Card Sharks

The creature took a limping step toward her. Hannah retreated. Back home, people touched by the wild card virus were almost unknown; in the few months she'd been in New York, she'd never had close contact with any of the jokers, the people altered by the virus. She found that she didn't like the experience much at all. A fear that this joker might infect her made Hannah shiver; she'd read the news stories about how one of them ran around New York unknowingly passing the virus several years ago. Almost worse, it was hard not to stare at the joker and that made her embarrassed, and she found herself covering the embarrassment with anger.

He took another step. Again, she gave ground, wondering whether she should call for Harris.

'Listen,' she said. 'I've already warned you.'

'You …' the apparition repeated again. His mouth twitched, and he seemed to look far away before his gaze focused on her. As Hannah watched, his right arm disappeared from hand to elbow, as if it had been wiped from existence by some cosmic eraser. There was no gush of blood; the arm just popped out of existence. The joker stared at the spot where it had been as if he were as surprised as Hannah. A few seconds later, the arm reappeared. The joker prodded it with a curious forefinger, as if to make sure it was really there, then turned back to Hannah.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I belong here. I work here, and … I keep seeing you,' he said. 'Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. Right now I do, and I know that you will … find out who did this.' The joker's speech was ponderous, yet it wasn't as if he was slow or retarded. Rather, it seemed that he was receiving too much input, as if there was so much happening inside his head that it was difficult for him to maintain his train of thought. He seemed to be straining to remain coherent. When he did speak, the words were well-articulated, but he frowned. He seemed to be listening to interior voices, scowling as he tried to keep his mind on what he was saying.

'You work here?' Hannah noticed now the telltale dark stains on his hands and the ash smeared into his clothing. A long fresh cut adorned his right cheek, the blood dried to a brown scab. Hannah remembered the reports of the first firefighters on the scene. 'You're the one who pulled the priest out, aren't you? The one called Quasiman.'

The being nodded, almost shyly, and gave her a fleeting, apologetic smile. 'I did?' he answered, as if surprised. 'Maybe.. I think I might remember …'

'You were lucky.'

'No joker's exactly … lucky.' Again, that shy, quiet smile. There was an openness to the man, an odd friendliness belied by his deformed appearance and the strength evident in the knotted muscles of those arms and legs. Hannah waited for him to say something more, but for several seconds, Quasiman simply stared up at the steeple, as if he were standing there alone.

'Hey!' Hannah said. The ugly creature looked at her and blinked as if he were seeing her for the first time. 'I need to talk with you about the fire. Something you saw, something you heard, may give us a lead on who did this.'

Quasiman suddenly looked grim and dangerous. 'We'll find them,' he said. 'I saw us, you and me. There's more of them than you think …' He stopped again, his gaze losing its focus.

'Them?' Hannah said. 'Did you see something? Was there more than one firesetter?'

Quasiman didn't answer. He continued to stare past her at the burnt shell of the church, as if looking for answers in the charred ruin. Hannah shuddered — looking at the joker repulsed her, and he seemed half insane.

'Hannah! The chief sent over some pizza — what's say we take a break?' Harris called from the side of the church. She turned, relieved and a little angry with herself for what she'd been thinking. 'Half a second,' she shouted, then looked back to the joker. 'I'll need — '

She stopped. Quasiman was gone. Vanished.

'It's after eleven. You're keeping later hours than me. That's not fair — lawyers are supposed to be the overworked ones.'

Hannah threw her coat and briefcase in the general direction of the rack, then closed the apartment door behind her. She unclasped the clip holding her hair and ran her fingers through the long, unbound strands. She heaved a long sigh. 'No kidding,' she said. 'That was the Jokertown church fire Malcolm threw my way last night. What a mess. The Reds still playing?'

Hannah's roommate, David Adderley, glanced up from the television, where the Brooklyn Dodgers were staging a late rally against the Cincinnati Reds. He set a bottle of Anchor Steam down on the coffee table next to the white cardboard container of Chinese food and came over to hug Hannah. 'Sony to hear that, kid. And no, they're not still playing. I had the timer set on the video, since I figured you'd want to see it: ol' thoughtful me. You're not going to be happy, though — the Dodgers win in the bottom of the ninth: so much for the Reds' one game lead. So why'd you get the freaks' fire?'

David didn't seem to be any more bigoted toward jokers than the rest of the people she'd met in New York; in fact, he'd worked a few cases for the city for joker causes. He wasn't one of the rabid fanatics, the ones who wanted to sterilize them all or worse, but he didn't hide his distaste. Normally she wouldn't have noticed or remarked on the 'freaks' comment; tonight, the word made her knot her jaws. She'd seen the bodies of parents huddled over their dead children as if shielding them from the flames; she'd seen the desperate piles at the doors. No one deserves to die like that. No one. 'Probably because no one else wants it.'

'There's going to be some who think that the guy should probably get a medal for community service.' David tried to soften the comment with a laugh.

'David — '

Releasing her, he held out his hands in apology. 'Sorry. But you know that's how some people are going to feel. Hell, three years ago Manhattan was a war zone during the Rox crisis until the Turtle smashed Bloat and his damn fairyland to the bottom of the bay. How many bills have been introduced for mandatory blood tests since then — '

'Listen, I saw how ugly it is in Jokertown today,' Hannah interrupted. 'Believe me, it's worse than I ever thought. But …' Hannah shivered, remembering the death she'd seen. 'It's not their fault. None of them asked to be jokers.'

On the TV, the camera was panning the crowd, picking out notables in the field seats. Hannah recognized ex-Senator Gregg Hartmann, sitting alongside a woman whose skin might have been made from crumpled tinfoil. The commentator was sayipg something about Hartmann's efforts to achieve equality for all those afflicted by the wild card.' David pointed at him.

'It's bleeding hearts like him who have been the problem,' David said to the screen, then glanced back at Hannah. 'I'm sorry as anyone that these people were infected by the damn virus. None of them asked for it, sure, and probably none of them deserve the pain and disfigurement, but it happened. The best thing we can do is to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. You've been here less than three months, Hannah. You don't know New York and you don't know jokers. I'm not the only one who feels that way. Ask any of our friends. Unfortunately, you get misguided people who think the answer is killing them all, like whoever torched your church. Talk to some of our friends — '

'Your friends, David. Not our friends. I just adopted them. I'm still 'that new woman David's living with,' to them.' She wasn't sure why she said that — until she spoke, she hadn't even known that the fact bothered her. She regretted the words instantly. David gave her his hurt puppy-dog look, his I'm-not-the-one-to-blame look, his why-can't-you-argue-logically look.

'Hannah, I didn't drag you out here. You wanted to come. You wanted to be with me, remember? I found you the job you wanted, pulled a few strings to get it for you — '

'Yes, David. I remember.' Hannah realized that they had shifted from the muddy waters of wild card bigotry into the more familiar shallows of The Argument, the minor skirmishes in their relationship that seemed to taint their time together more and more often. You shouldn't have come to New York this way. You should have waited, should have continued the long-distance romance, the weekend visits. Then you would have been sure. This is your fault — you feel guilty because you're afraid that if David wasn't friends with the Mayor and half the Council you wouldn't even have been considered for your job. You feel guilty because you're not sure you like New York that much, because while David's a nice guy somewhere in the last month the spark and heat and light