by Kyell Gold
“All right,” Marcia snapped, “enough. Come on, Jake.” She reached up to his neck and unbuckled the collar. “Go on home. I’ll be there soon. Though I don’t really feel like celebrating any more.”
She’d left his uniform unbuttoned. The possum noticed, and reached out quickly to pull the flap up. “Hey!” the rabbit said as he pressed one of the snaps together, restoring some modesty to the bound coyote. “Paws off!”
He looked at the gun and then looked at her over his glasses. “It’s not loaded.”
“I don’t care! Get away from him!” Her voice echoed shrilly through the lab.
The possum raised his paws and stepped back. “Okay, okay.”
“And you’re wrong,” she snapped. “I know exactly how lucky I am. Come on, Jake. Let’s go.”
He was almost afraid to try blinking, because the feeling when it hadn’t worked had been so terrifying. He looked at the space just behind Marcia and just like that, he was out of the restraints and standing behind her. Before she could register his presence, he grabbed the collar out of her paw.
It was a black leather strap with small electronics embedded all around it. One light was on, burning green. Jake held it to his ear so he could hear the hum of the electronics, though it was hard to hear over Marcia’s insisting that he give it back.
He dropped his paw to his side. “So,” he said, “let me get this straight, because I know I’m not as smart as you. For my birthday, you paid some guy to create a device that takes away my power and then kidnap me?”
Marcia had dropped the gun to the floor, and now folded her arms. “I was doing it for us,” she said. “I thought it could help with your…problem.”
Jake couldn’t find any words to make light of that. He could only look down at the strap lying across his paw, and back up to the rabbit’s brown and white face, now bearing a more placating expression. The change felt wrong, felt too fast to be sincere, and then he realized with a shock what he should have seen all along. She wasn’t just good at pushing away her hurt and guilt all those times they argued. She wasn’t hurt at all, because she didn’t care what he thought about her. She just wanted to keep him close and control him.
“It was supposed to be an adventure,” she said. “Remember, sweetie? You wanted a nemesis, more excitement…”
“Go home,” he said, interrupting her.
Her blue eyes narrowed. “I’m not leaving without you.”
He closed his paw over the collar. “I said, go home, Marcia.”
“Come with me.”
Not only did he not want to go with her, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see her again. The moment he let himself think that, he felt a huge wash of relief. To be able to live without being scrutinized, without being corrected, without being hemmed in, without having all his failings analyzed… “No. I don’t think I want to see you again.”
“You listen to me, Jake Kellin. You are not going to throw away everything we’ve worked for. All right, this evening didn’t go quite the way I’d planned it, but that’s no reason to…to…” He could see her trying to work up tears, but the build up was so obvious that when she squeezed one out of the corner of one eye, he was unmoved. “Please, Jake. I love you.”
Jake shook his head. “No, you don’t.”
She wiped the tear away, and there were no more. Her eyes flashed now. “Fine. I won’t beg any more. I’ll be home, and if you’re not there by midnight, then we are over.” When the coyote didn’t respond, she held out her paw. “Give me the collar.”
“Oh ho ho,” Jake said. “Not a chance.”
“I paid for it!”
“You should take better care of your things,” he said.
She lunged for it, and he tried to blink back without success. Damn thing, he thought as she grabbed the collar. He wrested it back from her without much trouble and pushed her back a foot. She glared at him.
“You do not want me as an enemy,” she said.
“I don’t want you at all,” he said, which was a bit of a lie, but not much.
She glared for another few seconds, then turned on her heel and marched out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
Jake let the reverberation from the slamming door die down before he exhaled and looked at the possum.
Charles stammered. “I…I was just doing what she paid me…”
Jake smiled. “It’s okay. I know.” He held up the collar. “Mind if I break this?”
The possum hesitated, then shook his head. “She paid for it. It’s not mine.”
