Card Sharks wc-13

by Stephen Leigh

  Hedda and Rudo looked as if they didn't know if they were hearing the truth or a method actress giving the performance of her life. But I knew from Hedda's expression that Marilyn was offering a scandal that would both kill the movie and hang the Kennedys with rope to spare.

  "Darling," said Hedda, testing, "I know you've spent the night with Jack Braun."

  Marilyn shrugged, straightening back up and wiping some of the tears from her cheeks. "That was business. I've done a lot worse on the casting couch than just give a joker a blowjob to get help with a script. His dick's normal enough. And," she said, "a girl does what she has to."

  I was the only wrinkle in the plan, but Marilyn was working to take that out.

  "N-Nickie always wore a condom," she said "I m-may be a little tramp, but I'm not going to have a love child by a nobody." Marilyn looked at me. "Sorry, Nickie," she said, "but you're nobody special."

  I think that was a signal for me to use my ace, but God, I don't know. Hedda and Rudo had guns. And I knew from the encounter under the pier what happened when you ran a charge through one of those. The shrapnel from Rudo's Luger would kill Marilyn if the bullet didn't first.

  But Marilyn looked at me, the tears running down her face. I never could bear to see her cry.

  I focused my ace as hard as I could, large charges, killers, but tightly bound so they'd go straight for Hedda and Rudo's heads and avoid the guns. I hoped, I prayed.

  My will-o'-wisps may have been lightning springing from my hands, but they didn't move that fast.

  And Hedda's trigger finger was faster.

  The shot hit me in the chest and the pain made me lose control as I fell back into the water. My will-o'-wisps lost cohesion, dissipating harmlessly. And the blood flowed out of me along with the electricity, my ace sparking around me, grounding into the pool.

  I struggled to keep my head above water and then I saw Hedda and Marilyn and Rudo standing there, looking at me.

  "Oh my God," Marilyn breathed then in the most horror-struck voice I've ever heard, "he's a j-joker."

  "Didn't you know, my dear?" Hedda asked.

  Marilyn slowly shook her head, dropping the toy tiger. "N-no."

  "Well," said Hedda, "then you shouldn't have any trouble killing him."

  Hedda passed Marilyn the pistol. She looked at it for a second as if she didn't know what it was, but then she seemed to reach some sort of decision and slipped her fingers around it. I know Rudo must have had his Luger pressed into the small of her back, but I couldn't see, and Cod, she did it so fast and so easily.

  Marilyn raised the gun, and one by one her tears fell into the pool. But I don't know whether they were tears of pain or hatred.

  I can still hear her last Words to me: "Goodbye, Nickie."

  And then … there was an explosion and I felt the water close around me. And then I don't remember anything until I woke up here, with Ellen.

  And I don't know. Don't you understand, I don't know. Ellen says Marilyn had our child, a son, but I don't know him, and I don't know if he knows about me.

  And I don't know if his mother still loves me, or even if she ever loved me at all. She said she didn't care that I was an ace, but she never did like jokers, and then there was that story from her childhood. She made things up and you could never tell the truth from the fiction. You just had to trust her. She was so many women. You never knew who was the real one.

  She killed me, you know. It kind of makes you wonder.

  The Ashes of Memory

  7

  Emotions were warring within Cameo / Nickie. Her shoulders lifted in silent, gulping sobs, mixing incongruously with Nickie's narrative.

  "I've seen the birthday party clip a dozen times or more," Hannah said into Cameo's weeping. "Marilyn singing 'Happy Birthday' to JFK, blowing out the candles on the cake, and handing him a stuffed toy. It wasn't a tiger, though — I remember a penguin."

  "Cameo … told me," Nickie / Cameo said between sniffles. "Maybe she gave the stuff to the Sharks, maybe she just got scared, maybe she decided to tell Jack later. If she'd given all we had to him, everyone would know. There would have been a public scandal, high-ranking, wholesale firings in the White House staff and cabinet, an uproar within the FBI. None of it happened. Instead, Kennedy was assassinated. Makes you wonder about that, too, doesn't it?"

  Hannah shrugged, but it didn't keep away the shivering chill that crawled her spine. "I'll have to look up Blythe. I don't remember seeing it."

