George RR Martin - WC 8 - One Eyed Jacks

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Wildcards VIII: One Eyed JacksOne Eyed Jacks
Book 8 of Wildcards
Edited by George R.R. Martin
ISBN: 0-553-28852-0
Nobody's Girl
by Walton Simons
The late-afternoon sunshine warmed them. She lay naked on the bed, hands folded
on her stomach, eyes closed. He looked down the outline of her body, trying to
hold on to the ecstasy and contentment he'd felt with her only moments before.
But it was already slipping away. Women kept it a bit longer. Afterglow. But
they lost it, too.
"You could stay awhile," Jerry said. He tried to make the four words sound like
it would be more fun than two people could stand. Not that they'd been pushing
the limit in that area lately.
"Nope." Veronica opened her eyes and sat up, her long, sweat-soaked brown hair
plastered to her face and neck. Jerry hoped it was his technique and not the
August heat seeping in. She waited a few seconds, then stood and walked into the
bathroom, closing the door after her. "Call me a cab."
"Okay, you're a cab." Jerry hadn't expected a laugh and wasn't disappointed. He
heard her turn on the shower. He pulled on his shorts and walked across the
carpeted floor into the next room. A five-hundred-dollar bill was in the top
drawer of the mahogany bedroom dresser. Along with a new pair of black silk
panties and matching underwire bra with cutout front. It was their ritual. Maybe
she'd wear the lingerie next time, maybe not.
He picked up the phone and paused for a second, stopping his finger from making
a rotary motion. He hadn't adjusted to push buttons yet. Twenty-plus years as a
giant ape could do that to you. A cold, sick feeling spread through him. Even
Veronica couldn't help when it hit him. He tried hard to push the thoughts away,
but that only made it worse when they finally broke through. The world had
changed during those years, drastically and unalterably. His parents had moved
to Pass Christian, Mississippi, and been killed in Hurricane Camille. Some idiot
psychic had told them he'd been kidnapped and taken there. The bodies wound up
in a tree three miles inland. All the time he was in Central Park Zoo, fifty
feet tall and covered with hair. He bit his lip and punched in the numbers.
"Starline Cab," said a bored voice on the other end of the line.
"Thirteen East Seventy-seventh Street. A lady will be waiting."
A pause. "That's Thirteen East Seventy-seventh. Five minutes. Thank you." Click.
Jerry walked back into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed. The sunshine
drove the cold from his skin, but not his insides.
Veronica stepped out of the bathroom. She picked up her clothes and pulled them
on in a quick, awkward manner.
"It's not against the law for you to stay sometime," he said. "We could go out
to dinner every now and then. Or a movie."
"If it's not illegal, I don't bother with it." She turned her back on him to
button her blouse.
"Yeah." He rolled over on his stomach, not wanting her to see the pain on his
face. She could be a real bitch at times. Most times, nowadays.
"Sorry" She ran a finger down his calf. "I'll see what I can work out, but no
promises. I'm a busy girl."
The intercom buzzed.
Jerry sat up straight. Almost nobody ever visited him here, except Veronica. He
ran across the apartment to the intercom and pushed the button. "Hello."
"Jerry, this is Beth. I'll bet you forgot about the fundraiser tonight. You
can't abandon me to all those lawyers and politicians."
"Oh, Jesus. I did forget. Hold on. I'll be right down." Jerry walked quickly
over to the closet and snatched out a shirt and pants. "My sister-in-law. You
should meet her. You'd like her."
"A lawyer's wife?" Veronica shook her head. "You must be kidding."
"You might be surprised. She's really terrific."
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"I'm out of here," said Veronica, heading for the door. Jerry struggled into his
alligator shoes and hopped across the carpet after her. "Okay, I love you."
Veronica waved without turning around and closed the door behind her.
Jerry sighed and went into the bathroom. He combed his too-red hair and dabbed
on a few drops of cologne. He heard the elevator stop. He waited a few seconds
until it headed back down. It wouldn't do for Beth to see him with Veronica,
who'd probably just say something snotty.
He checked to make sure he had his wallet and keys, then hustled out into the
hall and punched the elevator button.
Beth was waiting for him downstairs. She was wearing a floral print shirt and
light blue pants. Her blond hair hung just past her shoulders.
"Let's get moving, bro. I'm double-parked." She grabbed him by the elbow and
guided him toward the door. "I just saw a cute little brunette number leave."
She arched an eyebrow. "Anybody I should know?"
He did his best to look shocked. "Nope. Anybody I should know?"
Beth smiled. "You could do a lot worse. You probably have too."
