Wildcards - Down and Dirty Part 52

The driver gunned it and ran a red light.

They were on Ca.n.a.l Street, four blocks from the Holland Tunnel, when the traffic came to a standstill.

The cab stopped behind a silver-gray Jaguar with its temporary license taped to the rear window. Nothing was moving. The cabbie hit his horn. Other horns sounded far up the street, mingling with the sound of the air raid sirens.

Behind them a rust-eaten Chevy van screeched to a halt and began to honk impatiently, over and over. The cabbie stuck his head out the window and screamed something in a language Tom did not know, but his meaning was clear.

More traffic was piling up behind the van.

The cabdriver hit his horn again, then turned around long enough to tell Tom that it warn t his fault. Tom had already figured out that much for himself.

"Wait here," he said unnecessarily, since the traffic was locked b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper, none of it moving, and there wasn't room for the cabbie to pull out even if he'd wanted to.

Tom left the door open and stood on the center line, looking down Ca.n.a.l Street.

Traffic was tied up as far as he could see, and the jam was growing rapidly behind them. Tom walked to the corner for a better look. The intersection was gridlocked, traffic lights cycling from red to green to yellow and back to red without anyone's moving an inch. Music blared from open car windows, a cacophony of stations and songs, all of it counterpointed by the horns and air raid sirens, but none of the radios were getting any news.

The driver of the Chevy van came up behind Tom. "Where the f.u.c.k are the cops?"

he demanded. He was grossly fat with a jowly, pockmarked face. He looked as if he wanted to hit something, but he had a point. The police were nowhere to be seen. Somewhere up ahead a child began to cry, her voice as high and shrill as the sirens, wordless. It gave Tom a shiver of fear. This wasn't just a traffic jam, he thought. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

He went back to his cab. The driver was slamming his fist into the steering wheel, but he was the only one this side of Broadway who wasn't honking. "Horn broke," he explained.

"I'm getting out here," Tom said. "No refund."

"f.u.c.k you." Tom had been going to let the man keep the hundred anyway, but his tone p.i.s.sed him off. He pulled the suitcase and shopping bag out of the backseat and gave the cabbie a finger as he headed up Ca.n.a.l on foot.

A well-dressed fiftyish woman sat behind the wheel of the silver Jaguar. "Do you know what's going on?" she asked.

Tom shrugged.

A lot of people were out of their cars now. A man in a Mercedes 450 SL stood with one foot in his car and one on the street, his cellular phone in his hand.

"Nine-one-one's still busy," he told the people gathered around him.

"f.u.c.kin' cops," someone complained.

Tom had reached the intersection when he saw the helicopter sweeping down Ca.n.a.l just above rooftop level. Dust whirled and old newspapers shivered in the gutters. The rotors were so loud, even at a distance. I never made so much f.u.c.king noise, Tom thought; something about the helicopter reminded him weirdly of the Turtle. He heard the crackle of a loudspeaker, the words lost in the street noise.

A pimpled teenager leaned out of a white Ford pickup with Jersey plates. "The Guard," he shouted. "That's a Guard chopper!" He waved at the helicopter.

The whap-whap-whap of the rotors mingled with the horns and sirens and shouting to drown out the loudspeakers. Horns began to fall silent. ". . . your homes. .

Someone began shouting obscenities.

The chopper dipped lower, came on. Even Tom saw the military markings now, the National Guard insignia. The loudspeakers boomed. ". . . closed ... repeat: Holland Tunnel is closed. Return to your homes peacefully."

Huge gusts of wind kicked up all around him as the helicopter pa.s.sed directly overhead. Tom dropped to one knee and covered his face against the dust and dirt.

"The tunnel is closed," he heard as the chopper receded. "Do not attempt to leave Manhattan. Holland Tunnel is closed. Return to your homes peacefully:"

When the copter reached the end of stalled traffic, two blocks farther back, it peeled off and rose high in the air, a small black shape in the sky, then circled back for another loop. The people in the streets looked at each other.

"They can't mean me, I'm from Iowa," a fat woman announced, as if it made a difference. Tom knew how she felt.

The cops had finally arrived. Two patrol cars edged down the sidewalk carefully, bypa.s.sing the worst of the congestion. A black policeman got out and started snapping orders. One or two people got back into their cars obediently. The rest surrounded the cop, all of them talking at once. Others, lots of them, had abandoned their vehicles. A stream of people headed up Ca.n.a.l Street, toward the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

Tom went with them, moving along slower than most, struggling with the weight of his bags. He was sweating. A woman pa.s.sed him at a dead run, looking ragged and near hysteria. The helicopter flew over again, loudspeakers blaring, warning the crowd to turn back.

"Martial law!" a truck driver shouted down from the cab of his semi. A wall of people formed around the truck, trapping Tom in their midst. He was shoved up against the tractor's rear wheel as the crowd pressed closer for news. "It just came over the CB," the trucker said. "The motherf.u.c.kers have declared martial law. Not just the Holland Tunnel. They shut down everything, all the bridges, the tunnels, even the Staten Island ferry. No one's getting off the island."

