Wild Cards Part 26

He pressed his lips together, pushed off with his mind, and the sh.e.l.l slid smoothly out over the water. The salt waves beneath him rose and fell. He'd never had to push against water before; it felt different. Tom had an instant of panic; the sh.e.l.l rocked and dropped three feet before he caught hold of himself and adjusted. He calmed himself with an effort, shoved upward, and rose. High High, he thought, he'd come in high, he'd fly fly in, like Jetboy, like Black Eagle, like a f.u.c.king in, like Jetboy, like Black Eagle, like a f.u.c.king ace ace. The sh.e.l.l moved out, faster and faster, gliding across the bay with swift serenity as Tom gained confidence. He'd never felt so incredibly powerful, so good, so G.o.dd.a.m.ned right right.

The compa.s.s worked fine; in less than ten minutes, the lights of the Battery and the Wall Street district loomed up before him. Tom pushed still higher, and floated uptown, hugging the sh.o.r.eline of the Hudson. Jetboy's Tomb came and went beneath him. He'd stood in front of it a dozen times, gazing up at the face of the big metal statue out front. He wondered what that statue might think if it could look up and see him tonight.

He had a New York street map, but tonight he didn't need it; the flames could be seen almost a mile off. Even inside his armor Tom could feel the heat waves licking up at him when he made a pa.s.s overhead. He carefully began a descent. His fans whirred, and his cameras tracked at his command; below was chaos and cacophony, sirens and shouting, the crowd, the hurrying firemen, the police barricades and the ambulances, big hook-and-ladder trucks spraying water into the inferno. At first no one noticed him, hovering fifty feet above the sidewalk-until he came in low enough for his lights to play on the walls of the building. Then he saw them looking up, pointing; he felt giddy with excitement.

But he had only an instant to relish the feeling. Then, from the corner of an eye, he saw her in one of his screens. She appeared suddenly in a fifth-floor window, bent over and coughing, her dress already afire. Before he could act, the flames licked at her; she screamed and jumped.

He caught her in midair, without thinking, without hesitating, without wondering whether he could do it. He just did did it, caught her and held her and lowered her gently to the ground. The firemen surrounded her, put out her dress, and hustled her into an ambulance. And now, Tom saw, it, caught her and held her and lowered her gently to the ground. The firemen surrounded her, put out her dress, and hustled her into an ambulance. And now, Tom saw, everyone everyone was looking up at him, at the strange dark shape floating high in the night, with its ring of s.h.i.+ning lights. The police band was crackling; they were reporting him as a flying saucer, he heard. He grinned. was looking up at him, at the strange dark shape floating high in the night, with its ring of s.h.i.+ning lights. The police band was crackling; they were reporting him as a flying saucer, he heard. He grinned.

A cop climbed up on top of his police car, holding a bullhorn, and began to hail him. Tom turned off the radio to hear better over the roar of the flames. He was telling Tom to land and identify himself, asking who he was, what he was.

That was easy. Tom turned on his microphone. "I'm the Turtle," he said. The VW had no tires; in the wheel wells, Joey had rigged the most humongous speakers they could find, powered by the largest amp on the market. For the first time, the voice of the Turtle was heard in the land, a booming "I'M THE TURTLE" echoing down the streets and alleys, a rolling thunder crackling with distortion. Except what he said didn't sound quite right. Tom cranked the volume up even higher, injected a little more ba.s.s into his voice. "I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TURTLE GREAT AND POWERFUL TURTLE," he announced to them all.

Then he flew a block west, to the dark polluted waters of the Hudson, and imagined two huge invisible hands forty feet across. He lowered them into the river, cupped them full, and lifted. Rivulets of water dribbled to the street all the way back. When he dropped the first cascade on the flames, a ragged cheering went up from the crowd below.

