Chapter Fourteen
7:00 p.m.
When his barber finished trimming his beard and swept away the apron, Hiram Worchester rose majestically from his chair, shrugged into a perfectly-tailored tuxedo jacket, and surveyed himself in the mirror. His shirt was silk, of the deepest, purest blue. His accessories were all silver. Blue and silver were the Aces High colors. “Very good, Henry,” Hiram said. He tipped the barber handsomely.
Curtis waited just outside his office door. Beyond, his restaurant was ready. Waiters and bartenders stood at their stations. Kelvin Frost’s astonishing ice sculptures had been moved out onto the floor, each one surrounded by a moat of crushed ice dotted with bottles of Dom Perignon. Tables of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres were scattered throughout the restaurant, to keep the guests from clumping. The musicians stood poised by their instruments. Overhead, the glittering art-deco chandeliers shone softly. The beginnings of a magnificent redgold sunset were visible to the west.
Hiram smiled, “Open the doors,” he told Curtis.
A dozen people were already waiting in the foyer when the doors were opened. Hiram bowed to the women and kissed their hands, gave each man a firm handshake, performed the necessary introductions, and pointed them all toward the bar. The early birds tended to be obscure minor aces, insecure of their status and excited by Hiram’s invitation. A few, only recently out of the deck, had never been to Aces High before, but Hiram treated them all like long-lost friends. The major aces tended to be fashionably late.
The first uninvited guest was a tall blond college student who looked uncomfortable in his rented dinner jacket. “What do I have to do to get in, guess your weight?” he asked when Curtis called Hiram over to pass on his admission.
“No,” Hiram said, smiling. “That got a bit old, I’m afraid. But I see you’ve read your Wild Card Chic.” !
“You bet. So what does it take to get in?”
“Show me proof that you’ve got an ace power,” Hiram said.
“Right here?” The boy looked around uneasily.
“Is there a problem? What is your power, if I might be so bold?”
The boy cleared his throat. “It’s kind of hard to—”
His date giggled. “He gets itsy-bitsy,” she announced in a loud, clear voice.
The college boy turned a bright shade of red. “Yeah, uh, I compress the molecules of my body, I guess, to make myself smaller. I can, uh, shrink down till I’m six inches tall.” He tried keeping his voice low, but it had gotten very quiet. “My mass stays the same,” he added defensively.
“That’s some power, kid,” Wallace Larabee opined loudly from the buffet, where he stood holding a tiny buckwheat pancake that sagged dangerously under the weight of the caviar he’d piled atop it. “Whooeee, I’m sure scared.”
Hiram wouldn’t have thought it possible for the boy to turn a deeper red, but he did. “Don’t mind Wallace,” Hiram said. “He nearly ruined our 1978 get-together when he demonstrated his power, and he knows I’ll throw him out if he ever does it again. They call him the Human Skunk.”
There was general laughter, Larabee turned away to load up another pancake, and the boy seemed a bit less mortified. “Well,” he said, “the only thing is, when I do it, I, uh, well, it’s like this, I shrink, but my clothes don’t.”
Hiram understood. “Curtis,” he said, “take him back to my office, and see if he can do what he claims.”
Curtis smiled. “This way, please.”
When they reemerged a few moments later, the maitre d’ gave a slight nod, the assembled guests broke into applause, and the boy turned red again. “Welcome to Aces High,” Hiram said. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Frank Beaumont,” the college boy replied.
“But I call him Itsy-Bitsy,” his girlfriend volunteered. “Gretchen!” Frank hissed.
“You have my word, I’ll take that secret to my grave,” Hiram promised. He caught the eye of a passing waiter. “Soft drinks, or are you old enough to enjoy some champagne?” he asked Frank and Gretchen. “Please remember, the room is full of telepaths.”
They settled for soft drinks.
The street in front of the Empire State Building’s Fifth Avenue entrance was a madhouse. Paparazzi and celebrity watchers and ace groupies formed a milling gauntlet that scru tinized anyone who tried to enter. Jennifer and Brennan watched from across the street as limos pulled up to the red carpet that had been rolled out from the building’s foyer to the curb and ace after ace was greeted by popping flashbulbs and squeals of delight.
