Card Sharks wc-13

by Stephen Leigh

  They looked right at me at least twice. And then past.

  "It was here," she repeated in a defensive tone. Brandon gave her one of his patronizing looks. "It killed the dog. It tried to attack Clara, too. I rescued her."

  "I've never known you to be this excitable. I pray you'll do it on your on time next time, and not disturb me at work."

  They were on their way out when Clara came in. "Maman?"

  "Get back!" Jessica snapped, but Brand said, "There's no one here. Don't be a twit."

  "Maman." Clara had a child's eyes, not as easily fooled by expectations. She saw me at the wall and came over, knelt beside me and touched my face.

  I should have regretted her revealing me. But all I knew was joy at the relief and delight in her eyes and voice. She threw her arms about my neck and I enveloped her with arms and coils.

  "I'm sorry I yelled at you about Frou Frou," she said.

  "And I'm sorry," I replied. "I'm sorry that I scared you and hurt Frou Frou."

  "He's not ever coming back, is he?"

  "No, not ever," I said. "He's dead now. Gone. I'm sorry."

  She gave it some thought. "You couldn't help it. I saw what happened. He was trying to bite you. You must have been really scared."

  "Yes. I was."

  "But I wish he wasn't gone."

  "Me too, honey."

  She pressed her cheek against my scaly breast. She stroked my skin, and as if her fingers were tiny paintbrushes, my scales changed color beneath their touch: silver, rose, amethyst.

  She released a contented sigh. "You look pretty, Maman. Prettier than ever."

  That brought tears to my eyes.

  I heard a sound and looked up. Brand had a poker in his hand now, and was lifting it to strike a blow to my head.

  My colors grew bright, blue / red / yellow / black and dangerous. My coils curled up beneath me and my hood spread. I felt my glands taut and warm with venom, pressing against my sinuses and palate. Brand hesitated.

  But I was sluggish, and couldn't maintain my erect posture. My colors began to fade to smoke, rust, sand, and ash. I leaned against the wall with Clara in my arms, striving for fierceness.

  "Put that thing down before someone gets hurt," I said. "Put it down."

  He lowered his arm and regarded me. Then Jessica looked closely at my misshapen trunk, and her hand went to her mouth. "It ate the dog."

  Brand winced. "My God."

  "Leave us be," I muttered.

  "Give me my child." Fear had entered Brand's voice. Fear for his child. "I'll let you go if you give me Clara."

  I was shocked at that. "I'd never hurt her, Brand."

  He dropped the poker and went down on his knees before me, folded his hands and held them out to me, pleading. A bead of sweat rolled from his temple to his chin.

  "You were human once. You adored her. Swear to me that you won't harm her. Swear, or let her go."

  I remembered, when she had struck me, precisely how close I had come to lashing out, poisoning her as I had Frou Frou. I remembered how the dog had thrashed when I'd struck him and I remembered the sensation as I'd shoved him down my throat. The thought turned me numb with dread.

  I looked at Clara's trusting face, pressed against my chest, and sobbed. I'd just killed and eaten a pet I'd had since I was fourteen. I couldn't be sure of myself at all.

  I handed her over to him and slumped back against the wall.

  I wouldn't have hurt her, you know. I would never have hurt her. If only I could go back, reassure that younger, frightened me. Yd tell her, take Clara, hold her to you. Trust yourself. She needs you. You can do it.

  I've never hurt a human soul, since my changeover. Except to help the terminally ill on to a better life at their own pleading. And surely that's a gift, not a curse. I've forsworn bigotry and pettiness, and devoted my life to helping others.

  I've killed animals, to be sure. Often. Famine drove me to eat Frou Frou that day, but it wasn't a human's hunger. This body needs the nutrients, the minerals and proteins in animal blood, skin, hair, and bones. That was why the craving was so strong. It's a part of my nature now, to require live or newly dead, whole animals. Raw meat is as close as I can come to human foods, and it's not adequate to sustain me for very long. I'm not human any more, in that way.

  My eating habits are certainly less sanitary and more immediate than buying ground round at the grocery store. But it's not so different in concept, is it, after all?