"Merry Christmas," Tach declared drunkenly when the clock struck midnight and the record Christmas Eve crowd began to whoop and shout and pound on the tables. On stage, Humphrey Bogart cracked a lame joke in an unfamiliar voice. All the lights in the house dimmed briefly; when they came back up, Bogart had been replaced by a portly, round-faced man with a red nose. "Who is he now?" Tach asked the twin on his left.

"W. C. Fields," she whishpered. She slid her tongue around the inside of his ear. The twin on the right was doing something even more interesting under the table, where her hand had somehow found a way into his trousers. The twins were his Christmas gift from Angelface. "You can pretend they're me," she'd told him, though of course they were nothing like her. Nice kids, both of them, buxom and cheerful and absolutely uninhibited, if a bit simpleminded; they re- minded him of Takisian s.e.x toys. The one on the right had drawn the wild card, but she wore her cat mask even in bed, and there was no visible deformity to disturb the sweet pleasure of his erection.

W. C. Fields, whoever he was, offered some cynical observations about Christmas and small children. The crowd hooted him off the stage. The Projectionist had an astonis.h.i.+ng array of faces, but he couldn't tell a joke. Tach didn't mind; he had all the diversion he needed.

"Paper, Doc?" The vendor thrust a copy of the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune across the table with a thick three-fingered hand. His flesh was blue-black and oily looking. "All the Christmas news," he said, s.h.i.+fting the clumsy stack of papers under his arm. Two small curving tusks protruded from the corners of his wide, grinning mouth. Beneath a porkpie hat, the great bulge of his skull was covered with tufts of bristly red hair. On the streets they called him the Walrus. across the table with a thick three-fingered hand. His flesh was blue-black and oily looking. "All the Christmas news," he said, s.h.i.+fting the clumsy stack of papers under his arm. Two small curving tusks protruded from the corners of his wide, grinning mouth. Beneath a porkpie hat, the great bulge of his skull was covered with tufts of bristly red hair. On the streets they called him the Walrus.

"No thank you, Jube," Tach said with drunken dignity. "I have no desire to wallow in human folly tonight."

"Hey, look," said the twin on the right. "The Turtle!"

Tachyon looked around, momentarily befuddled, wondering how that huge armored sh.e.l.l could possibly have gotten inside the Funhouse, but of course she was referring to the newspaper.

"You better buy it for her, Tacky," the twin on the left said, giggling. "If you don't she'll pout."

Tachyon sighed. "I'll take one. But only if I don't have to listen to any of your jokes, Jube."

"Heard a new one about a joker, a Polack, and an Irishman stuck on a desert island, but just for that I'm not going to tell it," the Walrus replied with a rubbery grin.

Tachyon dug for some coins, found nothing in his pockets but a small, feminine hand. Jube winked. "I'll get it from Des," he said. Tachyon spread the newspaper out on the table, while the club erupted in applause as Cosmos and Chaos made their entrance.

A grainy photograph of the Turtle was spread across two columns. Tachyon thought it looked like a flying pickle, a big lumpy dill covered with little b.u.mps. The Turtle had apprehended a hit-and-run driver who had killed a nine-year-old boy in Harlem, intercepting his flight and lifting the car twenty feet off the ground, where it floated with its engine roaring and its tires spinning madly until the police finally caught up. In a related sidebar, the rumor that the sh.e.l.l was an experimental robot flying tank had been denied by an Air Force spokesman.

"You'd think they'd have found something more important to write about by now," Tachyon said. It was the third big story about the Turtle this week. The letter columns, the editorial pages, everything was Turtle, Turtle, Turtle. Even television was rabid with Turtle speculation. Who was he? What was he? How did he do it?

One reporter had even sought out Tach to ask that question. "Telekinesis," Tachyon told him. "It's nothing new. Almost common, in fact." Teke had been the single ability most frequently manifested by virus victims back in '46. He'd seen a dozen patients who could move paper clips and pencils, and one woman who could lift her own body weight for ten minutes at a time. Even Earl Sanderson's flight had been telekinetic in origin. What he did not tell them was that teke on this this scale was unprecedented. Of course, when the story ran, they got half of it wrong. scale was unprecedented. Of course, when the story ran, they got half of it wrong.