Peregrine arrived in her chauffeured Rolls. She wore a backless, strapless black velvet dress that was slit in the front to her navel. She smiled graciously at the milling crowd, but kept her wings curled closely to her body, having dealt with feathersnatching souvenir seekers in the past. Tachyon arrived in a limo. His companion was a gorgeous black woman who wore a gown almost as low cut as Peregrine’s.
“I’ll have to leave you here,” Brennan said as a cab pulled up and deposited a man in a white skintight suit.
“Be careful,” Jennifer said.
Brennan smiled. “It’ll be a piece of cake. Remember, stay away from Fantasy and Captain Trips. They may be in Kien’s pocket. “
Jennifer nodded.
“One more thing. I can’t imagine anything dangerous happening in there, but, just in case something goes wrong and you have to leave, I want to set up a meeting place so we don’t have to chase each other all over the city again.” Brennan thought for a moment. “Times Square, the corner of 43rd and Seventh.”
“Fine,” Jennifer said. She wanted to warn him to be careful again, but that was silly. Things were under control, and the adventure was almost over. She felt, she realized, a little regret mixed in with her relief.
Brennan lifted a hand in salute and she waved. She watched him fade silently into the shadows, then put on her mask, turned, and crossed the street.
“Have you heard about the Turtle?” Hiram asked, almost the second Fortunato came through the door.
“Not since this afternoon. Have they found the shell yet?” Hiram shook his head. “Nothing. I still can’t believe it. It’s—” He suddenly noticed Cordelia. She’d cleaned up nicely and Ichiko had found her something white and clinging. “My dear. Please excuse my rudeness. I’m Hiram Worchester, proprietor of this establishment.”
“Cordelia,” Fortunato said. Hiram bent over her hand. Fortunato waited him out. “What about Jane? Is she all right?” Hiram pointed to the bar. “She hasn’t been out of my sight all afternoon. His either,” he added, pointing to the android next to her.
Fortunato nodded, saw the bottle of unblended Scotch by Modular Man’s right hand. “Is he drunk?”
“I heard that,” Modular Man said, with great dignity. “I am an android and incapable of becoming intoxicated in any conventional human sense.” He made an artificial throat-clearing noise. “I have initiated a subroutine which somewhat randomizes my thought processes, simulating the effects of alcohol, but it will be overridden at any sign of danger. I assure you I am not drunk.” He turned back to Water Lily, who was staring into a Shirley Temple and nursing her impatience. “Now, where were we?”
“Fortunato?” Water Lily said.
“Hang on,” Fortunato said. “Just another couple of minutes.” He could see Peregrine across the room. He turned back to Hiram and said, “Would you show Cordelia around for me? There’s something I need to take care of.”
“I’d be delighted.”
The knot of men around Peregrine saw him coming and drifted away. By the time he got to her it was just the two of them.
She wore long gloves with her gown, which left plenty of room for her broad, muscular shoulders and the big brownand-white wings that came out of her back. It was cut so low that she must have glued it on.
In her spiked heels she was just over six feet tall. Her brown hair had been styled with a deliberate artlessness that took up several cubic feet around her head. Her nose and cheekbones were so sharply cut they looked like the product of sculpture rather than genetics.
Her eyes were such a vivid shade of blue that Fortunato suspected contact lenses. But the expression in them took him a little by surprise. The eyes glittered like they were about to squint shut with laughter, and one side of her mouth twisted up in an ironic smile.
“My name is Fortunato,” he said.
“So I hear.” She looked him up and down, slowly. Miranda had left him with a lingering taste of musk and a clearly visible erection. Peregrine’s smile grew wider. “Hiram said you’ve been looking for me?”
“I think you could be in very serious danger.”
“Well, not at the moment, maybe, but I could see it as a distinct possibility.”
“I’m afraid I’m serious. The Howler and Kid Dinosaur are already dead. The Astronomer killed them both this morning. Not to mention about ten or fifteen of his former associates. The Turtle is missing and probably dead. You and Tachyon and Water Lily are the next most obvious targets.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m getting the picture. You’re the only one that can save me, right? So after dinner you should come back to the penthouse with me and guard my body, right? As in all night long?”
