Turn of the Cards

Chapter Three

Coughing and grumbling, Henk emerged from his doorway as Mark trudged up the stairs next afternoon, a loaf of French bread and an English-language book on silver-smithing tucked under his arm. Mark had found the book in a Jordaan shop. He was so entranced with his Takisian silverwork, he had decided that that might be what he should try to do for a living: learn to capture that airy beauty, seduction in pale metal.

Today the landlord wore an apron. As far as Mark knew, he didn’t cook. He seemed to subsist entirely on meat pies from a little shop around the corner.

“There has been more about the shooting,” Henk announced. “Yesterday. In the Damplein.”

“Really, man?” Mark asked, trying to sidle by, waiting to be denounced as a fugitive, as responsible.

“It was an attempt on the life of a noted Green activist. He was speaking on the need for the new European Community to take an active role in wild cards affairs.” He waited with his chest puffed out portentously.

“Really?” Mark managed to say.

Henk nodded. “Is it not obvious? They are a conspiracy, these aces. They think they are better than the rest of us. Mark my words, they must soon be controlled, or they will take over.”

Mark fled up the stairs.

Night arrived. Mark was heating soup on the cracked-enamel gas stove when someone knocked on the door.

His heart jumped into the base of his throat. His long fingers sought the little leather pouch he wore to carry his vials when he wore a T-shirt without pockets beneath his sweater. After the excitement in the Dam Square yesterday he had stuffed an extra set into it.

Take it easy, man, he told himself. Don’t get paranoid.

It’s probably only Henk. Wiping his hands on a linen towel with blue windmills printed on it, he walked to the well and down the short flight of stairs that led to the flat’s door.

It wasn’t Henk. It was a short man dressed like a tourist, in a navy windbreaker and khaki pants, a New York Yankees baseball cap worn over short hair that had clearly once been brown but was now mostly the color of ash. He had a luxuriant mustache with obviously waxed tips. It was mostly seal-colored. Maybe he dyed it.

“Can I, uh. Can I help you?” Mark managed to ask.

“Mr. Marcus?” Mark nodded. “I’m Randall Bullock. Might I impose on you for a couple minutes of your time?”

The man spoke English in a way that would have been brusque if it hadn’t been softened by a hint of southern drawl and an easy down-home smile. He smelled of the rain that had begun to fall lightly in Eglantier Straat. It stained the bill of his cap and stood in beads on his jacket.

“Come on in,” Mark said. He turned and walked back up the stairs. It felt as if his feet were lead and his knees were about to disconnect completely. As he reached the top, he fished the pouch out from inside his sweater, making sure to keep his body between it and his visitor.

Pausing at the stove, he asked, “Can I offer you some coffee, man?”

“Any made?” Mark shook his head. “No, thank you. Don’t mean to impose.”

Wordlessly Mark led his way to the living room.

The sofa was overstuffed, floral-patterned, and threadbare, and Henk the landlord had restrained its tendency to burst at the seams and spew stuffing everywhere with duct tape. Mark waved a spidery hand at it and went and propped his skinny butt on the windowsill as Bullock took his seat.

The man sat on the edge of the sofa with his cap politely in his hands and his elbows on his knees. It was a pose from which he could stand up again very quickly — or launch himself at need. Funny, how I’ve started noticing things like that.

He had also noticed something else about his mysterious visitor, right off the bat. Mark was a military brat. Randall Bullock had military scrawled all over him the way Dennis Wilson Key said sex was written on Ritz crackers. It was in the short hair and the mustache and his bearing, erect without being stiff. It was in the taut way he filled his skin in spite of carrying virtually no excess weight — in the lack of a spare tire in a man of his obvious age.

He might have been former military, one of those eternal boys who can’t let go of the sense of belonging the Green Machine had given him. Mark’s gut sense was he was still serving. In one capacity or another.

“Are you with the government, Mr. Bullock?” Mark asked, trying hard to sound casual.

Blue-gray eyes held his for a beat. “Let’s just say I’m here in a private capacity, shall we?”

Right. With his thumb Mark popped the plastic cap of the vial he held loosely in his left fist and tossed the contents down his throat with a fluid motion. Blue powder, with sparkles of silver and black.

