Card Sharks

by George R. R. Martin

  "Are you detaining me as well - until you talk to Mark?"

  "No, ma'am. At the moment, no formal charges have been filed. I'm sure you'll keep yourself available to us if we have further questions, but since Mr. Meadows knows you so well, I'm sure the whole matter will eventually be dropped. Still, I'm sure you understand why I have to do this."

  "I understand," Hannah answered. "Actually, I think I understand very well." There didn't seem to be much else she could say. Stone was smiling politely at her. Hannah took a deep breath. "All right," she said. "I suppose I don't have a choice."

  ****

  "I hate this," Hannah said. "I hate being suspicious of everyone I meet, and I hate even more the fact that it seems like the paranoia's justified. I hate being scared even worse, and that's what I feel all the time now. I'm frightened at what all this means."

  "You want to quit, Hannah?" Quasiman asked.

  Yes. "No," she said at last. "I guess not. I'm just ... well ..." Hannah frowned, then made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "Where's the ring?"

  Hannah hadn't thought the subtrefuge necessary, but suspicion seemed to be coming more easily now, and she'd worried about the way Ngo Dinh Yie had been staring at them, especially since Ngo's son had disappeared along with Durand. Once back in Saigon, she'd ask Croyd to find them a ring similar to Faneuil's. In the crowded warrens of that city, it had been easy enough.

  Quasiman had teleported back to New York with Faneuil's ring, while Hannah carried the false one.

  "Ring? What ring?" Quasiman said now. "Was I supposed to remember something about a ring?"

  An invisible fist seemed to grab Hannah's lungs and squeeze. "Oh, no ..."

  "It's a joke, Hannah," Quasiman said. He was smiling. "The ring's right here." Quasiman held out his hand. In the dim light of the nightclub, the blue stone and diamonds glittered.

  "That wasn't funny. Not funny at all," she said, but she smiled back at him. Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. She was still exhausted from the flight in and the confrontation at Customs.

  Hannah had thought herself half-crazy for being that devious. She told herself it was only a little test, to prove to herself that she was being ridiculous. She'd told herself that she was going to feel absolutely silly when she got back to New York and nothing had happened. Now she wondered whether she'd been cautious enough.

  She wished that this mysterious ace they were waiting for would hurry. Being in Jokertown was bad enough, but the Club Dead Nicholas wasn't exactly a place to inspire confidence. The Dead Nicholas had once been a crematorium. Hannah and Quasiman were seated at the table near the old furnaces, the walls of which had been taken out and turned into a large open grill, where a trio of demonic-looking jokers were grilling steaks and flipping burgers. Altogether too cute mechanical bats flapped and squealed through the dark recesses of the ceiling. Hannah's table was a glass-covered coffin, in which the corpse of a blue-skinned joker resided. Their waiter, a pale wraith wrapped in a gauzy shroud, had assured her that all the corpses were waxworks; Hannah hoped he was right. The blackened chicken she'd ordered had been tasty enough, but she'd only picked at it, her appetite gone.

  Hannah suspected she was the only nat in the place. She felt out of place and a little threatened despite the mask she wore - a foam rubber feline half-mask. Masks, in and out of fashion in Jokertown since the 50s, had once again become chic in the wake of the Rox invasion. Hannah didn't care for them. The faces twisted by the wild card were bad enough, but masks hid entirely too much. There was too much hidden about Jokertown already for her taste.

  "Your ... friend is ready for you." The waiter had drifted up to their table - literally. Hannah noticed that he had no feet underneath the ragged shroud. "If you'll follow me ..."

  Hannah and Quasiman followed the joker to the rear of the club and down a short corridor. He knocked on a door and nodded to them. "Go on in," he said.

  Someone opened the door. Hannah could see a room decorated in red satin wallpaper, dimly lit by a few lamps. The corner of a low table was just visible in front of a worn sofa. Quasiman went in first. The woman who'd opened the door greeted the joker, then looked at Hannah inquisitively. Hannah took off her mask and nodded to the woman.

  "Cameo," Quasiman said. "This is Hannah. We're ..." He stopped and looked distressed. "I've forgotten why we came," he said, looking from Cameo to Hannah.