"A safe bet. Let's go and get this over with."
The ballroom was filled with smoke and noisy, rich Democrats, most of them
trying not to appear drunk. Yet. Koch and Jesse Jackson had appeared together
earlier in the day to show Democratic solidarity, such as it was. There was a
rumor that Jackson might show up to speak, but it wasn't in the itinerary. Jerry
hated going anywhere he was required to wear a tux, but Beth had promised him
three movie dates in return.
The three of them were the only ones at their table. Kenneth had his arm around
Beth, whose shoulders were bare except for the thin straps of her blue silk
dress. Jerry was jealous. He and Veronica were never to appear in public
together. Veronica had made that much clear.
"I can't believe the party nominated Dukakis," Kenneth said. "Even Richard Nixon
could beat him into the ground."
"Bad luck'at the convention," Beth said. "Hartmann might have had a chance."
"Then again he might not. Public opinion on wild cards being what it is. That
issue would probably have sunk him. You should be glad you're not a well-known
ace." Kenneth stood. "There's a few people I need to talk to. Back in a minute."
He kissed Beth on the forehead and made his way into the crowd.
"I'm not an ace at all, anymore." Jerry took a large swallow of wine. "Which is
for the best, I guess." Hello, Mrs. Strauss. A young man stood behind Kenneth's
empty chair. He was tall, blond, and could probably have passed for a Greek god
even in good light. Jerry hated him instantly.
"David." Beth smiled and motioned to the chair. "I didn't know you were going to
be here. How nice to see you. Do you know Kenneth's brother, Jerry?"
"No." David extended his hand.
"Jerry, this is David Butler. He's the intern working with Mr. Latham. Even St.
John is impressed with him. Has David working all hours."
Jerry shook his hand. There was an almost palpable energy in David's touch.
Jerry withdrew and managed a smile. "You do what, David?"
"Whatever Mr. Latham requires." David smiled at Beth. "You look lovely tonight.
I can't imagine your husband being foolish enough to abandon you."
"Oh, I'm well taken care of, David." Beth put her hand on Jerry's sleeve.
David gave Jerry half a glance and drummed his fingers on the table. "I'd better
be going. Mr. Latham expects me to mingle with the heavy hitters. Says it should
be good for me." He got up, rolling his eyes. "Nice to see you, Mrs. Strauss."
David left.
"He must be gay," Jerry said. Beth chuckled. "I don't think so."
"Is he rich, then?"
"I'm afraid so."
"There is no God." Jerry emptied his wineglass and looked for a waiter.
"You don't need to be jealous, Jerry." Beth adjusted the straps on her gown.
"Just because he's young, rich, and gorgeously handsome."
"I'm rich and young, sort of." Jerry hadn't aged physically in the twenty years
he'd been an ape. Legally, though, he was in his forties.
"Feeling sorry for yourself again?" Kenneth said, reappearing and sitting back
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down.
"Constantly," Jerry said.
"Right. Did you ever contact any of those film people I mentioned your name to?
You have talent. Beth and I are both impressed with your abilities."
"I'll get around to it. I have a lazy muse," Jerry said. "I know you went to a
lot of trouble."
"Not as much trouble as proving that you weren't legally dead when you showed up
last year." Kenneth smiled. "Nobody wanted to believe you'd been a giant ape for
over a decade. Too many precedents."
Jerry sighed. "Sorry I was so much trouble."
"It's not that and you know it. When you're born into wealth like we were,
there's a larger obligation to society that comes with it."
Jerry shrugged. "I like to think I'm keeping my bank from going under. It's the
romantic in me."
Beth smiled, but Kenneth shook his head. "The romantic in you is going to get
you into trouble someday. You can pay people to not call you Mr. Strauss, but
you can't make them give a shit when it's crunch time. People don't love you for
money, they love you in spite of it."
Jerry didn't need to hear this right now. He turned to Beth. "Why did you marry
this guy?"
Beth smiled and held up her hands, palms about a foot apart.
"Nasty girl," Jerry said. " I guess it runs in the family." Kenneth fingered a
cuff link. "I don't want to be a pain, but you can count on me keeping after you
about this. You need to find something to do with your life."
There was a burst of applause and people began standing. Jesse Jackson was
making his way slowly from the back of the room, shaking hands as he went.
"I suppose we can expect a speech now," Jerry said, rubbing the back of his
neck. "I'd rather be home watching a movie."
"Democracy is hell, bro," Beth said.
"I'll drink to that." Jerry snagged a waiter's arm and indicated he needed more
wine. The only thing that numbed his butt quicker than politics was alcohol.
After rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful, he felt like staying up late.
Jerry split time between his apartment and his room at the family house on
Staten Island where Kenneth and Beth lived. He'd had to overhaul the place when
he got back. His sixteen-millimeter projectors were shot and the neglected cans
of film had gotten brittle with age. He'd replaced them with a largescreen TV
and videotape. Nobody collected actual films anymore. But there was no romance
in video. It was cheap and easy. He was hardly in a position to be judgmental
about people who went that way, though, considering his relationship with
Veronica. Although she wasn't cheap and was getting less easy all the time.
He was watching Klute. It was a bad choice. At least Veronica didn't wear a
watch while they did it. She probably never came either, though.
There was a soft knock at the door and Beth stuck her head in. Jerry paused the
tape and motioned her in. "Entrez. I'm watching Klute. Ever seen it?"
"Twice, at least." She sat down on the sofa next to him. " I love the scene
where she licks the spoon after eating the catfood." Beth licked her lips.
"You're sick."
"Afraid so." She picked up two other tapes off the table. "What have we got
here? Irma La Douce and McCabe and Mrs. Miller." She paused. He knew she
expected him to say something.
"Yeah, well. I like to mix it up, you know. Murder mystery, period piece,
comedy. I try to get a bit of everything." He shrugged. "I've got lots to catch
up on."
She patted him on the shoulder. "You don't want to talk about it. I can tell. I
always feel better when I talk about things. If I hadn't had some good friends
and a decent analyst a few years back, Kenneth and I would have wound up
divorced."
"I didn't know you two had any problems."
She laughed. "It's tough being married to a lawyer. You always have the feeling
that anything you say can and will be used against you. And sometimes he did. I
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know he didn't mean to, or at least I hope that, but at the time it was hard to
tell. You can't ever be another person and know how they really feel. That's
kind of scary. But eventually you just decide to believe in them or not. I
decided to believe in Kenneth and I'm not sorry"
"I'm glad." The words sounded flatter than he'd intended. "Really. You've been a
big help to me. I know I'm not adjusting very well, but I will."
Beth kissed him on the cheek. "You can talk to me any time you feel like it."
She pointed to the TV screen. "Want to know who the killer is?"
"No, thanks. I don't want to cheat myself out of guessing wrong and then feeling
stupid."
"Good night." She closed the door.
Jerry shut off the TV and VCR. He didn't much like the way this one was headed,
anyway. He crossed the floor to his dressing room. It hadn't changed much in
thirty years. Back when he was the Projectionist, he'd practiced his Humphrey
Bogart and Marlon Brando in front of the same mirror. Bogart died even before
Jerry had drawn the wild card, and Brando was old and fat. He sat down, opened a
drawer, and pulled out a picture of Veronica and a wig. The hair was as close a
match as he could find for hers.
He stuck the picture in the corner of the mirror and looked at it for a second
or two, then at his own reflection. His features began to change; his skin
darkened. Hair was still a problem. He couldn't quite get it to do what he
wanted yet. In the old days he could actually have turned into a woman, but that
had always made him feel weird. He pulled on the wig and closed his eyes, waited
a moment, then reopened them.
"I love you."
It was even less convincing than the few times Veronica had said it herself. He
pulled off the wig and changed back. Beth was right, you couldn't know what
another person was thinking or feeling. Couldn't ever actually be them. He
tossed the wig and picture into the drawer and slammed it shut.
Who the hell would want to, anyway?
Luck Be a Lady
by Chris Claremont
Once they heard where she was going, nobody would take her. Some cabbies were
apologetic, others curtly dismissive, a couple offered rude gestures and ruder
words.
If the plane had arrived on time, when the dispatchers were on duty, she might
have fared better-but mechanical delays and rotten weather en route had delayed
the flight so long it was well past midnight before she finally landed, and
there was nobody official to turn to.
One asked point-blank why Cody was going there and, hoping it might persuade him
to change his mind, she told him: "A job interview"
"Where fo'?" he asked, "ain't nobody hirin' down there."
"The clinic," she said.
"Shit, missy, you got better places to go an' better things to do wit'chu life
than waste it down 'at shithole, trust me."
"Absolutely," a friend chimed in, his accent so thick Cody barely understood the
word.
"Decent lady got no bizness goin' there," the driver continued, hands weaving a
fascinating pattern in the air before him as he spoke, took a sip of coffee,
spoke, took a drag on a Marlboro, without ever missing a beat. "Shit, nobody
human got any bizness there. Unless. .." Suspicion dawned and he looked narrowly
toward her. "Maybe you're one of 'em."