  Other animals, their intelligence is not the equal of ours. Yet they are still living creatures, and have more intelligence than we credit them with. They deserve life and respect, as much as we do.

  But our very existence forces us to make hard choices. It forces us to prey on other creatures when the need is great.

  I had always been a predator, by choice, without need. I had spent a lifetime preying on the weaknesses of others. The wild card made me a predator in truth, and gave me no choice in the matter.

  I've learned from it. I learned that one must forgive oneself for what one has had to do to survive. And I can forgive myself everything. Everything but how I abandoned Clara that day.

  I understand why it happened, don't mistake me. I'd spent a lifetime being untrustworthy and shallow and hypocritical. And now I had become a creature whom I feared at least as much as Brand and Jessica did.

  How could I know that all that had happened in the past few days would force me to find a strength I didn't know I had? Nothing in my past had prepared me to trust that I could protect Clara from the worst of what I had become.

  I wish I could forgive myself for that failure of faith.

  Brand kept his promise, to my surprise. They kept me shut up in the utility room for a couple of days, until my digestion had proceeded far enough along for me to stay awake for more than a few moments at a time. Then he let me go, with a suitcase stuffed full of personal memorabilia, a hundred dollars cash, and a check for two thousand dollars. I'm still grateful to him for that.

  He held Clara in one arm and opened the door for me with the other.

  "Where are you going, Maman?" she asked. I paused out in the hallway and looked back, but all the words lodged in my chest, the place where the rock was starting to form.

  Brandon shushed her. "That's not your Maman. It's just an animal that looks a little like her."

  She struggled in his arms, reaching out to me. "I want Maman!"

  "Hush! Maman is dead," he said, and closed the door. Her rising wail, faint through the door, followed me down the hall.

  I suppose that's all.

  No, no. Please don't apologize. It was time for the story to come out. These are tears of release. Just let me be for a moment, will you? I'll be all right.

  There, now. Much better, thanks. It's odd. I actually feel better for having told it. It's weighed on me so heavily for so long. I've kept that secret inside for so long, of how I abandoned my daughter. Perhaps the key to forgiving oneself is through the telling of the tale.

  My, it's three-thirty in the morning. Would you like to sleep on the foldout? My boyfriend is on call at the Clinic tonight, and this oak branch is quite comfortable for me. I only sleep when the temperature drops too low, or after eating a heavy meal.

  No? Well. Certainly. No offense at all. Though you must take care out on the streets this late.

  Here, before you go. I'd like you to have these notebooks; they contain the notes I made on what happened. I wrote everything down soon afterward so I wouldn't forget the details. They might help you in your research.

  Oh. One last thing you should know. This may be paranoia on my part, but, well, it has returned to me over and over. As I related to you, Brand told Dr. Rudo on the phone that the photos the detective had taken weren't very incriminating. That closeup of him with Sirhan Sirhan, Kennedy's assassin, was damning. Perhaps he was lying to Dr. Rudo, but why?

  And I remember how much Clara wanted a photo of her Papa, and how I had left her alone with the photos when I h
ad that argument with Jessica. That photo was definitely the best shot of Brand's face, of the whole batch. I keep wondering.

  But now I'm being paranoid.

  Come, let me put on my electric sleeve and I'll escort you to the subway station.

  The Ashes of Memory

  "I'd like you to ring Ms. Monroe's room."

  The hotel clerk looked at Hannah as if he had gas. "I'm sorry, but Ms. Monroe has left very specific instructions that she not be disturbed. What did you say your name Was?"

  "Rudo. Pan Rudo. R-U-D-O."

  The clerk consulted his monitor, tapping at the keyboard. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Rudo. Your names is on the list she left. You may use the white phone to your right. Dial asterisk, then 44."

  "Thank you." Hannah went to the house phone and punched in the number. The voice that answered was still instantly recognizable: breathy, soft, and warm, not much changed despite all the years. "Hello?"

  "Ms. Monroe, I must see you."

  "Who is this?" The voice took on a touch of irritation. "Who gave you this number?"

  "Nick Williams asked me to call, Marilyn. You remember Nick, don't you?"

  There was silence on the other end. For a few seconds, Hannah thought that Marilyn had hung up, then the woman spoke again, and her voice sounded much older. "Where are you?"

