan lapsed into silence again. Jennifer licked her lips. Maybe, she thought, it was time to tell him the truth. He should know. But something froze up inside of her at the thought of telling him. She licked her lips again, forced them open.

"Brennan-"

She was interrupted by the sound of a telephone ringing in the back of the limo. Brennan started and looked toward the back seat as she sighed, feeling like a condemned prisoner granted a reprieve.

The dashboard of the limo had more controls than a space shuttle.

"Which switch lowers the window between the seats?" Brennan asked.

Jennifer darted a glance at the dashboard and shrugged. Brennan slammed down a bunch of toggles, turning on the radio, locking the doors, putting up the television antenna and, finally, lowering the tinted glass barrier between the rear and front seats. He dove into the back. Jennifer heard a muffled curse as he banged his knee on the liquor cabinet and bar that faced the rear seat. He picked up the, phone, switched on the speaker attachment so Jennifer could hear, and grunted into it.

"Wyrm? Wyrm, is that you? This is Latham."

Jennifer, glancing at him in the rear mirror, saw a strange expression fall upon his features. He smiled with pleasure, but no humor, as if he recognized the name, as if he were glad to hear the man's voice.

"Listen carefully. Demise is coming with the book. I repeat. Demise has the book. Call off your search and escort him in. Do you understand?"

Brennan's smile was savage. "I do," he said quietly. "You're not Wyrm."

"No," Brennan said. "Who is this?"

"The past, spook. And I'm coming for you." He hung up the phone.

The din, as they walked crosstown, was deafening. The crowds were virtually tidal in their power to ebb and flow, carrying most unanchored passersby with them.

"I'm trying," Bagabond said to Jack, eyes tightly closed as she leaned up against the brick pillar at an alley entrance off 9th Street. "The creatures of the city have never had to deal with this kind of human commotion before. They're terrified."

"I'm sorry," said Jack. The urgency in his voice belied the apology. "Just try. Please try."

"I am." She continued to concentrate. "Nothing. I'm sorry." She opened her eyes and Jack found himself staring into their apparently infinite black depths. "There are eight million humans in this city. Probably there are ten times as many creatures, not even counting the roaches. Be patient."

Jack impulsively hugged her. "I'm sorry. Do what you can do. Let's keep heading downtown." His voice had turned weary now. Bagabond held the embrace a second more than necessary. Jack didn't object.

Bagabond suddenly cocked her head. "Listen."

"Are you picking up something?" Jack said.

"I'm hearing someone. Aren't you?" She started to walk rapidly down the block.

Jack heard it too. The music was familiar, the voice doubly so.

Blood and bones Take me home People there I owe People there gonna go Down with me to Hell Down with me to Hell

"I'll be damned," said Jack. "It sounds like C.C."

"It is C.C. Ryder," Bagabond said. C.C, had been one of Rosemary's oldest and closest friends in the city. But triggered by acute trauma, her grotesque wild card talent had kept her under close care in Dr. Tachyon's clinic for more than a decade. They stopped with several other onlookers, pressed up against the glass front of a Crazy Eddie's. There were several large video monitors set up in the display window. Overhead speakers piped the music out to the street. On the screens, sharp-edged geometric solids rolled and collided in black and white.

"Is she performing again?" Bagabond said. "Rosemary's said nothing."

"Not in person." Jack squinted through the glass. "Just in performance videos like this. I also heard she's been writing a lot of new stuff lately, songs for Nick Cave, Jim Carroll, people like that. I read in the Voice that Lou Reed's even considering one of her songs for a new album-and he never does covers."

"I wish she was doing concerts again," Bagabond said, voice almost wistful.

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. I guess she can't deal with more than maybe two people at one time. I think she's finally getting better."

"If she's recording now," said Bagabond, "then she's getting better."

"I bet Cordelia'd like to meet her," said Jack.

Bagabond smiled. "Cordelia's sixteen. Maybe C.C. knows Bryan Adams."

"Who?" said Jack.

"Come on." She took his arm and led him away from the display window. The lyrics followed them.

You can sing about pain You can sing about sorrow But nothing will bring a new tomorrow Or take away yesterday

In the neighboring cubicle, screened only by a thin cloth curtain, someone was puking. Noisily, energetically, vigorously, a real tour de force of puking.

