“Is that a lobster, or is that a lobster?” Gills asked. He held it up for Hiram’s inspection, and the lobster waved its claws feebly. The pincers were banded shut and a few strands of seaweed draped the hard green shell.
“A lobster of distinction,” Hiram Worchester agreed. “Are they all that large?”
“This is one of the small ones,” Gills said. The joker had mottled greenish skin, and gill slits in his cheeks that pulled open when he smiled, showing the moist red flesh within. The gills didn’t work, of course; if they had, the elderly fishmonger would have been an ace instead of a joker.
Outside, dawn light was washing over Fulton Street, but the fish market was already busy. Fishmongers and buyers haggled over prices, refrigerator trucks were being loaded, teamsters shouted curses at each other, and men in starched white aprons rolled barrels along the sidewalks. The smell of fish hung in the air like a perfume.
Hiram Worchester fancied himself a night owl, and on most days preferred to sleep in. But today was not most days. It was Wild Card Day, the day he closed his restaurant to the public and hosted the city’s aces in a private party that had become a tradition, and special occasions made their own special demands, like getting out of bed when it was still dark outside.
Gills turned away, replaced the lobster in its barrel. “You want to see another one?” he asked, tossing aside a handful of the wet seaweed and extracting a second lobster for Hiram’s inspection. It was larger than the first, and more lively. It moved its claws vigorously. “Look at ‘im kick,” Gills said. “Did I say fresh or did I say fresh?”
Hiram’s smile was a quick flash of white teeth through the black of his spade-shaped beard. He was very particular about the food he served in Aces High, and never more so than for his Wild Card Dinner. “You never let me down,” Hiram said. “These will do handsomely. Delivery by eleven, I assume?” Gills nodded. The lobster waved its claws at Hiram and regarded him sourly. Perhaps it anticipated its fate. Gills put it back in the barrel.
“How’s Michael?” Hiram asked. “Still at Dartmouth?”
“He loves it there,” Gills said. “He’s starting his junior year, and already he’s telling me how to run the business.” He put the top back on the barrel. “How many you need?” Hiram anticipated feeding about one hundred and fifty persons, give or take a dozen-eighty-odd aces, each of whom would bring a spouse, a lover, a guest. But of course lobster would hardly be the only entree. Even on this night of nights, Hiram Worchester liked to give his guests a choice. He had three alternatives planned, but these lobsters looked so splendid, undoubtedly they would be a popular choice, and it was better to have too many than too few.
The door opened behind him. He heard the bell ring. “Sixty, I think,” Hiram said, before he realized that Gills was no longer paying attention. The joker’s oversized eyes were fixed on the door. Hiram turned.
There were three of them. Their jackets were dark green leather. Two looked normal. One barely topped five feet, with a narrow face and a pronounced swagger. The second was tall and wide, a rock-hard beer belly spilling over his skull-andcrossbones belt buckle. He’d shaved his skull. The leader was an obvious joker, a cyclops whose single eye peered out at the world through a monocle with a thick coke-bottle lens. That was strange; jokers and nats didn’t often run together.
The cyclops took a length of chain out of the pocket of his jacket and began to wind it around his fist. The other two looked around Gills’s establishment as if they owned the place. One began to kick at the sawdust with a heavy, scuffed-up boot.
“Excuse me,” Gills said. “I have to’… I … I’ll be righ back.” He moved off toward the cyclops, abandoning Hiram for the moment. Across the room, two of his employees leaned close and began to whisper together. A third man, a feebleminded joker who’d been moving the wet sawdust around with a push broom, gaped at the intruders and began to edge toward the back door.
Gills was expostulating to the cyclops, gesturing with his broad web-fingered hands, pleading in a low urgent tone. The youth stared down at him from that single implacable eye, his face cold and blank. He kept wrapping the chain around his hand as Gills talked to him.
Hiram frowned and turned away from the tableau. Trouble there, but it was none of his business, he had enough to think about today. He wandered down a sawdust-covered aisle to inspect a shipment of fresh tuna. The huge fish lay atop each other in rough-hewn wooden crates, their eyes fixed on him glassily. Blackened tuna, he thought. The inspiration brought smile to his face. LeBarre was a genius at Cajun food. Not for tonight, that menu had been planned weeks ago, but blackened tuna would make an excellent addition to his regular bill of fare.
“Fuck that shit,” the cyclops said loudly from across the room. “You shoulda thought of that a week ago.”
“Please,” Gills said in a thin, frightened voice. “Just a few more days . . “
The cyclops put one booted foot up on a bin of fish, kicked, and sent it crashing over on its side. Whitefish spilled out all over the floor. “Please, don’t,” Gills repeated. His employees were no longer in sight.
Hiram turned and walked toward them, hands shoved casually into the pockets of his jacket. For such a huge man, his pace was surprisingly brisk. “Excuse me,” he said to the cyclops. “Is there a problem here?”
The joker youth towered over Gills, who was a small man made even smaller by his twisted spine, but Hiram Worchester was another matter. Hiram stood six foot two, and most people took one look at his girth and guessed that he weighed around three hundred fifty pounds. They were off by about three hundred twenty pounds, but that was another story. The cyclops looked up at Hiram through his thick monocle, and smiled nastily. “Hey, Gills,” he said, “how long you been selling whale?”
