"Where were we, my child?" Ganesha asked when the girl was restrained. He dropped his hand to her belly, which was covered by the wound sheet. He patted it twice, and then the sheet disappeared. Before she could kick him, more vines seized her ankles.
The black crust over one big toe split open. Blood welled through the cracks. The mummy reached for the pistol with the toe. Clumsy in its coat of char, it nudged the weapon, which made a tiny scraping sound.
Ganesha spun, frowned thunderously. "So! You are hard to kill, Major."
He strode across the room with a speed belying his bulk, kicked the handgun away.
"And now," he said, "I fear that I must reach out and touch you." He held forth a hand as if to bestow a benediction, leaned forward.
The window exploded inward in a cascade of glass-shards and splintered wood. Ganesha looked up.
Moonchild drove a flying two-footed kick into his trunked face.
She touched down lightly. Ganesha flopped bonelessly to the hardwood floor at her feet. His great elephant head flickered once, twice, vanished.
In its place was the head of an ordinary Indian male, round, plump-cheeked shaven in the priestly style. It lolled at an unnatural angle on a normal human neck, which was unmistakably broken. Protruding eyes stared at Moonchild like brown marbles.
She fell to her knees and began to scream.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
J. Bob Belew's healing powers were not as those of ordinary men. By the time he was brought before Mark a few days later, he had enough skin, pink and new and fragile as a baby's, that he did not need to be kept pumped full of every antibiotic known to humankind to keep every known contagion from invading his body. He was still sadly deficient in the matter of hair and he preferred to wear bandages over his face and hands, to protect the sensibilities of others.
"Since I'm still not in possession of all my faculties," he told the Chancellor of Free Vietnam in his muffled voice, "I won't try to fight the impulse to say, 'I told you so.'"
Mark Meadows turned from the window to stare at him. His blue eyes were chill and pale as Arctic-circle sky. With the afternoon sun blasting in at his back his long features seemed skeleton-gaunt.
The audience chamber had been stripped to echoing bareness. Not only were Ganesha's tangible illusions gone, but the tie-dyed scrim as well. All that occupied the room was now the camp stool, the two men, a quartet of joker guards with their rifles trained on Belew.
"He was a fraud to the bone," Belew said. "You saw him, didn't you, at the end? He wasn't even a joker."
Even during their days of privation and comradeship, in the fight for Vietnam, Belew thought he had never seen the skin so dry or parchment-tight over Mark's prominent cheekbones. Now emotion drew it tighter still, until it seemed the skin must snap.
"You've cost me a lot," he said. "Moonchild - I - killed my guru. Now I don't know if I can ever get Moonchild back. The last time I tried calling her, I went into convulsions, and then an hour-long coma. She was sworn never to take life."
Belew squeezed his eyes shut. "Mark. I'm sorry. There was no way for her to know his neck wasn't as strong as it looked."
"I've allowed myself to be manipulated by that agile tongue of yours for years, Major." He spread his hands. "Look where it's got me."
There was a response which might be made. Belew didn't make it. He stood erect, matched Mark gaze for gaze, and said nothing.
Mark drew a deep breath, let it slowly out. "I have spoken to my daughter. She appreciates what you did for her. So do I."
"I appreciate what you've done for me, too," Belew said. "You've seen I had the finest of care, in a country where care of any kind's still at a premium."
Mark cut him off with a sharp nod. "I did what I had to do. You've done a lot for me, more than any man or woman I ever met. You saved my daughter. That by itself is more than anything I can repay."
His features writhed briefly, set. "But I - I saw you with her, man. I don't know what really happened. I guess I never will. But all that I can give you now, is your life.
"One hundred thousand dollars has been deposited to that Swiss bank account you didn't think I knew about. And yes, I know you weren't skimming. You can have the transport of your choice, to the destination of your choice. But counting from this instant, you must be beyond the borders of Free Vietnam within twelve hours. And don't come back. Or I'll have you killed."
He raised his head. Though he held his face stiff, he could not hide the tears in his eyes.
"Have you anything to say, Major Belew?"
Slowly, painfully, Belew turned and shuffled to the door. Then he turned back, and raised a gauze-swaddled hand.
"Ave atque vale, Mark, my friend."
And he was gone.
The Color of His Skin
Part 3
Reality was cold water thrown in the face of dreams.
Gregg realized that listening to news reports in the days following the Peregrine's Perch show. The Today Show the next morning treated the story like it was headline material for Aces or the National Enquirer - just another cheap tabloid headline. The major networks placed it first or second in their newscasts the following evening, but focused mostly on Gregg's past. CNN was more serious in its commentary, but buried the story in the middle of its sequence and featured rebuttals by several government sources. Marilyn Monroe, in a widely-televised press conference, emotionally denied that she had met with Hannah and denounced the Hedda Hopper material as "entirely manufactured." Sarah Morgenstern wrote a scathing, sarcastic article for Newsweek. Rush Limbaugh, never a fan of "Liberal Loonie" Hartmann, was especially brutal in his usual searing jocularity, deriding this "theory of ex-Senator Gregg Crackpotmann, Hannah Bananas, and Father Sushi - the ultimate Three Stooges."
Puppetman's influence had always required live interaction; his new Gift was identically limited. Gregg wasn't surprised that the viewing audience turned out to be more skeptical than the live audience. "Certainly the angry response of Peregrine's audience demonstrates that jokers experience far more prejudicial treatment than is either fair or just," Ed Bradley commented, then added, "but mistreatment hardly constitutes a conspiracy."
A Harris poll showed that only 12% of the general public (plus or minus 3%) bought into the existence of the Card Sharks, while another 17% thought that such a conspiracy was at least "possible." Among nats alone, the numbers dropped even further.
"This isn't what we'd hoped for, is it?" Father Squid said.
They were in the new parsonage, surrounded by boxes and clutter - gifts from the parishioners to replace what Father Squid had lost in the fire. The parsonage smelled of new paint and fresh-cut lumber; the small dining room through the archway was draped in plastic dropcloths. Through the windows, Gregg could see the rubble of the church, from which a new structure was slowly emerging.
Oddity - Evan - had made coffee. Gregg curled his finger around the pleasant warmth of the mug and sipped. "It's what I expected," he said.
"But after Peri's show, after that reaction ..." Hannah leaned in a corner beside the silent bulk of Quasiman, who was in one of his fugues. The young woman stroked Quasiman's shoulder with one hand, and Gregg could sense Hannah's strong friendship for the joker radiating from her.
He found that he was almost jealous. What does it matter? the inner voice chided him. After all, nat women aren't to your taste. Even attractive ones like her ... "Our audience there were the easy ones to convince, Hannah," he said. "The ones who live in Jokertown - they know already. But the nats, the whole rest of the country ..." Gregg shrugged.