Wild Cards XVI: Deuces Down

by Michael Cassutt

  “Leave a number,” Sascha said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  Demise took a card out of his pocket and placed it silently on a wine rack, then nodded to Phan Lo and headed back out. A thin, cold rain misted down, and Demise turned his collar up against it.

  “You must really hate that guy,” Phan said. “He’d be a pain in the ass for you to kill. You’d actually have to shoot him.”

  “I’d manage.”

  “All right now,” Father Henry said. “I just want you to listen here. Let me know what you think.”

  The church was empty except for the two of them. Quasiman sat in the first pew, his misshapen back making him look like he was praying. Father Henry, leaning against the altar, cleared his throat, pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, and read from his notebook.

  “Jesus could change water to wine, but it didn’t put him in AA meetings the way it did me. These days, somebody walking on water would hardly get them looked at funny, and I know of two or three people who have raised folks from the dead. The virus has changed more than our bodies. It has changed what we mean by ‘miracle’ and . . . Now boy, you’re laughing, and I haven’t got to any of the funny parts yet.”

  Quasiman’s attention had flickered away, his eyes fixed on a spot in the aisle. Something about the carpet seemed to have given him the giggles.

  “Oh,” Quasiman said, pointing to the space and grinning. “That’s sad. I mean that’s just . . . sad. I wish I was going to remember it.”

  Father Henry closed his notebook and smiled, trying to swallow his annoyance.

  “I’m sorry, son. Am I interrupting something here?”

  Quasiman flickered rapidly for a moment, reappeared without his left arm, and frowned vacantly at him.

  “I don’t know who you are right now,” the hunchback commented. “There was something I was supposed to do.”

  Father Henry took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Talking to the man was like preaching to an electrical problem.

  “That’s all right. We can try this another time.”

  “Try what?”

  “You were showing me how to polka,” Father Henry said and headed back for the sacristy.

  He paused at the head of the basement stairs. He’d talked with the girl more in the night—her name was Gina, she was seventeen and running away from her pimp. That wouldn’t have been difficult, except that the pimp was also an informant for the police, and so she wasn’t likely to get help from that quarter. She needed to stay in town for a couple more days until her brother drove in from Seattle to get her.

  He believed about half of it. Still, it was clear enough that she needed help. And if the Church wasn’t there to help out whores in trouble, well then it wasn’t the church Mary Magdalene had thought it was. Besides, he had a feeling about the girl . . .

  Which didn’t mean she’d be a good person to talk his sermon over with, but Lord knew she couldn’t be much worse. He rapped his knuckles on the wall as he went down the stairs.

  “Gina?”

  “Hey, Father,” she said. She sat on the cot, her legs tucked beneath her, watching a soap opera on the old, grainy television. He’d shown her where the clothing donations were, and she’d picked out a blue wrap-around skirt and an oversize white men’s shirt. The outfit made her look like a normal girl, maybe just about to start college.

  “You feeling better today?” he asked.

  She nodded and turned down the volume on the set.

  “Fine,” she said. “Whatshisface got me a sandwich this morning.”

  “Good, good. I was wondering . . . well, I had a little trouble with the sermon last week. And I was working on some material, as it were, for Sunday. And while Quasiman is a good hearted fella, he doesn’t listen for spit, and I was thinking, if it wasn’t too much of an imposition . . .”

  “Cool,” she said and thumbed off the TV. “The show’s boring, anyway. Fire away.”

  He smiled, nodded, and opened his notebook, searching for a moment to find the right spot. Gina tilted her head, her expression serious.

  “Jesus,” he began, “could change water into wine . . .”

  She listened patiently as he moved through the homily, cited the passages of the bible that supported him, cracked wise a couple times, then took the tone down to somber at the middle and ended with a bright, hopeful, but also realistic finish.

  Gina leaned back, considering. He took off his glasses, polishing the lenses on his shirttail.