  "The picture was never released," Nickie told her. "Hedda got her way. Marilyn had a nervous breakdown and couldn't finish the shooting, and they didn't have enough in the can to edit around it. Welles tried to redo the picture with a different actress, but he couldn't keep the rest of the cast or the production staff together. Then the funding dried up."

  "And he ended up doing wine commercials."

  "Everyone has to make a buck. Welles never starved — not anywhere close — at least he got to live his life. I don't exactly feel sorry for him."

  Cameo had bowed her head forward, still sobbing between Nickie's words. The fedora slipped off. With that, some inner dam was rent. She brought her legs up and hugged them to her chest, burying her face as the tears came fully. "Ahh, Nickie," Cameo wept "Why did you have to die?"

  Hannah rose from her chair and went to the woman. Sitting alongside Cameo, she hugged her, and Cameo clung to her briefly before pulling herself away again. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."

  "It's okay. Thank you for letting us meet Nick. I know it must have been hard for you."

  Cameo nodded, red-eyed. Hannah hugged her again, then picked up the fedora from where it had fallen to the floor. She set it carefully on the couch next to Cameo. Rising to her feet, she caught Quasiman's eye and nodded toward the door.

  Hannah closed it softly behind them.

  "I don't understand," Quasiman said. "Why is that woman crying? Who is she?"

  "She's someone who fell in love with a ghost, a man who died before she was born." Hannah bit her lower lip. Suddenly the dreary decor of the Dead Nicholas seemed appropriate. She slid her mask back over her face. "C'mon," she said to Quasiman. "I think we need a drink."

  ***

  "I shouldn't have had that last drink," Hannah said. Her voice seemed to be coming from someone else. She frowned hard, trying to concentrate. "What a lovely list: Meyer Lansky, Henry van Renssaeler, both dead; Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen, still around and moving in high circles; Dr. Faneuil and his kindly nurse Margaret Durand lurking around in the background; Zb … Zbag … Zbingniew Brzezinski — my, I sure mangled that name — making a fortune as a Washington consultant, no doubt; George G. Battle, last seen having fun wasting jokers on the Rox. Now we can add Hedda Hopper, William Randolph Hearst, J. Edgar Hoover, and Howard Hughes. At least they're all dead — everyone but Hughes, but then no one's seen him in years. Oops, I left out Marilyn. And did I mention Pan Rudo? I think I did, didn't I?"

  Quasiman didn't answer. She hadn't expected him to, since he'd been sitting motionless at the table for the last half an hour. "I should probably put old Malcolm Coan on the lish … I mean list … You know, I do believe I'm just the slightest bit drunk," she said to the comatose joker. "Hope you don't mind."

  Hannah downed her Rusty Coffin Nail. There were five empty glasses in front of her. The ghostly waiter drifted toward their table and whispered to her in a sibilant voice. "We all know Quasiman. He's all right here. If you need to leave …"

  It seemed a good idea, somehow. Hannah, scowling in concentration, paid her bill and called Father Squid. "Don't worry about him," the priest said. "He has his own ways home. And, Hannah, I know it's just a few blocks, but please don't walk. Call a cab." Hannah did that; twenty minutes later, it still hadn't arrived. Hannah called again. "He's on his way, lady. He should be there any second." With a glance back at Quasiman, still sitting motionless at the table, Hannah went outside to wait.

  Outside, the streets were only sparsely inhabite
d. It was Wednesday, hardly a party night anyway, and Jokertown had lost much of its luster as a tourist attraction in the last few years. The first problem had been the jumpers, gangs of sadistic teenagers with the ability to take over someone else's body while imprisoning that person in theirs. Then the joker named Bloat had taken over Ellis Island and renamed it the Rox, proclaiming it to be a refuge for the jumpers and all jokers. The invasions of Ellis Island by the various authorities had been bloody and bitter, leaving behind a legacy of hatred between jokers and nats. Positions had polarized. Even with the masks, even in the "safe" streets around the edges of Jokertown, this was not a place where nats felt comfortable anymore. There'd been too many reminders that hatred was a sword that cut both ways.

  A black and yellow-checked taxi idled at the light half a block up. Hannah stepped out into the street to wave at him, but when the light turned green, the fare light went off and the taxi turned right and away.

