"I'm glad we came," Turtle said. "I was afraid someone would recognize me, but they haven't, so far. I hate it when that happens. Either it's someone who is delighted that I 'cleaned out the Rox,' or it's someone who thinks I'm a mass murderer and they want to kill me. Those guys, I can understand. They're the sane ones. The ones who make my skin crawl are the idiots who think it's neat that I killed a bunch of miserable jokers. They probably have my picture on the wall right between Hitler and Pol Pot."
"You've had death threats?" Zoe asked.
"Death threats, love letters from women I don't know, and three hundred lawsuits by people who claim they were 'telekinetically assaulted' by the Turtle. Most of those claims are bizarre as hell. A lot of crossover with UFO abductees, and all the kinky sex fantasies that go with it. Tom Tudbury and his big smooth round sex object shell." He polished off the last profiterole. "Are you still sure you want to be a hero?"
"I never said I wanted to be a hero. I said I was afraid not to."
"Danny told me her theories. What you talked about at lunch."
Tom seemed wistfully shy. Charming, Zoe thought. "Danny's sex theory on animation? She may be right, Tom."
"Well, she would never have a problem like that. You met Rick's Danny?"
"Yes. I like her, too."
"It bothers me. Rick's a nice guy. But when Danny makes out with him, Danny, my Danny, gets to make out with him, too. I mean, not there, but in Venice in the apartment, sometimes, she'll get this look, and I know what they're doing."
The check had come, had been examined; Tom's card had paid for it. He opened the heavy brass-fitted door that led them back out into Manhattan's night-time streets. They navigated back toward the hotel, dodging a mink-clad woman wearing tennis shoes, a crowd of shavehead wannabes in baggy pants and hightops, and a large poodle walking a small man.
"You're jealous, Tom."
"I guess. But it's more weird than jealousy. Sometimes I think about what Rick's Danny is feeling when my Danny and I are making out. I think about the fact that I'm in bed with two women at once, and one of them isn't there. It feels pretty strange."
The elevator took them back toward the hotel suite. Starlet Danny wasn't there.
"About this power of yours. You've been practicing?"
"No." There was a bar in the room, and one of those little refrigerators stocked with booze and chips and candy, with a card to check off what you'd taken out.
"Tom? What do I do if I learn to use it? Is there an organization I could work with?"
"There's the government, I guess. SCARE and the Justice department."
"No."
"Good. I'm glad you said that."
"But something else? There has to be something else."
"I really don't know. I'm out of the hero business, myself." He looked troubled.
"Tom? I'm in the mood for some cognac."
"Fine with me." He settled into the cushions on the couch.
Zoe poured cognac into tumblers, good stiff doses, and brought one to him. She never drank. She planned to play with her glass and sniff the fumes.
"Danny says she figures you don't drink," Tom said. "She make it sound really sad. You don't drink, you don't make love unless you're on guard about it. That's sad Zoe."
"I'm not always on guard about it," she said. She sniffed at the cognac. It made her eyes water a little. She walked to the window, which had a view of a brick wall outside, and then back to the little bar. Pacing. She was tense, and didn't much care.
"What happens when you aren't? Do you animate, uh, modify, uh, do you - "
Poor man. No, I don't modify penises. "My talent doesn't work on anything living. The energies aren't right. I don't know how to explain it."
"But if you have an orgasm, things start jumping?"
"Well - yes."
"Should be interesting," Tom said.
Zoe wondered how it would be, to celebrate an orgasm with showers of confetti, with a round of applause from chiming crystal glasses on a bedside table, with chandeliers strobing themselves on and off. And someone else there to enjoy the show, not just her trusty vibrator.
The phone rang. Tom picked it up. He said yes a couple of times and hung up.
"Danny. She's going to stay with her sister."
"Oh. I wanted her to be here." She really did. Danny had this healthy, relaxed attitude about all sorts of things.
"Well. She won't be here. She'll be there. I hope Rick has a good time."
"Because you think they'll make out?"
"Because I know they will. Or Rick is a purblind fool who doesn't deserve a Danny in his life. Sit down, Zoe. You make me think I'm watching a tennis match."
She sat down.
"Now. You have to be scared to animate things. Or you have to be horny, Danny thinks. Or you have to be alone."
"That's right."
"No crazier than I am, when you come to think about it. Me, I have to have my shell to do really good teke. Little things, like this glass, I can lift without it, but that's about it."
Zoe put her glass down on the coffee table.
"Show me," she said.
"You're challenging your teacher."
"Yup."
"I'll try." Tom stared at the glass. He clenched his fists. Nothing happened. "This is harder than you might think," Tom said. He closed his eyes, opened them again. The room was very quiet. The glass lifted about an inch, the meniscus of cognac tilting as the glass swayed in the air. Then it thumped back down on the table. "Getting there," Tom said. "One more time." He tried again, and the glass sailed up, hovered in the air, and beelined for Zoe's face. It adjusted its angle as if waiting for her to sip. So she did.
"Oooh," she said. "Applause, applause. Clap, clap." She lifted the glass from the air, and sipped again. The cognac burned all the way down. It tasted of apples, late summer, and oak.
"Your turn," Tom said. He put his glass on the table. "Here. Maybe this will help." He reached up and clicked off the table lamp. The room was lighted only by a faint glow that came from the lamp in the bedroom. Tom got up and half-closed that door, too. "See? Nobody's watching."
"I'll try," Zoe said. She tried. Gossamer wings on the stem of the glass, that would be nice, and a program to flutter them to let the glass waft around the room. She really wanted this to work. She tried. "Nothing. Damn."
"My turn." Turtle lifted his glass for her. It seemed easier for him this time. "Drink up," he said.
"We're going to run out of cognac." Zoe spluttered on a too-large gulp.
"That's what room service is for," Turtle said.
It took them about a half-bottle to get from the couch into the bedroom.
"I guess," Turtle mentioned at one point, "that anything you can animate, I can move out of the way with my teke. Just keep it lightweight," he said.
"Sure." He didn't have a pelt, like Bjorn, but the curls on his chest were quite pleasant to stroke, all the same.
There wasn't any confetti to dance around the room. But, eventually, the glasses on the bedside table clapped their crystal hands against their bellies, and gave them a round of ringing applause.
"Damn," Tom said. One of the glasses leaped from the bedside table and hung in the air over their heads. "I think you did it, Zoe."
"Hell of a way to have to get things going," she said. "Tom, you may not always be there when I need you."
"You're right. It's going to be a problem, if this is what it takes to get your powers working."
"Maybe I jus' need a lil more practice," Zoe said.
"Good thought."
Good man, this Thomas Tudbury.
Sooner than anyone might have expected, the glasses again rang their chimes.