Wild Cards: Death Draws Five (50 page)

“Huh?”

“Never mind. How’s your hand?”

Ray frowned, and held it up. He looked at it as if it were an alien object someone had grafted to the end of his arm without him realizing it. He stripped the tape away and the bandage underneath. The skin covering his once-burnt flesh was smooth and pink as a baby’s bottom. He grinned and wriggled his fingers.

“All right,” Ray said, as if surprised. “It healed pretty fast. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so hungry. Grab a shower and get dressed and let’s go get something to eat. I’m hungry again and I’ll bet you’re famished.”

He was right. She was ravenous. She started to slip out of the other side of the bed, the sheet still drawn around her, and Ray grabbed it and pulled it away. Her first reactions were to cover her breasts and loins with her hands, but that was ridiculous. She blushed, but leaned close to him.

“I could drink a case of you,” she said, “and still be on my feet.”

“What?” Ray said, frowning.

“It’s our song,” she told him, and laughed at his befuddled look. She grabbed him and kissed him hard, then let him go and, still blushing, walked self-consciously to the bathroom, his eyes following her every step.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower

The anteroom was even more crowded after they piled out of Barnett’s office when the meeting ended. Barnett stayed behind to continue his prayer vigil.

Digger Downs had been chatting up Sally Lou and Mushroom Daddy was watching the kid Secret Service agent, Alejandro something or other, who was ostensibly on guard duty, make Sally Lou’s pens and pencils wriggle around on her desk as if they were snakes.

“Very cool, man,” Daddy said. “Animation. That’s a power I could dig. Kind of like Mickey in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Ever watch that movie stoned, man? The dancing mushrooms are just hilarious.”

Sascha was gone. Barnett had intercommed Sally Lou to get Jerry a reservation on the next available flight to New York. Sascha had gone ahead to the airport to make sure there weren’t any screw-ups. Downs looked intently at Jerry and Fortunato as they exited Barnett’s office, dropping his try at charming Sally Lou. “Something’s going on,” he said. “I can tell.”

Fortunato grimaced. “I suppose I owe you the whole story. The boy’s down in our suite, still sleeping. Come along, and I’ll tell you.”

They left the office together, and Sally Lou turned to the phone bank.

“What’s up, man?” Mushroom Daddy asked Jerry, breaking off his conversation with the Secret Service kid, who looked somewhat relieved.

“Heading back to New York,” Jerry said. “I’ve got to pick up something at the Jokertown Clinic.”

He figured there was no sense in spreading the real story around. Mushroom Daddy nodded.

“Might as well go with you, man,” Daddy said. He looked very sad. “I was planning on driving my van back, but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen. It’s gone, man. I only had three hundred thousand miles on it.”

Jerry felt sympathetic. To a point. “Shit happens, man,” he said.

Mushroom Daddy nodded philosophically. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Sally Lou looked up from the phone she’d just answered, blank-eyed.

“Uh,” she said, “Uh—”

“What is it, man?” Daddy asked.

“Armed men are attacking the Bower,” she said in an oddly-calm voice, as if stunned by the news. “They’re trying to reach the penthouse.”

“Shit,” Jerry said. “The Allumbrados! Get Barnett on the horn.” She nodded rapidly.

“Tell him what’s happening,” Jerry said. “Tell him to freeze the elevator banks. With any luck we can catch a bunch of those assholes between floors if they’re dumb enough to try to come on up on the lifts. Call Fortunato’s suite. Call Ray. Try to find Angel. Let them know what the Hell is happening. We’ll go downstairs and check things out.”

“I’m coming with you,” Alejandro said.

“Your duty’s with Barnett—” Jerry began.

“My duty is to stop anyone coming after him. He’s safe here with the other agents guarding the corridor, at least for awhile. Besides, you’ll need me downstairs.”

“All right,” Jerry said. “No sense wasting time arguing over who belongs where. Come on.”

They went to the north stairwell at a run, stopping only briefly to tell the agents on duty in the corridor what was happening, and headed downstairs. They went down half a dozen flights, before Alejandro, leading the way, suddenly pulled up short.

