Card Sharks by George R. R. Martin

  "My father's friends won't care about street directions."

  "Wow - it says a mysterious black Cadillac turned a nearby corner and hit the brakes. It made an illegal U-turn and took off before the cops could get after 'em. I bet that was Lansky!"

  I heard a loud knocking, actually a pounding, on the outside door. Doc's footsteps went from his office to the back door and the knob clicked as he unlocked it. I figured it was his next appointment. Then I heard scuffling out in the hall.

  Fleur gasped and struggled to sit up. "What is it?"

  I ran to the door. When I opened it, Doc was falling to the floor, holding his hands over his beak. Henry van Renssaeler, his fists clenched, strode toward me, wild-eyed.

  "Where is she? Where is she, you joker scum?"

  "Hey -" I blocked his way, but he smacked me aside.

  He marched past me into the examining room. "Goddamn filthy joker's whore!"

  I rushed after him, but I didn't know what to do.

  "Thought you could escape me? You can never get away from me!"

  Fleur was staring at him, speechless.

  I overheard your little hero's question about going to the bank - and your answer! I sent one of the servants to catch up to you there and follow you. He tailed you here, then found a phone to report back to me at home. I was a little slow finding the place; I will not dirty myself asking jokers for directions. But you see, my darling daughter, you can't get away from me."

  "You're too late!" Fleur spat back at him. "You're too late, Daddy. You can see what kind of place this is. You won't have another child - not through me, anyway!" She started sobbing.

  I finally started getting the picture - the whole picture.

  "Quiet! Quiet, you slut!" He started toward her.

  "And he knows!" She pointed to me. "And now Doc has seen you - and the servant knows! Everyone will know, Daddy!" Fleur threw off the sheet and swung her legs over the side of the table. She jumped to the floor, but staggered dizzily.

  Henry leaped forward to grab her.

  I ran forward and hit his legs in a flying tackle. We both crashed to the floor. I grabbed one of his arms with both hands and tried to bite his wrist with my gigantic buck teeth.

  Henry screamed and jerked himself away, falling again. I had hardly had a chance to nip him, but he was acting crazy. He scuttled away from me with a horrified look on his face.

  Behind me, Fleur, who was still stark naked, snatched up her clothes, purse, and shoes in a bundle. She darted behind me. I backed out, still snapping idiotically at Henry.

  When we were out of the room, I slammed the door shut to delay him. Fleur was already jumping over Doc, who was lying in a daze watching us, as she headed for the door. Then I followed her out and pointed down the alley. I pulled her down behind some old oil drums being used as trash cans.

  While Fleur pulled her clothes on, I got down low and peered around the edge of an oil drum. Her father had stopped outside the door, looking around. He couldn't decide which way to go.

  "You ready yet?" I whispered, glancing back over my shoulder.

  "Almost. Gotta get my shoes on," she whispered back.

  Suddenly bright headlights swung toward us as a car turned from the street into the alley behind Doc's door. A long, shiny black Cadillac pulled up to a stop. As one of the rear windows opened, Henry trotted toward it.

  "It's Lansky," I whispered. "Or one of his lieutenants."

  "Oh, no!" Fleur scrambled up next to me and looked.

  As her father leaned down toward the open window, two loud shots snapped out, making the same sound as the guns in the warehouse last night. He crumpled to the ground.

  The Cadillac backed quickly into the street, paused to reverse gear, then smoothly glided out of sight.

  I got up, still in shadow, and looked at Henry van Renssaeler, U.S. Congressman. He was lying motionless on his back, his face a bloody mess. I thought Fleur might be upset, but she walked toward him, looking at him.

  "Is he dead?" she asked quietly.

  "Yeah." I came up next to her.

  She let out a long breath and sagged against me, crying quietly. When she spoke again, her voice was oddly strong. "They did it. All those self-righteous, stuffy, prim and proper know-it-alls, so perfect and good."

  "They had Lansky arrange it again."

  "Yeah. He was already scared. This morning he came into my room and yelled at me. I never saw him that scared before."

  "His own friends killed him?"

  "He didn't have friends, Chuck. Not real ones. He had business associates. I bet they arranged his death, 'cause he was in charge of their arson plot. The police might find a lead to him. Now he's a dead end."