Jake walked over to the metal stools and dropped the collar to the floor, where he stood and stared down at it. “What’s the point, though? You really built this in six months?” The possum nodded. “No offense, but I assume you’re not the most brilliant scientist in the world. So there’s got to be someone else who could do this if they wanted to. So what’s the point?”
Charles cleared his throat. “Well, actually, I was sort of exaggerating. You know, I was trying to be in character. I did it in six months because your, uh, friend kept monitoring devices in her apartment and fed me months of data on your ability. Anyone without access to that much data would have a much harder time replicating my results. So, uh, if you destroy that, then probably I’m the only one who could build another one. And you can have my notebooks if you want.”
“Thanks.” Jake brought the stool down on the collar over and over, until the delicate electronics were shattered. He picked up the leather strap and held it to his neck, then blinked across the room without any problem. “That’s that,” he said, and looked at the collar. “It’s a nice leather,” he said. “Maybe I’ll wear it just to remind me.”
“Of what?” The possum looked confused.
“Who to trust.”
“Oh.” Charles looked down and fidgeted. Jake waited until he looked up again, and saw the surprise come into his eyes. “You’re still here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Charles,” the possum said. “Goldstein. Dr. Charles Goldstein.”
“So you really are a doctor.”
“Oh, yes. Ph.D., electrical engineering. This isn’t really my lab. Marcia, uh, thought it was more ‘evil villain’ than my office.” He adjusted his glasses.
“Well, you know my secret identity now.” Jake sighed.
Charles blinked. “Oh, I swore I wouldn’t reveal it. I mean, I swear I won’t…you don’t have to worry about that.”
Jake smiled. “You know the weird thing? I trust you.”
“Thanks.” Charles looked away again.
Jake studied him. The possum’s tail was curled around his legs, and he was fidgeting from side to side. He tried to work out how he felt, himself. Even though his body was still warm from their kiss, it seemed like a long time ago. It would be easy to push it away and forget about it.
If he wanted to.
“So,” Jake said after a moment, “since you’re done working for Marcia, I guess you might have some time on your paws?”
“I do have a job at Mount Cedar,” Charles said, then hurriedly added, “but yes, yes, I should. Um, why?”
“You’d be a pretty good gadgethead,” Jake said. “I’d sure rather have you working with me than against me.”
Now Charles let his muzzle slip into a small grin. “Is that a job offer?”
“I can’t pay you,” Jake said. “Marcia had all the money.”
“Oh, I’d do it for free,” Charles said.
Jake smiled. “I was kind of thinking of making you part of the team, eventually.”
“Like, your partner?” Charles squeaked, and then clapped a paw to his muzzle. “I mean, um, sidekick.”
Jake laughed softly at the possum’s stricken expression. “Let’s say sidekick to start. But you know…I can’t believe this, but…I’d be willing to talk about terms, say, over dinner?”
Charles gaped at him. “After…”
“You couldn’t tell I was enjoying it? Hell, it surpri
sed me, too. I want to take it slow, but I’m interested enough to give it a shot. Even if it meant I would be the only guy in the League with a boyfriend.”
“You wouldn’t be the only gay one.” Charles grinned when he saw Jake’s eyes widen. “You didn’t know about WonderWolf?”
“Really?”
“Well, he can’t keep a steady boyfriend, but why do you think he does all those butt posters? It’s advertising.”
Jake giggled, and then his stomach rumbled. “How about that dinner? You might want to put some clothes on, though.” He started to button up his uniform, then stopped. “And I should get out of this uniform.”
Charles picked up his clothes. “I’ll be here and dressed in five minutes.”
“I’ll be back.” Jake paused. “You know, I’d much rather have a friend than a nemesis as a birthday present.”
Charles glanced at the door. “I think you might have gotten both.”
Jake’s ears perked up. “Hey, yeah! You know, she was a lousy girlfriend, but I bet she’d be a great villain.”
“Hopefully not too good.”
