Jokers Wild

"Cordeia"

She was instantly out of the booth and holding onto him as though she were traveling steerage and he had the only life preserver on the Titanic. They stayed that way for long seconds.

The man who had been talking to Cordelia said, "Hey, you want that, maybe you should rent a room." It seemed to be spoken without real malice. Jack looked up across Cordelia's shoulder at him. The man's suit jacket was rumpled. He wore no tie. To Jack, he looked as one might imagine a cashiered, down-at-the heels FBI agent on the skids. The man offered a wry grin. "Hey, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. No offense."

"Do I know you?" said Jack.

"The name's Ackroyd;" said the man. "Jay Ackroyd, PI" He put out his hand.

Jack ignored it. The two men looked each other in the eye for a few seconds. Then Ackroyd smiled. "It's over, man. For now, at least. Everybody's dead-butt tired. Truce." He gestured around the bar. "Besides, nobody'd do anything while Billy Ray's nursing his beer." Jack followed the line of Ackroyd's finger. He saw a guy wearing a white stretch fighting suit sitting alone at a table. The man's features were mismatched, asymmetrical. His jaw looked inflamed and he was sipping his beer through a straw. "Pride of the Justice Department. Baddest of bad-asses," said Ackroyd. "Listen, cool out, have something to drink, visit with your niece." He stepped away from the booth. "I gotta get some fresh air anyway." Ackroyd headed for the door, weaving just a little in his scuffed brown loafers.

"Sit down, Uncle Jack." Cordelia tucked him onto the seat beside her in the booth.

"What are you drinking?" He touched the glass. "7-Up." She giggled. "I wanted RC, but they don't have any up here."

"We've got it," said Jack. "You can get anything in Manhattan. You're just in the wrong neighborhood."

A barmaid in satin top and shorts, her visible skin showing a stitchwork of granular tumors, came over to the booth. "Something to drink?" Jack ordered a beer. Iron City. That was the sort of imported brew you could order in a place like this. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said. "Bagabondmy friend-and I have been looking all day for you. I saw you at the Port Authority-you got away before I could get through the crowd. You were with someone who looked like a pimp."

"He was, I guess," said Cordelia. "There was a man named Demise

… He saved me." She hesitated. "'Course then he helped try to kill me. This is a confusing town, Uncle Jack. "

"I owe him," said Jack. "One way or the other." For a split second, his face started to alter and his jaw to deform. He took a deep breath, settled back, felt his teeth resume their human size. "Why are you here? Your folks are going crazy."

"Why are you here, Uncle Jack? I always heard things from Mama and the relatives about how you ran away and why you came to this place."

"Fair enough," said Jack. "But I could take care of myself."

"So can I," Cordelia said. "You'd be surprised." She hesitated. "You know what all's happened today?" The young woman didn't wait for Jack to shake his head. "I can't even tell you what all. But some of it is this: A slaver tried to kidnap me, I was rescued, I've met some really strange and some really fabulous people, I found the most fantastic man-FortunatoI almost got killed, and then…" She paused.

Jack shook his head. "And then what, for God's sake?" She leaned close to his face, looked him straight in the eyes, and said seriously, "Something incredible happened." Jack wanted to laugh, but didn't. He accepted her seriousness and said, "What's that, Cordelia?"

Even in the neon-lit dimness, he could see that she was blushing. "It was like when I started my periods," she finally said. "You know? You probably don't. Anyhow, it was when I was up there in this penthouse and this old guy was about to kill me? Something just changed. It's hard to describe."

"I think I know," said Jack.

She nodded soberly. "I think you do. It's why you left the parish all those years ago, isn't it?"

"I expect so. You-" It was his turn almost to stammer. "You changed, didn't you? Now you're not the same person you were."

Cordelia nodded vehemently. "I still don't know what it is I'm becoming. All I know is that when that Imp guy tried to grab me-he was going to help the old guy rip out my heart or something like that-there was this feeling inside like things were really tight and then…" She shrugged expressively. "I killed him. I killed him, Uncle Jack. What really happened was it felt like I could use something down deep in my brain I didn't know how to use before. I could do things to the men who were trying to hurt me. I could make them stop breathing, keep their hearts from beating-I don't know what all. Anyhow, it was enough. So I'm here." She put her arms around his neck again. "I'm really glad."

"You've got a way of understating things," Jack said, gri

"Home?" She sounded puzzled.

"My place. You can stay with me. We'll get things settled. Your folks are sweating toad spit."

She drew back. "I'm not going back, Uncle Jack. Not never."

"You've got to talk to your folks."

She shook her head. "And the next thing, you'll be putting me on a bus. I'll get off at the next stop. I'll run away. I swear it." She turned away from him.

"What's the matter, Cordelia?" He felt confused.

"If I go back, there's Uncle Jake. Granduncle Jake."

"Snake Jake?" Jack started to understand. "Did he-?"

"I can't go back," she said.

"Okay. You don't go back. But you've still got to talk with Robert and Elouette." To his amazement, she was crying. "No."

"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.