“Great Caesar’s ghost!” Randall Bullock exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He took a step forward.

It wasn’t Mark he took a step toward. It was a man not much taller than Bullock was, with pale blue skin and a cowled black cloak.

“Really, can’t you let a man have any peace?” the blue man asked in a stranger’s peevish voice. He hopped lightly to the sill, then stepped through the window, which was still closed.

Randall Bullock’s reactions were good. He only stood rooted for a second and a half. Then he strode forward and threw open the window.

“Doctor Meadows!” he yelled into the rain. “Doctor Meadows, come back! You’re making a terrible mistake!”

At the end of the block he caught a swirl of black, in which stars seemed to glitter, disappearing around the corner. The only reply was a defiant laugh.

Actually, it was more of a nasty snicker.

“Let me suggest the Northern Lights,” the waiter said in excellent English. “It is the spécialité de la maison. It provides a most mellow experience, and one that you can fully enjoy here in our establishment. The Red Lebanon is also excellent, but I must warn you, it is best sampled in the privacy of your hotel or living quarters. And, of course, you will please remember not to operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of any of our fine smokables.”

Lynn Saxon sat back with his arms folded and a cool little smile under his military mustache. Helen Carlysle had her neck at full extension, holding her head over the box the waiter proffered on a silver tray but as far away as she could and still examine its contents, as if they were live but exotic bugs. Gary Hamilton peered carefully inside.

“I think I’ll try the Northern Lights,” he said.

“Very good choice, sir. I will bring a selection of pipes.”

The waiter went away. Hamilton sat back, flushing on his prominent Slav cheekbones. He had on a cream-colored sport jacket over a blue polo shirt with the collar loose around his thick neck. In the smoke-filtered light from the discreet cut-crystal light fixtures, his blond hair appeared to be thinning in front, just a shade. In general he looked like a failed college jock who was just waiting to develop enough of a beer gut to be credible as a football coach. Helen Carlysle stared at him in disbelief.

Saxon leaned his elbows on the table and peered into the candle in its amber-glass vessel in the center of the table. With his dark eyes and hair he looked like an apprentice Gypsy fortuneteller practicing to look mystical for the gadjo. He wore a black-and-red soccer jersey and one of those long duster coats, black with white flecks, that had been popular with the hip-hop crowd a couple of seasons ago.

“So when does Meadows show up?” he asked the flame. Then he spoiled the effect by glancing quickly at Helen in her blue-and-silver yuppie skirt-suit to see if she was buying it.

“Mind if I sit down, Ms. Mistral?” a voice asked.

She started, as if the name had stung her, turned in her chair. “Major Belew,” she said. “Ah … please. Do sit down. And it’s, ah, it’s Helen Carlysle. Or Ms. Carlysle.”

The newcomer nodded and sat. In his dark-blue three-piece with the conservative pinstripe, he looked far more one with the scene than the other three Americans. The Café Northern Lights of an evening was a dignified, hardwood-paneled sort of place, where a man might sit and sip his coffee and peruse his Neudeutsscher Zeitung and choke some hemp in congenial surroundings.

“Certainly, Ms. Carlysle. I wasn’t sure whether your ace name might be what the Japanese call bashō-gara, ’appropriate to the circumstances.’ You can dispense with my title, too, by the way. Plain Mr. Belew is fine. Or Bob — J. Robert to my friends, whom I’d be honored if you’d count yourself among.”

“Mister Belew,” she said.

“The elusive fourth man arrives,” Lynn said, sitting back in his chair.

Belew nodded. “We can play bridge now, if that’s what you were waiting for.”

“What’ve you been up to?”

“Going to and fro in the Earth, and walking up and down ’in it.’” He looked from one agent to the other. “The Dutch are mightily ticked about that little shooting spree in the Damplein yesterday. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it?”

Helen bit her lip. Hamilton glanced quickly at Saxon. His buddy just kept steady eyes on Belew.

“They can’t prove anything,” Hamilton said sullenly.

Saxon laughed suddenly. “These fuckin’ Dutch. They’re in a war, and they don’t even know it.”