  “No,” she said. “Sorry, father. You got it wrong. I mean it’s a nice talk, but it’s all about nats and aces. You’re preaching to jokers. Jokers don’t give a shit about miracles—except for miracles that make jokers not jokers anymore, I guess.”

  “But faith is a universal. The proof of Christ’s holiness . . .”

  “No one gives a shit,” she said. “Sorry. I mean I know you’re a priest and all, but really, jokers don’t care. They want to hear about how even though they’re fucking ugly, someone still loves them. Or that they have beautiful souls. Or that the righteous are made to suffer. Like with Job. That kind of shit.”

  “Watch your language, young lady,” he admonished, but his mind was already elsewhere. “So you don’t think it’d go over well?”

  “You’re not selling what they’re buying,” she said. “They don’t want another challenge. They want comfort. It’s what they come here for.”

  “I suppose . . .” he said, and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t looked at it like that. I’ll go see what can be salvaged.”

  “Put in someplace how ugly men are better because the world makes them tough,” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. That seems a little harsh.”

  “Always works for me,” she said, shrugging. “We’re kind of in the same business that way. Making jokers feel better.”

  She winked and lay back on the cot, turning the TV back on as she descended. Father Henry found himself speechless for a moment, then walked up the stairs laughing.

  The revisions took the better part of an hour, but in the end, there was more that could be saved than he’d imagined. With a little work, he had his very first jokers-only sermon, and by God, he was proud of it.

  So proud and so excited, in fact, that he forgot to knock on his way down the stairs.

  “. . . unload it now, Randy. Don’t tell me you . . . buyer.”

  Father Henry stopped, slowly easing his foot back to the step above. Gina’s voice was muffled, but he could still make out some words here and there.

  “Hundred thousand . . . tomorrow . . . would never guess where I . . . shit, really? Is she okay? Shit . . . No, I’ll call you.”

  The plastic clatter of the telephone handset slipping into its cradle ended the conversation, and Father Henry slowly backed up the stairs. That certainly didn’t sound much like her brother calling in from Minnesota.

  Well Lord, he thought, if this lesson is not to get took in by a pretty face, I could have sworn we’d covered that already.

  He went back down, knocking this time. Gina was all smiles and pleasant company.

  Oh yes. This little girl was going to take some watching.

  Joey smiled. Not a hey-that-was-funny smile. More like hey-I’m-gonna-take-your-eyes-out-with-a-fucking-spoon. Jerzy didn’t seem to know the difference.

  “Human target, get it?” the skinny Jew said again, like repeating it would make it funny. “Like that guy with the arrows.” He pantomimed plinking a bow at Joey.

  “That guy with the arrows killed my boys and tried to cripple me,” Joey pointed out coolly.

  Jerzy’s shrugged, smile fading, and he sipped his coffee. It was the closest he ever came to apology. The foot traffic going past the café was pretty light for the garment district, but it was still early in the afternoon. Come five o’clock, the overflow from Times Square would fill things up a little more. Joey wanted to be out before then.

  “You got the coroner�
��s reports?”

  “Nah,” Jerzy said. “I don’t make copies. What you want to know, I’ll tell you. I got a photographic memory.”

  Joey looked around. The whole place was the size of a school bus—the short kind for the dumb kids. The guy behind the counter looked archly back it him. An old lady in a puffy blue ski jacket was sitting right up against the window and muttering to herself. Other than that they were alone.

  Joey leaned forward.

  “Okay,” he said. “So I’m hearing there’s something about the way they got offed? Something about aces?”

  “Everybody’s buying up aces. Mafia, Shadow Fist. Everyone,” Jerzy said. He wasn’t so stupid, thank God, that he didn’t know to keep his voice down.

  “Okay, but it’s not like the ones the Mafia hired are gonna queer a Mafia deal, right?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Jerzy said, waggling a bushy eyebrow. “Thing is, a couple of the guys that died? They shouldn’t have. It’s like they were hurt, but not so bad they woulda died. You see what I’m getting at?”