“With you on my side, I’m not worried.” Jake grinned, and impulsively blinked to right in front of Charles and kissed him on the nose. He answered the wide smile on the possum’s face with one of his own, flicked his ears jauntily, and blinked.
Jacks To Open
One of my favorite authors is Tim Powers. He blends the supernatural and the contemporary with frightening, seamless ease. His book “Last Call” is set in Las Vegas and features card games played for souls, living embodiments of tarot cards, and any number of other phenomena (which, granted, seem less out of place in Las Vegas than they might elsewhere). He evokes a strong sense of place, and in later books took that sense to L.A. and the San Francisco Bay Area, both of which I am familiar with.
“Jacks” was my poor attempt to imitate him, because I have also loved cards from an early age, and I do love the idea that there are patterns and presences in the universe who speak to us through mysterious venues like playing cards (despite the scientist in me, who dryly tells me that it is my evolutionarily developed sense of pattern recognition attempting to fit patterns to everything even when they don’t exist, which is why the scientist in me does not get invited to parties). My regret with this story is that I felt the need to include the sex scene at the end; now it feels somewhat out of sync with the tone of the story to me, and if I were to write the story again today, I probably would more gracefully fade to black. Still, “Jacks” won the Ursa Major award for Best Short Fiction in 2006, and I still get demands for a sequel, which I plan to write…when the cards are right.
[return to TOC]
When you think of Las Vegas, you think of the flash, the glitter, the sparkle, the neon, the light. But there’s another Las Vegas, too, if you go behind the Strip, behind the standalone casinos scattered through the town at Suncoast, Boulder Station, Palace Station, and down a shopping arcade called Easy Street. You might notice that the parking garage is always full from the basement to the roof, even though its eight levels seem extravagant for the two blocks of small stores below. But if you turn right at the end of Easy Street onto Siegel Avenue, you’ll see a series of small clubs in large buildings, and these are the casinos that do not need to advertise their presence.
They are the old breed of casino, a place for gamblers to wander from blackjack to craps, where you still pull the handle on the one-armed bandits, where the dealers deal from their paws and not from a shoe, keeping up a line of patter all the while. There are no celebrity chefs, no hotel rooms, no gift shops, only a bar, the slapping of cards, the ringing of slots, and, in some casinos, the thick haze of smoke overhead.
There was no haze of smoke in the Persian, even by the bar where Sean was sitting. As far as he could see and smell, the patrons of the Persian were entirely canid: wolves, coyotes, foxes, dingos, and dholes. No other red wolves, but that was okay. He was used to being mistaken for a coyote, and used to being the only red wolf in the room.
It was illegal, of course, to restrict entry based on species, and the Persian did no such thing. But it was one of the few casinos in town that did restrict smoking in deference to the sensitive noses of their canine patrons. Because the casino depended more on word of muzzle than advertising, its canid regulars tended to tell their friends, and a haze of canine scent was as off-putting for some other species as smoke was to canids. There are no shortage of casinos in Las Vegas, and if one doesn’t exactly suit, then it’s easy enough to go elsewhere and leave the Persian to the canids.
Even apart from the lack of smoke, the Persian was the perfect place for Sean. His nondescript tan shirt, collar unbuttoned, and pair of ordinary brown slacks served to mute rather than highlight the red accents in his fur. On any evening, he spoke rarely; in the Persian, there was no shortage of things to listen to and watch, a constant barking over the jingling of paying slots. Tonight, Sean’s attention was focused on one particular thing.
The fat wolf sitting next to him was a perfect companion, because he appeared to have some kind of affliction that made it hard for him to stop talking. The guy was like a caricature of a 1950s businessman, wearing a blue suit with a yellow striped tie and a white shirt with gold cufflinks, chomping on a cigar--unlit, of course, just for the taste of it. He wore three rings and had a pocketwatch with a gold chain. But his tie was stained and the cufflinks tarnished, and at this distance, Sean could smell that the wolf was using some cheap cologne that stung his nose.