“They’re operating under the quaint illusion that it is their country. And their cops aren’t as fat and sleepy and complacent as they look.”

Saxon looked at him with apparent shock. “Then what about all this?” he demanded, taking in the hash café with a sweep of his hand. Heads raised at the American shrillness. “Look at this shit. They’re selling smoke in public. The cops do nothing.”

“They have a tradition of tolerance hereabouts.”

“Well, excuse me. But we’re the American DEA. And we have a new tradition of tolerance: zero tolerance.”

“It’s the New World Order,” Hamilton said.

“It’s still hard time for assault with a deadly weapon if they make you for it.”

Saxon leaned forward. Small points of light glittered in his black eyes. “Hey, I thought you were Captain Combat. Real hardcore Nam vet. Cowboy for the Company. All that jazz.”

“Nobody calls it the Company except in the movies. They say the weapon used in yesterday’s attack was a Czech Skorpion, or something very much like it. Tell me, Agent Saxon, just where is your sidearm? You have it on you? Of course you do; you sleep with your piece. I’ve seen your jacket.”

He turned to the other agent and plucked at his lapel.

“And I’ve seen your jacket, too, Agent Hamilton. That Miami Vice coat isn’t quite enough to hide your bulge, big boy. Well,” he said, leaning back, “all God’s children got guns — best-armed pot party in Amsterdam. Except, of course, for Ms. Carlysle?”

She was staring at the dark-stained hardwood tabletop and blushing angrily. “I don’t like guns.”

“Ah, yes. ’Guns don’t die — people do.’ Guns are evil, wicked, mean and nasty. Not benevolent, like ace powers.” He put his head to the side. “I remember your dad from, oh, my third tour in the Nam. Cyclone. Real kick-in-the-pants, that guy. Used to take your captured Charles up with him to, oh, about a thousand feet. If Charles didn’t want to talk to him then, your old man let him come back by himself.”

She gave a strangled tiny scream, like a snared rabbit. “No! That’s a lie. My father — my father would never do anything like that.”

“You know him best, I guess.”

“She should,” Saxon said, and sniggered. “She killed him.”

She went white and started to rise. Then she controlled herself with visible effort, settled back into the chair. For a moment she stared down at her hands, knotting and unknotting in her lap.

“It wasn’t me,” she said in a tight, tiny voice. “I’d been jumped. It … wasn’t me.”

“He’s a tactful young bloke,” Belew said cheerfully. “Would you like me to kill him?” Saxon was glaring at him when the waiter arrived with a selection of pipes for sale — health regulations forbade lending or renting them out to customers. Somewhat self-consciously, Hamilton selected one. The waiter laid out his hash, along with steaming cups for Lynn and Helen. Belew waved him off.

Helen Carlysle watched Hamilton prepare his pipe with wide hazel eyes that glittered with moisture. “I can’t believe you use that poison.”

“We’ve been exposed to it before, ma’am,” said Lynn.

He gave Belew a yeah, you were just joking, weren’t you? look and pried his eyes off him. “It’s called knowing your enemy.”

“I thought your Mr. Bennett said drug use was intrinsically wrong.”

Gary Hamilton paused with his pipe to his lips and his disposable lighter poised over the bowl. “It’s different for us.

“She’s as likely to be talking about your coffee as his hash, Saxon. She doesn’t approve of caffeine either. She’s a very natural kind of lady, our Ms. Carlysle.”

“You seem to know a great deal about me, Mr. Belew.”

“I read Aces magazine, like anybody.”

“We were just wondering why Meadows hasn’t turned up in the smoking cafés when you decided to grace us with your presence,” Saxon said.

“It was sheer luck that he’s been spotted twice,” Helen said.

Lynn Saxon frowned. “Don’t use that word, babe. It’s not luck. It’s professionalism. An Interpol stringer made him here initially — that was luck. We picked him up yesterday, just out cruising the streets. That was skill. The first team is very definitely on the job.”

Our sources say he hasn’t been anywhere,” Hamilton said, letting out a mouthful of smoke and coughing. “Nobody knows him at the clubs. Not Paradiso or the Melkweg or even the Hard Rock Café.”