The way he asked, far too deliberately casual, trying to mask the sudden burr of
fear and hostility barely hidden underneath, caught Cody's attention and she
tilted her head to give her one eye a better view of him.
"One of what?" she asked, genuinely confused. "Them," as if that was the most
obvious reference in the world. "Jokers, aces-whole fuckin' crowd."
"I'm a doctor."
"Cops got a name for their precinct down there, `Fort Freak.' Fuckin' fits,
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y'know. Ain't there enough sick people needful amongst your own, why you gotta
go take care o' them? Pardon me for sayin', lady, but you ain't got the look o'
no Mutha Teresa, know what I mean?"
"Absolutely," his friend chimed in.
"Look. . ." She sighed, fatigue from her trip combining with apprehension to put
steel in her voice, an edge that made the cabbie stiffen ever so slightly and
take a reflexive half step backward. "All I'm looking for is a way into the
city. If none of you will take me, can you at least point out some other way?"
"Sure," the other cabbie said, striking out with some humor of his own, "walk."
Nobody laughed, and when Cody turned her eye on him, with a look she'd learned
within forty-eight hours of landing in Vietnam and perfected over twenty years
as a surgeon, he promptly wished he'd resisted the impulse.
"Hey, life's a bitch. Only other option's, you take the Q33 transit bus over to
Roosevelt Avenue/Jackson Heights, then catch the F take you right into
Jokertown."
"F what," she asked.
"F you," muttered the jokester, but she ignored him. "Subway," said the first
man. "Sixth Avenue line, that's what the letter stands for, take it downtown."
"Thank you," she told him, hefting shoulder bag and briefcase and following his
pointed direction along the sidewalk to the bus stop.
"Better watch your step, Doc," he called after her, "they're animals down there,
you got no idea." (And you do, she thought.) "They see a nice piece like you,
sonsabitch freaks'll prob'ly eat 'chu!" And on cue, came his friend's stolid
"Absolutely!"
Cody didn't argue. For all she knew he might be right.
At the station she scrambled into the next-to-the-last car, surprised to find it
crowded. Where'd all these people come from? she wondered. The bus driver said
this station's supposed to be one of the main ones on the line and there
couldn't have been more than a half dozen of us waiting. She shrugged. Isn't my
city, this could be the only train they run this time of night. The thing was,
as it had rumbled past her into the station, the other cars hadn't registered as
being so full.
It was standing room only-there was room to move, but not much else-the
passengers about as wide and wild a mix as could be imagined, the night people
of this city that loved boasting to the world that it never slept, everyone
locked tight in their own miserable little private worlds, not caring a damn
about what was outside and praying with all their hearts to be left alone. No
one looked her way. No one knew she existed, or cared. Good. Right now,
anonymity was a most valued friend.
She twisted a little sideways to get more comfortable and caught a glimpse of
herself in the door glass, turned black by the dark tunnel roaring by outside.
Tall, too tall for a woman, her height and the power of her rangy frame working
against the clothes she was wearing, the only thing in her wardrobe that
qualified as a power suit. First time she'd worn anything like it in years.
Christ, she wondered, sifting back through the years, was it when Ben died, has
it really been that long? In-country, she'd gotten into the habit of fatigues
and T-shirts, of dressing for comfort rather than fashion-if for no other reason
than what sweat didn't ruin, the blood surely would-and one of the things she'd
loved about Wyoming was the casual nature of the people. They took her as she
was-at least, she thought with sudden bitterness, when it came to how I looked.
And here she stood, trading that in for a world where the package was at least
as important as what was inside. Wha' fuck, she shrugged, a small smile twisting
the corner of her mouth at how easily she adopted the cadence of the taxi
driver, maybe the change'll do me good. Except, perhaps, for the effing heels.
Too long in hiking boots and sneaks; dress shoes were going to take some getting
used to. And she eased one foot free to rub-massage the arch on the opposite
shin.
Automatically, she continued her inventory, hoping her brief visit to an airport
washroom had repaired most of the damage done by the seemingly endless flight.
The hair was black, except for a smattering of silver splashed above her right
eye, unruly as ever despite her best efforts with hairspray and comb. The years
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file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%2\0Wildcards%208%20-%20One%20Eyed%20Jacks.txtWildcardsVIII:OneEyedJacksOneEyedJacksBook8ofWildcardsEditedbyGeorgeR.R.MartinISBN:0-553-28852-0Nobody'sGirlbyWaltonSimonsThelate-afternoonsunshinewarmedthem.Shelaynakedonthebed,hands\...

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