“I promise you—”
“I’m a little disappointed, Fortunato. After everything I’ve heard, I’d hoped for something, well, a bit more romantic. Not this kind of lame approach. Original, mind you.” She reached out and patted his cheek. “But very lame.”
She walked away smiling.
Fortunato let her go. At least she was here now, where she would be safe.
He looked for Cordelia and spotted her talking to an Arab in a circus costume. The Arab was trying, with some success, to see down the front of her dress.
She had talent, Fortunato thought. She could play a man like a fish, seemed smart and funny and not prohibitively fussy. If he took her on, it would be up to him to.break her in. It was the kind of job he normally looked forward to, but in this case he had doubts. She seemed so goddamn innocent.
There was a commotion at the door. Hiram was pumping Tachyon’s arm, overdoing the genial host bit. Next to Tachyon was the woman Fortunato had seen him with at Jetboy’s Tomb.
The woman glanced his way for a second and Fortunato recognized her. She did freelance outcall, and she was very expensive. Expensive the way blowfish was expensive in Japan, because every man who went with her risked his life. Everv so often, supposedly at random, she secreted a deadly poison when she climaxed. Her nickname on the street was Russian Roulette.
Tachyon would be okay, Fortunato thought. He didn’t see much chance the little alien fruitcake would be able to make a woman like that come.
“Are you certain you wish to be here?”
Silk slithered as her leg thrust through the slit in her skirt, and she stepped from the limousine, Tachyon’s hand a steady prop.
“Are you sure you want to be here? You’re the one who got his face danced on.”
A dismissing gesture with one small hand. “It’s nothing. And I would not like to disappoint Hiram after he was so obliging as to rescue us.”
“Okay.”
“But you’ve had a very terrifying experience, and I wouldn’t want—”
“Doctor, we’re here now, and I really don’t see what’s to be gained by continuing to discuss the matter on the sidewalk in front of several hundred gawking tourists.”
She swept through the front doors of the Empire State Building, thoroughly bored, and thoroughly irritated by his harping. Tachyon had been concerned while he dressed for dinner, attentive when they’d returned to her apartment so she could change from her neat slacks into the white silk evening gown she now wore, solicitous as they drove, and she was ready to kill him. And the irony was not lost on her. For even as he had fussed and cosseted, all her thoughts were obsessed with the fact that he yet lived. She had spent eight hours in his company, helped rescue him from kidnappers, and still hadn’t killed him.
Later, there is still time.
The lobby was crowded with reporters. They lay like a seething lake before the elevators, and when Tachyon entered they become a tsunami rushing forward to accost him. Microphones thrust rapier-like into their faces, a babble of overlapping questions—”Any comment on the death of Kid Dinosaur, and the Howler?”
“Are you working with the authorities on this case?”
“What’s this about you being kidnapped?” -blended with the whine of high-powered cameras. Tachyon, looking thunderous, waved them away, and when that failed, shouldered through them toward the express elevator.
A handsome man in a rumpled gray suit pushed up close to Roulette, and she shied back.
“Hey, Tachy, givin’ our eyes a rest or what, or just trying to match your lady love?” The reporter’s eyes swept ironically across the white breeches, tunic, and cloak, and white boots, the heels inset with moonstones, and ended on the small white velvet hat with a moonstone and silver brooch pinned to its upturned brim.
“Digger, step aside.”
“Who’s the new ace? Hey, babe, what’s your power?”
“I’m not an ace, let me be.” Agitation made her breath ragged, and she looked away from those too-piercing eyes. “Tachyon,” Digger said, tone suddenly very serious. “May I speak with you?”
“Not now, Digger.”
“It’s important.”
“Tachyon, please get me out of this crowd.” Her fingers plucked at his sleeve, and he pulled his attention from the journalist.
“See me at my office.”
The elevator doors sighed closed behind them, and her heart began to slow. “I’ve never known Digger to be wrong. Are you quite sure—”
“I am not an ace!” She jerked his hand from her bare shoulder. “How many times do I have to tell you!”
“I’m sorry.” His tone was low, the hurt evident in his lilac eyes.
