Wildcards - One Eyed Jacks Part 5

As far as Jerry knew, that was a first for a Wild Card Day dinner. Shortly after Tachyon's arrival Hiram made his entrance. He was wearing a magnificently tailored dark blue suit, but looked thinner than when Jerry had seen him on the tour.

Hiram raised his gla.s.s and paused for a moment, waiting for his guests to follow suit. "To Jetboy," he said. "To Jetboy," Jerry and Beth said along with all the others. They clinked gla.s.ses and drank the toast.

Jerry heard Veronica laugh. She was probably doing it just to annoy him. No.

More likely she was so busy thinking about sucking her date's p.r.i.c.k that she hadn't even noticed him.

"Thank you all for coming," Hiram continued. " I hope you all enjoy your meal, on this, our special day. May be the coming year be kind to us all."

There was a smattering of applause. Hiram walked over to Tachyon's table, shook the alien's good hand, then went into the kitchen.

"Doesn't he usually float up to the ceiling or something?" Beth asked.

"Yeah. Maybe he just doesn't feel like it's appropriate. I think Hiram's a bit concerned what people are thinking of him right now," Jerry said. "The whole Chrysalis thing has to be a nightmare for him."

"Worse for her, bro. She's the one who got turned into pate."

Jerry started to say something, but Beth interrupted. "No. You don't have to say it. I feel bad already. He seems like a very nice man. But aces aren't always good guys, you know"

"I know"

"Bush is going to win the election, and if you think things are hard on wild cards now, just wait. Wild-card chic is going to be stone-cold dead before his term is over."

"It could be worse than the fifties." Beth reached over and touched his face.

"With your history, I just don't want you to get hurt."

Jerry smiled. He ate it up when she acted concerned over him. If only Veronica cared even half that much. "Thanks. I think I'll be okay."

Their waiter walked over. "What will you have tonight, madam?"

" I think I'll have the fruit salad," Beth said.

He'd promised himself he wouldn't think about veronica. Three nights after the party he was sitting at home. Kenneth and Beth were chewing over the implications of a Bush presidency. Dukakis' pardon of Willie Horton, a joker who'd been convicted of rape, seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. The revolving-door ad, showing homicidal jokers being spilled out into the street, had been a master stroke. The Democrats were indignant, but the ad affected the public in the desired fas.h.i.+on. Jerry found it all too depressing. He called up Ichiko and Veronica was available.

Jerry was sure she hadn't recognized him. He'd thought of giving himself a male-model look, but settled on a more rugged face. His hair was dark and straight; he could do that now, too. Veronica looked almost the same as before.

Her white cotton dress revealed just enough to get a man's attention without telling him too much. Jerry knew what she looked like naked, but remembering wasn't enough. Not tonight. Tonight he wanted to be inside her.

Taking her to a movie was probably a mistake. If anything could tip her to who he was, that was it. Still, he wanted to see Demme's Joker Mama on the big screen. He was sick of video.

"A friend of mine recommended you," Jerry said. "You were at the Wild Card Day dinner with him. He said you were terrific."

"You know Croyd?"

"Slightly," Jerry said. Croyd had to be Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper. Jerry had heard a few things about him, mostly bad. Obviously, Veronica wasn't looking for a nice guy.

On the screen a tight-knit group of jokers in human masks was holding up a bank, only to be interrupted by a duck-faced and mouse-faced duo with the same idea.

Jerry put his arm around Veronica and gave her shoulder a squeeze. She flinched.

After a long moment she reached up and started stroking his hand.

She knows it's me, he thought. Her brain may not have figured it out yet, but her body knows it's me. He felt a chill, like something had gone bad inside him.

"Excuse me," he said, leaning in close. Her perfume was different from the expensive French stuff he'd bought her. "I'm not feeling well. I'd like to take you home."

Veronica looked up, surprised. Jerry pressed two hundred-dollar bills into her palm. Her hand was cold. "For your time," Jerry said, in a voice too close to his own. "I'm sorry."

He took her by the hand and led her out of the theater. Gunshots came from the screen behind them. The lobby smelled of overly b.u.t.tered popcorn and stale candy. He excused himself, went into the men's room, and vomited as quietly as possible.

She was gone when he came back out.

Horses

by Lewis s.h.i.+ner

The woman on the other side of the coffee table had a blond crewcut and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. She was around forty. No makeup, a man's gray sportcoat over a white T-s.h.i.+rt, loose drawstring pants. d.y.k.e, had been Veronica's first impression, and so far nothing had changed her mind. "Things are just a little out of control right now," Veronica said. "It's not my fault. I need a little time."

The woman's name was Hannah Jorde. She sighed and said, "I'm so sick of hearing the same old s.h.i.+t." She put her gla.s.ses on the table and rubbed her eyes.

