Wild Cards V (9 page)

Wearing gray slacks, blue blazer, and bloodclot-colored tie, his hair marcelled, shades silver, nails manicured, Croyd sat alone at a small window table in Aces High, regarding the city's lights through wind-whipped snow beyond his baked salmon, sipping Château d'Yquem, hashing over plans for the next move in his investigation and flirting with Jane Dow, who had passed his way twice so far and was even now approaching again—a thing he took to be more than coincidence and a good omen, having lusted after her in a variety of hearts (some of them multiples) on a number of occasions—and hoping he might fit the occasion to the feelings, he raised his hand as she drew near and touched her arm.

A tiny spark crackled, she halted, said, “Yike!” and reached to rub the place where the shock had occurred.

“Sorry—” Croyd began.

“Must be static electricity,” she said.

“Must be,” he agreed. “All I wanted to say was that you do know me, even though you wouldn't recognize me in this incarnation. I'm Croyd Crenson. We've met in passing, here and there, and I always wanted just to sit and talk a spell, but somehow our paths never crossed long enough at the right time.”

“That's an interesting line,” she said, running a finger across her damp brow, “naming the one ace nobody's certain about. I bet a lot of groupies get picked up that way.”

“True,” Croyd replied, smiling, as he opened his arms wide. “But I can prove it if you'll wait about half a minute.”

“Why? What are you doing?”

“Filling the air with neg-ions for you,” he said, “for that delightfully stimulating before-the-storm feeling. Just a hint at the great time I could show—”

“Cut it out!” She began backing away. “It sometimes triggers—”

Croyd's hands were wet, his face was wet, his hair collapsed and leaked onto his forehead.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“What the hell,” he said, “let's make it a thunderstorm,” and lightning danced among his fingertips. He began laughing.

Other diners glanced in their direction.

“Stop,” she said. “Please.”

“Sit down for a minute and I will.”

“Okay.”

She took the seat opposite him. He dried his face and hands on his napkin.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “My fault. I should be careful with storm effects around someone they call Water Lily.”

She smiled.

“Your glasses are all wet,” she said, suddenly reaching forward and plucking them from his face. “I'll clean—”

“Two hundred sixteen views of moist loveliness,” he stated as she stared. “The virus has, as usual, overendowed me in several respects.”

“You really see that many of me?”

He nodded. “These joker aspects sometimes crop up in my changes. Hope I haven't turned you off.”

“They're rather—magnificent,” she said.

“You're very kind. Now give back the glasses.”

“A moment.”

She wiped the lenses on the corner of the tablecloth, then passed them to him.

“Thanks.” He donned them again. “Buy you a drink? Dinner? A water spaniel?”

“I'm on duty,” she said. “Thanks. Sorry. Maybe another time.”

“Well, I'm working now myself. But if you're serious, I'll give you a couple of phone numbers and an address. I may not be at any of them. But I get messages.”

“Give them to me,” she said, and he scribbled quickly in a notepad, tore out the page, and passed it to her. “What kind of work?” she asked.

“Subtle investigation,” he said. “It involves a gang war.”

“Really? I've heard people say you're kind of honest, as well as kind of crazy.”

“They're half-right,” he said. “So give me a call or stop by. I'll rent scuba gear and show you a good time.”

She smiled and began to rise. “Maybe I will.”

He withdrew an envelope from his pocket, opened it, pushed aside a wad of bills, and removed a slip of paper with some writing on it.

“Uh, before you go—does the name James Spector mean anything to you?”

She froze and grew pale. Croyd found himself wet once again.

“What did I say?” he asked.

“You're not kidding? You really don't know?”

“Nope. Not kidding.”

“You know the aces jingle.”

“Parts of it.”

“‘Golden Boy ain't got no joy,'” she recited. “‘If it's Demise, don't look in his eyes…'—that's him: James Spector is Demise's real name.”

“I never knew that,” he said. Then, “I never heard any verses about me.”

“I don't remember any either.”

“Come on. I always wondered.”

“‘Sleeper waking, meals taking,'” she said slowly. “‘Sleeper speeding, people bleeding.'”

“Oh.”

“If I call you and you're that far along…”

“If I'm that far along, I don't return calls.”

“I'll get you a couple of dry napkins,” she offered. “Sorry about the storms.”

“Don't be. Did anyone ever tell you you're lovely when you exude moisture?”

She stared at him. Then, “I'll get you a dry fish too,” she said.

Croyd raised his hand to blow her a kiss and gave himself a shock.

 

Breakdown

by Leanne C. Harper

THE PAIR OF BODYGUARDS
left Giovanni's first. Behind their dark glasses they immediately began scanning the street, looking for trouble. At a wave from the man on the right, another bodyguard preceded Don Tomasso, head of the Anselmi Family, onto the street. The don had to be assisted in walking. He was an old man, bent and in obvious pain, but his old-fashioned black suit had been hand-tailored and pressed into sharp creases. He surveyed the street as well, swiveling his shaking head from between his hunched shoulders like an aging turtle. The red and green neon of the restaurant's sign alternately revealed and hid his weathered face.