“He’s had some pretty rough times,” Belew said, “or at least he did before he dropped out of sight for a year or two.

Maybe he’s just into being a homebody these days.”

Saxon laughed. “No way. These old hippies were definitely herd beasts. We got it all down to a science, Belew.

We got profiles of every major kind of dealer and user in existence in our computers, plus we got a whole database on Meadows all by his lonesome. Printout looks like the Manhattan phone book. No. I tell you, Amsterdam is the last great preserve of old hippie burnouts on Earth, and Mark Meadows has got to be out rubbing elbows with them. We just haven’t worked out where.”

“I’m glad you set me straight on that, Agent Saxon.” Belew grinned boyishly and smoothed back the waxed wings of his own impressive mustache. “Well, it’s a good thing our Dr. Meadows is on the distinctive side in appearance. Maybe third time really is the charm.”

He signaled for the waiter to come over. “I’ll take some of your best Lebanese — the real stuff, not what you palm off on the tourists. And please, spare me the lecture about operating a motor vehicle.”

When he came back to himself, Mark drew a deep breath and shuddered. His heart still thudded with terror, and it was more than just a carryover from having been the manic-depressive Cosmic Traveler. They had tracked him to his flat. It had just taken them a little extra time.

For some reason his memories of what the Traveler did during his hour of drug-induced life weren’t as clear as those he brought back from some of his other personas. It was just as well; he didn’t especially like the Traveler, and didn’t trust him at all. Traveler was selfish and totally unscrupulous and wouldn’t hesitate to abuse his ace powers if the opportunity arose. The fact that he possessed no offensive abilities whatsoever restricted his scope somewhat, but he was resourceful.

Bully and lecher though he was, however, Cosmic Traveler was a coward. A complete coward; it was the one reliable thing about him. He was endlessly ugly when he perceived himself as holding the whip hand, but a whiff of threat and he was gone with the wind.

By the smell of the air — grease and dust overlying open water — and the way the sound of his breathing resounded in the darkness, Mark decided Traveler had picked an IJ-front warehouse to go to ground in. Absence of lights or voices or subtler sensory clues indicated there was no one here. A certain stagnant quality to the air, a sense of intruding, gave Mark the sensation no one had come here for a while.

It didn’t surprise him. You could trust the Traveler to find a secure hiding place, even if that was all you could trust him for.

He felt with his hands. Cement floor, brick cool to the touch at his back. Slowly he stood up.

Squat masses surrounded him. By thin greenish light drooling in a nearby window he made out dormant machinery, angles rounded by tarps. Keeping his palms pressed to the brick, sliding his feet along the floor to lessen the risk of tripping over something and breaking his neck, he sidled toward the window.

Small rustlings receded from him. He smiled despite the adrenaline that still rang in his veins like a gong. The Traveler had been so obsessed with avoiding human contact that he’d forgotten to fear rats.

The window was so grimy that all he could see were big dim, gauzy balloons of light, as if he’d forgotten his glasses. He rubbed at the cool glass with the heel of his hand. For a moment all he did was redistribute grease. Then a patch cleared enough so that he could see a blue light blinking mournfully at the top of a giant crane out across the IJ, and a gibbous moon hanging like an autumn apple in the west.

He jerked back. Hey, now, it’s nothing to be afraid of he told himself. It’s only the nighttime sky.

It was like when he was a kid and he sometimes got scared to look outside at night for fear he’d see a UFO. What with his dad a big-time test pilot and all and the Air Force insisting that UFOs didn’t exist (except for the one Dr. Tachyon arrived in), it just wouldn’t do for him to see a UFO. Also, he was afraid of UFOs.

Except he had no fear of UFOs anymore. His best friend owned a UFO — a whole fleet of UFOs, now. He’d arrived back on Earth on a UFO. Besides, if he did have something to fear, this wasn’t the right sky.

But something inside him whispered, death. Death waits among the stars. It came from far deeper than the voices of his friends.

Just to be sure, he turned away from the window and slid down to the cold, hard cement floor. With his knees beneath his chin and his hands wrapped in the hem of his sweater, he settled in to wait out the stars.

Wherever the space between his eyes was, that’s where he went.