"He's a joker, you know," whispered the twin on the right, the one in the silver-gray cat mask. She was leaning against his shoulder, reading about the Turtle.

"A joker?" Tach said.

"He hides inside a sh.e.l.l, doesn't he? Why would he do that unless he was really awful to look at?" She had taken her hand out of his trousers. "Could I have that paper?"

Tach pushed it toward her. "They're cheering him now," he said sharply. "They cheered the Four Aces too."

"That was a colored group, right?" she said, turning her attention to the headlines.

"She's keeping a sc.r.a.pbook," her sister said. "All the jokers think he's one of them. Stupid, huh? I bet it's just a machine, some kind of Air Force flying saucer."

"He is not," her twin said. "It says so right here." She pointed to the sidebar with a long, red-painted nail.

"Never mind about her," the twin on the left said. She moved closer to Tachyon, nibbling on his neck as her hand went under the table. "Hey, what's wrong? You're all soft."

"My pardons," Tachyon said gloomily. Cosmos and Chaos were flinging axes, machetes, and knives across the stage, the glittering cascade multiplied into infinity by the mirrors around them. He had a bottle of fine cognac at hand, and lovely, willing women on either side of him, but suddenly, for some reason he could not have named, it did not feel like such a good night after all. He filled his gla.s.s almost to the brim and inhaled the heady alcoholic fumes. "Merry Christmas," he muttered to no one in particular.

Consciousness returned with the angry tones of Mal's voice. Tach lifted his head groggily from the mirrored tabletop, blinking down at his puffy red reflection. The jugglers, the twins, and the crowd were long gone. His cheek was sticky from lying in a puddle of spilled liquor. The twins had jollied him and fondled him and one of them had even gone under the table, for all the good it did. Then Angelface had come to the tableside and sent them away. "Go to sleep, Tacky," she'd said. Mal had come up to ask if he should lug him back to bed. "Not today," she'd said, "you know what day this is. Let him sleep it off here." He couldn't recall when he'd gone to sleep.

His head was about to explode, and Mal's shouting wasn't making things any better. "I don't give a flyin' f.u.c.k what what you were promised, sc.u.mbag, you're not seeing her," the bouncer yelled. A softer voice said something in reply. "You'll get your f.u.c.kin' money, but that's all you'll get," Mal snapped. you were promised, sc.u.mbag, you're not seeing her," the bouncer yelled. A softer voice said something in reply. "You'll get your f.u.c.kin' money, but that's all you'll get," Mal snapped.

Tach raised his eyes. In the mirrors he saw their reflections darkly: odd twisted shapes outlined in the wan dawn light, reflections of reflections, hundreds of them, beautiful, monstrous, uncountable, his children, his heirs, the offspring of his failures, a living sea of jokers. The soft voice said something else. "Ah, kiss my joker a.s.s," Mal said. He had a body like a twisted stick and a head like a pumpkin; it made Tach smile. Mal shoved someone and reached behind his back, groping for his gun.

The reflections and the reflections of the reflections, the gaunt shadows and the bloated ones, the round-faced ones and the knife-thin ones, the black and the white, they moved all at once, filling the club with noise; a hoa.r.s.e shout from Mal, the crack of gunfire. Instinctively Tach dove for cover, cracking his forehead hard on the edge of the table as he slid down. He blinked back tears of pain and lay curled up on the floor, peering out at the reflections of feet while the world disintegrated into a sharp-edged cacophony. Gla.s.s was shattering and falling, mirrors breaking on all sides, silvered knives flying through the air, too many for even Cosmos and Chaos to catch, dark splinters eating into the reflections, taking bites out of all the twisted shadow-shapes, blood spattering against the cracked mirrors.