Don Tomasso's black Mercedes limousine was double-parked directly in front of Giovanni's entrance. Surrounded by his men, the don approached his car with his head held as high as possible in defiance to any unseen observers. A dark BMW pulled up behind Tomasso's Mercedes. He nodded in recognition at the driver before ducking his head and climbing into the limousine. One of the bodyguards followed him. The others moved back to the BMW. Both cars were in motion before the doors of the BMW were shut.

Lit by a dull orange streetlight, two children played on the sidewalk in front of a brownstone half a block down the street from the restaurant. The boy had just tossed the baseball to the younger girl when the Mercedes exploded, followed instantly by the BMW's destruction. The fireballs bloomed and met as pieces of the cars and bricks from the nearby buildings crashed back to earth.

Rosemary Muldoon continued to watch the flames on the oversize video screen in front of her. She said nothing until the tape ran down into static. She sat immobile in the carved black walnut chair at the head of the long table, but her hands clutched the chair's arms until her knuckles were white.

Chris Mazzucchelli got up from the chair beside her to pull the tape from the VCR. Rosemary glanced around her father's “library” where strategy meetings for his Family, the Gambiones, had always taken place. She had left almost everything in the penthouse the same, only bringing in some high-tech equipment such as the video and her computer to help her run the empire she had inherited. Right now, the room felt very empty, as if even her father had abandoned her.

When Chris came back to the conference table, he laid the tape down and stroked her dark brown hair. As his hand cupped her face, Rosemary roused herself.

“Only two of us left now. Don Calvino and I. Three dons dead in a matter of weeks, and we don't even know who's destroying us. All we know is who they are using.” Rosemary shook her head. “The Five Families have never faced a threat like this. We're not prepared to fight on this scale. We've lost most of the drugs in Jokertown. Harlem has stopped paying our portion of the numbers. We're getting hit from the top and the bottom. They took
over
our biggest drug factory in Brooklyn.”

“We've got to get prepared. You're the only active don left. I talked to Tomasso's capos; they're all with us just like the others. I only wish I could point them in the right direction. Right now, I'm just trying to keep business going so we have the money to survive and fight back. Calvino tried his hand at negotiating. So far, it doesn't seem to have worked. We had both of the remaining dons covered at all times. That's how we got this tape.” Chris picked it up and tossed it into the air. “Remotely controlled explosives, P.E., we assume. They were probably within sight of the cars to make sure they got Don Tomasso.”

“So they knew about the kids.” Rosemary glanced up at him.

“Probably.” Chris shrugged. “So far they haven't been particularly careful about civilian casualties. They're terrorists.”

“They're bastards.” Chris nodded and Rosemary knew he was already working out the details of backtracking the explosives. One of the things she had learned in the last few months of working with him was that he was superb at taking her objectives and desires and accomplishing them through his position as her front man to the Families. She had known she would never be accepted as the head of the Gambiones by the capos. They required a masculine figurehead. So Chris ran things in public, and she, Maria Gambione, pulled the strings. Except that it had not worked out quite like that. Chris could almost read her mind. He had the practical experience she lacked. They made a great team. Without him she would never have pulled it off.

“The Shadow Fist is causing us trouble, but I didn't think that it had the organization to accomplish all of this. On the other hand, we know they are working with the Immaculate Egrets and the Werewolves from Jokertown. Together, they're giving us a lot of trouble. But a bunch of gangs…”

“With the right leader…” Rosemary spread her hands.

“With the right leader anything's possible. But we would have heard something about him. How could they keep him under that sort of deep cover?” Chris shrugged. “I'll check it out, but I won't hold my breath. I had another idea. Think about Tomasso's murder. Those cars would have been under twenty-four-hour guard by teams of his most trusted men. How the hell did they plant those bombs?”

Chris pulled a chair out and sat down backward.

“How?” Rosemary had learned not to get too impatient with Chris's occasional use of Socratic method. As in law school, it taught her much.

“Aces, again. Just like Don Picchietti. Who else could pop in and out without being seen? Nobody really knows how many there are or who they are or what they can do. What if some of them decided that wearing funky costumes and being altruistic was silly? Jokers, too. Look at the Werewolves. Get back at the nats. That's a pretty fierce army we're talking here. Look at where the action is going on most of the time. Jokertown. Maybe it's because we control it and they're trying to get us, or maybe it's because the jokers have decided that they want their own piece of the action.” Chris had leaned forward to emphasize his point. “If these guys aren't all aces, they've got some working for them. And I think that's the way to go. If we don't get our own aces, we're going to get slaughtered. We can't compete.”

“I like that. I could use the district attorney's office to get volunteers. A little steering of their efforts and a number of our troubles could get solved. We'll get higher-quality aces that way too. Pity a lot of the big names are still on that WHO tour.” Rosemary nodded, more enthusiastic about this plan than she had been about anything in some time. “Good. Can you pull in anyone?”

“To be honest, I already have. We've got a detective named Croyd doing some checking for us and a heavy name of Bludgeon who'll come in handy in a fight. 'Course they won't be as ‘high quality' coming from the criminal element like me.” Chris straightened and looked down his nose at her, trying to hide his grin.

“They'll do. The criminal element isn't all bad.” Rosemary reached up and pulled him down to her to kiss him.