“What’s the matter?” Jerry asked. “You okay?”

Alejandro nodded silently, and drew an automatic from his shoulder holster. “I am,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that I can’t say the same for you two.”

“Hey, man,” Mushroom Daddy said, “that’s so not-cool.”

“I don’t want to do this,” Alejandro said, “but blood must sometimes be spilled in the service of the Lord.”

“What are you talking about?” Jerry asked. “You’re a Secret Service agent!”

Alejandro nodded. “I am. I am also a perfecti in the service of Our Lord, a somewhat higher master whom I am even more tightly bound to serve.”

Shit, Jerry thought. What—

Mushroom Daddy moved. He swiveled on one foot, lashing out with the other, catching the turncoat secret service agent on his gun hand. The agent lost his grip on the automatic, and it went clattering down the stairs. Alejandro went after it like a cat after a fleeing mouse.

“Run!” Daddy said, and for once the hippie made sense.

He and Jerry turned and fled back up the staircase. Jerry hit the steel fire door just as a bullet ricocheted off it near his head, reverberations from the gunshot pounding his eardrums like tiny hammers. He and Mushroom Daddy pushed through the door, then closed it behind them, leaning against it and breathing deeply.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” Jerry panted.

“Bruce Lee movies, man,” Mushroom Daddy said. “He’s the king.”

“Well, thanks,” Jerry said.

“No problemo, man,” Daddy said. “Even a pacifist has to kick ass sometimes.” He paused to take a deep breath. “What do we do now?”

Jerry shook his head. It was clear that the plan to go back to the city to get a dose of the Trump has no longer feasible. There was nothing much they could do, now, that seemed remotely helpful.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower

Angel was still sufficiently self-conscious to dress in the bathroom.

Pity, Ray thought. He loved watching beautiful women get into clothes. And out of them, for that matter. He was particularly interested in seeing her in the underwear he’d picked up. Though he was sufficiently realistic to get her a plain, boring sports bra to wear under her new jumpsuit, he’d also picked up a few rather more lacy numbers for casual wear. He stuck with thong panties all around, though. You couldn’t beat those for looks and all-around wearability.

Angel came out of the bathroom, a concerned look on her face.

“Don’t you think this is a little low cut?” she asked, gesturing at the front of the new outfit.

Ray shook his head in admiration. “No,” he said. “I’d say that it’s just about right.”

“And a little too bright?” she asked.

He shook his head again. “Nope. It’s about time you got out of black, babe. It has its place in a wardrobe, but it can get depressing if you wear it all the time. Red suits you.”

“If you say so,” Angel said uncertainly.

Ray nodded enthusiastically. “I do. Now let’s eat. I’m starved.”

She smiled. “Me too.”

Ray’s room was on the first floor above the lobby and shop level. When possible he always took rooms on the first floor. He didn’t like to deal with elevators in either emergencies or on an everyday basis. They went down a flight of stairs that led from the room block to the hotel lobby, and Ray immediately knew that something was wrong. He could smell it even before he saw it. It was an odor he knew well, a mixture of blood and gunpowder residue.

“What in the bleeding Hell?” he asked aloud.

He and Angel stared at each other, then gazed around the lobby. It was deserted, except for a couple of bodies laying in pools of blood. Some were moving feebly or groaning, most were not.

“We’ve got to help them,” Angel said.

Ray grabbed her arm as she started forward. “First we have to find out what the Hell is happening,” he said. “Split up. Look around outside. I’ll check the lobby. Don’t go far, and if you see anything that might explain this, for Christ’s sake, come and get me.”

Angel nodded. “Don’t blaspheme,” she told him.

“Right.” He grabbed her by the upper arm. “And whatever you do, be careful.”

She smiled briefly, dazzling him, and was gone. He turned and headed for the shops lining the lobby.