  "It's okay," Cameo told him. "Father Squid told me most of it." Hannah could see how the woman came by her name: the cameo profile of woman, white on black, hung from a black ribbon around her throat. She had a man's fedora hat in her hands; it looked too large for her: worn, stained and dirty. "Hi," she said to Hannah.

  Her voice was soft and, like Quasiman's, somewhat shy, but there was hardness underneath. An angry sadness himg about her like a psychic cloak, and her large, dark eyes looked as if they had seen too much. This was a woman who would follow her own agenda, Hannah decided. She wasn't sure she was going to trust this Cameo. "Father told me about what's happened," Cameo continued. "He said you think there's a group of people out to hurt the jokers. The fire ... it was a horrible thing. I think nearly everyone in Jokertown lost someone close to them that night. I ... well, I'll do what I can." She sat on a small couch next to the table, and gestured for Hannah and Quasiman to take two chairs on the opposite side.

  "You really can do this?" Hannah asked. "You can talk with a dead man through his ring? I can ask you the questions I need to know?"

  Cameo shook her head. "You ask him yourself. I become him."

  "I'm looking for anything Faneuil knows about a man called Pan Rudo." Hannah stopped, her eyes narrowing. Cameo's mouth had opened slightly, as if she were about to speak, and she twisted the fedora in her hands as if it were a washcloth. Then the woman recovered, and an inner veil seemed to draw across her eyes. "You'll really be Faneuil?" Hannah finished.

  "For as long as I'm wearing the ring. If he were an ace, I'd have his powers. That's why ..." Cameo stopped, swallowing hard, and Hannah could see the pain again, closer to the surface. "That's why Battle thought I'd be so useful on the Rox."

  "George c. Battle?"

  "Yeah. That's him."

  The same people, all the time.... The fear that had haunted her in Vietnam returned to Hannah. "You were there working for him? You fought against the jokers?"

  "I've been lots of people." Cameo said. The fedora slapped her thigh angrily. "Every last one of them had done something at some time that they weren't proud of. I guess this was my turn. Battle used me and lied to me, but I was still stupid enough to go along with him in the first place. It'll be a long time before I forgive myself."

  "That's what someone who was still working for them might say."

  "It might be." Cameo spat out the words, staring at Hannah. The woman held out her hand. "So where's this ring?" she asked.

  Hannah was no longer sure if she wanted to go through with this. But before she could move or speak, Quasiman handed Cameo the ring. Cameo placed the ring on her finger and fisted her hand around it. She threw the fedora on the coffee table, sat heavily on the couch and closed her eyes, leaning back. Hannah waited, not quite knowing what to expect. Would this Cameo change her appearance? Would, she speak in Faneuil's voice like she was possessed? Quasiman and Father Squid had both been vague on the details of this summoning. Hannah shifted in her seat, uneasy.

  Cameo's eyes opened. She uncurled her hand.

  "Faneuil's not dead," she said.

  Quasiman snorted. Hannah felt like she'd been kicked in the stomach. "You're sure?"

  Cameo nodded. "There's a lot of personal energy in this ring. I can feel it. When you wear something all day, every day; when you use something so much that it becomes part of you - then some of your energy gets locked up in the item. That's not so unusual a belief either; that's why a lot of so-called 'primitive' cultures are careful about how they dispose of hair clippings and even excrement: what was once part of you is always part of you. When a perso
n dies, I can use the emotional matrix embedded in a physical object to bring them up. I think ... I've kind of imagined that the ego barriers are gone then. But while they're still alive, the person is too strong, too connected to their body. I can't do anything with the energy, even though I can sense it. This is the same - whoever wore this ring is still alive, somewhere."

  Hannah looked at Quasiman. The hunchback was looking at her, waiting, with a trusting gaze. "You knew that, didn't you, Hannah?" he said. "You weren't convinced he was dead."

  "I wondered, yes. But ..." Hannah frowned, looking at Cameo. "Pardon me, but how do we know you're telling the truth?"

  "Why should I lie?"