It ended as suddenly as it had begun. The soft voice said something and there was the sound of footsteps, the crunch of gla.s.s underfoot. A moment later, a m.u.f.fled scream from off behind him. Tach lay under the table, drunk and terrified. His finger hurt: bleeding, he saw, sliced open by a sliver of mirror. All he could think of were the stupid human superst.i.tions about broken mirrors and bad luck. He cradled his head in his arms so the awful nightmare would go away.

When he woke again, a policeman was shaking him roughly.

Mal was dead, one detective told him; they showed him a morgue photo of the bouncer lying in a pool of blood and a welter of broken gla.s.s. Ruth was dead too, and one of the janitors, a dim-witted cyclops who had never hurt anyone. They showed him a newspaper. The Santa Claus Slaughter, that was what they called it, and the lead was about three jokers who'd found death waiting under the tree on Christmas morning.

Miss Fascetti was gone, the other detective told him, did he know anything about that? Did he think she was involved? Was she a culprit or a victim? What could he tell them about her? He said he didn't know any such person, until they explained that they were asking about Angela Fascetti and maybe he knew her better as Angelface. She was gone and Mal was shot dead, and the most frightening thing of all was that Tach did not know where his next drink was coming from.

They held him for four days, questioning him relentlessly, going over the same ground again and again, until Tachyon was screaming at them, pleading with them, demanding his rights, demanding a lawyer, demanding a drink. They gave him only the lawyer. The lawyer said they couldn't hold him without charging him, so they charged him with being a material witness, with vagrancy, with resisting arrest, and questioned him again.

By the third day, his hands were shaking and he was having walking hallucinations. One of the detectives, the kindly one, promised him a bottle in return for his cooperation, but somehow his answers never quite satisfied them, and the bottle was not forthcoming. The bad-tempered one threatened to hold him forever unless he told the truth. I thought it was a nightmare, Tach told him, weeping. I was drunk, I'd been asleep. No, I couldn't see them, just the reflections, distorted, multiplied. I don't know how many there were. I don't know what it was about. No, she had no enemies, everyone loved Angelface. No, she didn't kill Mal, that didn't make sense, Mal loved her. One of them had a soft voice. No, I don't know which one. No, I can't remember what they said. No, I don't know if they were jokers or not, they looked like jokers, but the mirrors distort, some of them, not all of them, don't you see? No, I couldn't possibly pick them out of a lineup, I never really saw them. I had to hide under the table, don't you see, the a.s.sa.s.sins had come, that's what my father always told me, there wasn't anything I could do.

When they realized that he was telling them all he knew, they dropped the charges and released him. To the dark streets of Jokertown and the cold of the night.

He walked down the Bowery alone, s.h.i.+vering. The Walrus was hawking the evening papers from his newsstand on the corner of Hester. "Read all about it," he called out. "Turtle Terror in Jokertown." Tachyon paused to stare dully at the headlines. POLICE SEEK TURTLE POLICE SEEK TURTLE, the Post Post reported. reported. TURTLE CHARGED WITH a.s.sAULT TURTLE CHARGED WITH a.s.sAULT, announced the World-Telegram World-Telegram. So the cheering had stopped already. He glanced at the text. The Turtle had been prowling Jokertown the past two nights, lifting people a hundred feet in the air to question them, threatening to drop them if he didn't like their answers. When police tried to make an arrest last night, the Turtle had deposited two of their black-and- whites on the roof of Freakers at Chatham Square. CURB THE TURTLE CURB THE TURTLE, the editorial in the World-Telegram World-Telegram said. said.

"You all right, Doc?" the Walrus asked.

"No," said Tachyon, putting down the paper. He couldn't afford to pay for it anyway.

Police barriers blocked the entrance to the Funhouse, and a padlock secured the door. CLOSED INDEFINITELY CLOSED INDEFINITELY, the sign said. He needed a drink, but the pockets of his bandleader's coat were empty. He thought of Des and Randall, and realized that he had no idea where they lived, or what their last names might be.