  "Hey! Damn it!" Hannah looked up and down the street. No other cabs in sight. The bus stop was a block and a half down and the streetlight was out next to it. Hannah started back to the sidewalk. Her head was spinning.

  A car pulled around the corner. Hannah didn't know why she suddenly felt fear that dissolved the fumes of scotch in her head. Maybe it was the way the car hugged the curb as it turned, maybe the fact that all the windows of the Lincoln were tinted so dark as to be almost black or the slow way it approached. Hannah watched it, held for a moment like a deer in its headlights, then backed toward the curb. Tinted windows shushed down in the rear, and a head wearing an H. Ross Perot mask stared at her.

  Hannah started to run for the entrance of the Dead Nicholas.

  The Lincoln accelerated.

  It was such a small sound. A cough. Something hot and fast slammed into Hannah and spun her around. She screamed at the pain, surprised to find herself sprawled face down on the sidewalk. Someone — she could only see the feet — came out from the Dead Nicholas and she heard the Lincoln squealing away around the next corner. Hannah tried to turn her head to follow the car, to see if she could see the license plate, but her head wouldn't turn and it seemed that the lights had gone out anyway. Even the entrance to the club was dim now and the pain and the wetness on her back seemed to be feelings experienced by someone else and there was yelling and a person was screaming but it all sounded distant …

  … so distant …

  ***

  The arms of the octopus coiled about her. Screaming, she ripped one of the sucker-laden arms away, tearing her flesh, but a tentacle still curled around her waist, another at her throat, yet another around her legs. The beast, an unseen, black presence just below the surface of the water, pulled her inexorably toward itself. Rising now above the waves, its great, lidless eyes glaring at her, the hooked beak of its maw clicked as it brought her nearer and nearer. She struggled, but it was useless. She could smell the creature now, and it smelled like the open door of a slaughterhouse. It smelled of open sewers and piss and corruption.

  It smelled of death.

  "Hannah? I'm sorry, Hannah."

  She opened her eyes. Quasiman was standing in the far corner of the hospital room, away from the hospital bed, like a child sent to his corner. An IV drip burned in Hannah's arm and her chest and shoulder were swaddled in gauze underneath the thin gown. Her lips were dry and cracked, and she'd scraped her face on the concrete when she'd fallen. One eye seemed swollen shut. "It wasn't your fault," she said, her voice cracking. Hannah frowned. There were vague memories: of an ambulance, of serious faces hovering over her and someone saying something about an exit wound. "Who did it?"

  Quasiman snorted. He lifted his powerful shoulders. "No one knows. No one cares. The police came, wrote down their reports and left." His fist pounded slowly against the wall: Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. "I had to have seen it before. I must have known. Why didn't I remember?"

  "Quasiman." Thunk. He looked at her with bleak eyes. "Stop it. It's not your fault. No one blames you. You can't control when and where your mind goes." Without warning, then, the tears came, and the fright. Hannah shuddered, gasping for breath, then fought back her control. She forced herself to breath slowly, biting her lips. She sniffed, dabbing at her nose with a Kleenex from the box alongside her. "Ouch," she said, and gave a short laugh. Quasiman was watching her, her own anguish reflected in his gaze. "That's the second time someone's tried to kill me," she said. "Y'know, I don't really like the experience." She tried to smile at her joke and couldn't.

  "You can give it up," Quasiman said. "I'd understand that."

  "So would I."

  The voice came from the doorway. Hannah turned her head. David was standing there, a bunch of carnations drooping from his hand. He seemed to remember the flowers at the same time. He held them up apologetically, then set them on the stand alongside the bed. "You look like hell," he said.

  "You were always such a romantic, David." Hannah didn't know what to say or feel. The last time I saw you I was leaving. You were telling me how stupid I was. Not knowing how to reply, she retreated into polite nothings. "Thanks for the flowers."

  "Uh-huh." He was dressed in the Italian-styled tailored suit he'd bought that summer, his expensive Hart amp; Dunlop overcoat on his arm. His hair was newly trimmed. "You going out, David?" Hannah asked.

