"Cordelia…"
She wiped away the tears. There was something hard now in the fragile features of her face, a toughness in her voice. "Uncle Jack, you've got to understand. Things have happened today. Maybe I'm going to be one of Fortunato's geishas, or serve drinks in a place like this, or go to Columbia University and be a nuclear scientist, or something. Anything. I don't know. I'm not who I was. I don't know what I am-who I am now. I'm going to find out."
"I can help you," he said quietly.
"Can you?" She was staring at him hard. "Do you know who you are, really?"
Jack didn't say anything.
"Yeah." She moved her head slowly. "I love you very much, Uncle Jack. I think we're very much alike. But I'm willing to find out who I am. I've got to." She hesitated. "I don't think you admit much to yourself or to the folks around you." It was as if she were looking inside him, shining a searchlight around inside his head and his mind. He was uncomfortable with both the uncompromising glare and the shadows.
"Hey!" The shout came from Ackroyd, ducking his head past the front door. "You gotta see this! All of you." He retreated back outside.
Cordelia and Jack looked at each other. The young woman joined the others heading for the door. Jack hesitated, then followed.
Outside, the night retreated. Dawn was breaking over the East River. Ackroyd stood out in the street and pointed toward the sky. "Will you look at that?"
They all looked. Jack squinted and at first didn't realize what he was staring at. Then the details coalesced.
It was Jetboy's plane. After forty years, the JB-1 soared again above the Manhattan skyline. High-winged and trouttailed, it was indisputably Jetboy's pioneering craft. The red fuselage seemed to glow in the first rays of morning.
There was something wrong with the image. Then Jack realized what it was. Jetboy's plane had speed lines trailing back from the wings and tail. What the hell? he thought. But for the moment, he was as transfixed by the vision as everyone else around him. It was as though they were all collectively holding one breath.
Then things came apart.
One wing of the JB-1 started to fold back and tear away from the fuselage. The plane was breaking up. "Jesus-fucking-jumping-joker-Christ," someone said. It was almost a prayer.
Jack suddenly realized what he was seeing. It wasn't the JB-1, not really. He watched bits of aircraft rip loose that were not aluminum or steel. They were fashioned of bright flowers and twisted paper napkins, two-by-fours and sheets of chicken wire. It was the plane from the Jetboy float in yesterday's parade.
Debris began to fall slowly down toward the streets of Manhattan, just as it had four decades before.
Jack saw what had been masked within the replica of Jetboy's plane. He could make out the steel shell, the unmistakable outline of a modified Volkswagen Beetle.
"God bless!" Someone said it for all of them. "It's the Turtle!"
Jack could hear cheering from the next block, and the block beyond that. As the last bits of the JB-1 replica sifted down toward the city, the Turtle snapped into a victory roll.
Then he swept around in a graceful are and seemed to vanish in the east, occulted by the sun now edging above the tops of the office towers.
"Can. you beat that?" said one of the refugees from Freakers. "The Turtle's alive. Fuckin' terrific." The grin on his face echoed in his voice.
Jack realized Cordelia was no longer standing beside him. He looked around in confusion. From just behind his shoulder, Ackroyd said, "She said to tell you she had things to do. She'll let you know how things work out."
Jack spread his hands helplessly. "How will I find her?" Ackroyd shrugged. "You found her this morning, didn't you?" The man hesitated. "Oh yeah, she also said to tell you she loves you." He put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Come on, I'll buy you a brew." He turned toward the neon woman. She had paled now in the breaking daylight. Back over his shoulder, the detective said, "i'll give you my card. Worst comes to worst, you can hire me."
Jack hesitated.
Ackroyd said, "Also I'll introduce you around. I heard you started to change in there. I don't know you, but I've got a feeling there are quite a few of our colleagues you don't know either. It's about time you made their acquaintance."
Billy Ray had overheard. "Fuck you, Ackroyd," he said. Ackroyd grinned. "Those justice boys have a thing about us gumshoes."
Before Jack followed him into Freakers, he looked one more time into the east. In the sun-glare, he couldn't see the Turtle.
It was a new morning. But then they were all new mornings.
It had taken Spector the better part of an hour to track down a cab in Jokertown. He sat in the back seat, thumbing through the early edition of the Times. Except for the Astronomer, all the dead aces had their pictures on the front page, surrounded by a black border. There was a question mark next to the Turtle, but he was obviously still alive and kicking. Specfor was almost glad. But he couldn't figure out why he wasn't dead too. He'd always managed to survive. Most losers did. "Yesterday was a hell of a day, I'll tell you," the cabbie said.
"Yesterday?" Spector shook his head. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. It was like a long, bad dream.
"Yeah. It would suit me fine if all those aces killed each other off I got no use for them."
Spector ignored him and pulled out the sports section. He wondered if the Nets would be any better this year.
"What about you?"
"Huh?"
"What do you think about aces?"
"I don't. Why don't you just shut your mouth and drive." It was several minutes before the cabbie spoke again. "Here we are. What the hell do you want down here?" Spector opened the door and got out, then handed the cabbie a hundred-dollar bill. "Wait here."
"Fine. But I can't sit around all morning."
Spector walked down to the chain-link fence. It was time to visit Ralph again. Maybe he'd be too tired to kill. The king of the garbage dump really didn't deserve it.
A young black man wearing a green windbreaker and red cap met him at the fence. "You need something?"
"Yeah, there was a bunch of barges full of garbage here last night, and a guy named Ralph. Where are they?"
The man turned around and pointed out to the river. "They're halfway to Fresh Kills by now. Just garbage, though."
"Right. Thanks." Spector watched the man walk away, then looked out across the water. "You get to live, Ralphie. Unless you say something stupid."
The cabbie honked his horn. One thing Ralph had been right about. There's no substitute for being your own boss. Doing work for the Astronomer and Latham had gotten him shot, broken, bitten, and zapped to the top of the scoreboard in Yankee Stadium. He was sick of it. No more being a loaded gun who some big wheel pointed at someone else. From now on he'd decide who he killed and when.
Another honk. "One more time, shithead," Spector muttered. "Just one more time."
The sky was beginning to brighten, but the light brought no warmth. The docks were already alive. Most people were waking up or downing their first cup of coffee. Spector was going to go to bed and sleep for a week. The talk about this Wild Card Day probably wouldn't die down for a week or even a month.
"Yessir, Ralph, you showed me the way. From now on, I look out for number one. No more cleaning up after other people's shit."
There was a third long honk. Spector turned slowly. "You asked for it moron." The endless pain hummed through him like a fresh papercut.
It was going to be hell finding another cab.
Even in that darkest hour that comes before the dawn, Manhattan never truly sleeps, but Riverside Drive was motionless and empty as Hiram Worchester climbed from his cab.