  "In the lobby of the hotel. I need to see you alone, Ms. Monroe."

  "Give … give me a minute and then come on up. I'm in the Lindsay Suite. Seventeenth floor."

  Riding the elevator, Hannah had time to wonder whether this was a mistake. In the three days since she'd spoken with Lamia — three days in which she'd found herself starting at every noise and peering suspiciously at every person that entered the apartment building — Hannah had come up empty. Clara van Renssaeler, who might or might not still have a photograph of her father with Sirhan Sirhan, refused to meet her the first two times she called. The third time Hannah reached her, there was such a strange tone in the woman's voice when she agreed to a meeting that Hannah deliberately missed the appointment. A friend of Father Squid's, known as Blind Spot, went by the restaurant and reported back that the establishment was oddly deserted except for a table of three suspiciously attentive men. Hannah didn't try to call Clara again.

  Much of Lamia's notebooks consisted of hearsay from friends, and none of them Hannah contacted cared to discuss what had happened back then. Most of them seemed to have put Joan van Renssaeler out of their minds entirely. "Her? She abandoned her daughter. Just up and left her family…."

  It was Father Squid who read in the paper that Marilyn Monroe was in New York for a charity revue. Hannah had nodded, thinkin it simply a mocking serendipity, but the mention had nagged at her. She knew already that there was little that the three of them could do. They had nothing, nothing but hearsay and a few interconnected names.

  Marilyn, if Nick's story were true, had once had hard evidence: the copies of Hopper's files. Hannah wished she could have brought Quasiman with her, but Hannah had figured that there'd be enough trouble getting to the woman as it was; with an obvious joker accompanying her, there'd have been no chance at all. And as much as she hated to admit it, Quasiman was becoming a liability. He seemed to have reached the limit of his ability to maintain his focus on their problem. For the last few days, he'd forget her or Father Squid for an hour or more, then suddenly snap back to lucidity for a few minutes before drifting away again. "I want to come with you, Hannah," he'd said. "Please. Let me help you." But she'd said no. "Just … just keep thinking about me," she'd told him. "Come and bail me out if you sense that I'm in trouble. Can you do that?"

  "I'll try. I'll try…."

  The problem was that, even as she knocked on the door to Marilyn's suite, Hannah still wasn't sure what she was going to do. She saw the glass of the peephole darken as someone looked through.

  "You're the one who called?" asked a voice through the door.

  "Yes."

  "Come in." The door opened just wide enough to admit Hannah.

  Marilyn was in her late sixties, Hannah knew, but the woman who closed the door behind her looked at least a decade younger. She was dressed in an expensive silk robe, the lacy white top of her chemise showing at the top. Her waist had thickened over the years, there was a network of fine wrinkles around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth, and the skin under her chin sagged, but the allure and the underlying hint of innocent sexuality were still there. Her hair was shorter now, and she'd allowed a touch of silver to accent her temples, but the rest was a gold-flecked brown, artfully disheveled as if she'd gotten up from a nap.

  Hannah found herself feeling oddly plain alongside her, like a daisy in a vase with a rose.

  "Who are you?" Marilyn asked. Her gaze was skittish, yet Hannah was certain that she'd been appraised and judged already. "Where did you hear about Nickie? If this is some kind of joke …"

  "Nickie …" Hannah said. "You killed him. You put a bullet in his chest to save your career. He's the father of your child. He loved you, he saved your life and gave you a son, and you murdered him."

  It was either great acting or genuine emotion — Hannah couldn't tell which. Marilyn's haughty demeanor crumpled, as if it were a paper mask Hannah had ripped off to expose a lost, frightened child beneath. Her whole body sagged, almost as if she were about to faint, then she caught herself. She took in a long, gasping breath and tears shimmered in her eyes. Her hand came up to her mouth, as if she were stifling a sob, and she turned and walked into the living room of the suite, collapsing onto the couch with her legs drawn up to her body. Hannah followed her in. From beyond the balcony, the towers of Manhattan thrust through afternoon haze. A tape deck sat on top of the television set in the corner of the plush suite, a video playing softly in it — Hannah realized that the movie was Jokertown. She wondered if that was coincidence or if Marilyn had set it running as a deliberate backdrop, a bit of added scenery.