"You're an addict, Veronica. I would have known that in two seconds, even if Ichiko hadn't told me. You've got every symptom in the book." She put her gla.s.ses back on. "I'm going to get you in a program. Methadone. It'll make you feel better, and keep you alive, but you'll still be an addict. Only you'll be addicted to methadone instead of heroin."

Veronica said, "I can quit-"

"Please," Hannah said. "Don't say it. Don't make me listen to it. I just want to tell you a couple of things, and I want you to think about them. That's all we can get done this first time anyway."

"Fine," Veronica said. She put her hands under her thighs because they had started to shake a little.

"You're an addict because you don't want to deal with what's going on inside you. You're not just killing yourself, you're already dead." She let the words hang for a second and then said, "What is it you do for Ichiko?"

"I'm a-" She stopped herself before she could say "geisha," Fortunato's approved term. "I'm a prost.i.tute." Suddenly Hannah smiled. She could be pretty, Veronica thought, if she made a little effort. The right clothes, makeup. A wig for that awful haircut. What a waste. "Good," Hannah said. "The truth, for once. Thank you for that." She filled out a slip of paper and handed it across. "Start your methadone and I'll see you tomorrow"

A van with a loudspeaker pa.s.sed her on Seventh Avenue. The recorded message reminded her that it was Election Day and she should exercise her const.i.tutional freedom. Doubtless paid for by the Democrats. Everyone expected a landslide for Bush after the Democrats' disaster in Atlanta.

A man leaned out of the van and said, "Hey, baby, did you vote today?" She showed him the manicure on her right middle finger. That went for the American political system, too. What kind of freedom was it when the only people you could vote for were politicians?

She got in line outside the methadone clinic, pulling her coat tighter around her. It was embarra.s.sment as much as cold. She didn't know which was worse, to be surrounded by so many junkies or to be taken for one of them. They mostly seemed to be black women and white boys with long greasy hair.

At least, she thought, she was still on the street. Ichiko had given her three choices: check into a detox center, see Hannah, or look for another job.

Her turn came and the woman at the window handed her a paper cup. The methadone was mixed in a sweet orange-flavored drink. Veronica drank it down and crumpled the cup. The black hooker behind her teetered up to the window on impossibly high heels and said, "Weeee, law, give me that jesus j.i.z.z."

Veronica threw the cup on the street and looked at her watch. Time enough to get uptown to Bergdorf s before her dinner date.

She should have guessed from the name he'd used to make the dinner reservation: Herman Gregg. But she didn't figure it out till she got to the table.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Veronica said. The subdued light of the restaurant was enough, even for Veronica, to know the face. "Senator Hartmann," she said.

He smiled weakly. "Not senator anymore. I'm just an ordinary citizen again. But you can see why I didn't want to be alone tonight. You know what they say about politics and strange bedfellows."

"No," Veronica said. "What do they say?"

Hartmann shrugged and put the menu down. "How hungry are you?"

"I don't care. If you just want to go upstairs, that's fine." He'd already told her he had a room upstairs at the Hyatt. "Don't feel like you have to buy me dinner, like this is a real date or anything."

"Somehow this isn't quite what I expected. I'd heard so much about Fortunato and his extraordinary women."

"Yeah, well, Fortunato's gone. Things have fallen off a bit. If you're not happy, you don't have to go through with it."

"I'm not complaining. I guess you're more human than I expected. I kind of like that."

Veronica stood up. "Shall we?"

He was very quiet in the elevator, didn't touch her or anything. Just one hand on the elbow as they got out, to point her toward the room. Once inside, he locked the door and turned the TV on.

"We don't need that, do we?" Veronica asked.

"I have to know," Hartmann said. He took his jacket off and folded it over a chair, then untied his shoes and put them neatly underneath. He loosened his tie and sat on the end of the bed, his tiredness visible in the curve of his spine.

"I have to know just how bad it is."

When Veronica came out of the bathroom in her bra and panties, he was in the same position. Bush was running almost two to one ahead of Dukakis and Jackson.

Concession speeches were expected momentarily. She helped Hartmann off with the rest of his clothes, put a condom on him, and got him under the covers.

He didn't want anything fancy, just got right down to business. As he rocked against her, the election returns continued in a steady stream: "Texas now shows Bush with a staggering fifty-eight percent of the vote, and that's with thirty-seven percent of the precincts reporting." Hartmann's spasm happened quickly and left him on the edge of tears. Veronica stroked the small of his back, where the sweat had just broken, and made soothing noises. Just as he rolled off her, one of the TV reporters said his name and he sat up guiltily.

"Many of us must be asking ourselves the same question tonight," the reporter went on. "Could Gregg Hartmann have beaten Vice-President Bush? It was just two and a half months ago that Hartmann withdrew from the race after his loss of composure at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. That convention will long be remembered, not only for its bloodshed, but as a turning point in the nation's att.i.tude toward victims of the wild-card virus."

She carried the used condom into the bathroom, knotted it, wrapped it in toilet paper, and threw it away. The odor of sperm almost gagged her. She sat on the edge of the tub and washed herself and then brushed her teeth, over and over, telling herself she didn't need a shot, not yet.

