Wildcards - Jokertown Shuffle - Wildcards - Jokertown Shuffle Part 30
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Wildcards - Jokertown Shuffle Part 30

He's lost everything." He pointed at me, low, and chuckled.

I looked down. Blaise was right. I was naked, and where my genitals should have been there was nothing but smooth unbroken skin. I began to scream....

I was still screaming when I woke up.

"You'll take the message to Latham?" I asked Croyd. "Is it safe for you?"

Croyd shrugged. I could tell he was wired, red-eyed and ready to sleep. He looked like a pink-skinned bat on growth hormones-not a pretty sight. He'd come to the Rox since he didn't feel that Manhattan was safe for any joker any longer. It's a bitch, man. If I'd known Shad was gonna cause this kinda ruckus... "I can do that much, sure. I still think it'd be a lot easier to just get a whole bunch of us together and bust Tachyon."

"It's not that simple," I said. "You don't know the situation here. I have to be honest, Croyd. I've got a tower room all set up for you-hell, you're one of the joker heroesbut I can't say you're safer here than Manhattan."

"I'll take my chances," Croyd shrugged. Wing membrane rustled. "And I'll pay the rent, too. I make a hell of delivery boy; don't have to fool with traffic.

What's in the package?"

"Blackmail."

Croyd grinned. He flew off.

I hadn't been kidding. Whoever this ace was who'd wrecked our jump-the-rich scheme had left me one silver lining. There was now a lot of pressure on the authorities to hang someone for this. I was only reminding Latham that I had a lot of information regarding that scheme that would make his life very, very uncomfortable. Sure, he'd shrugged that aside once before, but there was a lot more heat now. I also let him know that none of that information would ever reach them if he could do me just one little favor-convince Blaise to let Tachyon go, or simply spring Tachyon himself. I knew Latham's thoughts, after all; I knew he detested Blaise as much as anyone. I knew that he feared Blaise as well. In my letter, I asked him what might happen to Blaise once they heard from Tachyon what had happened. Blaise, after all, was the visible head of the jumpers.

Croyd came back several hours later. "It's done," Croyd said. "Latham said that he'd take care of it."

I laughed, happily. Yes! I exulted. Soon, my love! Soon you will be free. It's done!

I'd done it. It had taken far longer than my worst fears, but at last this injustice would be over. The realization felt so good, so damned good. Even the colors of the Bosch seemed more vibrant.

Croyd looked at the painting, too, sighed, and rustled his wings, folding them around his wrinkled, wizened body. "Now, where can I sleep, Governor?" he asked.

Riders

by Lewis Shiner

The man was a Shinto priest, but in an attempt to satisfy everyone, he had worn a black suit and black turtleneck. There was enough March sunshine to make the clothing uncomfortable. He had visibly begun to perspire. "Dearly beloved," he said, with some sort of Asian accent, "we are gathered here today... to celebrate=" He stopped and looked down at the prayer book, puzzled. Then, looking horribly embarrassed, he flipped forward and started the service for the burial of the dead.

Veronica shifted uncomfortably on her metal folding chair, as did most of the small crowd of mourners. For Veronica, it was an attempt to keep from laughing.

Ichiko, she thought, would have laughed. But Ichiko was dead.

" I did not know Ichiko personally," the priest said, beginning to drone. "But from what I understand, she was a kind, generous, and loving soul."

Veronica wondered how he could go through with it, to stand there next to her coffin and issue platitudes, to sum up the life of someone he'd never met. She tuned him out and looked around once again, hoping to see Fortunato. Ichiko was, after all, his mother. Veronica had sent the telegram herself to the monastery on Hokaido where Fortunato had retreated. There had been no answer, just as there had been no answer to any of the other letters or pleas that had been sent him. All she saw now was sunshine, birds splashing in the puddles left from a morning shower.

In all, maybe a dozen people had shown up for the service. Cordelia and Miranda, of course, who had been with Ichiko to the end. A handful of former geishas.

Digger Downs, probably hoping for a glimpse of Fortunato. Three elderly men Veronica didn't recognize. None of Ichiko's famous clients, of course, could afford to be seen at her funeral. There were lots of flowers.

She looked at the old men again, wondering if one of them might be Jerry Strauss, in disguise. She hadn't heard from him since the previous fall, but it wasn't like Jerry to give up easily. It was Miranda who had told her about his ability to change his appearance, something he'd never let on about in all the time he was paying for her professional services. Still, if one of them had been Jerry, he would have been watching her. These three seemed to have trouble staying awake.

Then again, she thought, even Jerry might not recognize me now.

The transformation had started the night Hannah died, a year and a half before.

Hannah had become the thing Veronica lived for, the reason she cared what her body looked like, the reason she was able to wake up in the morning, the reason she went downtown everyday for her jolt of methadone mixed with sicklysweet orange drink. And Hannah had somehow, inexplicably, hanged herself in her jail cell before Veronica could get to her.

