George R.R. Martin - [Wild Cards 18] (21 page)

Jamal mumbled something about jocks getting all the girls. “True. But it’s because the girls chase them, not the other way around.”

So he went off to USC determined to be the opposite of his father—not a jock, but an intellectual. He read Eggers and Pynchon and, yes, Stendahl. He discovered Marcel Duchamp and the Constructionists. He studied French film and Howard Hawks movies.

He even saw
The Jolson Story.

Now
that
career had been sacrificed on the altar of the wild card.

Jamal Norwood
needs American Hero
.

“Today’s challenge is the Scavenger Hunt.”

Griffith Park Observatory has just emerged from a five-year-long, $90 million reconstruction. Having been dragged to the site for field trips all through grade school, Jamal feels as though he knows the place—and to his eye, it has not changed. The only difference is that you could no longer park. If he and the other Clubs hadn’t been driving their
American Hero
Humvees, they’d have had to take a bus.

Not that it matters for the Clubs. They are the last of the four suits to arrive, joining the other convoys as well as the horde of production vehicles and honey wagons.

Now Jamal and the other Clubs are lined up in front of a giant emblem so flimsy it flutters in the gentle morning breeze, and some kind of flat structure, like a scoreboard, covered
with a colored sheet. The aces from the other suits, from Clubs to Diamonds to Spades to Hearts, all stand in front of Peregrine, all cleverly positioned so the light is in their faces. Peregrine herself steps onto a slick plastic circle twenty feet wide, bearing the
American Hero
logo.

Jamal has been on a dozen film sets, and yet he is still amazed at the artifice. Maybe it’s another sign that he is in the wrong business; he wants the characters on TV and in the movies to be
real.

Toad Man nudges Jamal. “Boy, I thought
we
were having tough times. Look at
them,”
he says, nodding to the five Diamonds gathering in front of the symbol for their suit. They remind Jamal of an expansion baseball team about to take the field against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Only no expansion team had ever fielded such a sad-ass player as the Maharajah, missing two legs and one arm.

The Hearts, on the other hand, look cocky. There are six of them, just as there are six Clubs. Both teams have won a challenge, and the immunity that goes with it. The Spades and Diamonds, losers both times out, are down to five players apiece.

Jamal blinks—put them out of your mind. Think like Big Bill Norwood. They are
all
the enemy.

“We have hidden five statues just like this—” Peregrine raises a golden figurine, a stylized Jetboy a foot tall “—at five different locations around Los Angeles. The team that returns here within four hours with the most Jetboys wins. It’s that simple.”

“Any rules?” Drummer Boy booms, shooting a shit-eating grin down at his partner in crime, Hardhat.

“Of course,” Peregrine says. “Just one: there are no rules.”

Most of the aces actually finish the phrase for her. Jamal can feel his heart rate rise, as it did when he walked from the on-deck circle to home plate… or his first moment on set.

“Okay, may I present… the Scavenger Hunt!” Peregrine pulls the covers off a giant electronic display—currently blank.

“Shit!”

“One minute, Mom. They lost the feed.” That from John
Fortune, hand to earpiece, running toward a satellite truck a dozen yards away—no doubt happy to have an excuse not to be Drummer Boy’s Stepin Fetchit.

“Do the locations even matter?” Diver is behind him. “No matter what, I wind up fishing or swimming. The life aquatic. Christ.”

“Could be worse. You could be a tackling dummy like me.”

“A what?”

Jamal sighs. “Think of a punching bag on a sled. Football players practice tackles on it.”

“Let’s trade places. I bet I’d like being tackled more than you would.”

“You’ve got a bad attitude.”

“You have no idea.” She forces a smile.

“Okay, aces!
American Heroes
!” The board has been fired up successfully, a MapQuest look at Los Angeles County, with five beeping dots. One is in the Valley near the intersection of the 405 and Ventura Boulevard; one appears to be on a peak near Mount Wilson; one is in the middle of Beverly Hills; one is way the hell and gone in Venice, by the ocean; and one appears to be located just over the hill from Griffith Park Observatory.

Jamal has no interest in dragging his ass all the way to Venice, or up some mountainside, and—as a Los Angeles resident—knows better than to face the 405 and Ventura area at any time of day. He’d also like to avoid getting into a battle anywhere near Rodeo Drive. Who needs the attitude? Besides, he has a good idea what that fifth location is.

As Jamal watches, the screen changes, actual addresses and images popping up, to reactions that range from appreciative to confused.

The fifth location is Griffith Park Zoo.

Peregrine is posing for a trio of cameras. “You see your possible destinations. How you reach them and how you return is up to you.” She points to a huge, ridiculous clock, complete with
American Hero
hands, that has been dragged into the center of the circle. “When I say ‘go’ and the clock starts, you’re off.