“Don’t! Don’t be sorry, don’t be solicitous, don’t care!” He moved to the far side of the elevator, and they completed the ride in silence. The elevator deposited them in the large outer lobby of Aces High. Roulette glanced about, curiosity submerging agitation. She had never been to the restaurant. Josiah had considered the entire ace/joker phenomenon vulgar and more than a little frightening (witness his response when he discovered that he too carried the alien virus), and had avoided this ace mecca.
Celebrity photographs lined the walls, and in the center of the room stood Hiram, smiling, urbane, polite, but implacable in his refusal to allow the tall scarecrow figure in the purple Uncle Sam suit to enter his restaurant.
“But I’m, like, a friend of Starshine’s,” the gangling blond hippie was protesting, “and Jumpin’ Jack Flash too, man.”
“I’m sure you are,” Hiram said. He went on to gently explain that well-known aces had a great many friends, far more than the restaurants seating capacity, and while Aces High would be delighted to have the Captain’s patronage on any other night of the year, tonight was a private party; he was sure that the Captain would understand.
Tachyon grasped the situation in an instant, and put a hand on Hiram’s broad shoulder. “I know what it looks like,” he said, “but Captain Trips really is an ace, and a good man too. I’ll vouch for him, Hiram.”
Hiram looked surprised, then relented. “Well, of course, if you say so, Doctor.” He turned to Trips. “Please accept my apologies. We get a great many would-be gatecrashers and, ah, ace groupies, often wearing outlandish costumes, so when someone cannot demonstrate an ace talent, we… I’m sure you understand.”
“Yeah, sure, man,” Trips said. “It’s cool. Thanks, Doc.” He put on his hat and entered the restaurant.
“Just because you’re wearing a mask doesn’t mean you can just waltz in, lady,” the big man wearing a tuxedo in the foyer of Aces High told Jennifer.
She smiled at him, ghosted her arm, and put it through the wall. She wanted to do something more box-office, like sink through the floor, but didn’t want to have to dress again in front of all the people waiting to enter the restaurant.
“Yeah, okay.” The man in the tuxedo waved her in, looking faintly bored.
Aces High was a dream. Jennifer felt small, insignificant, and decidedly underdressed. She wished that Brennan had brought her an evening gown rather than jeans, but realized with a sigh that that would have required supernatural foresight on Brennan’s part.
There were over a hundred people in the main dining area, drinking cocktails, nibbling on delicious-looking hors d’oeuvres, and talking in small groups and large parties. Jennifer headed for the buffet table, her stomach rumbling at the sight of so much food. There was pate de foie gras, caviar, slices of Danish ham, twelve kinds of cheese, and a half-dozen varieties of bread and crackers. She spread pate on a cracker and looked around the room, feeling like a celebrity hound as she watched scores of famous people pass by her.
Hiram Worchester, Fatman, looked harried. Probably the strain of orchestrating the dinner, Jennifer thought. She recognized Fortunato, even though he was an ace who had never sought publicity. He was talking to Peregrine. He looked earnest, she looked amused. She felt the playing card that she’d tucked into her back pocket, but was hesitant to go up to him and present it. It looked like he had his own worries, and besides, she could take care of herself.
She snagged a glass of champagne from a tray of a waiter circulating around the room, and drained it, washing down pate de foie gras and cracker.
“I knew it, I just knew it.” The voice was masculine and drawling, with an undercurrent of excitement in it. “I just knew she’d show up here.”
Jennifer turned, champagne glass in one hand and half a cracker smeared with pate in the other. Hiram was standing behind her. With him was the man she had seen get out of the cab, the man in the white battle suit.
“Are you talking to me?”
“You bet your sweet butt, honey,” the man in white said. There was something wrong with his face. He looked her over with an annoying intentness that made Jennifer feel naked, but that was only part of what made Jennifer feel uncomfortable. His features, individually, were all right, perhaps even handsome, but taken together were utterly unmatched. His nose was too long, his chin too small. One of his intense green eyes was higher than the other. His jaw was canted, as if it had been broken and then healed crookedly. He licked his lips in an agitated, excited manner.
Hiram sighed. “Are you sure, Mr. Ray?”