  As a much younger, agonized Marilyn told a glaring Jack Nicholson about the Lansky / van Renssaeler plot, the real Marilyn looked at Hannah with stricken eyes. "How do you know …" she began, then stopped. On the TV, Nicholson vowed to put an end to the plot. "I loved him," Marilyn said. "I did. They were going to kill Nick anyway. If I hadn't shot him, we would have both died that night. I thought … I thought that at least that way one of us would live. I thought I could find a way to pay them back…."

  "But you never did," Hannah said sharply. Her voice sounded shrewish and shrill against Marilyn's polished tones. "You and Nick stuffed the files into a toy tiger, but that's not what you gave Kennedy during that birthday party. You gave him a penguin. You never gave the president the information Nick died for, did you?"

  Marilyn stared at Hannah, her cheeks as red as if she'd been slapped. The woman tugged her robe more tightly around her neck, as if she were cold. She sniffed, visibly trying to rein in the emotions. "How much do you want?" Marilyn asked Hannah. "I don't care what your proof is, I don't want to know how you know. Name your price, I'll pay it. Just leave me alone."

  "I want the evidence you never gave to the Kennedys. I want the prints that Nick took of Hedda Hopper's files. The ones that tell the story of the Card Sharks. There were three copies, or did you give them all to Rudo and Hopper?"

  The gasp Marilyn gave could not have been faked. Her skin went pale, the hands that came up to cover her face trembled. She was crying now, rocking back and forth on the cushions. "Oh God, I've been so frightened." She wept for a long time. Hannah waited, as Marilyn sobbed and on the television Jokertown burned. Hannah had come here with no sympathy for the woman at all. She'd come prepared to threaten, to blackmail, to confront Marilyn with her guilt. But Hannah now found that while she might not be able to forgive what Marilyn had done, she couldn't hate the woman at all. She was a victim too, as much as Nick. As Hannah had found with jokers, it was hard to blindly hate someone you understood.

  "Ms. Monroe," Hannah said at last, softly.

  Marilyn looked u
p, her face blotchy, her mascara now black streaks down either cheek. "Who are you? What are you after?"

  "My name doesn't matter. What I'm after is the Sharks. What I'm after are the people who killed Nick and Jack and Bobby Kennedy and scores of others. I want to understand what happened."

  "I was afraid," she said. "I knew Jack all too well; Bobby, too. They would have tried to do something with the information. Jack wasn't perfect, he wasn't a saint, but he wouldn't have left that kind of rot alone, and there were too many powerful people involved. They already hated Jack and Bobby both — hated their idealism and their liberal 'softness' and their courting of minorities: jokers, blacks, anyone. I was aware that they were already working against Jack's reelection. I knew there were a few who were already talking assassination and I was afraid that if Jack moved against them, that would be the last straw. I thought that by doing nothing, I might at least save him." Tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes, rolling untouched down her cheeks as she gave a short, bitter laugh. "So I said nothing. And then Jack went to Dallas …" Marilyn wiped at her tears angrily, defiantly. "You have no idea what you're facing, young lady."

  "I'm facing you."

  Marilyn took a sharp breath. "Me? I'm nothing," she said. "I never have been. Not to them. You want to know the truth? I hate them. I hate them more than I hate myself for never having the courage to do something about it." She sat up suddenly. "You have to go," she said. "You can't stay here."

  "I'm not leaving until I have answers."

  "Why?" Marilyn cried in that breathless little girl voice of hers. "What good is anything I know? Who can you go to? Who can you trust?"

  "I don't know that yet. But I'll find out," Hannah answered. "I'll do something."

  For several seconds, Marilyn just looked at her. "I'm not as flighty and reckless as the gossip says," she said finally. "Not really. They told me what I was to do if anyone ever confronted me. I was going to keep you here. I'd talk to you if I had to, pretend to give you what you wanted, until … Stay here a moment," Marilyn got up from the couch, moving now like an old person, and went into the bedroom of the suite, returning quickly. Hannah felt the breath go out of her when she saw what the woman held in her hands.