The only person in the first one he went into was a gray-uniformed security guard who was bravely defending the deserted store from non-existent looters. The guard was a badly shaken youngster with badly shaking hands. Ray was glad he didn’t have a gun or else he would have shot someone, probably himself, out of fear-induced ineptitude. He flinched when Ray marched up to him and tried to duck under the counter by the cash register, but Ray hauled him up.

“Get a grip, Howard,” he said, reading the kid’s name off his tag above the fancy badge pinned to his shirt pocket. He reached for his own identification wallet, flipped it open, and shoved it into the kid’s face. “My name is Billy Ray. I’m a federal agent. You got that Howard?”

The kid stuttered a frightened, “Y-y-y--yes s-s-s-sir,” that Ray almost interrupted three or four times out of sheer impatience.

“What’s going on out there, Howard?”

“I don’t know, sir,” the kid said. “But there’s dead men out there in the lobby. Some of them are security guards.” He said that as if it were the most shocking thing imaginable, and started to cry. Ray shook him by the collar until his teeth rattled.

“Snap out of it, goddamn it,” he said. The Allumbrados had come after them. Again. It had to be them. The persistent bastards. But no one would believe the story if he told it the way it really was. He let go of Howard’s collar, took out a pen and scribbled a name and a phone number on the back of a card he took out of his wallet. “I want you to call this number,” he said in clear and precise tones. “Tell them Billy Ray told you to report to Nephi Callendar. Tell him that a gang of aces are trying to assassinate ex-President Leo Barnett under the guise of robbing the hotel. Tell him to get help out here, pronto, or else the Secret Service will have a dead ex-President on their hands. You got all that Howard?”

The security guard nodded.

“What’s my name, Howard?”

“Uh. Leo Barnett?”

Ray slapped him once across the face, fairly hard, then grabbed his shirt before he could fall down. “Wrong, Howard. My name is Billy Ray. It’s on the other side of the card. The man I want you to call is named Nephi Callendar. I’ve written his name on this side of the card. Now, what’s the story?”

“Uh, Leo Barnett is, uh, robbing the hotel, and—”

Ray sighed. “Just tell them Billy Ray said to get their asses down here or else there’ll be a dead ex-President on the five o’clock news. You get that right, and there’ll be a promotion for you. You fuck up, Howard, and I’ll hunt you down myself and kill you. You got that?”

“Yessir,” Howard managed.

Ray sighed. It was the best he could do. If he made the call himself they’d only want him to stay on the other end of the line and answer useless fucking questions. The odds were, anyway, that help wouldn’t arrive in time. Whatever was going down here was going down fast. But there was always the slim chance that the Feds could show up in time to be useful.

Now, Ray thought, to collect Angel and get up to Barnett’s office, fast. That was where the bad guys would be headed, after the kid who was ensconced in Fortunato’s suite on the floor below Barnett’s HQ. If Barnett, or Fortunato, or somebody was on the ball, they’d have already stopped the elevators, maybe catching some of the bad guys in frozen steel cages. He couldn’t count on that, though. He could count on the fact that the Cardinal probably sent a shit load of bad guys on this little adventure. He was probably really pissed by now.

Ray cut through the lobby at high speed, closing his ears to the cries of the wounded civilians he passed. No time for you now, he thought. Just hang on, hang on and we’ll get to you ASAP. If we can.

He spotted Angel just outside the tall glass doors leading up to the lobby’s main entrance at the top of the set of marble stairs. She was looking out into the courtyard in front of the hotel and the surrounding parking lot.

“Angel—”

She turned to him, and silently gestured outwards. In the courtyard were the Witness and Butcher Dagon, both. They were surrounded by armed goons. Alejandro Jesus y Maria C de Baca stood on the lowest step of the marble stairs, looking up at Angel.

Ray grinned his crazy grin. “Alejandro,” he called. “Now’s your chance, kid. Let’s see your stuff.”

Alejandro nodded slowly. Behind him, the Witness and Butcher Dagon approached, though the gunmen kept their distance. Alejandro did or said nothing until the two aces joined him. He looked at them and nodded, then he looked up at Ray.