Busted Flush Read online

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “It’s Jamal,” a voice said. “We’ve found them.”

  Ray looked out of the tacky gift shop across the street from the seedy motel called the Love Lodge, where Moon had tracked the Racist and his companion after they’d abandoned the stolen car in a lot six blocks away. Fortunately, Ray thought, even ace criminals needed to sleep. They thought they’d muddied their trail enough, but they hadn’t counted on Moon’s hypersensitive sense of smell. They hadn’t counted on a lot of things, including Ray’s fanatical sense of outrage. And now they were going to pay.

  Stuntman sidled up to him in the darkened shop and whispered in his excitement, though there was no way they could hear him in the motel across the street even if it wasn’t 3:00 A.M. and they weren’t asleep.

  “All set,” he said, putting a certain amount of grim satisfaction into his whisper.

  “The Marines in place?” Ray asked.

  Norwood nodded. Ray had requisitioned a platoon of Marines, as well as half a ton of material, from the base and placed them around the back of the motel. No one was going to slip away from this party.

  Ray nodded. “All right then. Let’s go.”

  He looked almost normal in his fighting suit, except for the bandage covering most of his neck, and his right leg, abnormally thickened and stiffened by the brace and wrappings that made it possible for him to move slowly and gingerly. The tendons behind his knee, severed little more than twelve hours earlier by the Racist’s blade, hadn’t totally healed yet. But the doctors had listened to his orders and sewn them together. They were holding precariously. Getting old, he reflected, was a pain in the ass. He set his crutch aside. The Angel took his left arm, and they shuffled forward together. Stuntman stepped in front of him.

  “I’m going to get a shot at that loser, right?” he asked.

  Ray looked at him. “I won’t be up to any fancy dancing for a couple of days. You’d better take a good shot at him. Moon and Angel will back you up.”

  “Yes, sir,” Stuntman said happily, almost as if he meant it. He went out through the back of the shop to join Moon in the adjacent alley.

  “You sure you want to do this, Billy?” the Angel asked.

  “Hell, I’m not dead, yet,” he said. “I want to see the look on that shit-head’s face when we bust him. And I really want to see the look on his face when he tries to run.”

  The Angel shook her head. “All right.”

  As they went through the darkened shop Ray stopped before they reached the door, grabbing an object that was dangling from the ceiling. “Hey,” Ray said. “Just what I need.”

  The Angel looked at him, frowning. “What in the world is it?”

  “It’s a piñata shaped like Tachyon’s spaceship,” Ray said, putting it on the counter. “I promised my secretary I’d bring her one. Remind me to pick it up later.”

  The Angel started to say something, thought better of it, and shook her head. They went out into the dark street together, carefully, shuffling silently, Ray’s disability only part of the reason for their slow and careful movements. They sidled through the motel’s parking lot and came up to the right door.

  Ray turned and waved back toward the alley mouth and two black shapes stepped out into the street. The man-sized one was Stuntman. The beast-shaped one was Moon in her most terrifying form, the dire wolf. Her hunched back was almost as high as Norwood’s head. Her fangs gleamed in the moonlight.

  Ray turned to the Angel. “Take down the door for me, would you?”

  “Certainly,” she said with a smile, and smote it off its hinges with a single blow. Ray followed it into the room if not as gracefully as usual then with at least the usual fervor. He flicked on the overhead light as he came in shouting, the Angel following him in with her blazing sword clasped in her hands.

  “Wakey, wakey, scumbags. Time to go home to the big house.”

  The Racist and Deadhead were even more unlovely sleeping than during waking hours. The Racist lay on one of the twin beds in the threadbare motel room in his dirty underwear briefs, his lean body covered by crude prison tattoos, his greasy hair exhibiting an extreme case of bed head. He woke first, a snarl on his lips and the look of a trapped weasel on his face. Deadhead slept on, snoring, drooling, and naked. His skin was fish-belly white, his body managed to look flabby and scrawny at the same time, as skin hung off his bones in sagging rolls. He didn’t wake until the Angel prodded him with her sword tip, and then slowly, with a snort, a yawn, and a slow lifting of sleep-gummed eyelids. He looked at the Angel blankly, rubbed his crusted eyes, then suddenly came to his senses and screamed, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!”