"Oh, G.o.d," someone said behind Tom, a man's voice, husky but raw with fear. "Oh, G.o.d, it's the wild card."

"We're all going to die," an old woman said. " I seen it in '46. They're just gonna keep us here."

"It's those jokers," suggested a man in a three-piece suit. "Barnett is right, they shouldn't be living with normal people, they spread disease."

"No," Tom said. "The wild card isn't contagious."

"Sez you. Oh, G.o.d, we probably all got it already."

"There's a carrier," the trucker shouted down. Tom could hear the crackle of his CB radio. "Some f.u.c.king joker. He's spreading it wherever he goes."

"That's not possible," Tom said.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n joker-lover," someone shouted at him.

"I got to get home to my babies," a young woman wailed. "Take it easy," Tom started to say, but it was too late, way too late. He heard crying, screaming, shouted obscenities. The crowd seemed to explode as people ran off in a dozen directions. Somebody slammed into him hard. Tom staggered back, then fell as he was buffeted from the side. He almost lost his grip on the suitcase, but he hung on grimly, even when a boot stomped painfully on his calf. He rolled under the truck. Feet rushed past him. He crawled between the wheels of the semi, dragging his bags behind him, and got to his feet on the sidewalk, half-dazed. This is f.u.c.king crazy, he thought.

Way down Ca.n.a.l, the helicopter began another pa.s.s. Tom watched it come, the crowd surging hysterically around him. The chopper will calm them down, he thought, it has to.

When the first tear gas canisters began to rain down into the street, trailing yellow smoke, he turned and dodged into the nearest alley and began to run.

The noise dwindled behind as Tom fled through alleys and side streets. He'd gone three blocks and was breathing hard when he noticed a cellar door ajar under a bookstore. He hesitated a moment, but when he heard the sound of running feet on the cross street, his mind was made up for him.

It was cool and quiet inside. Tom gratefully dropped the suitcase and sat cross-legged on the cement floor. He leaned back against the wall and listened.

The air raid sirens had finally quieted, but he heard horns and an ambulance and the distant, angry rumble of shouts.

Off to his right he heard the sc.r.a.pe of a footstep. Tom's head snapped around.

"Who's there?"

There was only silence. The cellar was dark and gloomy. Tom got to his feet. He could swear he'd heard something. He took a step forward, froze, c.o.c.ked his head. Then he was sure. Someone was back there, behind those boxes. He could hear the short, ragged sound of their breathing.

Tom wasn't going any closer. He backed toward the door and gave the boxes a hard telekinetic shove. The whole stack went over,. cardboard ripping, and dozens of glossy paperback copies of More Disgusting joker jokes cascaded from a torn carton. There was a grunt of surprise and pain from behind the boxes.

Tom edged forward and pushed the top boxes in the feebly moving pile off to the side, using his hands this time. "Don't hurt me!" a voice pleaded from under the books. "No one's going to hurt you," Tom said. He shifted a torn box, spilling more paperbacks onto the floor. Half-buried underneath, a man curled in a fetal ball, arms locked protectively around his head. "Come on out of there."

"I wasn't doing nothing," the man on the floor said in a thin, whispery voice. "

I just come in to hide."

"I was hiding, too," Tom said. "It's okay. Come on out." The man stirred, unfolded, got warily to his feet. There was something dreadfully wrong with the way he moved. "I ain't so good to look at," he warned in that thin, rustling voice.

"I don't care," said Tom.

Walking in a painful crabbed sideways motion, the man edged forward into the light, and Tom got a good look at him. An instant of revulsion gave way to sudden, overwhelming pity. Even in the dim light in the back of the cellar, Tom could see how cruelly the joker's body had been twisted. One of his legs was much longer than the other, triple-jointed, and attached backward, so the knee bent in the wrong direction. The other leg, the 'normal' one, ended in a clubfoot. A cl.u.s.ter of tiny vestigial hands grew from the swollen flesh of his right forearm. His skin was glossy black, bone-white, chocolate-brown, and copper-red in patches all over his body; there was no way to tell what race he'd belonged to originally. Only his face was normal. It was a beautiful face; blue-eyed, blond, strong. A movie star's face.

"I'm Mishmash," the joker whispered timidly.

But the movie star lips hadn't moved, and there was no life in those deep, clear blue eyes. Then Tom saw the second head, the hideous little monkey-face peeping cautiously out of the unb.u.t.toned shirt. It sprouted crookedly from the joker's ample gut, as purple as an old bruise.

Tom felt nauseated. It must have showed on his face because Mishmash turned away. "Sorry," he muttered, "sorry."

"What happened?" Tom forced himself to ask. "Why are you hiding here?"

"I saw them," the joker told him, his back to Tom. "These guys. Nats. They had this joker; they were beating the h.e.l.l out of him. They would of done me, too, only I snuck away. They said it was all our fault. I got to get home."

"Where do you live?" Tom asked.

Mishmash made a wet, m.u.f.fled sound that might have been a laugh and half-turned.