“She’s the one, I know she is. I knew she couldn’t stay away from this goddamn party. Damn if I wasn’t right.”
“Very well then. Do your duty.” He sighed again and made wringing motions with his hands, as if he were washing them of the matter. The man he called Ray nodded, then turned to Jennifer.
“My name’s Billy Ray. I’m a federal agent and I’d like to see some ID.”
“Why’?” Jennifer asked with a sinking feeling.
“You look like someone who robbed the home of a prominent citizen this morning.”
Jennifer looked at the fragment of cracker she still held in her hand. She hadn’t even begun to take the edge off her appetite.
“Damn,” she said, and the cracker and champagne glass slipped through her hands as she ghosted through the floor. Ray moved like a cat on speed. He leaped upon her, but only grasped her shirt which was crumpling to the floor. “Ah, Jesus, Worchester,” Jennifer heard him say before she slipped entirely through the floor, “you should’ve let me coldcock the bitch.”
Tachyon’s small form had vanished into the milling aces in search of alcohol. Alcohol she badly needed. The rumble of voices, the tinkle of ice in crystal glasses, and the energetic efforts of a small combo all combined to form a drill that was digging ever deeper into her head.
Ice sculptures of various of the more prominent aces dotted the room. Peregrine had taken up a position near her statue, and her beautiful wings threatened to overset the frozen replica.
Captain Trips, a glass of fruit juice clutched in a bony hand, tried to negotiate the room, but his amazing stovepipe hat kept tumbling to the floor. The Harlem Hammer, looking decidedly uncomfortable in his best suit,. retrieved the hat. The contrast between the immensely powerful black ace, his bald pate shining under the lights, and the weedy Captain was startling.
The Professor and Ice-Blue Sibyl lounged near the bar. Sibyl with her blue, sexless naked body could have doubled for one of the ice sculptures. She even gave up a faint chill to those standing near her. Her companion created a stir by his own peculiar sense of style. With his whiskers, balding head, wirerimmed spectacles, and belching pipe, he looked like someone’s kindly old uncle. But no uncle of Roulette’s would ever have worn a sky-blue tux with scuffed sandals.
Fantasy, the ABT’s prima ballerina and one of New York’s more public aces, waved a rose before Pit Boss’s nose while Trump Card looked on indulgently.
So many, and which of you will survive this night? Not many, I think, with my master seeking you.
The problem with being a genial host was the necessity to be polite to boors. Hiram sipped at a champagne glass full of Vernors ginger ale (he liked to have a drink in hand, to promote the atmosphere of conviviality, but he had too many responsibilities to allow himself to get tipsy) and tried to feign a great interest in what Cap’n Trips was saving.
“I mean, its like elitist, man, this whole dinner, on a day like this it ought to be aces and jokers all getting together, like for brotherhood,” the gangling hippie with the long blond hair and weedy goatee told him.
The Aces High staff’ had barred a dozen groupies and pretenders, including the fishwoman with her bowl of telepathic goldfish, an elderly gentleman in a cape who time-traveled in his sleep, and a two-hundred-pound teenaged girl who wore only pasties and a G-string and claimed to he immortal. That one was tough to disprove, admittedly, but Hiram had turned her away nonetheless. He found himself wishing he’d been similarly resolute with Trips, whose powers seemed equally elusive, if in fact he had any at all. If only Dr. Tachyon had not arrived just when he did .-. .
Hiram sighed. It was spilt milk now. He’d admitted the Captain, and a few minutes later, while making his rounds of the party, mingling and smiling, he’d made a second mistake and asked Trips how he was enjoying himself. Since then he’d been trapped by the ice sculpture of Peregrine, while the tall man in the purple Uncle Sam suit explained earnestly that, like alcohol was poison, man, and he really ought to be serving some tofu and sprouts because the body is like a temple, you know, and wasn’t the whole idea of the Wild Card Dinner like, uh, politically incorrect.
It was no wonder Dr. Tachyon had vouched for him, Hiram thought, gazing at Trips’s prominent Adam’s apple and purple top hat: they obviously shopped at the same boutique.