  Joey scowled and shook his head. Talking to Jerzy was about as much fun as talking to Lapierre.

  “People hiring aces?” Jerzy said, his hand moving in a little circular come-along motion. “Guys dead for no reason?”

  “Hey Jerzy. How about you fucking tell me?”

  The woman in the ski jacket glanced at them, scowling.

  “Shouldn’t yell,” Jerzy said. “We’re in public.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s the wrists thing. Pain makes me jumpy.”

  “Demise,” Jerzy said and sighed. “Find whoever hired Demise, you’ll find the shit.”

  “Demise,” Joey said, nodding. “Great. And, ah, what about the percidan?”

  “I can hook you up next week. You got enough darvon to hold you ’til then?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “What? What is this with the long face?”

  “It’s just the darvon pills are all pink,” Joey confided. “They make me look like a faggot, you know?”

  Randy McHaley lived in a basement apartment with six other jokers. Two of them were there with him when Demise and Phan Lo got there. They were happy, though, to give the three of them a little privacy.

  The place looked like the worst of the 1960s left to rot for a couple decades. Beaded strands substituted for doors, old psychedelic posters of the Lizard King yellowed and cracked on the grimy wall. Sandalwood incense mixed with something close to wet dog. And Randy slumped on the low couch with his hands between his knees.

  The wildcard hadn’t been kind to Randy. His greasy brown fedora rested on a forest of spikes like a hedgehog. His pale, fishy skin wept a thin mucous, soaking his clothes. Tiny blind eyes opened and closed along his neck and down behind his shirt, some staring, some rolling wildly. Demise could see the distaste in corners of Phan Lo’s mouth and it made him want to draw the conversation out.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” the sad joker said again, wagging his head.

  “Okay,” Demise said. “Let me clear this up, fuckhead. A piece of shit like you can’t—cannot—set up a hundred thousand dollar horse deal in this town without us finding out. Okay? Where’s the meet?”

  “I swear guys, you’ve got the wrong fuckup. I mean look at me,” the joker smiled desperately. “Look at the place I live. I’m not dealing with that kind of money.”

  “You’re a junkie,” Demise said. “You and your buddies could blow that kind of money up your arms in a couple weeks.”

  “I swear to Christ, you guys got it wrong. I’m really sorry. I wish I could help, but . . .”

  “Could we just do this?” Phan asked.

  Demise sighed and nodded. It had been fun while it lasted, but business being business . . .

  Phan Lo stepped forward, drawing a pistol. The little joker squealed and pulled back, but Phan leaned in, pressing the barrel under Randy’s chin, forcing his head up. Demise stood, shot his cuffs, and leaned in close. When their eyes met, Randy was caught like a fish. Demise let the pain of his own death, the sick feeling of spiraling down into darkness, the visceral knowledge of dying flow into the joker for a second, two, three . . . and looked away.

  Randy drew a long, grating breath like a diver who’s been under too long, then bent over and retched. Phan Lo danced back, disgusted. Demise sat down.

  “The meet,” Demise said.

  “Bryant Park. Noon tomorrow. She’s supposed to bring a sample. Please don’t kill me.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. She calls me.”

  “You believe him?” Demise asked.

  Phan Lo shrugged.

  “The buyer’s a Brit. Looking to export. He’s gonna be wearing an Aerosmith t-shirt and reading the Wall Street Journal.”

  “Probably won’t be two of those,” Phan said.

  “Please,” the joker whined. “That’s all I know. I swear to God that’s all I know.”

  “You know, Phan. I think that’s all he knows.”

  Phan nodded and crossed his arms.

  “You want to kill him, or you want me to?” Demise asked. Randy looked from one to the other, his jaw working silently, then curled up in a ball on the couch and started crying. Phan curled his lip and shook his head. Demise frowned and nodded toward the weeping joker. Phan shook his head again.

  “If she’s not there tomorrow, we’ll be back,” Phan said, holstering his pistol. “You understand?”