"So I sez to him, I sez, I'm gonna smear your ugly nat face all over-"

But where the beery-voiced joker had been going to smear the face was lost in the lonely cry of sirens and a loud aggrieved "Ow!" from Tachyon.

"Stop sniveling," ordered Dr. Victoria Queen, who looked as if thirty-six years of living with her improbable name had permanently soured her disposition. The frowning expression was at odds with her lovely face and lush body. She took another stitch in the alien's forehead.

"What are you using? A knitting needle?"

"Where's all this Takisian stoicism? To bear pain without flinching, to laugh in the face of vicissitude."

"You have a terrible bedside manner."

"I see you found him," the doctor said, ignoring Tachyon. Roulette felt a stab of anxiety. "Was he in a bar?"

Tachyon, rightly reading an insult, seized upon the remark without realizing its import. "I am not always in a bar. I wish you would stop telling people that."

There was the sound of growing confusion from beyond the cubicle. "Stay here!" ordered Queen, and twitched aside the curtain.

Tachyon tugged his bangs down over the half-opened gash, the needle still thrust through the white skin, and slid off the gurney. Roulette put out a hand.

"Where are you going?"

"To help."

"You're hurt, you're a patient."

"It's still my hospital."

She was too tired, and too obsessed with the images passing behind her eyes to argue. She followed him into the emergency room of the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic.

Every available chair and sofa was taken. Jokers of every description huddled, and hacked, and moaned, and mewed, and followed the overworked doctors with pleading eyes.

A three-legged joker was waddling after Dr. Queen. "I've been waitin' here for three fucking hours!"

"Tough!"

"Cunt!"

"You've got a broken wrist. There are others here with worse problems. We'll take you when we can. And I have no sympathy. Personally, I think Elmo should have broken your fucking neck."

Tachyon was examining a comatose old man on one of the gurneys, seemingly oblivious to the shouting match behind him. But when the joker took a swing at the woman doctor, the haymaker continued so he hit himself in the face, and then collapsed snoring on the floor.

"Nice work, Doc," called a huge scaly joker in a security guard's uniform. "Hey, you look like shit."

"Thank you, Troll."

"What do you want me to do with him?" He nudged the sleeping troublemaker with a toe.

"Have Delia set his wrist while he's sleeping." A quick smile. "Saves on anesthetic."

Another wailing ambulance disgorged its load. A gurney squeaked past, carrying a nightmare figure. Seven feet tall, head blunt like the head of a hammer. One ferocious red eye, and one bright blue eye glaring from beneath a heavy ridge of bone. Boils dotted his scalp in place of hair. Some had broken open and were oozing pus. The man looked as if someone had danced on his face with a jackhammer.

Roulette wrapped her arms about her stomach, trying to shut out the pain, the smells, the sounds. Queen discovered Tachyon administering a shot to a snuffling five-year-old, and chivied him back into the cubicle. When they reemerged, she was leading the tiny doctor by the wrist like an outraged school mistress with a recalcitrant student.

"Take him home." A sharp shove between the shoulder blades. "Give him these. Make him sleep."

"I'm all right. I'll stay."

"You're never here on Wild Card Day. Usually because you're face down in a puddle of cognac. Why break with tradition?"

Queen didn't seem to notice, or perhaps she didn't care, that Tachyon had been well and truly hurt by the remark. Roulette took his arm, and led him out the side door of the old brick building.

"I'm going after Fortunato," he abruptly announced. "And do what?"

"Help him search for the Astronomer." His lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Tachyon, he must know after attacking the restaurant that every ace in Manhattan is after him. He'd be a fool to stay in New York."

"He's a madman. He won't care."

He shrugged off her hand, and closed his eyes. A great struggle seemed to be taking place, though it showed itself only through the increasingly haggard expression on his nar row face, the sweat that matted in the whorls of his sideburns, and the bright white points studding each knuckle. Suddenly he whirled, and slammed his fists against the wall of the hospital.

"He's blocking me!"

"Who?"

"Fortunato. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him." Head thrown back, he screamed to the sky. "You've held me in contempt for years, you arrogant son of a bitch. Faggots from space. Well, fine! Handle it yourself, then, and be damned to you."

"Why worry? Maybe the Astronomer will come after you, and then you can handle it."

But he was already walking, head hunched forward, hands thrust deep into his pockets, and so missed the bitter irony in her words.