A shrill scream tore at her throat as she watched his hand go sliding into her chest, and felt the heavy pressure as he cupped her heart in his palm.
"One squeeze, Roulette, and you die." His hand drifted down, massaging her ovaries, sending waves of agony through her belly. "Don't make me kill you, Roulette. It would be such a waste." He removed his hand, and caressed her bruised cheek. "But I don't want to frighten you, my darling. I want to help you. To save and free your soul. You will go mad, Roulette, just as you fear, unless you achieve your final vengeance and purge your soul. Without that cleansing, my memory wipe will do you no good. Now go, find Tachyon, kill him, and you will be free."
"Free," she sighed. The Astronomer suddenly released his hold on her chin, and she fell forward, catching herself on her hands. She whimpered a bit as the now-congealing blood oozed between her fingers. Even free from you, she thought with an emotion that was neither love nor hate, but partook of both.
"Yes, my little love. Even from me." She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blow or other punishment that had to follow. Moments passed and nothing happened. Cautiously she opened her eyes.
"And when will you…"
"Remove your past? When you report back to me, and tell me in painful detail"-his lips quirked at the little pun"every moment of Tachyon's death."
"Yes… all right… I will."
Roulette pushed herself to her feet. With a jerk of the head the Astronomer indicated to Kafka to leave. The hideous little cockroach joker scurried to the door, and offered Roulette one of the remaining clean towels. She accepted gratefully. "Will I find you here?"
"That depends on the time. My schedule's rather full today." He smirked, then stared consideringly at her. "You have served me well. Oh, why not? I've decided to take my more faithful followers with me when I leave." He wrapped a length of flexible tubing about his upper arm, and rubbed at the bulging vein.
"Leave?"
"Yes, I'm leaving this world which betrayed and cheated me. "
"But how?"
"On Tachyon's ship."
"But you don't know how to fly a spaceship. Do you?" she added, suddenly doubtful. The range of his powers was awesome, maybe he could.
"This ship will fly, for it's an intelligent creature with a mind, and what has a mind I can control. We are set to rendezvous at three-thirty tomorrow morning. Be there and you can come. Provided of course you've killed Tachyon, and if your little recitation pleases me. Now, what do you say to that? I couldn't be any fairer," he added in a thoughtful tone as he considered his own magnanimity.
The little smile that pursed his mouth died, and his face twisted in a hideous grimace. "Now go!" he screamed, and spittle foamed in tiny white specks on his lips, and spattered on her face.
She went, running back down the damp tunnel, towel pressed to her lips. Kafka was still shuffling down the tunnel, and as she passed him, Roulette wondered how much he had overheard, if he constituted one of the "faithful," and what the _ Astronomer would do to him if he weren't and if he learned of Kafka's eavesdropping. For an instant their eyes met, and Roulette saw mirrored in the joker's the same fear and confusion and hopelessness and hate that she knew lay reflected in hers.
She touched him gently on the carapace. "Thank you for the towel, Kafka."
"You're welcome," he said with an odd formality that made his bizarre condition all the more ludicrous and heartbreaking. "Roulette," he added as she walked away. "Be careful. I would like to think that one of us came out of this with some semblance of normalcy and humanity intact."
"Well, it won't be me, but thanks for the concern."
Chapter Four
9:00 a.m.
Jennifer picked up the phone on her desk and dialed a number she'd used only half a dozen times in the past year, but had committed to memory. It rang three times before it was picked up and a rich, cultured voice with a Brooklyn accent still lurking in it said, "The Happy Hockey."
"Hello, Gruber."
The voice took on a new tone, deepening and becoming unctuous with unwanted solicitousness. "My dear Wraith." He called her by the nom de guerre Jennifer had adopted. "It's been a while. How have you been?"
"Fine." Jennifer kept her answers to a minimum. She didn't like Leon Gruber, though he continually let her know his all-too-evident feelings toward her. He was a pudgy, pasty faced cokehead with a master's in fine arts from Columbia. He worked out of the pawnshop he'd inherited from his fatherunder, from what Jennifer had heard, rather suspicious circumstances. He was her fence. He never stopped hitting on her, despite the cold politeness with which she carried out all their transactions.
"Do you have something for me?" he asked.
He made the question sound salacious. Jennifer could almost see him licking his pouty lips.
"Postage stamps," she replied briefly.
"How much?" There was something of a sigh in his voice as he resigned himself to talking business.
"Nearly two. million catalog."
There was a long silence, and when Gruber finally spoke his voice had changed again. There was something behind his words that Jennifer had never heard before, something that made him sound even more cold and calculating than usual.
"You do astonish me, my dear. Tell me, are these from a dealer's stock or a private party's collection?"
"None of your business."
"Well, we do like to keep our little secrets, don't we?"
"My secrets are my own," Jennifer said firmly, more than a little irritated. "If you're not interested in the stamps I can always find someone who is."
"Oh, I am interested. I am. I'm interested in everything about you, my dear Wraith." Jennifer grimaced at his words. She could almost imagine the scenes flickering through his coked-up brain. "You are a very, um, intriguing person. You appeared from out of nowhere and in less than a year became the city's finest thief. I feel very fortunate to be, um, associated with you and I'm very, very interested in the stamps. I have something on for this morning, though. I'm expecting some people. Can you come by elevenish? Perhaps we can do lunch after I take a look at the merchandise."
"Perhaps." There was no sense in antagonizing him before he looked at the stamps. "Eleven. I'll be there."
"I'll be waiting, dear."
His last sentence echoed oilily in Jennifer's ear as she hung up. There was more avid anticipation in it than was usual. She decided that she had to find a new fence. She couldn't take Gruber's leering comments much longer. Maybe he was sliding too deeply into his cocaine habit. He does so much of the stuff; Jennifer thought, one of these days his heart'll explode.
Fortunato checked his watch. He had to bring his arm up along his side and then across his chest to see it because of the crowds. It was a little after nine. When he looked up again the world was like a kaleidoscope. Shards of bright color surrounded him, shifting constantly into new patterns, unpredictable but not quite random.
When Caroline had said it was Wild Card Day it had meant nothing to him. He should have known better. Now he was trapped in the crowds with Brennan, committed. Every couple of minutes he thought again about breaking his rule about public displays. It would be nothing for him to levitate himself out of the crowd and sail back to the peace of his apartment.
Then he thought of the Astronomer, maybe just a few yards away, maybe on the verge of killing again and making himself that much stronger in the process.
Just ahead of them Hester Street met the Bowery, square in the middle of Jokertown. Police barricades blocked off the side streets, though there were so many tourists a car couldn't have gotten through if it wanted to. They mostly seemed to be dressed for a track meet, in shorts and running shoes and hideous T-shirts, except they were overweight and slung with cameras and had billed caps with moronic slogans on them.