John Miller - Death Draws Five

Ray looked at her judiciously in the hallway outside their rooms as he handed her the electronic key for her half of the suite. She took it from him, and managed to insert it into the lock on the third try. She opened the door and stumbled into the room.

“You’d better get some rest—” Ray began, and she closed the door in his face.

She thought about taking a shower, but barely managed to peel off her torn and bloodied fighting suit and slip off her sweat-soaked underwear before collapsing onto the cool, welcoming bed.

If she dreamed, she didn’t remember.

New York City: Jokertown

Fortunato ditched Digger Downs at Tomlin International as soon as they cleared customs and reached ground transport outside the terminal. He’d had enough of the man’s company on the long flights across the Pacific and over the country. He needed some time to himself, some time to think about his return to a land he’d left behind sixteen years ago along with a life he had no desire to renew.

Before getting into the cab waiting in line at ground transport, he took a few hundred in expense money from Downs, as well as a cell phone so they could keep in touch. Fortunato marveled at the slim piece of equipment before he slipped it into the pocket of his robe. Portable phones had gotten a lot smaller since the last time he’d used one, but Fortunato was sure that they wouldn’t be the only marvel to meet his eyes.

The cabby glanced up into the mirror as he pulled away from the curb. He had a turban and a long, thick beard, and he wore white robes. He spoke barely understandable English.

“Where to, Mack?”

It was, Fortunato reflected, good to back in the good old U.S.A. And that was the question. Where to?

“Manhattan,” Fortunato said. Who in New York, he pondered, did he still have ties to?

Peregrine. He had no idea where she lived or what her phone number was. Besides, she was still in Vegas with the boy. His mother was dead. Miranda...Veronica... the last he’d heard from her had been a telegram telling him of Ichiko’s death. He’d ignored it. He could hardly drop in on her now, even if he knew where to find her. There were others, but time had not been good to his friends, allies, and or even his foes.

Xavier Desmond, the one-time unofficial mayor of Jokertown and one of the best clients Fortunato had when he ran his string of geishas, had been dead over fifteen years. Cancer had taken him soon after that memorable round the world trip on the Busted Flush, right after Fortunato had taken up the monastic life.

Chrysalis, purveyor of fine drink and even better information, had followed Des into death not long after. Her Crystal Palace had burned to the ground.

The amiable Hiram Worchester, one of the aces Fortunato had been closest to back in the day, had gone down for her murder. Though not a lot of news had reached Fortunato while he’d been isolated in the monastery, that had, and it had shocked him. He understood that Hiram had retired from public life. Even his fabulous restaurant, where Fortunato had first met the unbelievably beautiful Peregrine and had commenced his final battle with the Astronomer, was no more.

Yeoman, whom he’d traveled with to the gut of the Swarm... there had been a bond between them born of mutual respect and shared danger. But as far as Fortunato knew there hadn’t been an Ace of Spades killing for a long time. He had no idea what had happened to his one-time comrade. They hadn’t exactly been swapping Christmas cards the last decade and a half.

Even Tachyon, the whiny little space wimp, was gone. He’d run back to Takis when the going had gotten tough. First he’d come to the monastery begging for help. Then he’d gone back to his own planet, trapped in a woman’s body, like... like a man running to a monastery on a distant and remote island, cutting himself off entirely from his old life. Cutting himself off from family, friends, lovers, comrades, and enemies. Cutting himself off from everything.

Christ, Fortunato thought, is that what it’s come down to? Unflattering self-comparison to that little alien Fauntleroy?

Fortunato stared out of the taxi window, knowing that he had to get out of the awful, self-pitying, introspective mood into which he’d fallen. It wasn’t doing him, nor anyone else, any good. He had—

“Stop,” he said suddenly, and the cabby took him for his word. He yanked the taxi’s wheel hard right and they squealed to a halt against the curb. The cabby thrust his head out the window and screamed words at the driver of the car behind them, who had swerved and barely missed side-swiping the cab, and was now going down the street with his hand sticking out the driver-side window, middle finger extended.

“Amateur!” the cabby screamed as his final insult. He caught Fortunato’s eye in the rear view window. “Your destination, Mack?”

Fortunato nodded. Even if this wasn’t his destination, he realized he’d better get the Hell out of that cab if he wanted to live through the first day of his return to New York.

“Yes, this’ll do.” He got out of the cab and nearly did a double take when he saw the fare. He counted off a couple of bills and added a ten. “Here you go.”

The cabby didn’t seem overly excited by a ten-dollar tip. Times had changed.

“Thanks, Mack,” he said, and roared off to his next adventure, almost clipping a passing Caddie as he pulled away from the curb.

Fortunato looked around. He should have been surprised to find himself in the heart of Jokertown, but he wasn’t. It was almost as if he’d been magically drawn to there. As if he were a pigeon who’d returned, almost unconsciously, to home territory. He smiled to himself. Jokertown hadn’t changed much. It was just as dirty as it had been in his day. Just as crowded. Just as damned funky.

He put out a hand to touch the curb-side glass and plastic phone booth that was plastered with handbills advertising the next rave at the Freak Zone (The Hottest New Joker Hang! Nats With Masks Welcome!). Pedestrians with too many or too few limbs, with fur, with feathers, with skin like leather, with skin like silk, with extra mouths, noses, ears, or eyes, passed him by without a glance. To the jokers he was nothing, just a tall, skinny black guy. Maybe a nat, maybe a hidden joker. Maybe strung out, maybe grossed out. It was all the same to them. They had their own problems.

He used to be Fortunato. Tachyon had once called him the most powerful ace of all. Once, they all would have known who he was.

He didn’t know where it came from, but sudden anger churned his gut as if he’d ingested a five-star curry. He knew it wouldn’t go away, so instead he focused on it to the exclusion of all else, building a pyre that burned hotter and hotter until he could incinerate all the frustrations of the last day.

The last day? he asked himself. How about the last sixteen years?

“Hey, old man, what you doing?”

The voice was young, careless, and uncaring. It tore Fortunato from his standing meditation to the dirty, noisy present of the Jokertown street. He focused his eyes on a group of kids standing around him. There were half a dozen of them. They weren’t threatening, but Fortunato had the sense that they could be, in a heartbeat. All the pedestrians around them had suddenly faded from the scene. Their innate urban dweller senses perceived imminent danger and they either crossed the street or turned and retraced their steps when they saw the knot of juveniles surrounding the lone man.

The kids were all jokers. Some, like the slag-faced hulking giant who stood behind the speaker, were severely marked. Others, like the speaker himself, whose only visible abnormality was a rather attractive pair of feathery antennae that sprouted where his eyebrows should have been, were only touched by what was still regarded as the taint of the wild card, even after all these years.