Hiram’s smile was so frozen he hoped that frost wasn’t forming in his beard. His attention wandered across the room and he noticed a number of diners taking their drinks out onto the balcony, where the sun was sinking behind New Jersey, turning the sky a deep, robust red. That gave Hiram an inspiration. “It looks to be a magnificent sunset tonight, Captain,” he said. “That’s a sight you really shouldn’t miss, since you don’t get to visit us too often. Sunset from Aces High is quite special, I’m sure you’ll agree. Quite, ah… quite far out.”
It worked. Cap’n Trips craned his head around, nodded, and started to take a step toward the balcony, but somehow those long pipestem legs managed to get tangled up in each other, and he started to trip. Before Hiram could step forward and catch him, Trips had thrown out a hand to steady himself, grabbed hold of the ice sculpture, snapped off the end of Peregrine’s wing, and fallen flat on his face. His hat flew ten feet and landed at the feet of the Harlem Hammer, who picked it up with a look of disgust, carried it back to Trips, and pulled it down firmly onto the Captain’s head. By then Cap’n Trips had gotten to his feet, an icy wingtip still in his hand. He looked very abashed. “I’m sorry, man,” he managed. He tried to fit the missing piece back on the end of Peri’s wing. “I’m real sorry, it was beautiful, man,” he said, “maybe I can 6x it.”
Hiram.took the ice away from him and gently turned him around. “Never mind,” lie said, “just go watch the sunset.”
Jack leaned heavily against Bagabond as they carne up out of the subway. Rosemary followed, scrutinizing the crowd. She took Jack’s free arm tightly, lending support as the trio negotiated 23rd Street toward the Haiphong Lily.
No one paid any heed to them as the three moved slowly down the sidewalk. “In here.” Bagabond steered them into a dark, narrow courtyard, ill-lit by two flickering streetlights on the block.
“I smell something good,” Jack said miserably, raising his head.
“Rosemary, this is your scene.” Bagabond helped Jack support himself against a bent steel railing leading up to a long-unrestored brownstone. She turned back toward the assistant district attorney. “How do you want to play it?”
Rosemary peered down the street toward the next dim pool of light. “What I want to do is use the notebooks to exert some control on the Gambiones. From there, maybe I can reach the rest of the Families.” The regret was evident both in her look and in her voice. “Sorry to put you through this, Jack, but unless we de-escalate this war among the crime powers, the city will be in a state of siege.” Her voice firmed. “By holding onto the books and releasing just enough information to maintain the balance, I want to influence the selection of the new don and his attitude toward the Families and the new gangs. “
“Piece of cake,” Jack said through gritted teeth.
“You really believe you can do that?” Bagabond was unconvinced that Rosemary could carry of the farfetched plan. “Hell of a nice speech,” said Jack.
“Rosa Maria Gambione can do that.” Rosemary faced Bagabond.
“But what will they do when they find out who the assistant DA really is?” Bagabond frowned at the other woman. “You might as well step in front of an IRT”
“It’s my choice. It’s my heritage.” She shrugged eloquently. “How else will I be able to make up for my father’s acts?”
“A hundred Hail Marys,” Jack said, weaving slightly. “Sorry about that.”
“Your father chose to be what he was. You are not guilty of his sins.” Bagabond grasped Rosemary’s upper arm hard enough to hurt. “Your responsibility is to yourself.”
“I don’t see it that way.” She pried Bagabond’s hand from her arm and held it for a moment. “What I don’t like is putting you and Jack into danger.”
“Hey, we’re used to it. We’re aces, right?” Bagabond looked at Jack, who was swearing softly in French. Even in the poor light, they could see his skin starting to turn gray.
“How much longer?” Jack said.
“Just give it a little more time,” Rosemary said reassuringly.
“Yeah, sure.” Jack winced. “Damn, it hurts.”
He froze when he saw the limos parked in front. Spector took a deep breath and a moment to calm himself. It wasn’t the Astronomer, couldn’t be, not yet. What did he expect Mafiosi to arrive in, Hondas and Yugos?
He saw the neon lily and knew he was in the right place. He stepped inside and walked up the creaky wooden stairs. A large man blocked his way at the top. The goon was over six feet high and built like a defensive lineman, obviously mob. muscle. He would have been nothing more than a side of beef to Spector, except that he wore mirrored sunglasses.