His companions, who had been standing by the door trying to look bored and dangerous simultaneously, drifted closer. “Look, it’s the fucking Goodyear blimp,” the short one said.
“Please, Hiram,” Gills said, touching him gently on the arm. “I appreciate it, but … everything is fine here. These boys are … ah … friends of Michael’s.”
“I’m always pleased to meet friends of Michael’s,” Hiram said, staring at the cyclops. “I’m surprised, though. Michael always had such good manners, and his friends have none at all. Gills has a bad back, you know. You really ought to help him clean up these fish you knocked over.”
Gills’s face looked greener than usual. “I’ll get it cleaned up,” he said. “Chip and Jim can do it, don’t … don’t worry about it.”
“Why don’t you leave, lard ass?” the cyclops suggested. He glanced at the short kid. “Cheech, get the door for him. Help him squeeze his fat ass right through.” Cheech stepped back and opened the door.
“Gills,” Hiram said, “I believe we were discussing terms on these excellent lobsters.”
The tall boy with the shaved skull spoke up for the first time. “Make ‘im squeal, Eye,” he said in a deep voice. “Make ‘im squeal before you let ‘im go.”
Hiram Worchester looked at him with genuine distaste and a calm he did not really feel. He hated this sort of thing, but sometimes one was given no choice. “You’re trying to in timidate me, but you’re only making me angry. I doubt very much that you’re actually friends of Michael’s. I suggest you leave now, before this goes too far and someone gets hurt.”
They all laughed. “Lex,” Eye told the bald one, “it’s too fuckin’ hot in here: I’m sweating. Need some fresh air.”
“I’ll cool it right off”’ Lex said. He looked around, grabbed a small barrel in both hands, hoisted it above his head in a single smooth, powerful jerk, and took a step toward the big plate-glass windows that fronted on Fulton Street.
Hiram Worchester took his hands out of his pocket. At his side, his right hand curled into a tight, hard fist. A meaningless little tic, he knew; it was his mind that did it, not his hand, but the gesture was as much a part of him as his wild card power. For an instant, he could see the gravity waves shifting hazily around the barrel like heat shimmers rising from the pavement on a hot summer’s day.
Then Lex staggered, his arms buckled, and a barrel of sal cod that suddenly weighed about three hundred pounds cam crashing down on his head. His feet went out from under him, and he hit the floor hard. The barrel staves shattered, buryin Lex under the fish. Very heavy fish.
His friends stared, uncomprehending at first. Hiram stepped briskly in front of Gills and pushed the fishmonge away. “Go phone the police,” he said. Gills edged backward.
The short one, Cheech, tried to drag Lex out from unde the shattered barrel. It was harder than it looked. The cyclops gaped, then looked sharply back at Hiram. “You did that,” he blurted. “You’re that Fatman guy.”
“I loathe that nickname,” Hiram said. He made a fist, and Eye’s monocle grew heavier. It fell of his face and shattered o the floor. The cyclops screamed an obscenity and swung at Hiram’s ample stomach with a chain-wrapped fist. Hira dodged. He was a lot nimbler than he looked; his bulk varied, but he’d kept his weight at thirty pounds for years. Eye cam after him, screeching. Hiram retreated, clenching his fist an making the joker heavier with every step, until his legs col lapsed under his own weight and he lay there moaning.
Cheech was the last to make his move. “You ace fuck,” h said. He held his hands out in front of him, palms flat, som kind of karate or kung fu or something. When he leapt, hi metal-shod boot came pistoning toward Hiram’s head.
Hiram dropped to the sawdust. Cheech leapt right ove him, and kept going, weighing rather less than he had a m ment ago. The force of his leap carried him into a wall, hard.
He hit, rolled, tried to come up with a bounce, and discovered he was so heavy he couldn’t get up at all.
Hiram rose and brushed the sawdust off his jacket. He was a mess. He’d have to go home and change before going on to Aces High. Gills edged up to him, shaking his head. “Do you get the police?” Hiram asked. The old man nodded.
“Good. The gravity distortion is only temporary, yo know. I can keep them pinned down until the police arrive, bu it takes a lot out of me.” He frowned. “It’s not healthy for them either. All that weight is a terrible strain on the heart.” Hiram glanced at his gold Rolex. It was past 7:30. “I really have to get to Aces High. Damn, I didn’t need this nonsense, not today. How long did the police-“
Gills interrupted him. “Go. Just go.” He pushed at the larger man with gentle, insistent hands. “I’ll handle it, Hiram. Please, go.”
“The police will want me to give a statement,” Hiram said. “No,” Gills said. “I’ll take care of it. Hiram, I know you meant well, but you shouldn’t … I mean … well, you just don’t understand. I can’t press charges. Go, please. Stay out of it. It will be better.”
“You can’t be serious!”” Hiram said. “These hoodlums…”
“Are my business,” Gills finished for him. “Please, I ask you as a friend. Stay out of it. Go. You will get your lobsters, very fine lobsters, I promise.”
“But-“
“Go!” Gills insisted.