  Because you worked for Battle. Because even though my instincts tell me that you're genuinely sorry, I don't trust anyone anymore and my stomach's killing me and I can't sleep nights. Hannah didn't say it, she only stared. That was a standard procedure in interviewing: wait. Most people hate silence. Sometimes they filled it with things they might otherwise not have said. Cameo either knew that or was an exceptionally patient person. She returned Hannah's gaze openly, keeping the eye contact far longer than Hannah expected. Finally Hannah sighed and stood up.

  "Thank you, Cameo," she said. "You've given us a lot to think about."

  "You don't like me, do you?"

  "I don't know you." Hannah held the woman's gaze without blinking. "But I don't trust you."

  "I don't trust anybody, either. Except the dead." Cameo picked up the hat again, placing it on her lap.

  "I prefer people when they're living. Come on, Quasi." Hannah started toward the door. Quasiman stared at Cameo for a long minute, as if he were seeing something in her face invisible to Hannah.

  "He Wanted to help," he said to her, and then limped after Hannah. Cameo reacted as if she'd been hit in the stomach. Her face went as white as the cameo at her throat. Hannah reached the door and opened it.

  "Pan Rudo," Cameo said behind them.

  The name was like an incantation. Hannah shivered, as if someone had just brushed her spine with a finger. She turned.

  Cameo's fingers crumpled the fedora's rim. "Pan Rudo. Card Sharks. They're what you're looking for, right?"

  Card Sharks; the words sent an icy finger down Hannah's spine. "Yes," she managed.

  "You going to see Rudo again? You going to tell him about what you know?" When Hannah didn't answer, Cameo smiled grimly. "Hey, it's a fair question. You asked me about Battle. And I don't care if you have Quasiman and Father Squid fooled, you're still a goddamn nat."

  Hannah nodded. She knew that without Croyd's tale, she would have gone back to him. She would have told Rudo everything. But not now. Croyd hadn't seemed to be the most stable of personalities, but his reaction to Rudo's name had been genuine, and there'd been no reason for him to lie.

  Just as there was no reason for Cameo to lie about Faneuil. "All right," Hannah answered. "No. That's your answer. Rudo may be the one responsible for the fire. So ... do you know him?"

  "Not me. A ... friend. I brought the hat along because of that, because of what Father told me when he called. Kept me up all night, and I spent today trying to decide whether I was going to come here or not. Trying to decide whether I'd tell you or not. I'd even made up my mind that I wasn't going to ..." Her eyes were bleak, and Hannah had a sense of the frailness and vulnerability that lay under the woman's surface. "One of the side effects of my ... gift" - she said the word like it was a curse - "is that I experience vicarously everything the person I summon has experienced. I get to know my people very well. Too well, sometimes." She picked up the fedora and placed it on her lap. "This is Nicky's hat," she said. "He knew Rudo. And he ... he ..."

  Tears had gathered in the young woman's eyes. Hannah waited. On the couch, Cameo took a deep breath. "I'll let him tell you," she said.

  Cameo put the hat on her head.

  "Cursum Perficio"

  by Kevin Andrew Murphy

  It's kind of hard for me to talk about the past. I mean, I know it's the past, that it's 1993, not 1962, but it's hard to come to grips with, you know? Like being dead. And waking up in a woman's body. And knowing the woman who killed you is out there, somewhere, with your son.

  But let me tell you my story. It all took place so far away from here and now, you might as well think of it as an old movie. Fade in. Superimpose title: Hollywood, California. February 15, 1962. Orson Welles's office, the Fox lot.

  I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me, and took off my fedora. The one I'm wearing right now, though it was new then. But even in '62, it was still the only thing about me that looked the part of the private investigator. The rest looked like central casting had got mixed up and sent out for a hero for some Viking flick: six-three, blond hair, blue eyes and a California tan. A Malibu Seigfried, and since it's bad luck to speak ill of the dead, I'll say I was pretty darn good looking, not that it matters now. It would have been a liability any other place than Hollywood, but snooping around the studios, everybody took me for just another nowhere actor and didn't give me a second glance.

  Welles sat behind his desk, trying to grow a beard over his baby fat. He leaned over and stabbed the intercom with a pudgy finger: "Hold all calls, Agnes." His face had the same jaded and disturbed look he'd worn in Citizen Kane.

  There was one of those nasal voices you only hear in movies: "Right-O, Mr. Welles." Central casting had done their job with the receptionist at least.