“Reservations?” he asked, like it was the only word of English he knew.
“Yeah.” Spector tried to slide past, but the man grabbed his bad wrist.
“Hold on.”
Spector gritted his teeth. “You got some kind of problem?”
“We got a private party here tonight.”
“Excuse me.” An Oriental man put a hand on the hired muscle’s shoulder. He looked at Spector, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly. “This gentleman is not with your party, but he does have a reservation.”
“Will he stand for a frisk?” the big man addressed the question to the Oriental, then looked over at Spector.
“No problem.” Spector unbuttoned his coat and raised his arms. The man frisked him in a quick, professional manner. “You Secret Service or something?” Spector asked.
“Okay. Do what you want with him.” The big man took a step back toward the stairs.
The Oriental, Spector figured him for a manager, hustled him to a table near the entrance to the private room. He handed Spector a menu and smiled weakly. “No trouble,” he whispered. “They told me there would be no trouble.”
“Only if the food’s bad.”
“Food is excellent.” The manager signaled a waiter and turned away, seeming relieved.
The menu was hand-printed in gold and silver on some kind of fancy card stock, not laminated like he was used to. Spector opened it and sighed. Bad to worse, not only was everything written in Vietnamese, but there were no numbers next to the entrees. It would be hard enough trying to find something edible without having to pronounce it, too.
“Excuse me, sir. Would you like some tea?”
Spector looked up at the waiter. “Sure.” A little caffeine would be good for his reflexes when the time came.
The waiter turned over his cup with a white-gloved hand and filled it. “Would you like a few more minutes before you order?”
“Yeah. Come back in a while.”
The waiter nodded, set the white china teapot on the table, and walked away.
Spector picked up the cup and blew the steam away from the surface of the tea. It looked a little greener than what he was used to. He took a tentative sip. The tea was almost too hot to be drinkable, but it was strong enough to do the job. He’d let it cool for a few minutes and then put away as much as he could. Spector smelled meat and vegetables cooking in hot oil. His stomach burned. He needed to get something solid into it soon.
Two people entered the restaurant. One was young; the other had to be pushing seventy. Both were wearing dark suits and hats. They talked briefly to the guard at the door, then disappeared into the private room.
Spector could hear their voices, but wasn’t able to pick out enough words to follow the conversation. It didn’t really matter. Most of them would be sleeping with the fishes before too much longer.
He turned back to the menu. If he ordered a beef dish, he could at least eat the meat.
Another group walked past the guard into the meeting room. Hello, he thought, I’m Demise. I’ll be killing your asses stone-cold dead tonight.
His waiter wandered back over. “You ready now, sir?”
“Yes. I’d like something with beef in it. You understand. Plenty of hot stuff, too.” The waiter nodded and left.
Spector checked his watch. 7:45. He picked up his cup and sipped at the tea. When he was sure everyone was there he’d make his move.
The cocktail hour was drawing to a close, and Curtis and his attentive staff were beginning to escort the guests to their tables when Jay Ackroyd finally showed up, with Chrysalis on his arm. Popinjay was in the same brown suit and loafers that he’d worn all clay, tieless and a little rumpled. Chrysalis was wearing a glittering floor-length gown of metallic silver. It covered both breasts and one shoulder, but the slit up the side was high enough to make it perfectly apparent that she had decided to do without underwear. Her long legs flashed as she strode across the floor, muscles moving like smoke beneath transparent skin, the eyes in her skeletal face scanning the room as if she owned it.
Hiram met them by the bar. “Jay is as tardy as ever,” he said. “I really ought to take him to task for delaying our meeting. I’m Hiram Worchester” He kissed her hand.
She seemed amused. “I’d guessed as much,” she said in cultivated public-school tones.
“You’re British!” Hiram said with a delighted smile. “My father was British. He fought at Dunkirk, you know. A male war bride, but not the kind who wore white.”
Chrysalis smiled politely.
Ackroyd’s smile was more cynical. “You two probably want to talk about Winston Churchill or Yorkshire pudding or something. I think I’ll get a drink.”