  Ray grinned at the Racist, whose eyes were darting around the room, seeking some manner of escape. “I hope you’ll be as reasonable as your partner,” Ray told him.

  “Fuck you, pig,” the Racist said. He rolled out of bed, his legs entangled in the dingy sheet for an instant. Ray could have fallen on him then, but he held himself back. As much as he wanted to pummel the Racist into unconsciousness, he’d promised him to Norwood. He watched the Racist spring to his feet.

  Maybe, Ray thought to himself, I am getting old. Or maybe, just a bit more mature.

  He watched the Racist turn, hurtle across the room, and fling himself through the window next to the door.

  “That had to hurt,” Ray said conversationally as the almost-naked Racist shattered the glass and landed face-first on the sidewalk beyond. He leapt to his feet and immediately fell right down again. Stuntman had already crossed the street and was approaching with a shuffling gate, a growling Moon at his heels, as the Racist struggled to his feet and they again shot out from under him as he tried to run, and he again fell on his ass.

  Ray laughed out loud as the Angel and a frightened, yet perplexed Deadhead joined him at the window. It had been hard, Ray reflected, to commandeer nearly every single ball bearing in the base’s machine shop, but the look on the Racist’s face had been worth all the arguing with requisition clerks and filling out all their goddamn forms. Come to think of it, he’d like to see the look on Rodham’s face when she saw the line on the expense account for the half a ton of ball bearings that the Marines had surreptitiously spread around the motel’s parking lot while the Racist and Deadhead were sleeping in their cozy little beds.

  Stuntman reached him as he was scrabbling to stand again. “Let me help you up,” he said, grabbing the Racist’s long, greasy hair and lifting.

  The Racist howled like a dog and struck Norwood.

  “Hit me again,” Stuntman said, and slammed him hard in the face. His blow pushed the Racist back to the ground, and Norwood fell on him, hammering away.

  Ray peered out the window, watching, and after a moment said, “I think that’s enough.”

  Norwood let the Racist have one more for good measure in his already bloody mouth and stood over him. “What have you got to say about ‘mud-men’ now?” he asked.

  The Racist lay there and bled.

  Ray looked at the Angel. “I guess we can call in the Marines and let them take possession of the prisoners.”

  The Angel nodded, got out her cell.

  “Can I put my clothes on?” Deadhead asked.

  “Please do,” the Angel said, and made the call.

  The escapees were taken into custody with a minimum of pratfalls and no real problems. The Racist was still unconscious when they put the cuffs on him and Deadhead offered no resistance.

  “Watch your step,” Norwood said, grinning, as a pair of Marines helped the Racist up into the back of the detention van. Looking like he was auditioning for the role of the drunken wife-beater on Cops, the Racist just scowled.

  Ray put Moon and Stuntman in charge of the prisoners, and they went back to Holloman with the prisoners and Marine guards. After the excitement died down, Ray found himself alone with the Angel. He checked his watch. It was a little short of 4:00 A.M.

  “Let’s go grab some coffee and a bite to
eat.”

  “Don’t you want to call Washington?” the Angel asked.

  Ray considered, then shook his head. “No. Let’s let sleeping dogs lie. There’s no sense in stirring them up when we don’t have to.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Ray pursed his lips. “I’m sure we can find some way to pass the time until the stores open.”

  “Stores?”

  “So we can go ring shopping. There’s a wedding chapel where we can get married by a Tachyon impersonator—or,” he said, switching gears at the expression on her face, “we can wait until after we run down Little Fat Boy and have a church ceremony anywhere you want. Except Washington.”

  “Why not Washington?” the Angel asked.

  Ray shook his head. “I’m staying away from there as long as I can. Can you imagine all the frigging paperwork I’m going to have to fill out once Rodham knows I’m back?”

  Double Helix

  MAKE NO TREATY WITH THEM AND

  SHOW THEM NO MERCY

  Melinda M. Snodgrass

  A SANDSTORM IS BLOWING across Mecca and the wind keens and howls around the corners of the hotel. The building across the street is a phantom shape looming in the dust and the sky is a strange yellow.

