"Well, yeah."
"I'll give you what advice I can. But - like I said ..."
How pathetic was it, Shad wondered that he was asking moral comfort and suasion from a onetime professional criminal who had slept away nine-tenths of his life since 1946, and who spent most of his waking hours out of his mind on crank?
"That's okay," Shad said. "Whatever you can do."
"Where do we start?" Croyd asked.
"Hartmann gave me a list - it's pretty much the same one he gave on television. I was going to leave it here for you, for when you woke up ..." Shad's voice trailed away as he looked up to see a man staring back at him, a black man with a cold, intent expression and scars that creased the uniformity of his short prison hair, a man straining on the very edge of violence. With humming nerves Shad recognized the man.
Himself. Suddenly Croyd looked just like the escaped homicidal maniac Neil Carton Langford, aka Black Shadow.
"Croyd," Shad said, "I think I found out what your power is."
"Yeah? What?"
"Take a look at yourself in the bathroom mirror."
Croyd munched pizza as he ambled to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. A brown-haired white man stared back.
"So?" he said.
Shad flailed for an explanation. "To me you look like someone else. You look like me."
"Say again?"
"It's got to be a kind of projection telepathy. You make people think you look like someone else, but your appearance really doesn't change."
"Huh." He scowled at the mirror, drew his brows together, and puffed out his cheeks. Then he looked at Shad. "Who do I look like now?"
"Still me."
"I was trying to do Richard Nixon. No joy, huh?"
"No."
Croyd ambled back into the kitchen for pizza. "I'll work with it a bit and see what happens. Meantime, you tell me about the Sharks."
"Well, for starters, it looks like there's gonna be a convention of them in a few days in Washington."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Herzenhagen propped himself up in bed and watched as Peggy Durand pulled her tight jeans up over her hips, her butt wriggling back and forth as she tugged them on. Watching Peggy dress was becoming his second-favorite afternoon activity.
She saw him watching - she always saw him watching - and gave him a flirtatious glance over her shoulder. "Are you horny again?"
"Flatterer."
She sat next to him, patted his round, ruddy tummy. "And they say old men can't cut the mustard anymore."
"They just need the right inspiration."
"Just think what you'll be able to do when you finally get a young body. You're going to wear me out."
He laughed. "Goodbye, Peggy." Herzenhagen gave her a serious look. "Take care, now."
"No one will follow me to Latchkey. No problem."
"And how are our jumper friends?"
Peggy looked amused. "Mam'zell's restless. Life on a little Maryland farm isn't really to her taste. The others - " She shrugged. "They're happy with their toys."
"Let's remember to keep them happy."
They're the things that make us as gods.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Peggy Durand used multiple evasion procedures on her way to the Maryland farm. But she hadn't checked her car for bugs; and Shad and Croyd were able to follow the two transmitters in her car, and arrived at the farm called Latchkey without having to keep her vehicle in sight.
You didn't want to be in sight of the target, Shad knew. Not if there were jumpers involved.
Croyd and Shad had emptied their various hiding places and come south with a smoky-windowed van filled with enough weapons to outfit a SEAL team, and sufficient surveillance gear to supply a Central American intelligence agency. There was even room for Shad's motorbike in the back.
Shad drove slowly past the farm once, then found an elm tree by the road and went up with a pair of binoculars. He scanned Latchkey slowly, saw the electronic gate, the two guards ambling around the buildings, and a young girl in a leather jacket kicking around the back half-section like she was bored and looking for something to do.
"Ahem." Croyd's voice.
Shad looked down and saw him standing at the foot of the tree. He looked like the waiter who'd brought them their room service breakfast at the Statler that morning, a tall, thin Somali in a white uniform.
"I can't climb like you can," the waiter said in Croyd's voice.
"Right."
Shad dropped down the tree, picked up Croyd, and with a certain amount of effort carried him to a convenient limb. By the time he arrived, Croyd looked like the little old lady who'd served them the crabcakes they'd eaten for lunch the day before.
Croyd was still honing his power. As Shad had guessed, he used a form of projection telepathy to convince other people that he looked like someone else. But he couldn't look like just anyone - he had to be around a person for a while in order to "absorb" his looks. He couldn't look like Richard Nixon unless he'd spent at least a few minutes hanging around the real thing.
Mirrors would give him away. So would his voice - he never sounded like anyone but Croyd. This was going to demand a certain amount of caution in using his power.
Shad handed Croyd his binoculars.
"So far as I can tell, the security isn't much," he said. "But there are probably alarms out there, and I'd have to get a closer look at them tonight. After we get back from the meet at Hughes' place."
He thought about the last time he'd met with jumpers, and old bullet wounds - ribs and leg - began to ache. He realized he was having a hard time breathing, that his heart was racing. He remembered lying in his own blood as he leaned against a brick wall in Jokertown, remembered the warmth of Chalktalk's breath as she kissed him.
No, he thought. It wasn't going to be like that.
This time it was going without a hitch.
Croyd yawned vastly. Shad looked at him in surprise. "You just yawned."
"I must have."
"You're not getting sleepy, are you?"
Croyd lowered the binoculars and looked surprised. "Maybe I am. And since I didn't sleep very long, either, maybe I'm doing everything faster this time around."
Shad just looked at him. Without a hitch, he thought, right.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Herzenhagen waited for Senator Flynn and watched Howard Hughes do bench presses. The old man grunted as he did his reps. Fourteen, fifteen ...
The heavy iron free weights clanged as Hughes dropped them onto the weight bench supports. He sat up, mopped his little goatee with a towel, and then moved toward the curling machine.
There was a buzz from the wall speakerphone. "Senator Flynn is here, sir. I'm sending him up."
Hughes looked at Herzenhagen. "Open the door, will you, Philip?"
The machine clanked as Hughes began to do arm curls. Herzenhagen rose and opened the door for Flynn. While he waited for the senator to leave the elevator he turned to gaze out the clear glass wall of Hughes' penthouse. The Washington Monument, some miles distant, thrust out of a murky haze of ozone and auto exhaust.
Hughes was a fanatic about his health. He was so terrified of the wild card virus that he filtered the air in every one of his residences so as to weed out any random spores. He worked out daily in a gym that he dragged with him from place to place on his own aircraft. His diet was supervised by a full-time employee - a gorgeous redhead - who, Hughes maintained, also fucked like a weasel.
At least it was better than in the old days. Herzenhagen remembered the insomniac Hughes who kept a dozen starlets stashed in apartments throughout Los Angeles, and who ate trash, hot dogs and corned beef hash right out of the can, as his driver shuttled him, all night long, from one girl to the next.... The current lifestyle seemed a lot healthier.
And it worked. Hughes was in amazing shape for someone his age. Perhaps he could star in a TV show about it, Herzenhagen thought, Eightysomething.
Flynn entered. He wore a western suit and a string tie and bore the dark skin and high cheekbones of his Shawnee ancestors. Herzenhagen shook his hand.