♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Turtle was gone, back to California with his Danny. Zoe had seen him again, but he'd seemed defensive, a little frightened, and she didn't want to get in his space and upset it. He'd said something about getting back in harness. He'd said he had to contact some people.
He left Zoe with memories, fine rich memories, and a wistful hope. Someday, someday, someone for me. If only.
The days lurched forward toward the grand jury hearing. In her mind, she faced an inquisition, hooded figures cloaked in red who carried candles the size of walking sticks. They snuffed them out on the floor, and her breath died with the dying flames.
She became something she had never been, a drifter in Jokertown streets in the daytime, alone when the Escorts slept in the warm mornings. She heard tales of hunger and death and outrage. The tabloids kept up their barrage of joker hate stories. And in the Times, she read of the groundbreaking for the first of the Biological Research Centers.
Her bank balance sank daily. Some of her latents had asked for transfers to Jerusalem. Some wouldn't think of leaving. Zoe worked with Dutton and set the Escorts up as a student tour group, with Bjorn and Anne as adults-in-charge. The Escorts thought the idea sucked. She stuffed the tickets in their pockets anyway.
"You'll go when there's space for you on the damned plane. You'll check with my daddy every day to see if your flight is scheduled. You'll get the fuck out of here when he says go. These are round-trip tickets, kids. Think of it as cultural enrichment."
"Mess around with yuppies, and look what happens to us," Needles said. But in his streetwise eyes, there was something like hope.
Home base was her parents' flat, her childhood bedroom with its pink and white French Provincial canopy bed. Zoe rummaged through her closet, still crowded with mementoes of triumphs past, her prom dress, the first Calvin Klein she'd ever been able to afford, an Issey Miyake with its artful cutouts. She'd bought it the first year the company had gone public; still a lovely dress, but now hopelessly outdated. She had dressed for success, once. She had been a success, once.
She practiced. She thought about Turtle, and practiced. Alone in home's stuffy silence, trying to find a space in her mind where her power would work on demand. Yes, the dustcloth flew around the counters, her old Snoopy barked and chased the elusive rag, the little toy soldier raised his rifle. But now, she had him shoot bursts of laser light that left smoking holes in the playing cards she set up as targets.
Trying to convince herself that no one would notice, that no one would see her excitement when she animated something, that no one would recognize the sexual tension she felt while she worked. She had tried to animate things when the Escorts were around, trusting that they wouldn't pay much attention, or maybe even notice what had happened. She hadn't been able to do it.
And then she would pick up the phone, and try to convince another one of the latents to leave the country.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
You'll be fine at the hearing tomorrow. Say this. Don't say that. Remain calm. Respond only to what is asked. Don't volunteer information. Mendlen's instructions echoed in Zoe's head. Furtive, watching the streets, she wanted to get home and she didn't want the Escorts to see her, but Needles danced up beside her. He was up early. It was barely past lunch.
"Dude sent this for you," he said. What he slipped into her hand was an El Al ticket.
"Who?" Zoe asked.
"Short little nerd. Kept wigglin' his nose, like it stinks round here or something."
Nosy? What the fuck did this mean?
"You told him where I lived?"
"Not exactly," Needles said. "We was just cruising, you know. So this stupidass nat shows up and we, like, in-terror-gated him a little."
"Uh-huh," Zoe said. First class, priority ticket, that identified her as an executive of Subtle Scents, Jerusalem. Maybe Nosy figured she would run, and look like a fool. Keep the damned thing? Would its use set off an alarm at the FBI or something?
But she didn't have the money to buy another. Mendlen's secretary had taken a big cnunk today. Zoe Harris, CEO, was tapped out.
She stuffed the ticket in her purse. Bjorn waited on the stoop. Needles nodded at him and ducked away.
"Why are you home so early?" Zoe asked. He was out of uniform, freshly shaved; he wore a polo shirt under his sport coat.
"I thought you could use a little company," Bjorn said. "A little distraction."
"Possibly I could." Zoe tried to smile at him.
"Your mom's on her way to Jerusalem. She fussed, but there was an open seat and she took it."
Brave momma. "Good," Zoe said.
"Let's see if I can say this like she would." Bjorn cleared his throat.
"Say what?"
"Dahling. Let's go shopping!"
"Perfect!"
"God knows I've heard it often enough."
"And groaned every time."
Bjorn had a great groan. He groaned it now, a subdued roar that seemed to vibrate the wrought iron on the stoop.
"Daddy. We can't spend any money. Are you nuts?"
"You'll feel better tomorrow in a good little suit," Bjorn said.
"I won't feel better in a good little suit."
"An expensive little suit?"
"Daddy, you're impossible."
"You're my daughter. You deserve to look wonderful."
Autumn in New York was the best of the city's seasons. The leaves were turning. A light breeze lifted most of the smog. Fifth Avenue's windows showed the fall collections, the furs, the silhouettes. Fuller skirts, smaller shoulders. Shorter fitted jackets with definite curves in their lines. The keynote color was green, which Zoe in no way could wear, but the season's stones were topaz and amber, big faux chunks of them. Topaz brought out cat colors in Zoe's hazel eyes. Very good.
Mary, Queen of Scots, wore a red silk petticoat to her beheading. Zoe would stick with a business suit, black, perhaps, with a closely fitted jacket. A Hermes scarf at the neckline, white and some bronze tones? Perhaps.
Bjorn limped along beside her on his ever-sore feet. Zoe pretended not to notice.
But she noticed, as always, the movement in the street around her, the moiling mix of shoppers and the aimless. A black mannequin in the Saks window wore a Donna Karan dinner dress, bias cut and loaded with long looped chains of gold and topaz, reminiscent of the thirties. It was a gorgeous ensemble.
Reflected in the Saks window, something changed in the street's motion. In a flicker of vision, Zoe saw a movement like the turning of a school of fish. Shaveheads in padded, pale denim, interchangeable faces with dead stupid eyes and one of them moved too fast. His hands snatched at the collar of Bjorn's shirt, jerking it open. Another shavehead circled behind Bjorn and pulled his sport coat down, trapping Bjorn's arms. The afternoon sun brought out gold highlights in Bjorn's thick auburn fur.
"Joker!" someone yelled.
The pack was on him. One of them shoved Zoe aside. She stumbled and caught her balance against the smooth glass of the Saks window. Bjorn went down, hidden under pounding fists and flailing arms. Zoe grabbed the shoulders of the thug in front of her, but her fists striking his back had no effect at all.
Yelling help, please, somebody help, but her voice didn't carry over the chorus of obscenities.
"Joker!"
"Mutant!"
"Fucking monster! Abomination!"
She ripped her fingernails across the throat of the thug in front of her. He jerked his elbow back, a hard punch that caught her in the stomach. The back of her head struck the glass. It boomed with the impact, but didn't break. Over the heads of the shaveheads, she saw the cyclops eye of a camcorder, a Japanese tourist filming the show.
She heard her voice yelling out "Stop it, stop it, you're killing him!" but it was as if someone had turned the volume down too low. Bjorn roared and growled. He kicked out and one of his shoes went flying. His naked foot, blunted claws and fur, connected with a thug's leg and the man yipped in pain. The shaveheads circled their prey like a dog pack, except for one, who humped away on top of Bjorn in a horrid parody of screwing. Zoe saw the flash of a knife in the thug's fist.