It was after two when Hartmann turned the TV off. Bush was a joke, Hartmann told her. His campaigning against drugs was sheerest hypocrisy, given what his CIA had done in Central America. His cabinet officers would never live up to his claims of ethics, and his "kinder, gentler" America would have no room for aces or jokers.

The wild-card issue meant little to Veronica. Fortunato, the man who had brought her in off the streets, was an ace. Her mother had been one of Fortunato's geishas and had meant for Veronica to have a college education and a real career. But Veronica had turned tricks anyway. The money was easy and it was easy as well to think of herself that way, as a wh.o.r.e. Together Miranda and Fortunato had decided that if she was going to sell her body, she might as well do it right. Fortunato had brought her back to his apartment and tried, unsuccessfully, to make her into one of his ideal women. She loved him in the way that people loved something sweet and not entirely of this world.

Because of Fortunato she'd met and had s.e.x withother aces and jokers. None of them had seemed quite real to her either. There weren't even that many of them, not compared to unwed mothers or the homeless or old people, not enough to deserve all the attention they got. And it wasn't like it was a disease that other people could catch, like AIDS or something.

That thought gave her a chill. For a while the wild card had been contagious, and her sometime boyfriend Croyd Crenson had been spreading it. She'd been exposed to him but fortunately nothing had happened. She didn't want to think about it.

Eventually Hartmann fell asleep, the soft flesh of his stomach shaking with m.u.f.fled snores. Veronica lay awake, counting all the many, many things she didn't want to think about.

She didn't sleep even when she got back to Ichiko's, around dawn. This time it was the idea of seeing Hannah again that kept her turning from side to side, chills moving up through her from her stomach.

She got up around noon and made a breakfast she couldn't eat. Ichiko walked her out to the cab or she might not have made it. Even then she tried to tell the cabby to stop, to let her out, but she couldn't find her voice. It was like being back in convent school, being sent to the princ.i.p.al, the oldest, scariest nun in the world.

She walked up the stairs and into Hannah's office. She couldn't feel her legs.

She sat in the middle of Hannah's square, gray couch. Today Hannah wore jeans and a man's dress s.h.i.+rt and a cardigan with interwoven gold thread. Veronica couldn't take her eyes off the sparkles of gold.

"Did you have a chance to think?" Hannah asked her.

Veronica shrugged. "I've been busy. I don't spend a lot of time thinking."

"Okay, let's start with that. Tell me about the things you do."

Without meaning to, Veronica found herself talking about Hartmann. Hannah kept asking for details. What did he look like naked? What exactly was the taste in her mouth afterward? She sounded like she was only mildly curious. What was it like when his p.e.n.i.s was inside her? "I don't know," Veronica said. "It didn't feel like anything."

"What do you mean? He was inside you, but you couldn't feel it? Did you have to ask him if he was in yet?" Veronica started to laugh, and then she was crying.

She didn't know how it happened. It seemed to be somebody else. "I didn't want him there," she said. Who was that talking? "I didn't want him in me. I wanted him to leave me alone." Her whole body shook with sobs. "This is ridiculous,"

she said. "Why am I crying? What's happening to me?"

Hannah moved over next to her and wrapped her arms around her. She smelled like Dial soap. Veronica buried her head in the golden fibers of her sweater, felt the softness of the breast underneath. Everything gave way then and she cried until she ran out of tears, until she felt like a wrung-out sponge.

Standing in line, Veronica tapped her foot nervously on the sidewalk. One of the long-haired boys behind her sang a song about shooting up in a low, monotonous voice. "You know I couldn't find my mainline," he sang. He didn't seem aware he was doing it.

Veronica wanted the methadone, wanted it badly. What do they put in that stuff?

she thought, and stopped herself before the laughter turned into the other thing again.

She put her hand into her purse and held on to a folded piece of paper with Hannah's phone number on it.

Veronica came in on a blast of cold air and stood for a second, rubbing her hands together.

"Flowers for you," Melanie said. She had a Russianlanguage textbook open while she watched the phones. Melanie was new. She still believed in Fortunato's program, that they were geishas not hookers, that men actually cared how many languages they spoke and whether or not they could discuss postmodernist critical theory. When she finished her telephone s.h.i.+ft, she would be off to cooking cla.s.s or elocution lessons. Then, that night, she would spread her legs for a man who only cared that she had lots of red-blond hair and big b.o.o.bs.

"Jerry again?" Veronica asked. She threw her coat on the couch and collapsed.

"I don't see what you have against him. He's sweet."

"I don't have anything against him. I just don't have anything for him either.

He's a n.o.body."

"A n.o.body with a ton of money, who thinks the sun rises and sets on you. Anyway, I've got him down for you tonight, from ten o'clock on."

"Tonight?" The walls seemed to close in around her. She couldn't breathe. "I can't."