In the process of getting there, Veronica had learned something about herself even she hadn't known. Her sometime lover Croyd, temporarily spreading an infectious wild card virus, had given it to her. She had developed an ability that she didn't fully understand, that she had hardly used. It seemed to cause another person to become weak, helpless, devoid of willpower.

Even that power had not let her save Hannah's life. She'd left the police station and wandered back to the apartment she shared with Hannah and gone to bed, holding on to her cat and waiting and waiting for sleep. At three in the morning she came violently awake, sure that she was in danger. The police could find her there, and so could whoever had killed Hannah.

It was murder, beyond question. Some outside force had taken possession of Hannah in a midtown bank, while Veronica stood by helplessly. That same force had to be responsible for her suicide.

She packed a suitcase and put Liz in a cat carrier, and phoned for a cab. She waited in the shadows of the building's entrance until the cab arrived, then got in quickly and gave the address of Ichiko's brownstone.

Veronica had to go into Ichiko's bedroom and wake her up, which was more difficult than she'd expected. Finally Ichiko got out of bed and struggled into a kimono and took a few clumsy strokes at her hair with a brush. Veronica had never seen her without her makeup before. She had let herself forget how old Ichiko was, in her seventies now.

"I need help," Veronica said. "Hannah's dead. She killed herself-they say-in her jail cell." It was Ichiko who had sent her to Hannah in the first place, for drug counseling. "But she would never have killed herself. It's not like her."

"No," Ichiko said. "You are right. It is not her way."

"There's something between you two, isn't there?" A sudden pang of loss blinded her for a second. "I mean, there was something. You sent me to her, out of all the therapists in this city"

Ichiko nodded. "Years ago; she was part of a group, a feminist group."

"W O. R. S. E.".

"Yes. That one. She had decided to make us her target. She wanted to have her people follow our geishas on their assignments and make trouble for them, draw attention to them, embarrass our clients. There is no doubt she could have destroyed the business this way."

"When was this?"

"Seven years ago. Nineteen eighty-one. She had just joined the group. She had many problems, with her marriage, with drinking and drugs. She was not...

stable. She came to me and told me what she planned to do. She had not formally proposed it to the group yet."

"And?"

"And I gave her money not to."

"Hannah? You bribed Hannah?"

Ichiko held up her hands. " I made her an offer. A hundred-thousand-dollar anonymous donation to the organization. Enough money to keep them going for years. In exchange she would let me take my business apart slowly, in my own time, in my own way."

" I can't believe it."

"She was not the same woman then. When she brought in that donation, it gave her much power. She soon became president. That in turn gave her personal strength, let her conquer her private demons. There is no simple good and bad here."

"So the two of you stayed in touch."

"We shared that guilty secret. The guilt is mine also. I have done little to keep my end of the promise. Little until now. But perhaps the time has come."

"What about W O. R. S. E. ? Are you in touch with them? Could they help me?"

" I will try. But you are not safe here. Check into a hotel somewhere. Pay cash; do not use your real name. Tell no one. Call me tomorrow at noon. I will see what I can do."

Veronica did as she was told. The next day, Ichiko gave her a single name: Nancy. This was the woman who had arranged for Hannah's lawyer. Ichiko described her over the phone with typical precision: five foot three, long brown hair parted in the center, wire-rimmed glasses, small breasts, full hips. Veronica was supposed to meet her at Penn Station at three o'clock, by the ticket windows for the Long Island Railroad.

She stopped off for her methadone on the way. She still had a check from Ichiko in her purse, the check she'd been meaning to deposit two days before, when Hannah ...

Her numbness had started to wear off. The thought hurt her more than she could have imagined.

Finish it. When Hannah had gone berserk. Taken a guard's gun and started shooting.

The check would have to wait. She couldn't go back into that bank again, even if the cops weren't likely to be looking for her there.

Ichiko had said she was to be ready to travel, which meant lugging the suitcase and cat carrier with her. Liz hated being in the cage and squalled continuously.

The suitcase, full of winter clothes, was enormously heavy. She was tired and sore and sweating by the time she made it through the labyrinth of tunnels to the LIRR.

Someone touched her elbow. "Veronica?"

Ichiko's description had been carefully nonjudgmental. It had omitted Nancy's clear skin, her smiling Clara Bow mouth. No makeup, of course. Intelligent light brown eyes. "Yes," Veronica said.

"I'm Nancy," she said. "I'll watch your things. Get us two one-way tickets for East Rockaway. We can just make the 3:23."

Veronica bought the tickets and Nancy carried her suitcase onto the train for her. They got settled and Veronica opened the door of the cat carrier to stroke Liz, hoping to shut her up. "Where are we going?" Veronica asked.

"I'm putting you up at my place for the duration. You'll be safe there. Not even Ichiko knows."