“Any last questions?” Faux drama. Jamal finds this
intensely annoying and turns away before he hears Peregrine shout…

“Go!”

The first challenge is the freakish mad scramble to decide which of the Clubs goes where. It takes two minutes of suggestions, argument, and actual shoving before it reaches total chaos. As Jade Blossom and Diver tussle over which of the pair would be best suited to search in Beverly Hills, Toad Man turns to Jamal and gives a half-smile. “This reminds me of a football huddle.”

“Yeah, but nobody is the quarterback.”

It’s Holy Roller who uses his voice and bulk to restore order. “Dammit, people!” The uncharacteristic use of profanity shocks the team to relative silence. “Time, as they say, is a-wasting. Brother Stuntman, you know this godless city better than any of us. Why don’t
you
give us some guidance—and quickly.”

Whether he likes it or not, Jamal is suddenly in charge. And the choices are obvious: “Brave Hawk, the mountain location. Reverend, you and Toad hit that Valley spot. Jade, Beverly Hills.”

Jade’s face lights up in triumph—which is bad enough, but then she elbows Diver. “Too bad, baby”—as Jamal is forced to say, “Diver, Venice.” Remembering their earlier conversation, he adds, “Sorry.”

If Diver’s wild card were laser eyes, Jamal’s head would vaporize. “Fuck you, Stuntman. Where are you going?”

“The zoo.”

The departure is a mad scramble, and not just for Clubs. Brave Hawk flaps into the sky. A few seconds later, Jetman launches himself in a blast of smoke and flame, the echo booming off the hills. Buford transforms into a toad the size of a Volkswagen and goes bounding off, with Roller rumbling
behind him. A pelican the size of a hot air balloon appears out of nowhere and flaps off to the northeast—one of Dragon Girl’s stuffed toys, transformed. Is she heading for the zoo? Or Mount Wilson to battle Brave Hawk and Jetman?

Jamal hears Rosa Loteria shouting for Rustbelt to “take the zoo!” The ridiculous-looking hoser ace jumps into a production truck and starts grinding the gears… the whole interior of the vehicle is probably now rust. Jade Blossom grabs John Fortune’s cell phone and calls for a cab. Well, she’s headed for Beverly Hills.

Ever Big Bill Norwood’s son, Jamal gets a good jump, running for the Humvee and sliding into the driver’s seat before anyone else even reaches the parking lot. He is amused to find Art in the back with Diaz and camera in the passenger seat. “Who did you guys piss off today?”

“You’re not gonna be pointing at us all day, are you, Stuntman?” Art sounds completely beaten down.

“Sorry,” Jamal says. He backs the car out of the lot and burns, as fast as he can, toward the eastern exit.

Growing up in Los Angeles has given Jamal a highly developed sense of geography, especially of various traffic shortcuts. He finds a turn-out just beyond a tunnel and quickly passes Rustbelt’s truck. “So I’m heading for the zoo,” he says, turning to Art. “What am I supposed to do, wrestle a fucking alligator?”

Art can’t hide the smile. “Something like that.” Another reason why he is really a bad
American Hero
producer: he’s jumpy about contestants breaking the fourth wall, yet can’t keep his own mouth shut.

Jamal thinks for an instant—a long, stretched, athlete-in-the-zone moment, the sort he experienced on a long base hit, a broken field run, a shot from downtown. He could win this. He feels it. He wants it.

When he reaches the parking lot at the base of the hill, near the turn to the Greek Theater and right across Vermont from the battered little Roosevelt Golf Course, Jamal pulls over. He is still a few minutes ahead of his competitors. For a moment he considers simply waiting for the parade. Why not follow the competition? Lay back, hit them from behind
when the time is right? Of course, that strategy presumed Rustbelt could find his ass with both hands.

What the hell. If you’re going to play the game, play it balls out. More words from Big Bill Norwood. Let the other guy react to
you.

One, two, three—here comes a truck and a pair of Humvees. Jamal can’t see who’s in the third vehicle. But who cares? The cars disappear into the neighborhood and what Jamal knows is horrific midday traffic.

The standard route would take them all south on Vermont to busy Los Feliz, then east and north to the entrance to the park and zoo. But there is another way.…

“Are you gonna get going, Jamal? Or should we order lunch?”

He smiles. “Art, do you wonder why I keep talking to you?”

Art shuts up. He obviously knows his own weakness.

“I
am
going, Art. Watch this.”

And Jamal pulls out of the lot and heads left instead of right—climbing a twisty road that he knows will carry him up and over the spine of the hills to approach the zoo from the other side.