polite, but the other aces don't seem to know or care who he is. In Panama he was often in Fantasy's company, squiring her here and there, and I've heard rumors of a liaison between Golden Boy and Senator Lyons's press secretary, an attractive young blonde. Undoubtedly, of the male aces, Braun is by far the most attractive in the conventional sense, although Mordecai Jones has a certain brooding presence. Downs has been struck by those two also. The next issue of Aces will feature a piece comparing Golden Boy and the Harlem Hammer, he informs me.
THE TINT O F HATRED
Part Three
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1986, RIO:
Sara detested Rio.
From her room in the Luxor Hotel on Atlantica, the city looked like a curving Miami Beach: a display of gleaming, white high-rise hotels arrayed before a wide beach and gentle blue-green surf, all fading into a sun-hazed distance on either side.
The majority of the junket had fulfilled their obligations quickly and were using the Rio stopover for R&R. After all, it was almost the holidays; a month on the tour had worn the idealism off most of them. Hiram Worchester had gone on a binge, eating and drinking his way through the city's myriad restaurante. The press had opted for the local cervezaria and were sampling the native beers. American dollars exchanged into handfuls of cruzados and prices were low. The wealthier of the contingent had invested in the Brazilian gem marketthere seemed to be a jewelry stall in every hotel.
And yet Sara was aware of the reality. The standard tourist warnings were indication enough: Don't wear any jewelry on the streets; don't get on the buses, don't trust the taxi drivers; be careful around children or any jokers; don't go out alone, especially if you're a woman; if you want to keep something, lock it up or stay with it. Beware. To Rio's multitudes of poor, any tourist was rich and the rich were fair game.
And reality intruded as, bored and restless, she left the hotel that afternoon, deciding to go see Tachyon at a local clinic. She hailed one of the ubiquitous black-and-yellow VW Beetle cabs. Two blocks in from the ocean, glittering Rio turned dark, mountainous, crowded, and miserable. Through the narrow alleys between buildings she could glimpse the old landmark, Corcovado, the gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer atop a central peak of the city. Corcovado was a reminder of how the Wild Card had devastated this country. Rio had suffered a major outbreak in 1948. The city had always been wild and poor, with a downtrodden population simmering under the veneer. The virus had let loose months of panic and violence. No one knew which disgruntled ace was responsible for Corcovado. One morning the figure of Christ had simply "changed," as if the rising sun were melting a wax figurine. Christ the Redeemer became a joker, a misshapen, hunchbacked thing, one of his outstretched arms gone completely, the other twisted around to support the distorted body. Father Squid had celebrated a mass there yesterday; two hundred thousand people had prayed together under the deformed statue.
She'd told the taxi driver to take her to Santa Theresa, the old section of Rio. There, the jokers had gathered as they had gathered in New York's Jokertown, as if taking solace in their mutual afflictions in the shadow of Corcovado. Santa Theresa had been in the warnings too. Near Estrada de Redentor she tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Stop here," she said. The driver said something in rapid Portuguese, then shook his head and pulled over.
Sara found that this taxi driver was no different than the rest. She'd forgotten to insist that he turn on his meter when they'd left the hotel. "Quanto custa?" It was one of the few phrases she knew: How much? He insisted loudly that the fare was a thousand cruzados, forty dollars. Sara, exasperated and tired of constant small ripoffs, argued back in English. Finally she threw a hundred-cruzado bill at him, still far more than he should have received. He took it, then drove off with a screech of tires. "Feliz Natal!" he called sarcastically: Merry Christmas.
Sara flipped him the finger. It gave her little satisfaction. She began looking for the clinica.
It had rained that afternoon, the usual rainy-season squall that drenched the city for a few hours and then gave way to sunshine again. Even that hadn't managed to quell the stench of Rio's antiquated sewage system. Walking up the steeply inclined