"I don't know how to thank you. I mean, you don't even know me."

"Hannah knew you. That's enough."

Veronica noticed the past tense. "You've heard, then." Nancy looked away, nodded stiffly.

"I'm sorry" Veronica said. "I don't know you, I don't know what to say to you."

Nancy nodded again, and Veronica suddenly realized what an effort she was making to be polite. "You don't have to say anything at all."

They changed in Jamaica. The wind whistled through the open platform, and Liz huddled in a corner of her cage, crying softly. They boarded the Long Beach train in silence.

When the train stopped in Lynbrook, Nancy suddenly grabbed Veronica's suitcase and started for the doors. "Come on," she said. "This is us."

Veronica got off the train behind her. "I thought..."

"It never hurts to cover your trail. Carrying that cat around--somebody at the ticket window might remember you." They walked downstairs and crossed the street to Carpenter Avenue. Veronica had never been on Long Island before, and the sense of space made her uncomfortable. None of the buildings were over two stories high. There were lawns and vacant lots covered with trees and grass. The streets were nearly empty.

Nancy led her to a door in a row of tall, narrow woodframe houses across from the library. There was a dead bolt but no police lock or alarm system. They climbed two flights of stairs to a refurbished attic. There was a bed, a bathroom with a shower, a half-size refrigerator, and a hot plate. A huge leather-covered armchair sat by a lamp and a crowded bookshelf.

"If somebody comes along who's got a worse problem than you, we'll have to make other plans. Until then, you can stay. I'll do your shopping for you, at least for a while, until we see how hard they're looking for you."

"I've got money," Veronica said. Or she would have, once she could find a way to cash the check. "I can pay for the room."

"That'll help." Nancy stood up. "I'll get you some foodand a litter box for the cat-and then I've got to get back to the city. Will you be okay here?"

Veronica nodded. Her growing despair seemed to make the wood-paneled walls grow even darker. "I'll be fine," she said.

The priest droned to a close, and the coffin was lowered into the ground. Ichiko would rather have been cremated, Veronica suspected. Miranda had refused to hear of it. And she had come up with this bastard amalgamation of Shinto and Catholic for a funeral service. Miranda was Ichiko's oldest friend, and she was Veronica's mother, so she got her way.

They filed past the hole, and each threw in a ceremonial shovelful of dirt.

Veronica's dirt hit the coffin with a hollow whack. She passed the shovel on and went to stand by her mother. Miranda had walked well away from the others and stood with her arms folded, watching the driveway.

"He's not coming, Mother," Veronica said.

"He's Ichiko's only son. How could he not be here?"

"What do you want me to say? I could tell you maybe his flight was delayed.

Maybe he got held up in customs. But you know as well as me he just decided not to come. She's dead, there's nothing he can do."

Except, she thought, use his tantric powers to bring her back to life. A particularly nasty thought that she left unsaid. Miranda started to cry. "It's the end of everything. The business is closed down, Ichiko's gone, Fortunato might as well be dead. And you, you've changed so much..."

I must be getting stronger, Veronica thought. I can almost handle this. She put her arms around her mother and held her until the crying passed.

It had taken Veronica a week to settle in at Nancy's house. Nancy had gotten her a fake birth certificate, which they'd then parlayed into a driver's license and a bank account. Ichiko had rewritten the check with Veronica's new name on it.

With the money Veronica had Nancy buy her a portable stereo and a TV set for her attic cell.

She also got on a methadone program at Mercy Hospital. This was the biggest risk of all, but there was no way around it. It meant riding the bus up Peninsula Avenue once a day.

The hospital, with all its Catholic paraphernalia, seemed comforting to Veronica, an island of her childhood.

More and more she would find herself remembering her comfortable middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Miranda had been making a lot of money working for Fortunato, most of it going into savings. There was enough left over for a good-size apartment in Midwood, new clothes every fall, food, and a color TV Linda, Veronica's younger sister, lived in the apartment now, with her good-for-nothing husband, Orlando. Between Orlando and the smack, Veronica hadn't seen her sister in two years.

Nancy tried to talk her out of the trips to the hospital. It would be safer, she said, for Veronica to go back to shooting up. The words alone brought back the memory of the rush.

The floor seemed to drop out from under her like she was in a high-speed elevator. "No," she said. "Don't even kid around about it." What would Hannah have thought?

On her first Saturday night in the attic, there was a meeting downstairs. People showed up all through the afternoon, and the sound of movement and laughter filtering up through the stairwell only made Veronica's loneliness worse. For a week she had been cooped up there, seeing Nancy for no more than ten minutes a day. She lived for her short bus rides to the hospital, where she might sometimes exchange a few words with a stranger. Her life was turning into a prison sentence.

On Sunday, when Nancy came up to check on her, Veronica said, " I want to join the organization."