George Martin: Jokers Wild

The man took her suitcase. Jack yelled helplessly. Cordelia smiled. Then the man took her elbow and steered her toward a near-side exit.

"No!" It was loud enough that even Cordelia turned her head. Then she looked puzzled briefly, before continuing toward the exit at the behest of her guide.

Jack uttered a curse and started to pull and shove people out of his way as he tried to cross the waiting area. Nuns, jokers, punkers, street bums, it didn't matter. At least not until he fetched up against the bulk of a joker who looked to have the general shape and about half the mass of a Volkswagen Beetle.

"Goin' somewhere?" said the joker. "Yes," said Jack, trying to move past.

"I come all the way from Santa Fe for this. I always heard you people here was rude."

A fist the size of a two-slice toaster grabbed Jack's shirt lapels. Fetid breath made him think of a public restroom after rush hour.

"Sorry," said Jack. "Look, I've got to get my niece before a son-of-a-bitching pimp steals her out of here."

The joker looked down at him for a long moment. " I can dig it," he said. "Just like on TV, huh?" He let loose of Jack, and the latter scooted around him like rounding the flank of a mountain.

Cordelia was gone. The nattily attired man guiding her was gone. Jack got to the exit where the two had presumably left. He could see hundreds of people, mainly the backs of their heads, but no one who looked like his niece.

He hesitated only a second. There were eight million people in this city. He had no idea how many tourists and jokers from all parts of the world had flooded into Manhattan for Wild Card Day. More millions, probably. All he had to find was one sixteen-year-old from rural Louisiana.

It was all instinct for the moment. Without thinking further, Jack headed for the escalators. Maybe he'd catch up with them before the man and Cordelia got outside. But if not, then he'd just find Cordelia on the street.

He didn't want to think about what he'd tell his sister.

Spector hadn't slept. He picked up the amber bottle of pills on the bedside table and dropped them into the trash. He'd have to find something stronger.

The pain was always there, like the smell of stale smoke in a seedy bar. Spector sat up and breathed slowly. The early morning light made his apartment look even grayer than usual.

He'd furnished the efficiency with cheap beat-up junk from pawnshops and secondhand stores.

The phone rang. "Hello."

"Mr. Spector?" The voice had the refined edge of a Bostonian. Spector didn't recognize it.

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"My name is unimportant, at least for now."

"Right." They were going to play cagey with him, but most people did. "So why are you calling me? What do you want?"

"A mutual acquaintance named Gruber indicated that you have certain unique abilities. A client of mine might wish to employ you, initially on a freelance basis."

Spector scratched his neck. "I think I see what you're getting at here. If this is some kind of a setup, you're a dead man. If you're legit, its going to cost you."

"Naturally. Perhaps you've heard of the Shadow Fist Society? It could be very profitable for you to work within that organization. However, they are cautious and would require a demonstration first. Would this morning be too soon?"

Word had it that the Shadow Fist Society was run by the city's anonymous new crime lord. They were leaning hard on the older gang bosses. Spector would feel right at home in the upcoming bloodbath. "I got nothing else to do. Who do you have in mind?"

"That's really of no importance to us." He paused. "Mr. Gruber seems to know quite a bit about you, and he's far from discreet."

"Fine by me."

"Be at Times Square at eleven-thirty this morning. If we're satisfied that you meet our needs you'll be contacted there."

"What about money?" Spector heard a buzz at the other end.

"That will be negotiated later. If you'll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Good-bye, Mr. Spector." Spector dropped the receiver into the cradle. He smiled. Gruber wasn't one of his favorite people. He never gave anyone a fair price for their goods. Killing a greedy fence would be something of a public service.

He walked naked to the bathroom and stared at the mirror. His stringy brown hair needed washing and his mustache was overgrowing his thin upper lip. Other than that he looked the same as the day he'd died. The day Tachyon had brought him hack. Spector wondered if he might not live forever. At this point, he didn't really care. He stuck out his tongue. His reflection didn't. It smiled at him.

"Don't worry, Demise," said his face in the mirror. "You can still die." It laughed.

He backed into the bedroom. The air was cold. There was a loud, crackling sound. Spector ran for the living room. The bedroom door slammed in his face. He smelled ozone.

"Now, now, Demise. I only want to have a little chat." Spector recognized the voice now. He turned. The Astronomer's projected self was sitting on the bed. He was wearing a black robe sashed at the waist with a rope of human hair. His crippled body was straighter than usual, which meant his powers were charged up. He was covered in blood.

"What do you want?" Spector was afraid. The Astronomer was one of the few people his power didn't work on.

"Do you know what today is'?"

"Wild Card Day. Everybody and his dog knows that." Spector picked a pair of brown corduroy pants of the floor. "Yes. But it's also something else. Its Judgment Day." The Astronomer knotted his fingers together.

"Judgment Day?" He pulled his pants on. "What are you talking about?"

"Those bastards who ruined my plan. They intervened with our true destiny. They kept us from ruling the world." The Astronomer's eyes gleamed. There was a madness in them that even Spector hadn't seen before. "But there are other worlds. This one won't soon forget my parting shot at those fuckers who got in my way."

"Turtle. Tachyon. Fortunato. You're going after those guys?" Spector clapped his hands softly. "Good for you."

"By the end of the day they'll all be dead. And you, my dear Demise, are going to help me."

"Bullshit. I did your dirty work before, but not now. You fucking left me hanging out to dry, and I'm not going to give you another chance."

"I don't want to kill you, so I'll give you one chance to change your mind." A rainbow of colored light began to swirl around the Astronomer.

"Fuck off, man." Spector shook his fist. "You're not going to make a fool of me again."

"No? Then I'm afraid I'll have to make a corpse of you. Along with all the rest." The Astronomer shifted into a jackal's head. It opened its mouth; dark blood flowed steaming onto the carpeted floor. It howled. The building shook with sound. Spector covered his ears and fell to the floor.

Fortunato called Caroline to, come for Veronica. Caroline could take her to his mother's townhouse, the official business address for the escort agency. Caroline, and half a dozen of the other women, more or less lived there. He hustled Veronica into her clothes and then left her nodding out on the living room couch.

Brennan said, "Is she going to be all right?"

"I doubt it."

"I know it's none of my business, but weren't you maybe a little hard on her?"

"It's under control," Fortunato said.

"Sure it is," Brennan said. "I never said it wasn't."

They stood and looked at each other for a few seconds. As Yeoman, Brennan was probably the only one of the costumed vigilantes running loose in New York that Fortunato trusted. Partly because Brennan was still human, unaffected by the wild card virus. Partly because he and Fortunato had been through some serious shit together, inside a monstrous alien that some people called the Swarm.