Jokers Wild Page 0,144

two ace powers at once, and Cordelia's was getting through.

Spector kept pushing hard mentally. The Astronomer couldn't look away now that their eyes were locked.

The Astronomer dropped to his knees. "Kill you all," he said, just loud enough for them to hear.

"Not this time, you old fuck." Spector's breathing was getting ragged from the strain.

"What are you doing?" Veronica was awake and looking at Cordelia.

"I don't know. I've never done it before."

The Astronomer slid his right hand underneath the skin and into his own chest. He screamed.

"Jesus, let's get the hell out of here." Veronica grabbed Cordelia by the wrist and dragged her toward the door. Spector broke contact and stared for a moment at the muscles in the Astronomer's forearm. The old man was massaging his heart to keep it going. The Astronomer stared hatefully at Spector. "Dead. All of you."

Spector ran after the women. "Hey, come back. We have to finish him now" He heard a hiss as the Astronomer started breathing again. "Fuck it. Somebody else will have to do it."

Spector ran through the apartment toward the elevator. Veronica had her dress caught on the elevator door and was tearing at it to get free. Spector dived inside the elevator, knocking Veronica down and putting another tear in her already-ruined dress. Cordelia punched the button for the ground floor. The cables creaked and the car began to go down.

"I don't get it," Jay said. "I just don't get it. Not milk. Not lemon juice. Heat doesn't do a thing. The impressions are too faint to be worth a bucket of warm spit. I just don't get it." He slammed the notebook shut with a sound of disgust, and stared down morosely at the bamboo pattern on the blue cloth cover. Hiram stood by the window, peering out around the corner of a torn shade. Jay's tiny two-room office was on the fourth floor of a dilapidated brick building on 42nd Street, half a block off Broadway. From the window he could see the marquee of the Wet Pussycat Theater. Alternating messages flashed in blue and red on the neon sign to his left. GIRLS GIRLS NAKED GIRLS was blue, while ALL-DAY ALL-NIGHT ALL-TOPLESS was red. Popinjay said he met a nice class of people in the building.

Hiram dropped the shade and turned away from the lights. Jay's desk was covered with the remains of the pizzasausage, mushrooms, extra cheese, anchovies on Ackroyd's half that they'd finished an hour ago. Hiram had been giving his power a workout, and it had left him drained and famished. The pie had helped. He wished they had another. Instead, they had three rather troublesome books.

"We can't stay here," Hiram said, lowering himself to sit on the radiator. He'd let his real weight return for the last few hours, to give himself a rest, and the ladderback chair Jay kept for clients hadn't been equal to the task. Hiram wasn't sure he was either; he felt exhausted. "They have to be looking for us," he continued. "Sooner or later they'll find your office."

" I don't know why," Ackroyd said. "The clients never do."

"Droll," said Hiram. " I hope you retain your sense of your humor when people begin shooting at us."

"No one's shown yet," Popinjay pointed out. "Hey, Yankee Stadium's a long walk, especially on one foot."

"A foot and a half," Hiram said.

"For all we know, Demise is still up on top of the scoreboard, and Loophole is still sitting by the phone, wondering whatever became of him."

Hiram stood, frowning. He was very tired. Lack of sleep was beginning to catch up to him, now that he was no longer in any immediate danger. He needed coffee. Better yet, he needed eight or ten hours in bed, preferably without having to worry about someone breaking into his house to kill him. "Enough is enough," he declared. "I seem to recall vaguely that we had a good reason for getting involved in this, but I can't recall just what it was." He crossed the room, picked up the two notebooks with the black leather covers. "My interests run to numismatics rather than philately, but I know these stamps are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, at the very least. As for that other book, I don't know what to make of it, and neither do you. It's of no value to us."

"Makes us the odd men out," Ackroyd said. "Everybody else sure as hell wants it."

"Precisely," Hiram told him. "I'm going to call