George Martin - Deuces Down

It looked more like a feature from the Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum. A diorama of the Swarm Invasion perhaps, or one of the more disturbing examples of the Monstrous Joker Babies. But Sam knew it would not be politic to say so. Not if he wanted to keep his job. “Um… could we do it as table placards?”

“As you like,” said Hastet. “I just showed my husband, and he said it would be perfect for Halloween.” She beamed at the mass of tentacles, then frowned. “But that’s not till Wednesday, isn’t it?”

Sam gestured to the patrons in costume about the restaurant. “People celebrate early.”

“Oh good.” She pursed her lips then. “I haven’t given it a name yet. I was thinking ‘Takisian Surprise,’ but given the last one, I don’t think that would sell.” Absently, she tucked a stray brown curl under her chef’s pepperbox. “Jay also said something about ‘Lovecraft’ when he saw it. But that would be for Valentine’s Day, wouldn’t it?”

Sam pictured Cthulhu got up as Cupid and was immediately sorry he had. “No, not exactly.”

Hastet rolled her eyes. “You earthlings have too many holidays.” She gave a grandiloquent wave of dismissal to the tentacle parfait, which Sam guessed to be the Takisian equivalent of ‘ Whatever .’ “I trust your judgment. Just let it speak to you.” With that, she slipped back through the arch to the kitchen, leaving Sam alone with the otherworldly hors d’oeuvre .

He leaned closer and gave it a wary glance, half expecting it to go scuttling across the table.

It was looking back. A nameless thing from the far depths of space. Bloodstone eyes watched below, flat lavender ovals stared above. Lidless. Unblinking. Alien. Sam wondered how it could possibly speak to him, afraid that it would.

Then it did: “Nice hat you have there.”

A lifetime of living in Jokertown had taught Sam that the most unlikely things could speak. Plants. Animals. Even the urinal in Squisher’s Basement. Things that had once been people, and horribly, on some level, still were, the wild card twisting their bodies into forms no longer even remotely human. But only rarely did they become entities as bizarre as Hastet’s new appetizer. “What?”

“I said ‘Nice hat,’” the dish of tentacles and avocado ichor repeated, its voice incongruously dulcet and feminine, albeit slightly annoyed. “Had it long?” Sam then realized that none of the squid were moving their lips, and unless the eldritch sundae were telepathic-always an option when dealing with victims of an alien virus-it was more likely that the speaker was someone behind it.

He sat up straight and looked past the sugar-frosted cephalopods.

The voice belonged to a woman. A nat woman to all appearances, mid-thirties but damn fine for all that, as petite or even more so than Hastet, with one of those figures you usually need corsetry to get, displaying it to best advantage in a tux shirt, black tie, swallowtail coat, black satin short-shorts, and cobweb-patterned black fishnets over stiletto heels. This ensemble was topped off with a top hat, worn over masses of Titian curls somewhere between Dr. Tachyon and the naturally vain girl from Peanuts. Accented with devil red lipstick and nails, the whole look said either stage magician or hooker, or something with the same effect thrown together for a semi-elegant semi-trashy evening of clubbing the Saturday before Halloween.

Sam heartily approved of the outfit, and the woman in it, and not just because his was almost the same, except he had the cobweb lace as cravat and cuffs, jeans instead of short-shorts, Does in place of stilettos, and slightly more gothic taste in nailpolish. And black velvet gloves, at least on his left hand. He tapped it to the brim of his own top hat. “No, just picked it up.” Sam felt a grin steal across his face as he took in the sights, since up close she looked even better than when he’d first noticed her an hour ago. “Nice threads yourself. Columbia, or Sally from Cabaret ?”

She paused for a moment. “No, Topper.”

“She was one of the SCARE aces, right?” Now that she mentioned the name, Sam could see the likeness. “’Cause if you’re supposed to be the guy from the old ghost movies, I never would have gotten it. But speaking of spirits, can I buy you a drink?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you old enough to drink?”

Sam grinned. “ID’s are not a problem.” He chuckled then. “Of course, if you’re Topper, you’d just pull whatever you want out of your hat, right? Get me a Long Island?”

She gave a strained smile. “I’d be happy to, assuming I had the right hat…”

Sam shook his head. “Nice try, but wrong answer. You got the costume perfect, but the real Topper can use any hat-top hats, bowlers, sombreros. And she never does requests.” Sam grinned further. “Besides, she retired that outfit when she quit the Justice Department.”

“Aces High is having a costume party. So sue me.” She put her hands on her hips. “So, how do you know so much about the ‘real’ Topper? Ace groupie?”

“Nah,” Sam shook his head, “someone donated a bunch of back issues of Aces! to the J-town orphanage. Topper was on the cover in the eighties. Had a pinup and everything.” Sam shrugged. “Haven’t made the cover yet myself, but we aces like to keep tabs on each other.”

She arched the same eyebrow. “New ace, huh?” Her eyes flicked over him. “So who are you then, the Artful Dodger?”

“That’s sort of the look I was going for,” Sam said, still smiling, “but actually, you can call me Swash.”

“Swash?”

“Well, it’s either that or ‘His Nibs,’ but even a goth can only be so pretentious.” He held up his ungloved right hand, which had been hidden behind his sketchbook. “Pardon me if I don’t shake, but I’m a little inky right now.”

He watched her eyes start, a pretty cerulean blue, as she took note of his hand, which was stained with that shade and several others beneath his hooked black-enameled Fu Manchu manicure. It wasn’t a joker, but it still had shock value, like an unexpected tongue-stud.

Sam laid his sketchbook flat, displaying the Art Nouveau letters and dancing pumpkins of the menu he’d been re-illuminating. He flexed his fingers, letting a drop of ink come to the tip of each split sharpened crow-quill pointed nail, glanced to Hastet’s nameless appetizer, then flipped to a fresh page and clawed down it. A twitch here, a slash there, a drop of the chartreuse of revulsion and the pale lavender of disquiet, and he’d pretty accurately captured his impression of the tentacular delight. He tossed in a few word balloons with the squidlets saying, “ Eat me! ” instead of “ Help me! ” then added a banner borne aloft by Cupidthulhu putti with a caption in dramatically dripping Salamanca script: “ Dare you partake of LOVECRAFT’S MADNESS? ”

With one more jig of his thumb, he signed it Swash . “See?” He used his gloved left hand to turn the book around. “Not just my ace name, but my artist’s signature too.” He blotted the nails of his right on one of Hastet’s no-longer-immaculately-white napkins. “Like I said, ID’s are not a problem.”

The woman applauded lightly. “Nice trick.”

“Thanks.” Sam grinned.

“Can I have my hat back now?”

He picked up his spare glove and slipped it on, sliding his fingertips into the special pencap sheathes. “Uh, you’re wearing it.” He shook his cuff so the lace fell properly, black cobwebs on black, stealing a glance up from beneath the brim of his own top hat.