“Do that,” Hiram said. Jay took the hint and wandered off to chat with Wallwalker. “I believe you have some information for me,” Hiram said to Chrysalis.
“I might,” she said. She glanced around. In a room full of celebrities and attractive women, she was drawing more than her share of glances. “Here? It seems rather public.”
“In my office,” Hiram said.
When the door was shut behind them, Hiram sank gratefully into a chair and gestured her to a seat. “May I?” she asked, producing a cigarette from a small handbag. He nodded. She lit up, and Hiram watched the smoke swirl inside her nasal cavities when she inhaled. “Let’s dispense with the foreplay,” Chrysalis suggested. “The sort of information you want is dangerous and expensive. How much are you prepared to spend?”
Hiram slid open his drawer, took out a ledger-sized checkbook, and began to fill out a check. She watched him carefully. He ripped it out and slid it across the desk.
Chrysalis leaned forward, picked up the check, looked at it. The ghostly musculature of her face worked as she raised an eyebrow. She folded the check in half and tucked it into her handbag. “Very good. That buys you a lot, Mr. Worchester. Not all, but a lot.”
“Go on.” He folded his hands on the desk. “You told Jay that Bludgeon was a part of something bigger. What?”
“Call them the Shadow Fist Society,” Chrysalis said. “That’s the name you hear on the street. It’s as good as any other. It is a large and powerful criminal organization, Mr. Worchester, made up of many lesser gangs. The Immaculate Egrets in Chinatown, the Werewolves in Jokertown, Bludgeon’s motley group along the waterfront, and a dozen others. They have allies in Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen, Brooklyn, all over the city.”
“The syndicate,” Hiram said.
“Don’t confuse them with the Mafia. The Shadow Fist Society is waging a very quiet war against the Mafia, in fact, and it is winning. It has fingers in a good number of pies, everything from drugs to prostitution to the numbers, as well as some legitimate businesses. Bludgeon and his protection racket are one of the smallest and least significant parts of this operation, but a part nonetheless. If I were you, I’d be very careful. Bludgeon himself is cheap muscle, but his sponsors are ruthless and efficient people who brook no interference. If you annoy them, they’ll kill you as easily as you might swat a fly.”
Hiram made a fist. “They might find that difficult.”
“Because you’re an ace?” She smiled. “On a day like today, that seems precious little to cling to, dear boy. Do you remember that rather sensational gangland murder on Staten Island last year? It was in all the papers.”
Hiram frowned. “One of those ace-of-spades killings, wasn’t it? I vaguely recall seeing the headlines. What was it the victim called himself?”
“Scar,” said Chrysalis. “An instantaneous teleport, and a Shadow Fist hit man. Well, he’s done, but they have other aces working for them, if rumors can be believed. With powers as potent as his. Maybe as many as a dozen. You hear names. Fadeout. The Whisperer. Wyrm. For all you know, one of your guests out there might be a Shadow Fist, sipping your champagne while he ponders the best way to dispose of you.”
Hiram considered a moment. “Can you tell me the name of the man at the top of this organization?”
“I could,” Chrysalis said coolly. “But passing along information like that could get me killed. Not that I wouldn’t risk it for the right price, of course.” She laughed. ” I just don’t think you have that much money, Mr. Worchester.”
“Suppose I wanted to talk to them,” he said. She shrugged.
“Unless you can provide me with a name, you’ll find I can easily stop payment on that check.”
“We can’t have that,” she said. “Are you familiar with the name Latham, Strauss?”
“The law firm?” Hiram said.
“Attorneys from Latham, Strauss pried Bludgeon loose this afternoon, after Jay had teleported him into the Tombs. I had cause to ask a few questions about that firm today, and I discovered that the senior partner habitually takes a keen interest in men like Bludgeon. That seems strange, since his personal clients include a number of the city’s richest and most powerful men, a few of whom have good reasons to be discreet. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Hiram nodded. “Do you have his address?”
She opened her handbag and produced it. Hiram’s respect for her rose a notch. “I’ll give you one more bit of advice for free,” she added.
“And what is that?”
Chrysalis smiled. “Don’t call him Loophole,” she said.