"He's dead, damn it!"
"He's young. Younger than you, by the calendar. He's a handsome man, so I near. Not many men get to taste their dearest enemy's death twice, Croyd. Think about it."
"I don't believe you," Croyd said.
"I think you do," the Black Dog said.
Croyd settled back on his cushion. His eyes never left the Black Dog's face. He motioned with his empty coffee cup and Needles filled it for him.
"Zoe Harris, you think you can't be part of this. Nice girls don't play games with horrors. Your moral code would never let you touch a situation like this, even if your refusal meant your death and the death of every joker and ace in the world. Yeah. I might just feel that way myself, if I had the choice.
"I don't. Here's my offer. You get this bomb back to Jerusalem. Once that's done, you'll never hear from us again. We'll send your kids to Vietnam. All of the kids go and they go to school. The Fists pay the bills. Jellyhead wants to be a doc, I hear. She's got real talent in that direction."
She did. The Black Dog was talking security for all of them, more security than a wage earner under threat of extradition could hope for. Vietnam would mean another move, another displacement, another culture for the kids to fit themselves into. The situation might change there, but there were enclaves that might be free of the sound of gunfire for a few more years. A few quiet years to grow and hope.
She couldn't do this. Could not. Would not. In the photo, the half-dissolved sagging body of a joker, blood oozing from eyelids, nostrils, fingernails ...
"That's my offer, but that won't be enough to convince you. Needles, speak to her," Black Dog said.
"You have to help," Needles said. "I mean, you don't have to. But Jan is in this bomb thing. She's the only one of us who looks nat. Zoe, it has to be nats. There's borders to cross, and jokers don't get past them alive. You haven't seen what they do to jokers in the desert, what they do to the kids if their card turns and we can't get to them in time.
"Jan's already headed for the Black Sea, Zoe. She's with Balthazar."
Jan? Pick the one that's closest to my heart, except all of them are close to my heart. This was vile blackmail. But Jan? What if she panicked and let her joker eyes show at a border crossing?
"I don't know how to buy a bomb," Zoe said.
"Most of the arrangements are made. The package is ready. Payment has been discussed. You and Croyd are buying some farm equipment. That's all there is to it. You pick up the package; someone you'll never see hands over a draft on a Swiss bank. You're just mules. It isn't all that cloak-and-dagger stuff. Forget that.
"You, Jan, your husband Croyd, and his brother Balthazar. An innocent, hardworking family transporting an irrigation pump. You'll manage this, Zoe Harris. You will do whatever you can to keep your 'daughter' alive. And in the process, the rest of us may buy time to destroy the fucking Trump. We have to try, anyway."
"I don't get it. Why Croyd? Why me? Why Jan?"
"You mignt get stopped. You might be asked questions. You don't know much about the Fists. If you're caught, you can't say much, any of you, that would hurt us. We deny that we ever heard of you. That's how it has to be."
"You bastard," Zoe said.
"Yes," the Black Dog said. "Oh, yes."
"I don't speak anything but English," Zoe said.
"Croyd does. Needles, take them to Snailfoot. He can brief them." The Black Dog's robes swirled around him as he rose and vanished through the beaded curtain.
"Come on, Zoe," Needles said. "You'll like Azma. She'll do a good job with your hair."
Hair? Nuclear warheads? A trip to Russia? But Needles was smiling at her, as calm as if he'd just mentioned a trip to the souk for cucumbers. Croyd Crenson didn't look like a Turk. What if he fell asleep? Irrigation pumps? A disease that dissolved jokers in their own blood?
The room itself seemed a stage set. Zoe felt that if she pushed one of the stone wails, it would break like cardboard. She would see the barren brick wall behind it, and stagehands running back and forth to set the next scene.
She stood, walked to one of the wails, and laid her hand on the solid stone, cool and unyielding. She punched at it.
"Zoe?" Needles asked.
Her knuckles bled from tiny scrapes. She held her fist in her hand feeling the bones. She hadn't broken anything.
"My hair. Black?"
"Yeah, sure. You, too, Croyd. Come on."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Gregg had learned the layout of the sewer lines in the month or so he'd spent hiding there after he'd been jumped. He came up into the subbasement of Squisher's establishment, through a loose grate in the storeroom floor. He pushed open the unlocked door and eased himself out into a dimly-lit corridor. Worn concrete stairs led to the bar just below street level. As Gregg remembered, there was a phone booth here, in an alcove between the restrooms.
So far, so good. Squisher's seemed safer than up on the streets where he was being hunted, and this was a call that Gregg had to make, not Hannah. In the early afternoon, Squisher's was mostly empty. Gregg could hear the sounds of someone's heavy tread on the floor above, and the insistent bubbling of Squisher's tank behind the bar. The low drone of a TV masked the fragments of conversation that drifted down the stairs. The basement smelled equally of uncleaned urinals and spilled alcohol.
"I think I prefer the sewers," Gregg muttered to himself as he went to the phone booth and heaved his long body up on the seat. He pushed the receiver up with a tiny hand; it fell, dangling from the short cord. He'd been clutching a quarter in one hand resisting the temptation to pop it into his mouth like a piece of hard candy; now he slid it into the slot. Gregg punched numbers and pressed his ear against the swaying receiver, waiting. One ring. Two. Three. Gregg sighed, thinking the answering machine would kick in, when he heard someone pick up the phone. "Yeah?"
Gregg lifted his body slightly so he could speak into the mouthpiece; his truncated arms couldn't bring the receiver to his head. "Bushorn? Bushorn, don't hang up please. You have to listen, have to hear me out."
Gregg dropped down. " - listening," a faint bass voice answered.
Up again. "Good. You remember your court case a year and a half ago? EastAirFreight fired you because you were a wild carder, said you were 'dangerous.' We agreed on half a million in an out of court settlement; you said you were going to buy that plane you always wanted. You also said that if I ever needed a favor, to just ask. We were standing in the street outside the offices. You shook my hand, my left hand and you said it didn't matter what, didn't matter when, just call Gary Bushorn. Well I need that favor."
He dropped down again. " - artmann? Gregg Hartman?"
Up. "Yes. I'm Gregg Hartmann. Much changed, I'm afraid. Gary, I need a flight for two out of the country, and I need it now."
Down. " - rumors about you are true, then. With what I've been hearing, that explains a lot, I guess. Look, I ... I guess owe you one, maybe. But I have to file a flight plan, get the plane ready, make sure things are set here. That's gonna take a day or two. Just where you planning to go?"
"How far can you take us?"
" - outh America. Upper Canada. Europe, if we take it slow and easy."
"Europe," Gregg said. As Hannah had said, the vials would be with the Sharks; if Rudo had indeed fled the country, then he'd have run to one of them - and they knew that the British general in Ulster, Horvath, was a Shark. If that didn't pan out, then England was close, and Gregg knew people there: Captain Flint, Churchill. Suddenly Gregg was feeling less useless. "That sounds good. How soon, Gary?"
" - days. That should do it."
"When? How many days?"
Gregg was suddenly aware of someone watching. He could feel the pressure of a gaze. His head jerked up to see the large body of the joker known as Mick and Rick staring at him from the stairwell leading to Squisher's. The two-headed joker didn't say anything, and Gregg wondered how long they'd been listening. Bushorn was talking. He thought he heard the word "Thursday." "We'll be there " he said quickly, and he pressed the hook, disconnecting Bushorn. Gregg slid down from the seat. Mick and Rick watched, the doubled heads swiveling as Gregg scooted across the hall and into the storeroom.