  "Yeah."

  "Those people move fast."

  "Like I said, Lansky or his guys must have been in that Cadillac when they saw the cops breaking into the warehouse. So they knew the secret was out. But how did they find him here?"

  "That servant my father mentioned. He's probably in their pay to spy on him."

  For the first time, though, one mystery finally fell into place: why the daughter of a rich, powerful man had come alone to Jokertown for an abortion instead of seeking out the illegal abortionists available to the wealthy. Jokertown was the one place where her father had no business associates or social contacts who might have gotten word back to him.

  Maybe she had taken a measure of revenge on her father two nights ago by having sex with a joker. After all, I was just the kind of person her father hated most. She could not have planned on finding someone to wind up in bed with, but I remembered that she had not hesitated.

  Now it made a twisted kind of sense. I felt a sinking feeling inside. As I had suspected in the beginning, having a nat girl from her background truly like me was just impossible.

  "What about ... us?" I asked her timidly.

  "I have to go back and deal with my brothers now. We'll be inheriting stuff and dealing with lawyers and who knows what. I don't even know who my legal guardian will be."

  "I meant, uh, you and me."

  Fleur hurried around the body of her father, her ponytail bouncing. I hurried after her in the breezy darkness. She was heading quickly for the street and didn't look sleepy now at all.

  "Can't we talk?" I nearly had to jog to keep up with her.

  She didn't say anything. In fact, she didn't even wait to reach the edge of Jokertown before trying to hail a cab. Suddenly her steps grew wobbly and she staggered to her right, dizzily. I grabbed her arm and steadied her. We stopped by the curb.

  "I'll go straight home from here this time," she said quickly, still avoiding my eyes. She waved over my head and a cab suddenly swerved over to us.

  "I, uh, I love you."

  "Oh, Chuck." She finally turned her beautiful face toward me again. Tears came to her brown eyes as she looked at me. For one very long moment, she actually seemed to see me as a regular guy.

  Maybe that was the only second in my entire life that I actually forgot what I looked like - just for a fleeting second.

  Then Fleur broke the gaze. The cab had pulled up next to us. Without looking back, she yanked open the door and ducked inside the cab, slamming the door. The cab roared away up the street, taking her away forever.

  "... Never knew what I missed until I kissed ya. ...

  The Ashes of Memory

  2

  "You never saw her again?" Hannah asked.

  Tanaka shrugged, shook his head, blinked. "A little different than the movie version, huh?" he said at last. "All the names were changed. They wrote me out, of course, leaving Rainey as the hero who uncovers it all. The Fleur character was older and she got involved with the reporter, not some ugly joker. And they hinted at the incest angle without ever saying it, but there wasn't any abortion. It was really weird for me, watching Marilyn Monroe ... I always liked her, but this was spooky. ..."

  Hannah took a breath. "Why didn't Lansky ever try it again? If this group of people hated jokers so much,
why'd they give up their grand plan?"

  Another shrug. "I think the exposure in the paper scared them off. Rainey exposed the insurance scam, so that angle wouldn't work anymore. There wouldn't have been the financial payoff. That plus the murder ..."

  "Maybe I should talk to Rainey."

  "You'll need someone who does seances. He was killed a month later, found with a couple dozen bullet holes in a Jokertown gutter."

  "Did the police ever charge Lansky with the murder?"

  "You're kidding, right?" Tanaka sniffed. "They arrested two of his goons for it; they did a few years. Lansky was killed in the mid-sixties when he tried to muscle in on the Gambione family's holdings in Cuba."

  "So everyone's dead. Doesn't leave me much."

  "There's still a few around, but mostly that's right. Waffle never knew anything; besides, he's still just a street punk. Cheetah's not around anymore. Troll's over at the J-Town Clinic, he might talk with you, and Peter Choy, well, he owns this place now. You want to check with him, he'll be in tomorrow."

  Hannah shook her head. "Thanks for the information, but I don't think I'll need it." She reached for the recorder, recorded the date and time again, and switched it off. She closed her notebook and put it back in her purse. She got to her feet. She hesitated - c'mon, girl, you'd do it for anyone else after an interview - then held out her hand to Tanaka. When he didn't move right away, she quickly brought the hand back. "Thanks for talking with me," she said. "I appreciate your time."