Trudging back to ROOMS, Tach climbed wearily up the stairs. When he stepped into the darkness, he had just enough time to notice that the room was frigidly cold; the window was open and a bitter wind was scouring out the old smells of urine, mildew, and drink. Had he done that? Confused, he stepped toward it, and someone came out from behind the door and grabbed him.

It happened so fast he scarcely had time to react. The forearm across his windpipe was an iron bar, choking off his scream, and a hand wrenched his right arm up behind his back, hard. He was choking, his arm close to breaking, and then he was being shoved toward the open window, running at it, and Tachyon could only thrash feebly in a grip much stronger than his own. The windowsill caught him square in the stomach, knocking the last of his breath right out of him and suddenly he was falling, head over heels, locked helplessly in the steel embrace of his attacker, both of them plunging toward the sidewalk below.

They jerked to a stop five feet above the cement, with a wrench that elicited a grunt from the man behind him.

Tach had closed his eyes before the instant of impact. He opened them as they began to float upward. Above the yellow halo of the streetlamp was a ring of much brighter lights, set in a hovering darkness that blotted out the winter stars.

The arm across his throat had loosened enough for Tachyon to groan. "You," he said hoa.r.s.ely, as they curved around the sh.e.l.l and came to rest gently on top of it. The metal was icy cold, its chill biting right through the fabric of Tachyon's pants. As the Turtle began to rise straight up into the night, Tachyon's captor released him. He drew in a shuddering breath of cold air, and rolled over to face a man in a zippered leather jacket, black dungarees, and a rubbery green frog mask. "Who . . . ?" he gasped.

"I'm the Great and Powerful Turtle's mean-a.s.s sidekick," the man in the frog mask said, rather cheerfully.

"DOCTOR TACHYON, I PRESUME," boomed the sh.e.l.l's speakers, far above the alleys of Jokertown. "I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MEET YOU. I READ ABOUT YOU WHEN I WAS JUST A KID."

"Turn it down," Tach croaked weakly.

"OH. SURE. Is that better?" The volume diminished sharply. "It's noisy in here, and behind all this armor I can't always tell how loud I sound. I'm sorry if we scared you, but we couldn't take the chance of you saying no. We need you."

Tach stayed just where he was, s.h.i.+vering, shaken. "What do you want?" he asked wearily.

"Help," the Turtle declared. They were still rising; the lights of Manhattan spread out all around them, and the spires of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building rose uptown. They were higher than either. The wind was cold and gusting; Tach clung to the sh.e.l.l for dear life.

"Leave me alone," Tachyon said. "I have no help to give you. I have no help to give anybody."

"f.u.c.k, he's crying," the man in the frog mask said.

"You don't understand," the Turtle said. The sh.e.l.l began to drift west, its motion silent and steady. There was something awesome and eerie about the flight. "You have to help. I've tried on my own, but I'm getting nowhere. But you, your powers, they can make the difference."

Tachyon was lost in his own self-pity, too cold and exhausted and despairing to reply. "I want a drink," he said.

"f.u.c.k it," said frog-face. "Dumbo was right about this guy, he's nothing but a G.o.dd.a.m.ned wino."

"He doesn't understand," said the Turtle. "Once we explain, he'll come around. Doctor Tachyon, we're talking about your friend Angelface."

He needed a drink so badly it hurt. "She was good to me," he said, remembering the sweet perfume of her satin sheets, and her b.l.o.o.d.y footprints on the mirror tiles. "But there's nothing I can do. I told the police everything I know."

"Chickens.h.i.+t a.s.shole," said frog-face.

"When I was a kid, I read about you in Jetboy Comics Jetboy Comics," the Turtle said. "'Thirty Minutes Over Broadway,' remember? You were supposed to be as smart as Einstein. I might be able to save your friend Angelface, but I can't without your powers."

"I don't do that any longer. I can't can't. There was someone I hurt, someone I cared for, but I seized her mind, just for an instant, for a good reason, or at least I thought it was for a good reason, but it . . . destroyed her. I can't do it again."

