Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

"'Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men….'" Josh intoned.

"Beats me, but it sure as hell isn't the police." I took out a cigarette and used a tiny will-o'-wisp as a lighter.

I didn't even have time to take a puff before the bomb's envelope went up in a flash of blinding white fire. We hit the planks just as a second explosion blew, louder than the first without the water to cushion it.

Once my eyes cleared from the dazzle, I saw what was left behind: the piling, cracked through and bent sideways. Small flames licked at the tar-soaked wood.

"Oh shit," Josh said.

Oh shit was right. I totally lost it and my St. Elmo's went up like a beacon. I got to my feet, bristling with energy, and moved away from Josh and Flattop so I wouldn't run the risk of killing them too. My mind went into overdrive as the pieces clicked together. The dripping envelope. The magnesium flare. The blast.

"The tide's the timer," I said. "We've got to disarm the suckers before the water gets high enough to finish the job." One of the things I'd learned was that bombs got a lot more powerful the greater the resistance around them. Anything that could crack a piling on the surface could shear right through underwater.

I could feel where the other cannisters were taped to the pilings, but they were too far down for me to reach. But Flattop — I swear, the man could literally hang upside-down by his toes. His Exacto knife made short work of the duct tape, and he came back up with a bomb, the envelope-fuse thankfully dry.

It was hard, but I pulled the St. Elmo's fire back inside myself, then gingerly pried the envelope loose from the tape. Underneath was a strip of grey metal, the end leading to a hole drilled in the upper edge of the canister. The seam where the halves fit together was carefully tarred shut, waterproofing the ensemble until the tide did its work.

I slit the envelope with my penknife. Inside was some glittery powder. I dropped it into the water and it went up in a flash of white fire.

Pete touched the metal strip. "Magnesium."

I nodded. "In the powder too." I carefully pulled out the wire, then got out my penknife and pried apart the halves of the canister.

Black and grey flecks drifted free, dancing in the ocean breeze. Just like I thought, someone had run film through a coffee grinder. Messily, since there were a few larger chunks and snippets mixed in.

I took out one of the largest and held it up to the moon. The film was scratched, but the image was still clear: Jane Russell and her bosom got up in a western outfit. I slipped it in my pocket and closed the canister.

The fuse was simple stuff with a formula out of any chemistry textbook: three parts ammonium chloride, three parts ammonium nitrate, and three parts powdered magnesium. Stuff you could get at any hardware store, nursery, or chemical supply company. The same with the magnesium strip. Or the whole ensemble could be found in the special effects department of a movie studio. It was the Jekyll and Hyde formula: The mad scientist pours a vial of tap water into a beaker with a dusting of the powder in the bottom and a photogenic flare goes up. Add magnesium wire and some cannisters of nitrocellulose and you could kiss the entire Santa Monica pier goodbye.

Flattop collected the remaining film bombs and we took them back to the trunk of my car. While we did that, Josh used his jacket to beat out the flames on the one demolished piling. Do you find it suspicious that the police never came to investigate the explosion? So did I, which is why we didn't call them.

"Jesus, Nick," Flattop said as I locked up the trunk, bombs carefully defused. "I never knew you were an ace. And man, not just any ace … you're Will-o'-Wisp."

"Shut up," I snapped. "You don't know what you're talking about. You got rid of the bombs, and you didn't have to kill three people to do it."

"But, Nick — "

"Let him be," Josh said and Flattop shut up.

I was really rattled. I'd only killed once in my life — before I'd figured out how to measure my charges — and I'd sworn I'd never do it again. Guns and explosives were something I'd never really taken into account. A private detective doesn't make his living by getting in fire fights, and the bastards I'd dealt with before had been into baseball bats and nailed boards.

And I'd just blown my cover. There were now two people who knew I was Will-o'-Wisp. And one of them was a nat and the stupidest blabbermouth I'd ever met. Josh's speech under the pier should have won the Oscar for idiocy.

"Josh, please. You can't tell anyone this." I fumbled with my keys, not making eye contact. "You've got my life in your hands."

"Don't worry." He patted me on the shoulder and helped me into the car. Ironic, isn't it? The drunk helping the sober man. "I was in New York the first Wild Card Day. I had friends infected with the virus. And I know what can happen to aces who get found out. Believe me, I know."

I don't know why I believed him, but somehow I did. And I didn't worry about it anymore. Maybe when you reach the breaking point, you find it's either that or go mad.

This is going to sound like the craziest thing, but it's what honestly happened next. Josh suggested we go to a party, never mind the load of bombs in the trunk, and Flattop and I thought it was the greatest idea in the world.

I don't know if we'd been invited to the Lawfords's that evening. It didn't matter — Josh talked our way in, we borrowed swimsuits, and it was like a dozen other parties. Marilyn and I flirted shamelessly.

Finally it got so late that everyone had to call it a night. Flattop and Josh hitched a ride with Trumbo, but someone needed to drive Tommy back to the dorms. I volunteered, being sober as usual, and Marilyn came along for the ride.

As soon as we left the party, my conscience and worry started back up, eating at my brain. I'd killed three men. Two people knew my secret. I was driving down the Santa Monica Freeway with the Goddess in the seat beside me and enough nitrocellulose in the trunk to blow up a pier. And to top it off, there was a sixteen-year-old sex maniac in my back seat giving a discourse on surrealism, metaphysics, and the need to break through mental barriers.

I think the effort it took to stifle my wild card was the only thing that let me keep my sanity.

Once we'd dropped off the boy genius, Marilyn said she wanted to go for a swim. Like I said, I'd gone to USC and had been on the swim team. I also had a key I'd never turned in and went and swam laps whenever I got stressed.

I'd kept myself in good shape.

The pool was in the basement of the athletics hall. It was like something from a De Mille epic, an old Twenties aquatic gymnasium with green tile around the edges and heraldic dolphins at the corners.

The ceiling was high above the pool, with windows along the sides covered with Wire grates, but the effect was more like stained glass than an athletics hall. And the light shone up through the water and reflected off the enamel, the patterns shifting and changing as you swam.

We were alone, and the pool was silent except for the echoes.

Marilyn took off her dark glasses and scarf and lay them on one of the chairs. I caught a whiff of her perfume — Scandal , I think — then she put an arm around my shoulders and I could smell the champagne on her breath. "Oh, Nickie," she laughed. "This is so silly. I forgot my swimsuit back at Peter and Pat's.

"Oh well," she said, "it's not as if we weren't born with swimsuits." Before I could stop her, she slipped away and stripped down to her bra and panties.

"Marilyn, no, you're drunk." I grabbed for her as she stepped back towards the pool.

I didn't get Marilyn. I got her bra.

She fell backwards with a splash, then came back up, her famous breasts bare in the water. "You're wicked, Nickie."