"Yeah," he said, "it's, uh, always interested me. Those people. I'd love to meet a wild card one day."
"You have," she said, smiling, sliding the book back on the shelf next to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
"I have?" He was confused, and a bit taken aback. Had he given himself away, somehow? Had Joey told her? "Who?"
"Me," Barbara said. He must have looked incredulous. "No, really," she said. "I know, it doesn't show. I'm not an ace or anything. It didn't do anything to me, as far as anyone can tell. But I did get it. I was only two, so I don't remember anything. My mother said I almost died. The symptoms-I must have been quite a sight. Our doctor thought it was the mumps at first, but my face just kept on swelling, until I looked like a basketball. Then he transferred me to Mt. Sinai. That's where Dr. Tachyon was working at the time."
"Yeah," Tom said.
"Anyway, I pulled through. The swelling only lasted a couple of days, but they kept me for a month, running tests. It was the wild card all right, but it might as well have been the chicken pox, for all the difference it made to me." She grinned. "Still, it was our deep, dark family secret. Dad quit his job and moved us to Bayonne, where nobody knew. People were funny about the wild card back then. I didn't even know myself until I was in college. Mom was afraid I'd tell."
"Did you?"
"No," Barbara said. She looked strangely solemn. "No one. Not until tonight, anyway."
"So why did you tell me?" Tom asked her. "Because I trust you," she said quietly.
He almost told her then, right there in his living room. He wanted to. Afterward, whenever he thought about that evening, he found himself wishing that he had, and wondering what would have happened.
But when he opened his mouth to say the words, to speak to her of teke and Turtles and junkyard secrets, it was as though the years had rolled back and he was in high school again, standing with her in that corridor, wanting so desperately to ask her to the prom and somehow unable to. He'd kept his secrets for so long. The words would not come. He tried, for a long moment he tried. Then, defeated, he had hugged her and mumbled "I'm glad you told me," before retreating to the kitchen to gather his wits. He looked at the spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove, and suddenly reached out and turned off the burner.
"Get your coat," he said when he returned to her. "The plans have changed. I'm taking you out for dinner."
"Out? Where?"
"Aces High," he said as he lifted the phone to call for the reservation. "We're going to see those wild cards tonight." They dined among aces and stars. It cost him two weeks' salary, but it was worth it, even though the maitre d' took one look at his corduroy suit and led them to a table way back by the kitchen. The food was almost as extraordinary as the light in Barbara's eyes. They were enjoying an aperitif when Dr. Tachyon came in, wearing a green velveteen tuxedo and escorting Liza Minelli. Tom went over to their table, and got both of them to autograph a cocktail napkin.
That night he and Barbara made love for the first time. Afterward, as she slept curled up against him, Tom held on tightly to her warmth, dreaming of the years to come, and wondering why the hell he had taken so long.
He was making a swing over Central Park Lake, listening to Bruce and eating a bag of Nacho Cheese-flavored Doritos, when he noticed that he was being followed by a pterodactyl.
Through a telephoto lens, Tom watched it circle above him, riding the winds on a leathery six-foot wingspan. Frowning, he killed his tape and went to his loudspeakers. "HEY!" he boomed into the winter air. "COLD ENOUGH FOR YOU? YOU'RE A REPTILE, KID, YOU'RE GOING TO
FREEZE YOUR SCALY ASS OFF"
The pterodactyl replied with a high, thin shriek, made a wide turn, and came in for a landing on top of his shell, flapping energetically as it touched down to keep from going over the edge. Its claws scrabbled against his metal and found purchase in the cracks between his armor plates.
Sighing, Tom watched on one of his big screens as the pterodactyl rippled, flowed, and turned into Kid Dinosaur. "It's just as cold for you," the kid said.
"I've got heaters in here," Tom said. The kid was already turning blue, which wasn't surprising, considering that he was naked. He didn't look too steady up there either. The top of the shell was pretty broad, but it did have a pronounced pitch, and human fingers couldn't get into the cracks between the plates nearly as well as pterodactyl claws. Tom began to drift downward. "It would serve you right if I did a loop and flipped you into the lake."
"I'd just change again and fly off," Kid Dinosaur said. He shivered. "It is cold. I hadn't noticed." In his human form, New York's only brat ace was an ungainly thirteen-year-old with a small birthmark on his forehead. He was gawky and uncoordinated, with shaggy hair that fell across his eyes. The merciless gaze of the cameras showed the blackheads on his nose in excruciating detail. He had a big pimple in the cleft of his chin. And he was uncircumcised, Tom noted.
"Where the hell are your clothes?" Tom asked. "If I set you down in the park, you'll get busted for indecent exposure."
"They wouldn't dare," Kid Dinosaur said with the cocksure certainty of the adolescent. "What's going on? Are you off on a case? I could help."
"You read too many funny books," Tom told him. "I heard about the last time you helped someone."
"Aw, they sewed his hand back on, and Tacky says it's going to be just fine. How was I supposed to know that the guy was an undercover cop? I wouldn't of bit him if I'd known."
It wasn't the least bit funny, but Tom smiled. Kid Dinosaur reminded him of himself. He'd read a lot of funny books too. "Kid," he said, "you're not always running around naked turning into dinosaurs, right? You've got another life?"
"I'm not gonna tell you my secret identity," Kid Dinosaur said quickly.
"Scared I'd tell your parents?" Tom asked.
The boy's face reddened. The rest of him was bluer than ever. "I'm not scared of anything, you old fart," he said. "You ought to be," Tom said. "Like me, for starts. Yeah, I know, you can turn into a three-foot-tall tyrannosaur and break your teeth on my armor. All I can do is shatter every bone in your body in twelve or thirteen places. Or reach inside you and squeeze your heart to mush."
"You wouldn't do that."
"No," Tom admitted, "but there are people who will. You're getting in way over your head, you dumb little fuck. Hell, I don't care what kind of toy dinosaur you turn into, a bullet can still kill you."
Kid Dinosaur looked sullen. "Fuck you," he said. The emphatic way he said it made it clear that he didn't often use language like that at home.
This wasn't going well, Tom thought. "Look," he said in a conciliatory tone, "I just wanted to tell you some things I learned the hard way. You don't want to get too caught up. It's great that you're Kid Dinosaur, but you're also, uh, whoever you are. Don't forget that. What grade are you in?"
The kid groaned. "What is it with all you guys? If you're going to start in about algebra, forget it!"
"Algebra?" Tom said, puzzled. "I didn't say a thing about algebra. Your classes are important, but that's not all there is either. Make friends, damn it, go on dates, make sure you go to your senior prom. Just being able to turn into a brontosaurus the size of a Doberman isn't going to win you any prizes in life, you understand?"