His firefly was a point of light, bright and quick, tireless. It darted and circled around him like an electric mosquito.
"Him too?" Jerry said when he saw the kid. "Why am I always the last one on the big cases? If you called Sascha back from Maui, I'm going to be really annoyed."
"I wouldn't dare," Jay said. "Sascha knows where all the bodies are buried. Never mess with a telepath's vacation."
A teenaged hooker sauntered up to the freckle-faced boy. "So who are you, Peter Pan?" she asked, to general laughter.
"That's Pann, you douchebag," the boy snapped at her. He pronounced it Pahn. "It's Dutch."
"Peter," Jay called out. "Over here."
Pann turned and spotted them. He walked over briskly. "I want double time for this," he said as he sat down. "Do you know what time it is, Ackroyd? Pinkerton's never woke me up at three in the morning." His tink darted around his head, buzzing. Peter swatted at it irritably.
"Let's see the picture," Jay said. He didn't bother asking if he'd gotten it. Pann had been with Pinkerton's in Chicago for nine years before Jay hired him away. He was as good as they came. Not to mention being a wild card.
Peter handed him the file folder. Jay opened it and took out a mug shot, a glossy enlargement of the face of a young woman. It was a terrible picture, but she was still beautiful. He showed it to Jerry Strauss. "Hannah Davis," he said. "This is a blowup of her fire department ID photo."
"I remember seeing her on Peregrine's Perch," Jerry said. His Rondo Hatten face suddenly brightened. "I get it," he said eagerly. "We're going to find her."
Jay shook his head. "Nah," he said. "The feds are."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Ray was not a happy camper on the flight back to D.C. He and Crypt Kicker sat across the aisle from each other, the only passengers in the small courier jet winging back home at supersonic speeds.
"Jesus, Bobby Joe," Ray said, "how could you work for that scum?"
Puckett shrugged ponderously. When he spoke it was even more difficult to understand him. Since Ray had crushed his windpipe his every breath was accompanied by a gasping wheeze that sounded just awful. Ray often wondered what incredible spark of vitality kept the dead ace going and going after suffering such tremendous physical damage. Maybe it was as Puckett himself believed, a touch of the divine.
"Well, I'm sorry, Billy, but they told me they was doing the Lord's work."
"I don't pretend to know God's mind," Ray said, "but somehow I doubt that he wants all jokers and aces wiped from the face of the earth."
Puckett shook his head ponderously. "That's not what their serum does," he said. "It helps people, not kills them. Why, I feel better already."
"WHAT!" Ray jumped up in his seat and backed away from Puckett as far as he could get. "You let them inject you with the Black Trump?"
"Sure," Puckett wheezed. "And I don't feel bad at all."
"You stupid son of a bitch," Ray groaned. "You just stay over there. Keep your distance."
Jesus! If Crypt Kicker was infected, maybe he'd caught it too. He'd fought the dead ace, touched him, for Christ's sake. Ray suddenly ran to the plane's tiny bathroom and locked himself in. He scrubbed his hands furiously, part of himself saying that this was foolish, that it was probably already too late. Another part of his mind said well, maybe not.
Puckett was an unusual case. He was an ace, for one thing. For another, he was already dead. How the Black Trump would affect him would be anybody's guess. Maybe it wouldn't affect him at all.
Ray went back into the cabin and sat as far away from Puckett as possible.
"I'm sorry, Billy," the dead ace said in an apologetic voice. "I didn't mean to hurt you when we was fighting. I just want to do the Lord's work and avert suffering and all."
"That's fine," Ray said. "You just do it over there while I stay here."
An hour passed and Ray began to think that maybe he was worrying for nothing. Puckett, after all, was the most indestructible being he a ever run across. Nothing could do the motherfucker in. Nothing could -
Puckett suddenly turned from his seat in the front row to face Ray sitting in the back.
"I feel strange, Billy. Did it get hot in here?"
Ray stood slowly, staring at Puckett. "No, Bobby Joe, I don't think so."
Puckett pawed at the hood that covered his face, finally pulling it off to reveal his grotesque features. Puckett had killed himself before his ace had turned so strangely. He'd put a gun in his mouth and blown away most of his right cheek and his eye. That part of his face was a hideous ruin. The other part was even uglier. It was speckled with dozens of tiny hemorrhages. His remaining eyeball was filled with blood and was a sickly purple color. As Ray watched, Crypt Kicker's eyelid started to leak blood and a black fluid ran from his nose down over his mouth and chin.
The hulking ace stood, clutching at the cabin wall for support. He tried to shuffle toward Ray.
"I ... can't ... move ... my ... left ... side ..."
He toppled and hit the cabin floor without even trying to break his fall. In moments he lay in a pool of blood that ran from his nose, eyes, mouth, and the horrible gunshot wound in his head, as well as the hundreds of tiny ruptures that had opened in the skin all over his body.
"Help ... me ... Billlll...."
Whatever vitality powered the engine of Puckett's body had finally run out. Ray stared as Bobby Joe Puckett continued to leak blood and fluid and unidentifiable slime. He seemed to melt, liquefying before Ray's horrified eyes.
Ray stifled a scream. He had never felt such fear in his life. The Black Trump wasn't a foe he could fight. It was an insidious, cowardly force that tore invisibly at your body, breaking it down until you were nothing more than a nauseating pool of puke.
Without thinking he went to the center of the cabin and kicked at the emergency escape hatch. The door popped open and air went screaming from the cabin as it suddenly depressurized. Oxygen masks fell down from the ceiling. Ray went past them. The pilot came on the intercom, asking, "What's going on in there!"
"Don't come in here!" Ray screamed. "Stay out!"
He snatched one of the oxygen masks and took a couple of deep breaths. He let go of the mask and grabbed a seat cushion. He approached what was left of Puckett's body and used the cushion to push it to the cabin door where it was sucked out and away, falling down to the ocean below, Ray mopped up what fluid he could with the cushion and a couple of pillows, letting them fly out the door when they got soaked.
When he could clean up no more of the goop that had been Bobby Joe Puckett, he just stood and stared at the dark stain on the cabin carpet where Puckett had lain. He kept the emergency exit open a long time, breathing from the oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.
After twenty minutes or so, he shut the door. He stayed on the canned oxygen for the rest of the trip to D.C.
But he wondered if it wasn't already too late. The Black Trump had killed an ace who was already dead, an ace whom neither flood for fire nor God himself could kill.
And he'd been exposed to it. He put his hand on his forehead. Was he already feeling a little warm?
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
SEVEN
"Colonel Sucharayan," the President of the Republic of Free Vietnam said, "you've been trying to divert the Mekong River again. That's got to stop. Now."
As if for emphasis she swung her legs around and draped them over the arm of her heavy French Colonial chair of carved teak and green velvet upholstery. She wore what appeared to be tight-fitting black Danskins, and a black half-mask, figured to turn her face into a living yin-yang. Her hair was black, heavy, and unbound.