The little head twisted up to look at Tom. "Jokertown," he said.

"Yeah," Tom said, feeling very stupid. Of course he lived in Jokertown, where the f.u.c.k else could he live? "That's only a few blocks away. I'll take you there."

"You got a car?"

"No," Tom said. "We'll have to walk."

"I don't walk so good."

"We'll go slow," Tom said.

They went slow.

Dusk was falling when Tom finally emerged, cautiously, from the cellar refuge.

The street had been quiet for hours, but Mishmash was too frightened to venture out until dark. "They'll hurt me," he kept saying.

Even when twilight began to gather, the joker was still reluctant to move. Tom went first to scout the block. There were lights in a few apartments, and he heard the sound of a television blaring from a third-story window, and more police sirens, far off in the distance. Otherwise the city seemed deathly quiet.

He walked around the block slowly, moving from doorway to doorway like a GI in a war movie. There were no cars, no pedestrians, nothing. All the storefronts were dark, secured by accordion grills and steel shutters. Even the neighborhood bars were closed. Tom saw a few broken windows, and just around the corner the overturned, burned-out hulk of a police car sat square in the middle of the intersection. A huge Marlboro billboard had been defaced with red paint; KILL ALL JOKERS, it said. He decided not to take Mishmash down that street.

When he returned, the joker was waiting. He'd moved the suitcase and shopping bag to the doorway. " I told you not to touch those," Tom snapped in annoyance, and felt immediately guilty when he saw how Mishmash quailed under his voice.

He picked up the bags. "C'mon," he said, stepping back outside. Mishmash followed, his every step a hideous twisting dance. They went slowly. They went very slowly.

They stayed mostly to alleys and side streets south of Ca.n.a.l, resting frequently. The d.a.m.ned suitcase seemed to get heavier with each pa.s.sing block.

They were catching their breath by a Dumpster just off Church Street when a tank rolled past the mouth of the alley, followed by a half dozen National Guardsmen on foot. One of them glanced to his left, saw Mishmash, and began to raise his rifle. Tom stood up, stepped in front of the joker. For an instant his eyes met the Guardsman's. He was only a kid, Tom saw, no more than nineteen or twenty.

The boy looked at Tom for a long moment, then lowered his gun, nodded, and walked on.

Broadway was eerily deserted. A lone police paddy wagon wove its way through an obstacle course of abandoned cars. Tom watched it pa.s.s while Mishmash cringed back behind some garbage cans. "Let's go," Tom said.

"They'll see us," Mishmash said. "They'll hurt me."

"No they won't," Tom promised. "Look at how dark it is." They were halfway across Broadway, moving from car to car, when the streetlights came on, sudden and silent. The shadows were gone. Mishmash gave a single sharp bark of fear.

"Move it," Tom told him urgently. They scrambled for the far side of the street.

"Hold it right there!"

The shout stopped them at the edge of the sidewalk. Almost, Tom thought, but almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades. He turned slowly.

The cop wore a white gauze surgical mask that m.u.f.fled his voice, but his tone was still all business. His holster was unb.u.t.toned, his gun already in hand.

"You don't have to-" Tom started nervously.

"Shut the f.u.c.k up," the cop said. "You're in violation of the curfew."

"Curfew?" Tom said.

"You heard me. Don't you listen to the radio?" He didn't wait for the answer.

"Lemme see some ID."

Tom carefully lowered his bags to the ground. "I'm from Jersey," he said. " I was trying to get home, but they closed the tunnels." He fished out his wallet and handed it to the cop.

"Jersey," the cop said, studying the driver's license. He handed it back. "Why aren't you at Port Authority?"

"Port Authority?" Tom said, confused.

"The clearance center." The cop's tone was still gruff and impatient, but he'd evidently decided they weren't a threat. He holstered his gun. "Out-of-towners are supposed to report to Port Authority. You pa.s.s the medical, they'll give you a blue card and send you home. If I was you, I'd head up there."

Port Authority Bus Terminal was a zoo under the best of circ.u.mstances. Tom tried to imagine what it would be like now. Every tourist, commuter, and visitor in the city would be there, alongwith a lot offrightened Manhattanites pretending to be from out of town, all of them waiting their turn for a medical or fighting for a seat on one of the buses leaving the city, with the police and National Guard trying to keep order. You didn't need a lot of imagination to picture the kind of nightmare going on up at Forty-second Street. "I didn't know. I'll get right up there," Tom lied, "as soon as I get my friend home."

The cop gave Mishmash a hard look. "You're taking a big risk, buddy. The carrier's supposed to be some kind of albino, and n.o.body said anything about any extra heads, but all jokers look alike in the dark, right? Those Guard boys are real jumpy, too. They see a pair like you, they might decide to shoot first and check your IDs later."

"What the f.u.c.k is going on?" Tom said. It sounded worse than he could have imagined. "What is all this?"

"Do you good to turn on a radio once in a while," the cop said. "Might stop you getting your head shot off."

"Who are you looking for?"