  He stared at her from behind the glasses. "You think this has anything to do with the fire? I'm just curious," he added when she didn't answer. "After all, you came and asked me about the movie."

  "I think there are a lot of sick people out there," Hannah replied. "One of them hated jokers enough to want to burn down a church when there were a lot of them inside. I don't need a conspiracy for that. There's nothing similar in Lansky's plot and what happened a couple days ago. The simplest solution is that we have a lone torch, probably a psychotic."

  Tanaka blinked. His buck teeth gnawed at the flesh of his lower lip. "Nothing's ever simple in Jokertown," he said.

  ***

  "You talked with him?"

  The voice was eager and all too familiar and, once more, behind her. Hannah spun around on the street outside the Four Seas. Quasiman was looking at her expectantly, his head leaning against one shoulder.

  Hannah moved quickly back from him, scowling. "Do you have to keep sneaking up on me like that?"

  "I'm sorry, Hannah," Quasiman said. The hurt and apology in his voice made Hannah regret her irritation. She told herself it was only because the meeting with Tanaka had been such a waste of time. She wanted nothing but to get off the streets of Jokertown. By now, the lab should have had time to identify the accelerant.... "Did you meet Chop-Chop?"

  "Yes, I talked with him.

  "Then you know." Quasiman sounded relieved, as if he'd expected Chop-Chop's little tale to have convinced her of something.

  "I know there are people who hate jokers, but I knew that before. About the fire, I don't know anything else."

  "Chop-Chop wouldn't tell you?"

  "As far as I know, he told me everything. I just don't see that it has anything to do with the fire at your church. I'm sorry."

  "It all connects, Hannah. I've seen it; I just can't hold all the threads together in my head. I've been trying so hard...."

  "You keep saying that. If that's what you believe, that's fine, but you're on your own now. If you can see the future, then you should have seen yourself investigating this ancient link alone. If there's a connection, it's up to you to find it. I gave you my hour, and I'm done. Now go away."

  "But I can't, Hannah," Quasiman answered, and his voice was nearly a wail. "I can't. My mind ... it won't hang on to things. It's hard for me to concentrate. I'm not good at putting things together - too scattered." He reached toward her and she skittered backward, nearly colliding with an Asian woman walking past. A joker watching from the nearby bus stop cackled.

  "Just stay away, damn it!"

  "I need you," Quasiman persisted. "They need you, Hannah, all of the ones who died."

  She remembered the bodies in the ruins of the church, the twisted, black shapes. They all look the same once they're crisped.... Hannah stopped. "Quasiman, look at me. I'm one of those nats the jokers hate. I don't have joker friends; in fact, most of the people I know are wild card bigots. I've gone out of my way to avoid everything to do with the wild card since I came to New York. I ... I'm really uncomfortable around people like you. I don't want you to touch me; I don't even want you near me."

  "Father Squid said you have a kind face."

  "Father Squid has a handful of slimy tentacles for a nose. What does he know about faces? Now please leave me alone so I can do my job."

  Quasiman put himself in front of her. He stared at her. "If you did believe me, what would you do now?" he asked.

  Hannah sighed. "I don't know. I'd check out Tanaka's story. I'd look up the guy he called Troll, probably, just to verify -"

  Quasiman's face had lit up. "Good!" he exclaimed. "The clinic's this way. Hurry." The hunchback waved a hand at her, then set off down the sidewalk at a surprising clip, limping badly. His pants flapped strangely around his right thigh, as if most of the muscles that should have been there weren't. No wonder he's gimpy. Quasiman never looked back to see if she was following.

  "Quasiman!"

  The joker didn't answer. Hannah stood, hands at her sides. The other people on the busy street - an unsettling mixture of Asians and jokers - were staring at her. "Damn it," she said. "This isn't fair."

  But she followed.

  ***

  The connection didn't hit her until she saw the name engraved over the doors of the clinic building: BLYTHE VAN RENSSAELER MEMORIAL CLINIC. Hannah remembered history classes and documentaries about the wild card, and now strange echoes of those were awakened. She was walking in a world where figures lived and walked who had only been names in books and newspaper articles: the alien Dr. Tachyon, whose people had brought the wild card virus to Earth; Tachyon's ill-fated love affair with Blythe, the wife of Henry van Renssaeler, which had ended during the H.U.A.C. hearings with Blythe's insanity, back in the '50s. ...

