They crowded into Hiram's office, all of them. The cleaning crew, the dishwashers, the kitchen staff, even the electrician who'd come up to fix the faulty wiring in one of the chandeliers. They sat in the chairs, on the floor, on the desk and cabinets. Many stood. No one said a word. Even Paul LeBarre was silent. All eyes were on the television. Geraldo Rivera was interviewing one of the Howler's sisters. Hiram hadn't known the Howler had a sister. It turned out he had four of them.
It was like the day Kennedy had been shot, he thought, or the Day of the Wild Card, the first one, forty years ago, when Jetboy had died and the world had changed forever.
The newscast cut to a police press conference. Hiram listened, and felt sick.
"Jesus." That was Peter Chou, the slim quiet man who was in charge of Aces High security, Peter who collected depression glass and black belts in assorted martial arts, and who never raised his voice or used profanity. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said now. "Nerve toxin. Jesus fucking Christ."
"It don't make sense," one of the dishwashers said. "Man, it don't make no fucking. sense, man, that fucker could scream down walls, I saw him do it, man, I saw him."
Then everybody started talking at once.
Curtis tapped Hiram's shoulder, gave him a questioning look and nodded toward the door. Hiram rose and followed him. The floor seemed cavernous and empty now with everyone jammed into Hiram's office.
"Outside," Hiram said. They went out onto the Sunset Terrace, and stood looking down over the city. The Empire State's public observation deck was on the floor above them, and above that was the old mooring mast that had once been intended for zeppelins, but except for that, there was no higher spot in New York City, or the world. The sun shone down brightly, and Hiram found himself wondering if the sky had looked as blue to Jetboy on the day he died.
"The dinner," Curtis said simply. "Do we go ahead, or cancel?"
"We go on," Hiram said, without hesitating.
"Very good, sir," Curtis said. His tone was carefully neutral, neither approving nor disapproving.
But Hiram felt he needed to explain. He put his hands up against the stone parapet, gazed off blindly to the west. "My father," he said. His voice sounded strange and halting, even to himself. "He was, ah, a robust man. As large as myself, in his later years. He was a man of, ah, healthy appetites."
"British, wasn't he?" Curtis said.
Hiram nodded. "He fought at Dunkirk. After the war he married a WAC and came to America. A male war bride, he called himself, not that he wore white. He'd always add that, and my mother would always blush, and he would laugh. God, but that man could laugh. He roared. He did everything in a large way. Food, liquor, even his women. He had a dozen mistresses. My mother didn't seem to mind, although she would have preferred a tad more discretion. He was a loud man, my father."
Hiram looked at Curtis. "He died when I was twelve. The funeral was… well, the sort of function my father would have loathed. If he hadn't been dead he never would have attended."
"It was grim, and pious, and so quiet. I kept expecting my father to sit up in the casket and tell a joke. There was weeping and whispering, but no laughter, nothing to eat or drink. I hated every second of it."
"I see," Curtis said.
"I have it in my will, you know," Hiram said. "A certain sum has been set aside, a rather handsome sum I might add, and when I die, Aces High will open its doors to my friends and family, and the food and drink will keep flowing until the money is gone, and perhaps there will be laughter. Perhaps. I don't know Howler's wishes in that regard, but I do know that he could eat and drink with the best of them, and he was the only man I ever knew who laughed louder than my father."
Curtis smiled. "He shattered several thousand dollars worth of crystal with one of his laughs, as I recall."
Hiram smiled. "And wasn't the least bit abashed, either. Tachyon was the one who'd made the witticism, and of course he felt so guilty I didn't see his face for almost three months." Hiram clapped a hand on Curtis's shoulder. "No. I cannot believe that Howler would have wanted us to cancel the party. We go on. Most definitely."
"The ice sculpture?" Curtis reminded him gently.
"We will display it," Hiram said firmly. "We're not going to try and pretend that Howler never existed. The sculpture will remind us that… that one of us is missing tonight." Somewhere far below, a horn was blaring. A man was dead, an ace, one of the fortunate handful, but the city went on as always, and as always someone was late for something. Hiram shivered. "Let's get it done, then." They went back inside.
Peter Chou was crossing the floor in their direction. "You have a phone call," he said to Hiram.
"Thank you," Hiram said. He went back into his office. "I know all of you are interested in the news," he told his staff. "So am I. But in a few hours, we'll be feeding a hundred and fifty-odd people. We'll pipe in the latest bulletins, rest assured. Now let's get back to work."
One by one they filed out. Paul LeBarre put a hand on Hiram's shoulder before shuffling past. On television, Senator Hartmann stood in front of Jetboy's Tomb, promising a full SCARE investigation of the Howler's murder. Hiram nodded, touched the mute button, and picked up his phone.
At first he didn't recognize the voice, and the fragmentary words, spoken with so much difficulty, didn't seem to make much sense. The man kept apologizing, over and over, and he was saying something about gasoline, and Hiram couldn't seem to focus on any of it. "What are you talking about?"
"Lops… lobsters," the voice said.
"What?" Hiram said. He sat bolt upright. "Gills, is this you?" It certainly didn't sound like him.
"Sorry… sorry, Hiram." He began to wheeze. Then someone took the phone away from him.
"Good morning, Fatboy," said a voice strange and shrill, a voice like a razor blade scratching down a blackboard. "Gills don't talk so good. He's still spitting out teeth." Hiram heard someone laugh in the background. "What fishface is trying to tell you is that we just got done marinating your fucking lobsters in fucking gasoline, and if you want 'em you can fucking well come down here and pick 'em up yourself, 'cause his fucking truck is on fire." Another laugh. "Now listen good, asshole, I don't care if you are a fuckin' uptown ace, you cuntface, you fuck around with me, this is what you get. You listening?"
There was a moment of dead air, and then a scream, and a sharp sound like a bone breaking.
"Hear that, cuntface?" the razor-blade voice said. Hiram didn't reply. "Did you fucking hear it?" the voice screamed. "Yes," Hiram said.
"Have a nice day," the voice said, followed by a click. Hiram slowly returned the phone to its cradle. The day could not possihly get any worse, he thought.
Then the phone rang again.
Fortunato picked up the phone and dialed a Brooklyn extension. As soon as he was sitting down, the cat got in his lap and began kneading the legs of his jeans. The phone rang twice and a woman answered. "Hello, is Arnie there?" he asked. He could have sent his astral body, but he was already running on about half a charge and it was time to save his strength.
"No, this is his mother. May I help?"
"My name is Fortunato-"
"Oh, heavenly days. I've heard Arnie talk about you forever. He'll just die when he finds out you called and he wasn't home. "
"If you could just tell me where he is, ma'am, I'll try and find him myself."
"Oh, he's headed for Jetboy's Tomb. His father takes him down there every Wild Card Day. They left about an hour ago. I don't know if you'll he able to find him in all those crowds. He's not in any trouble, is he?"
"No, ma'am, nothing like that. I'm sure I'll be able to find him."
"Oh, that's right. I guess you do have your ways, don't you? It's just that I'm a little nervous, what with the Howler and all."
"The Howler?"
"Oh, you haven't heard. Oh dear. They found the Howler just a little while ago. He was murdered. Some kind of nerve poison or something. It was just on the TV."