  "The Governor's in town. There's a party. Lots of high muck-a-mucks will be there: the Mayor, Judge Bradley, Brandon van Renssaeler of Douglas, Mannerly …" The familiar last name gave Hannah a physical shock, but David didn't notice. He wasn't even looking at her. David was only too happy to be talking about himself. "In fact, Brandon's responsible for inviting me. I've been handling some litigation for the firm. There's talk that maybe President Barnett will come up from Washington, and — "

  "I'm so happy for you."

  David stopped in mid-sentence. His mouth clamped shut and Hannah saw him slip into his lawyer face, the non-committal, oh-so-serious and oh-so-rational mask. "I see you've worked on your sarcasm since you've been gone."

  "Hey — " Quasiman said, and David nodded toward the joker without looking away from Hannah, frowning.

  "The nurses tell me the hunchback's been in here since you were brought in. They don't like it. Why don't you tell your friend to take a hike? You and I have things to talk about."

  Any remaining illusions Hannah might have had dissolved with the words. "I won't tell him that because he is my friend," she told him.

  "Hannah — " David began, but Quasiman cut in.

  "It's okay, Hannah," he said. The joker shot David a glance that Hannah couldn't decipher. Some silent communication seemed to pass between the two men. "I'll be right outside," Quasiman added.

  And the joker vanished, soundlessly. Hannah enjoyed the involuntary yelp that David, let out. "Goddamn freaks …" Then the lawyer mask slipped back into place. "Hannah, I won't beat around the proverbial bush with you. I've talked with Malcolm, and believe me it took a lot of talking, but because of the good publicity the Bureau's received after you solved the case, he's agreed to ignore your little scene with him. The job's still yours." He smiled. Like I'm a puppy being handed a bone: "Sit up, girl. Roll over, girl. Good girl." Looking at him, Hannah knew that David expected gratitude, that he expected her to thank him, maybe even to cry in relief. Disbelief at his arrogance drove away her pain and she sat up in the bed, ignoring the pulling of torn muscles in her shoulder.

  "I didn't solve the case — it was handed to me practically tied up in a bow. I'm still working on the case."

  "Hannah, the arsonist has been found. Please do yourself and everyone a favor and drop this paranoid joker fantasy of yours. There's no conspiracy. There's no hidden agenda. It was a psychotic's lone deed and it's over."

  "Yeah," Hannah said bitterly. "That's why someone tried to kill me last night."

  David leaned over the bed, his well-tailored bulk throwing a shadow over her. He shook his head. "No one tried to kill you, dear," he said softly. "Not this time. Believe me,
if someone had actually wanted you dead, you would be dead."

  Something in his tone made her stomach churn. "What are you saying, David?"

  "I'm saying that if I had my pick of weapons and wanted to take someone out, a.38 handgun wouldn't have been my choice. And even as few times as I've fired a gun, I'll bet I could hit something more than your shoulder at the kind of range you were hit."

  "You're telling me this was some kind of accident? A driveby shooting by someone out for thrills? ust another psychotic, right?"

  "I'm saying that it might have been a warning, Hannah." He was a silhouette against the room's overhead light, but she could see his eyes, gleaming down at her. She chose her reply carefully.

  "If it was a warning, David, then someone has something to hide. If it was a warning, then my fantasy plot exists. You can't have it both Ways." It came to her then. She wondered how she missed it until now. "Are you part of this, David? Is that why you're here tonight, to make sure the message is delivered and I understand?"

  David gave an exhalation of disgust and moved away. "You are getting paranoid," he said. "I meant a warning from God or fate or whatever. A warning that fooling around in Jokertown is stupid. Just listen to yourself, Hannah. You've gone totally around the bend on this. All I'm doing is trying to find some way to convince you, one way or the other, that it's over. Drop it, Hannah. Please. For your own safety and sanity, drop it."

  "No." The quickness and vehemence of the decision surprised even Hannah. "I can't."

  David was shaking his head, as if he were confronting a rebellious teenager. Then he waved his hands in disgust. "Then I give up. Have it your way, Hannah. I've tried to help you, but you won't let me." He put on his overcoat and started for the door.

  "David?"

  He turned.

  "Take your fucking flowers with you. Give them to the Governor for me. Better yet, stick them up your ass."

  "That's cute, Hannah. Very cute. Almost a great exit line, but I have a better one for you."