  I teleported Siraj away as the first helicopters were descending on the Baghdad airport. He is just standing in the center of the room, head bent. His hands are trembling ever so slightly. Memory seizes me.

  Of Siraj standing with just this attitude in our rented house in Cambridge. Without Siraj’s wealth I would have been living in rooms at my college. It was Siraj’s money that had given rise to the situation. “Your money doesn’t give you class. At base you’re just another dirty little camel trader.” The final verbal barrage from one of our housemates who we had all agreed had to go.

  I know Siraj is my enemy, but I suddenly want to be nineteen again and comfort my friend. His head lifts and he rolls back his shoulders. A man preparing for the fight again. I tense, wondering what order he will give me. He’s always been civilized about the struggle. Is that about to change? Who will he send me to kill?

  “We intercepted some interesting communications between SCARE and Washington.” The tone is almost conversational.

  Because of the mild tone I almost miss the import of what I’ve just heard. He intercepted an encrypted message and read it. Siraj isn’t a technophobe like the Nur or a man living in the past like Abdul, the Nur’s son. He has been building a modern intelligence service and I missed it. Because I’m a holdover from that earlier era—an Arabian Nights fantasy, a useful killer and very little else.

  Siraj is continuing. “The explosion in Texas for which we were blamed.” I give him a look of questioning interest. “It was an ace. A child. A little boy. You will go to America, and find him. Help him.”

  “Where is he being held?” And I’m terrified that Siraj will actually know, and then how in the hell do I get out of that?

  “He escaped custody and the Americans are hunting him to kill him. We will befriend him, and your power combined with his . . .” Siraj smiles, a mirthless grimace that never reaches his eyes. “The West will withdraw from the Caliphate.”

  I salaam. “I must return home and change into Western dress. I will find him.”

  I turn and start for the door only to hear him say—

  “One of you will.”

  London, we have . . .

  “. . . a problem,” Flint whispers.

  We are walking around the base of Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square. A gusty wind off the Channel is tossing the pigeons back as they try to land on the admiral’s bronze head. It holds the promise of fall, and Mecca seems very far away. I’m still in my Bahir form. The effort of changing just to change again seems monumental.

  “Obviously you cannot deliver the boy.”

  “So, do I find him before the Americans, kill him, and tell Siraj so sad, too bad?” I consider. “Or maybe I don’t need to be involved at all. Allow Bahir to be spotted a few times in America so the word gets back to Siraj that I’m trying, but let the Americans kill their little problem.”

  “Siraj has a point. With your power and the boy . . . well, it would be a potent combination.”

  “So, you want me to find him, but for us.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to go home first. Check—”

  “No.”

  The Tears of Nepthys

  THE SECOND TEAR: ALIYAH

  Kevin Andrew Murphy

  JONATHAN HIVE SAT NEXT to her on the plane in his camelhair sport coat, green eyes intent on his laptop. Apart from some guy called the Llama, he’d been the only ace left at the UN. “So,” he asked with a reporter’s intensity, “why do you want to join the Committee?”

  Ellen had already been around the same mulberry bush with Secretary-General Jayewardene. She gestured to her cameo. “You know my power. I’ve been freelance too long. And I’m sick of hiding.” She glanced out the window at the rolling scallop of the Gulf Coast as the plane began its descent. “So John Fortune’s still in Africa?”

  Jonathan didn’t answer, but had probably just nodded. He clattered at his keyboard as Ellen fixed her makeup and adjusted her suit. She wasn’t certain what one wore to a hurricane, but Chanel was classic and would have to do. It paid to have Coco’s sewing machine.

  Of course, there wasn’t a hurricane. Not yet. The air in New Orleans was warm and balmy. And sweating on the runway was a study in opposites. With the crisp linen suit and little beard, Holy Roller looked like Colonel Sanders after a ten years’ supply of fried chicken. To his right, garbed in a billowing kaftan, stood willowy blond supermodel Michelle Pond.

  Who did not seem pleased to see Hive. “Bugsy, you’re wanted by the Feds.”

  Jonathan shouldered his laptop bag over his sport coat. “Do you think they’ll have time to arrest a hundred thousand wasps in the middle of a natural disaster?”

