Down And Dirty

He stood undecided for perhaps ten seconds. Then a siren sounded nearby. Probably just around the corner. He moved forward, snapped the lock, and entered. He left the price of admission on the little desk to his left and as an afterthought, tossed in something for the lock.

He sat on a bench for a while, watching shadows. Every now and then he rose, strolled, and returned. He saw again the golden butterfly, poised as if about to depart from the golden monkey wrench, both of them transmuted by the short-lived ace called Midas. He looked again at the jars of joker fetuses, and at a buckled section of a metal door bearing Devil John's hoofprint.

He walked among the Great Events in Wild Card History dioramas pressing the button over and over again at the Earth vs. Swarm display. Each time that he hit it, Modular Man fired his laser at a Swarm monster. Then he located one that made the statue of the Howler scream…

It was not until his final Coke was down to its last swallow that he noticed the diminutive human skin, stuffed, displayed in a case. He pressed nearer, squinting, and read the card that identified it as having been found in an alley. He sucked in his breath as the recognition hit him.

"Poor Gimli," he said. "Who could have done this to you? And where are your insides? My stomach turns at it. Where are your wisecracks now? Go to Barnett, tell him to preach till all hell freezes. In the end it'll be his hide, too."

He turned away. He yawned again. His limbs were heavy. Rounding a corner, he beheld three metal shells, suspended by long cables in the middle of the air. He halted and regarded them, realizing immediately what they were.

On a whim he leaped and slapped the nearest of the three-an armor-plated VW body. It rang all about him and swayed slightly on its moorings, and he sprang a second time and slapped it again before another yawning jag seized him.

"Have shell, will travel," he muttered. "Always safe in there, weren't you, Turtle so long as you didn't stick your neck out?"

He began to chuckle again, then stopped as he turned to the one he remembered most vividly-the sixties modeland he could not reach high enough to trace the peace symbol on its side, but "'Make love, not war,"' he read, the motto painted into a flower-form mandala. "Shit, tell that to the guys trying to kill me."

"Always wondered what it looked like inside," he added, and he leaped and hooked his fingers over the edge and drew himself upward.

The vehicle swayed but held his weight easily. In a minute he was sequestered within.

"Ah, sweet claustrophobia!" he sighed. "It does feel safe. I could…"

He closed his eyes. After a time he shimmered faintly.

"What Rough Beast…"' by Lea

Bagabond looked down at her friend Jack Robicheaux. The transformations were coming more slowly now and lasting longer. Right now he was human, and he would probably remain human for the next several days. She had spent some time wondering if she was partially to blame for his continuous transformations. Jack had known he could only communicate with her as an alligator. Even in his coma it was possible that he had realized that he had to change to tell her about Cordelia.

She looked up to catch C.C.'s gaze and shrugged. "I know I promised to stop feeling guilty. I'm going to miss him." Both women looked up as Cordelia entered the hospital room.

"Good news, guys. Dr. Tacky says that Jack may be getting a little better. He's not sure, but he thinks that the time that Jack has been spending as a 'gator may be killing the virus." Cordelia crossed the hospital room to Jack's bed and leaned down to kiss him on the lips. "So there, Oncle. Don't you give up on me now."

C.C. Ryder and Bagabond exchanged surprised glances over Cordelia's head. Bagabond allowed a smile to sneak onto her face, camouflaged by the tangled hair.

The red-haired singer took Bagabond's hand. "Told ya so."

"What? Never mind. Y'all speak in shorthand anyway. Worse'n Cajuns. When are y'all leaving?" Cordelia stood by Jack's head, looking down as if she could see inside him.

"Plane leaves tomorrow. I dropped the itinerary off at your office this morning. So, if there's any change, you can get in touch immediately." C.C. looked up at her friend. "Suza

"Do they have phones in Guatemala?"

"Yes, Cordelia." C.C. sighed.

"Bring me back an Indian?" Cordelia held her uncle's hand, but she gri

"Who said anyt'ing about marriage?" Cordelia's quicksilver emotions turned serious. "Bagabond, I'll take care of him. I promise. I know you don't think much of me sometimes, but-"

"Just need to grow up. Don't make promises to yourself or ' anybody else that you can't keep. The world doesn't need any more saints." Cordelia blushed. Bagabond looked straight into the eyes of the younger woman. "'Sides, you don't think I'm going to leave Jack unguarded, do you?"

Bagabond swept open her coat and the black leaped out and shook himself before sitting down to begin preening his disturbed fur back into place. Cordelia knelt beside him and tried to scratch behind his ears. The cat backed away and leaped up onto Jack's bed and put his head beside Jack's on the pillow.

"Phones or no phones, tell the black if you need me. It's a long way, but I don't think that distance could stop us anymore. I feel bad going, though." Bagabond looked down at the floor.

"Dr. Tachyon will take care of Uncle Jack, with appropriate help from me and the black. He'd want you to go." Cordelia looked back at her uncle, lying pale and silent under the tubes and co

"I know. He'd say it would be good for me." Bagabond glanced at C.C., standing beside her. "I'm not used to all these people knowing what's good for me. But I always wanted to talk to a black jaguar, and no rock star should be without her bodyguard."

"Rock star." C.C. rolled her eyes toward heaven. "She keeps telling me that one jungle's like another. I don't know who's going to have the greatest culture shock: us or them. Poor guys are trying to build a new country. Just what they need, an aging `rock star' and a bag lady."

Cordelia reached over and bugged C.C. "They could do a lot worse."

Bagabond watched her appraisingly, then held out her hand. Cordelia hesitated, then took it tightly between both of her own.

"You know how to take care of yourself. Don't cut off something that's part of you." Bagabond raised her head to stare at Jack. "We both did, one way or another. He'd tell you the same. Don't become a cripple. It's not worth the effort."

"I think I figured that out, one night a while back." Cordelia released Bagabond's hand self-consciously. Bagabond walked up to Jack and gazed down on his peaceful face. She rested her hand on his cheek. With her hair hanging down around her face, no one else could see the words she made. She could only hope that Jack heard them, wherever he was. " I love you."

As they left the room, a man walked up to the door. It took Bagabond a moment to recognize him. "Michael."

He clutched a huge fruit basket that almost completely hid his face. What they could see was frightened. No one spoke.

"He's my friend, too." Michael lowered the basket a few inches. "Can I see him?"

Bagabond and Cordelia looked at each other, passing judgment on the man who had abandoned Jack months before. It was Cordelia who nodded their assent.

"We all love him."

Rocking back and forth, Rosemary Gambione wrung her hands as she sat on the bed waiting for the Shadow Fists' lawyer to make it official. It was all over. The Mafia had lost.

The faces of the dead dons, the capos, even the soldiers, were with her now even in the daytime. The nightmare had become her reality.