"Boo hoo," said frog-face mockingly. "Let's toss 'im, Turtle, he's not worth a bucket of warm p.i.s.s." He took something out of one of the pockets of his leather jacket; Tach was astonished to see that it was a bottle of beer.

"Please," Tachyon said, as the man popped off the cap with a bottle-opener hung round his neck. "A sip," Tach said. "Just a sip." He hated the taste of beer, but he needed something, anything. It had been days. "Please."

"f.u.c.k off," frog-face said.

"Tachyon," said the Turtle, "you can make him."

"No I can't," Tach said. The man raised the bottle up to green rubber lips. "I can't," Tach repeated. Frog-face continued to drink. "No." He could hear it gurgling. "Please, just a little."

The man lowered the beer bottle, sloshed it thoughtfully. "Just a swallow left," he said.

"Please." He reached out, hands trembling.

"Nah," said frog-face. He began to turn the bottle upside down. " 'Course, if you're really thirsty, you could just grab my mind, right? Make Make me give you the f.u.c.kin' bottle." He tipped the bottle a little more. "Go on, I dare ya, try it." me give you the f.u.c.kin' bottle." He tipped the bottle a little more. "Go on, I dare ya, try it."

Tach watched the last mouthful of beer dribble down onto the Turtle's sh.e.l.l and run off into empty air.

"f.u.c.k," said the man in the frog mask. "You got it bad, don't you?" He pulled another bottle from his pocket, opened it, and handed it across. Tach cradled it with both hands. The beer was cold and sour, but he had never tasted anything half so sweet. He drained it all in one long swallow.

"Got any other smart ideas?" frog-face asked the Turtle.

Ahead of them was the blackness of the Hudson River, the lights of Jersey off to the west. They were descending. Beneath them, overlooking the Hudson, was a sprawling edifice of steel and gla.s.s and marble that Tachyon suddenly recognized, though he had never set foot inside it: Jetboy's Tomb. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"We're going to see a man about a rescue," the Turtle said.

Jetboy's Tomb filled the entire block, on the site where the pieces of his plane had come raining down. It filled Tom's screens too, as he sat in the warm darkness of his sh.e.l.l, bathed in a phosphor glow. Motors whirred as the cameras moved in their tracks. The huge f.l.a.n.g.ed wings of the tomb curved upward, as if the building itself was about to take flight. Through tall, narrow windows, he could see glimpses of the full-size replica of the JB1 suspended from the ceiling, its scarlet flanks aglow from hidden lights. Above the doors, the hero's last words had been carved, each letter chiseled into the black Italian marble and filled in stainless steel. The metal flashed as the sh.e.l.l's white-hot spots slid across the legend:

I CAN'T DIE YET,.

I HAVEN'T SEEN THE JOLSON STORY THE JOLSON STORY.

Tom brought the sh.e.l.l down in front of the monument, to hover five feet above the broad marble plaza at the top of the stairs. Nearby, a twenty-foot-tall steel Jetboy looked out over the West Side Highway and the Hudson beyond, his fists c.o.c.ked. The metal used for the sculpture had come from the wreckage of crashed planes, Tom knew. He knew that statue's face better than he knew his father's.

The man they'd come to meet emerged from the shadows at the base of the statue, a chunky dark shape huddled in a thick overcoat, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Tom shone a light on him; a camera tracked to give him a better view. The joker was a portly man, round-shouldered and well-dressed. His coat had a fur collar and his fedora was pulled low. Instead of a nose, he had an elephant's trunk in the middle of his face. The end of it was fringed with fingers, snug in a little leather glove.

Dr. Tachyon slid off the top of the sh.e.l.l, lost his footing and landed on his a.s.s. Tom heard Joey laugh. Then Joey jumped down too, and pulled Tachyon to his feet.

The joker glanced down at the alien. "So you convinced him to come after all. I'm surprised."