  “He has a point, my dear.” Holy Roller then turned to Ellen with a beatific smile. “Reverend Thaddeus Wintergreen, ma’am, at your service. And you’d be?”

  “Ellen. Or Cameo. Or, well, someone else.” Ellen was tired of explanations. It was time to let another person do the talking. She took off her jacket and handed it to Jonathan. As she began to unbutton her blouse, Reverend Wintergreen averted his eyes. The Amazing Bubbles merely stared, remarking drily, “That shirt so does not go with that skirt.”

  Aliyah laughed and embraced her. “Bubbles, I’m back!”

  Michelle pushed Aliyah away. “Who are you?”

  Aliyah turned a pirouette on the tarmac. “I’m Aliyah!”

  Bubbles wasn’t buying it. “Funny. You don’t look a bit like her. Who are you, really? What sort of game are you playing?”

  Holy Roller was no longer averting his eyes, now that the threat of overt nakedness had passed. “If this is a prank, it is a cruel one, Jonathan. Aliyah is with the Lord now.”

  “Maybe,” said Jonathan, “but Cameo here is with the Committee. Jayewardene and I already played twenty questions with her in New York. She’s an ace. She channels dead people from, uh . . . well, jewelry and stuff. Hats. She’s Simoon. Sort of.”

  The Reverend Thaddeus Wintergreen seemed willing to believe in miracles. “Can this be true?” he said cautiously. “The Lord works many wonders, but even so . . . Aliyah, is it really you, returned to us like some Lady Lazarus? How . . . how are you?”

  Aliyah flicked one hand. “Oh, just great. I got to go sailboating with my mom. But it would have been a lot cooler if I, like, hadn’t been possessing the body of a forty-year-old woman.”

  Thirty-something, Ellen corrected.

  Michelle gave her a cold hard look, then turned back to Jonathan. “I’m sorry, no. This is creeping me out, and . . . oh, crap, here comes Mayor Connick . . .”

  A stretch Hummer pulled up. Out stepped a handsome man about forty years old, with bright blue eyes, pouting lips, and a casually rumpled gray suit. “Mr.
Tipton-Clarke.” Harry Connick Jr. nodded to Jonathan. “Welcome to NOLA. I never saw ya—but nice work on the Pyote story. An’ I guess this’d be the latest member of your Committee,” he surmised in a rich N’awlins drawl, extending his hand to Aliyah. “An’ jus’ who do I—”

  “That’s Cameo,” Bubbles cut in. “She channels the dead. She’s Simoon right now.”

  Connick’s smile vanished as Attractive Woman My Age was swiftly replaced by Creepy Possessed Lady. He released her hand like it was a dead fish, and not a very fresh one either. “Well then,” he said, “how many of y’all’re in there?”

  “Uh, just me and Ellen,” Aliyah replied.

  “ ‘The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise again,’ ” quoted Reverend Wintergreen.

  Mayor Connick looked unhappy. “I’m sorry. The police get calls all the time about some hoodoo mama raisin’ zombies in the French Quarter. The last thing we need is some ace showing up who can actually do it.” He glanced at her clothes. “I have to say, I never would have guessed. Ya gotta be the least likely voodoo queen I’ve ever seen.”

  “Well,” Bubbles said, still frowning, “I did ask Jayewardene for reinforcements. If Harriet changes course . . .”

  The dead that walk and the wind that wails, Ellen thought immediately.

  “The dead that walk and the wind that wails?” Ali repeated, confused.

  Everyone looked askance. Osiris had a prophecy, Ellen explained. Zombies and hurricanes. “Uh, my uncle had a vision,” Aliyah paraphrased. “Hurricanes and, uh, dead people. My uncle’s Osiris. He, like, rose from the dead. . . .”

  “Just runs in the family now, doesn’t it?” Mayor Connick remarked. “Doesn’t he have a lounge act in Vegas?”

  “At the Luxor.”

  “You know, the National Weather Service keeps sayin’ that Harriet is headed for Houston. It’s not that we don’t appreciate the help, but if it gets out that I’m evacuatin’ NOLA on the word of a Vegas lounge act?”