  "Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Williams. This should take a while." He gestured to an overstuffed leather armchair and I sat down, perching my fedora on one knee. "Nice hat," he added. "Makes you look the part. Cigar?"

  "Cigarette, thanks." I took one from the box he proffered and accepted a light, though passed on the burgundy he held up next. If I got tipsy, I'd start glowing with St. Elmo's fire; I said I preferred not to drink on the job.

  I guess I can safely admit it now that I'm dead. I was one of those "hidden aces" McCarthy was talking about. Had been since my sophomore year in college when I stepped out of the pool and into the high voltage cord for the floodlights. I got electrified. It wasn't fatal, just permanent. Two days later, I found I could toss around balls of lightning and light myself up like a Christmas tree. I did my best not to, grounded my excess, and went on with my life, which led roundabout to detective work, though that's another story.

  Welles took a swallow of burgundy and a long pull on his cigar. "You know Wally Fisk, Nick?"

  I shrugged. "Not much. Good detective."

  "Bit of a bastard too," Welles finished my unspoken thought. "He was working for me."

  "Was?"

  He flicked his cigar ash to indicate the past tense. "He went mad."

  I didn't bother to echo him this time, just waited until he filled in the rest. He was paying, after all.

  "Stark, raving mad," Welles said finally. "Torched his apartment, burned his files and ran around screaming that everyone was out to get him. They got him before he could top it off with a suicide. He's in the lockdown ward at County General.

  "Yesterday he was sitting in the exact same chair you are now, saner than most people in this town." Welles took a long pull on his cigar and let it out slowly.

  He watched the smoke as it drifted toward the ceiling. "Will you take over?"

  "Depends on the case."

  Welles smiled. "Smart man. Wally was hired to protect my film. If he'd turned up dead, I'd at least have some of my suspicions confirmed. This ... I don't know. I've never had a detective go mad on me before."

  "I'm sure it wasn't anything he'd planned." I took a puff on my cigarette. "Did he find anything that would make him snap?"

  Welles shrugged. "Who knows? He torched everything he hadn't turned into me already."

  "What was he protecting?"

  "Blythe." Welles said it more like he was invoking a goddess than saying the name of a woman or a film.

  I just took a drag and waited until he continued.

  "I got the scr
ipt from Dalton Trumbo." Welles took a long sip of burgundy. "It's the story of the Four Aces, focusing on the House Committee on Un-American Affairs. Picture it in all its sordid glory." His voice was the showman's now, ringing through the office as he sketched pictures in the air with his cigar. "Dr. Tachyon as the Lost Prince. Black Eagle as Othello. Jack Braun as Judas and Senator Joseph McCarthy as Torquemada. And Blythe Van Renssaeler as the beautiful, doomed madwoman."

  I knew about as much as any wild card about the Four Aces. They'd been the few lucky ones the first Wild Card Day, and Archibald Holmes had got them together as the Exotics For Democracy. Black Eagle, who could fly. David Harstein, the Envoy, sort of a Shylock with a conscience, who could get you to agree to anything, no matter how bizarre. Blythe Van Renssaeler, Brain Trust, who had the world's greatest intellects all within her own mind.

  And then there was Golden Boy, the strongest man in the world, who'd told everyone's secrets to the Committee on Un-American Affairs in exchange for a thank you and thirty pieces of silver. Black Eagle flew away, Tachyon was deported, Holmes and Harstein were sent to prison, and Blythe Van Renssaeler went mad and died in an insane asylum a few years later.

  And Jack Braun got to go on being an indifferent actor, in between busting heads for the government.

  Welles swirled the burgundy in his glass, contemplating the color. "You come recommended as someone both thorough and discreet, and not overly worried about danger, so long as you receive adequate compensation."

  It was a leading statement. "Who did you hear that from?"

  "Kim Wolfe."

  I know I blushed, and I was hard pressed to keep from topping it off with St. Elmo's fire. A detective does a lot of questionable things in his profession, and I think the worst thing I ever did was take pictures of Jack Braun with his wife's pretty girl dermatologist. It got her a divorce and me a down-payment on my house. In celebration, Kim Wolfe tried to get me into bed.

  They should have stayed married. They deserved each other.