  ... and now a joker named Chop-Chop had given her a tale about Blythe's daughter and Henry's plot to burn down Jokertown. Tanaka was right about one thing. Nothing is simple here ...

  Quasiman had stopped at the walk leading to the building. "Hey!" Hannah called. The joker looked back at her but there was no recognition in his eyes. He scowled at her and started to walk back the way they'd come. Hannah stepped into the grass to avoid him. "Shit," Hannah said. If she hadn't already been in front of the place, she would have left.

  But she went in, showed her ID, and asked the receptionist for Doctor Tachyon. Then she sat down to wait, finding a corner seat and putting her briefcase on the chair next to her so no one would sit there. She tried to pretend that she didn't take any interest in the carnival freak show that continually walked past her.

  "You're Agent Davis?"

  Hannah was startled from her reverie. A centaur in a white lab coat was frowning at her. She didn't know why that startled her so much - the clinic was awash in strangeness: a fish-faced joker with his head immersed in a globe of water was sitting across from her, a shape-shifting something that looked to be made of quicksilver had oozed from the clinic doors not two minutes earlier, and the far corner of the room writhed with what looked to be a quartet of upright forearms, the hands of which were having an animated and soundless conversation with one another.

  A human torso grafted onto a palomino pony's body shouldn't be so distracting. At least the centaur's upper body looked completely normal. In fact, that part of him was rather handsome. Hannah decided to concentrate on that. "Yes, I'm Agent Davis," she said.

  "I'm Dr. Bradley Finn. I'm afraid Doctor Tachyon is ... out of the country at the moment. The receptionist tol
d me that you also wanted to see Troll. This is his day off. I want you to know -"

  The centaur stopped. Looked down. One of the forearms was tugging at his rear left fetlock. Hannah could see little pseudopods at the bottom of the mobile limb. "Listen, Fingers, Dr. Cody will be with you in a few minutes, okay?" Dr. Finn said. The hand nodded like a hand puppet to Finn, then seemed to notice Hannah and waved. Feeling foolish, Hannah gave a quick wave back. Scuttling on the pseudopods, the arm went back to its companions.

  The frown came back to Finn's face. "One of your people was already here today, a Peter Harris, asking about the fire victims that were brought here."

  "You don't look pleased."

  "I'm not."

  "I'm sorry, Doctor," Hannah said. "I'm sure your main concern is the well-being of your patients. But you have to understand that we need information if we're going to catch the arsonist. And that means we have to talk to the survivors, even at times when we'd rather not bother them. I know that's usually not easy for them, and sometimes we're dealing with people in a lot of pain -"

  Hannah stopped. Finn was holding up his hand. "Hold on," he said. "I think we have things a little backward. Why don't we go into my office -" He escorted Hannah through the clinic doors, his hooves clicking on the linoleum. They passed consultation rooms, most of them empty in the early morning. Another doctor, a woman with an eye patch, crossed from room to room down the hall in front of them, nodding to Finn. The doctor's office held a normal chair sitting before an abnormally high desk. Finn waved Hannah to the chair and moved behind the desk. She could see that the furniture was built for his convenience, so that he could work without having to bend down or sit. Hannah pulled the tape recorder from her purse, along with her notebook. She showed Finn the recorder; he shrugged and she set it on the edge of the desk.

  "I wouldn't have minded if your man Harris had wanted to interview people," Finn said without prelude, glancing once at the turning hubs of the cassette and then ignoring the machine. "I could have understood that. But all your Harris did was check to see who we'd signed in. That's what bothered me. I actually asked him if he wanted to talk to them, but he just laughed. He didn't say that he had better things to do with his time, but he sure as hell implied it. What he did say was that he was 'following routine, that's all.' I asked him if he thought that maybe the death of a hundred jokers justified something more than just routine. He told me, and I quote: 'Not from me, it doesn't.' I don't take well to bigotry, Ms. Davis, and your Harris is, frankly, a jerk."