Sean knew his type and knew why he was here rather than over on the Strip where he belonged. He was here because he thought the Persian was a nice exclusive place, and he was the sort who wanted to be in exclusive places, even ones where he didn’t belong. And when he started to realize that he didn’t belong here, well, sometimes he called someone like Sean. And Sean’s job was to make him feel better.
“Anyway,” the wolf said as he drained his gin and tonic, “the table’s over there. I’ll see you there in a bit.”
Sean took another sip from his half-filled club soda. He didn’t gamble well while drunk. “When there’s an opening.”
The wolf nodded, pushed his bulk off the chair, and set off for the table. Sean watched him go with some distaste. His tail flopped back and forth over the seat of his pants like a rag, and one of his shirttails had come untucked as he sat at the bar. Really, you’d think someone with all that money would take better care of himself.
Sean sipped his drink and sighed. Still he had to play nice, impress the guy. He wasn’t worried about his skill at the cards. He was more worried that he would say something about the smell. But he was very good at lying to people. He had to be.
The wolf shouldered his way onto the blackjack table they’d been watching. Sean leaned against the bar and studied the dealer yet again.
The casino’s ancient Persia theme was mostly executed in the names of the drinks at the bar and the pictures on the slot machines. None of the employees wore particularly Persian costumes, and the blackjack dealers were no exception. The dealer Sean was watching was a slender silver fox, his fur jet black with creamy white under the muzzle and down the chest. Sean only knew he was wearing a plain black vest because he also wore a name tag and a shiny pin on one shoulder, and although the vest was invisible against his fur, he wouldn’t have fastened the pin in his fur.
It wasn’t out of the question that he would be shirtless, though, because he was a flirty little thing, smiling at each of the players at his table and curling his tail up so the white tip was just visible over the edge of the table. His paws moved around the cards like hummingbirds, a blur of motion and then stillness as he waited for the players to make their decisions.
At the Persian, each of the dealers was a personality. Next to the black fox, a coyote in a parti-colored shirt tossed her deck from paw to paw and let the cards flutter theatrically to the table. At the table closest to Sean, a vixen bounced on her heels, highlighting the twin att
ractions that most of the males at her table were ogling. He could hear the patter of the coyote one more table down, telling jokes as he dealt the cards. Each of the dealers was well known, with regulars who just played to be at the table and would-be regulars who just wanted to be seen at the table.
Sean took out the worn deck of cards he carried in his pocket and shuffled them. The feel of the smooth card backs soothed his paws. He shuffled them a couple more times than was strictly necessary, watching the simple double circle pattern on the back. When he felt relaxed, he dealt out his standard layout on the bar: three cards. He got the Jack of Clubs, Three of Hearts, and Ace of Clubs. Then he looked again and saw that the Three of Hearts was actually the Three of Clubs.
The wolf frowned. He hadn’t drunk enough to be seeing things. It wasn’t unheard of to get flickers of uncertainty in the cards like that, especially in a casino where there was so much luck and magic swirling around, but his readings were so simple that he rarely saw the phenomenon. He scooped the cards up in his paw before someone could come over and ask what he was doing. The Jack of Clubs meant a reliable friend, but he would hardly count the fat wolf as reliable, and he was more of a King signifier, anyway. The other cards were clearer: the Three meant money or help coming from a partner, and the Ace signified new endeavors. He often saw that combination at the beginning of a job that was going to turn out well. Of course the Three of Hearts meant caution, being careful what you say. He rubbed his whiskers and thought over that combination, and the flicker he’d seen.
It wouldn’t do him much good to deal out another spread. Unless you asked a completely different question, the cards tended to muddle things in their attempt to clarify, focusing in on details and projecting other possibilities. The first reading would have to be sufficient for him to get a sense of what was going on.
He hadn’t quite finished his soda when a dhole at the silver fox’s table finally got fed up. Sean left a tip for the bartender and sauntered over to the table, giving the fox a big smile as he sat down and pretending not to know the fat wolf three seats to his left.
