The French onion soup she had eaten earlier in the evening hit the back of her throat, and she swallowed convulsively. "Excuse me," she muttered breathlessly, and pushing back her chair fled from the dining room. The curious glances felt like blows.
In the bathroom she sluiced cold water across her face, heedless of her careful makeup job, and rinsed her mouth. It helped, but could not relieve the burning knot in the pit of her stomach. Her amber eyes stared bleakly out of the mirror, fawn wide and as frightened. She studied the perfect oval of her face, the high, chiseled cheekbones, the narrow nose (legacy from some white ancestor). It looked like a normal face. How could it hide such… Her mind rebelled at the word. Not evil. It hid memories.
Memories of evil.
Whose evil? The man whose kin had brought the hellborn virus to Earth, and broken her life?
Or her own?
She rested her hands on either side of the sink, bent forward, her breath coming in quick gulps.
"He lives, Roulette."
Fear drew a whimper, and she whirled to face him. Shrank back as he laid aside a nail file left for the convenience of the female customers of Aces High. Inspected knotted veins in the back of his hand, and swiveled slowly on the small dressing-table stool to face her. It was an incongruous sight. The Astronomer dressed as an Aces High waiter, framed by double rows of theatrical lights, the back of his balding head reflected in the mirror.
"Oh my God. What are you-"
"Doing here? Apparently finishing the business that you have failed to do. Dealing a little in death. I came expecting lamentations, fear, and loathing. What do I find?-a bunch of aces feeding their faces, and talking, talking, talking."
"You can't… not here."
"Oh yes, by all means here. Starting with Tachyon."
"No! "
"Concern?"
"He's… he's mine."
"Then, why haven't you killed him?" He had lost the jovial tone, his voice grating like rock across sandpaper. He came off the chair, the action made all the more menacing for its slowness.
"I-" Her voice didn't work, and she tried again. "I'm toying with him."
"What a dramatic-almost melodramatic-phrase. Toying with him," he repeated thoughtfully. His hand shot out, caught her by the throat. "Well, don't toy with him! Kill him!" Spittle wetted her cheek, and she twisted in his grasp.
The hand tightened, larynx aching under the pressure, blood rushing, beating in her ears. Roulette clawed at his hand, begging for mercy, but only mewling sounds emerged.
He threw her contemptuously aside, and she came up hard against the edge of a toilet bowl.
"You can't make me. Fear of you won't be enough."
"True. I wish you would recognize the wisdom of what I've told you. Only your hate will free you. Only if you release the acid of your soul can you be at peace."
She dug her fingers into her temples. "I don't know what I hate worse. Your threats or your pop psychology."
He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Only that ultimate catharsis can save you from a lifetime of memory"
He tore aside his carefully constructed mental shields, gripped and broke a part of her mind. The pictures fluttered past behind her eyes. Nurse's hand hard on her chest, forcing her back. "Don't look." She looked. MONSTER! It lay in an incubator mewling out its life. Hidden away. Four days of watching it die. Disgust becoming love becoming hate. Nurses hand hard on her chest, forcing
And so it went. A never-ending replay of a nightmare. "Kill him, and it stops."
"Oh God! I don't believe you!" Her fingers writhed in her hair.
"That's unfortunate. For you really don't have any other option."
"Is it time yet?" Jack raised his head from the steel railing he was clutching.
Bagabond moved over to stand beside him. She put her arm around his waist. "Soon. It'll be soon." She reached up to push the sweat-soaked black hair away from his eyes. Obviously in pain, Jack stared back at her. Shadowed, his dark eyes blended invisibly with the night.
"You'll have to go in as yourself," she said. "I'll help you change when the time comes. I'll be there with you the whole time." Bagabond put her hand on top of his on the railing. He turned his hand over and clasped her fingers.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Jack said. He looked down at their plaited fingers, but didn't take his hand away. " I wish the cats were here."
"Me too."
"Anything goes wrong," he said, "you get out. I mean it. I can take care of myself."
Bagabond said nothing, but squeezed a bit harder. She looked over at Rosemary. "Can we start in?"
The lawyer walked back to the corner and peered around the dingy brick. "It looks clear." She touched her digital watch, squinting at the dim glow. "It's twenty past eight. Everybody who's coming should have gone in by now. Let's go."
The entrance to the Haiphong Lily was marked by a huge water lily limned in red neon. Its buzzing flicker lit the quiet street. Half a dozen limousines were pulled up at the curb outside the restaurant. The uniformed drivers stood in a group at the head of the line, smoking and gossiping like ordinary cabbies. Each car was guarded by one or two unsmiling men. A couple of the guards impassively watched Bagabond and her companions pass, eyes tracking their progress like the sights on an '160 machine gun. All the guards wore black armbands.
The cilantro, fish, and hot pepper smells of the Vietnamese cooking engulfed them before they reached the door. "Mon Dieu." Jack raised his eyes skyward and then looked toward Bagabond. "Can you believe it? Now I'm hungry."
"We'll eat as soon as we get this over with."
While the entrance was at street-level, the restaurant itself was up a flight of stairs. The stairwell was dimly lit and the red flocked wallpaper absorbed most of that light. In an alcove beside the inner doorway, a big man whose subdued suit matched those of the watchers outside stood gazing down the steps. He had stepped out at the sound of the outside door and now blocked the upstairs landing.
"Reservations?" he said.
"Of course." Rosemary didn't hesitate.
Bagabond felt the eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses checking them for the possibility of a threat. The big man shrugged. Apparently satisfied, he stepped back out of the way. He obviously did not recognize Rosemary.
Inside the restaurant was more of the dark wallpaper and a nervous, middle-aged Oriental man who greeted them with a sheaf of menus. "Good evening. Three? Yes?."
He had already started toward one of the many empty tables when Rosemary stopped him. "We're here for the meeting."
The small man halted abruptly. The dining room was nearly deserted. An elderly couple huddled in intimate conversation to one side. Nearer, a tall, gaunt man with a crooked mouth looked up from his meal. He and the Oriental manager exchanged looks. Bagabond thought fbr an instant that the lone diner looked awfully familiar, but her attention snapped back as Jack stumbled and nearly fell against a bubbling tank of carp. The maitre d' looked distressed.
Smiling weakly, he said, "No meeting."
"Yes," said Rosemary. "There is. In the private room."
"No meeting here."
"What we have here" Jack said slowly through taut lips"
"is a failure to communicate."
Rosemary surveyed the room, stopping when she spotted two men in dark blue suits and expensive sunglasses sitting at separate tables in the back of the room. They too wore the armbands of mourning.
She addressed the nearer. "Buon giorno… Adrian, isn't it? Tony Callenza's son?"
"Lady, you got the wrong person." The soldier on the right glanced at his companion, who shrugged. Bagabond tightened her hold on Jack, prepared to pull him to cover if shooting started.
"Adrian," said Rosemary. "We used to play together. You'd kidnap my dolls and hold them for ransom. I'm hurt you don't remember." The assistant DA had left Bagabond and stood a few feet away from the table and the man she'd addressed. There was no tension in her stance, head high, arms loose at her sides. Bagabond had watched her once at a trial. Bagabond thought that she herself had never been so self-assured as Rosemary.