  Randy wailed wordlessly, his shoulders shaking. Demise stood and followed Phan out through the kicked-in front door and up the steps to the midnight-dark street.

  “What the fuck was that?” Demise asked.

  “It’s better for the mystique if some of them are alive and scared shitless,” Phan said.

  “That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”

  Phan shrugged and walked to the car.

  “You felt sorry for him, didn’t you?” Demise accused.

  “Fuck you.”

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  “No. Get in the car.”

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1987

  The morning was warm for February, and the where the city didn’t stink of car fumes and urine, it smelled like the threat of snow.

  He’d called Mazzuccheli with his information about the killer ace, and Mazzuchelli had come up with an address that fit with it. It was teamwork. For the first time since it all got fucked up, he was really working with the team.

  He hated it.

  For weeks, he’d been down. Even after the wounds in his arms were pretty much healed up, he hadn’t been able to focus or sleep through the night. He kept seeing his boys sprouting arrows, watching them die. And every day he couldn’t pull himself together, he felt the respect of the family dropping. No one said anything—not to his face. But he knew. And now Mazzucchelli was helping him out when what he really needed was to show that he could handle it without. He didn’t need a hand doing his work.

  He stopped at the corner bakery for a pick-up breakfast before heading south toward Jokertown—the tastes of greasy, sweet pastry and bitter, hot coffee competing pleasantly, the chill of the morning pulling a little at the skin of his face. Joey pictured what it was going to be like.

  He’d walk in to a restaurant, go over to Mazzuchelli’s table. He’d sit down. They’d talk a little, then Joey would pass over the satchel with the drugs and the money. And then, in a separate little bag, he’d have the right hands of all the fuckers he’d killed getting the stuff back. Mazzuchelli would grin and welcome him back. And Lapierre, the little fucker, would be somewhere in the background boasting about how he could have done just as good, only no one’s gonna believe him.

  It was a pretty good daydream, and it got him to the flop. He dropped the nearly-empty coffee cup and the wax paper still dusted with powdered sugar into the trash and went down the steps to the basement apartment, flakes of rotten concrete scraping under his feet.

  The doo
r was open. Joey took the beretta out of its holster and went in. The place had all the marks of being left in a hurry—empty dressers, a half-eaten sandwich in the bathroom. The big stuff—the television, the old stereo—was still there, but anything portable was stripped and gone. The lights were all burning even though there was more then enough leaking through the windows to see by.

  So it looked like Demise knew he’d been spotted. He and his Fist buddies had gotten scared and skipped. Joey smiled. It was nice having someone scared of him again. He put away the gun and took the rattling orange bottle out of his pocket and popped a darvon to celebrate.

  The phone was one of those little lozenge-shaped ones. Joey guessed it had started out the usual colorless beige, but someone had painted it black. He scooped it up and dialed.

  “What?” Mazzuchelli snapped after the second ring.

  “Boss. It’s Joey.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “I went to check out the place you told me about. Nothing there. I was thinking, though. You remember how you got those phone records on that guy in Soho?”

  “How’d you hear about that?”

  “I was there when you braced him, boss,” Joey said, trying to keep his voice from sounding hurt. “I helped you break his knees.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  “I was thinking maybe you could do the same for this joint. See who’s been talking to them, see who they been talking to.”

  There was a long silence. Joey shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Okay,” Mazzuchelli said. “Where can I get hold of you? You’re not calling me from there are you?”

  Fuck, Joey thought.

  “Of course not, boss. I’m at a payphone. The number, though. It’s all scratched out.”

  “Joey. If you’re lying to me, it’s going to be on the records that I’m just about to go get for you. You know that, right?”

  “I’m sorry, boss. I’m at the apartment. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Mazzucchelli muttered something that Joey couldn’t make out, but the tone of voice alone was enough to make him wince a little.

  “Call me back in an hour. I’ll let you know what I find.”