Jokers Wild Page 0,167

Looking at the moving neon woman astraddle the door, Jack thought that maybe some people arrived here simply by following their darkest instincts.

The neon seared his retinas like a branding iron. This hour of the early morning, there was no one guarding the door. Presumably this was the time of day when only the most dedicated clientele showed up.

Ignoring the swooping, glowing lines above him, Jack pushed open the door and entered. Smoke, muted conversational noise, geometric patterns in neon primariesthese were what he noticed first.

Across the main room, an obviously tired stripper desultorily went through the motions on a cylindrical revolving stage. Bathed in a rose spotlight, she undulated to a slow beat Jack couldn't even hear. He squinted, trying to focus in the smoke. He realized the strippers abdomen was covered with what looked like pairs of vertical lips. She was down to her last Gstring.

Jack turned away, scanned the tables. He headed toward the cheap, plank-hewn bar. Then he saw the row of booths at the back. There was a girl in one of them-a young woman with black hair falling straight along the sides of her thin face. She was dressed in a startling, clingy blue dress. She stared directly at him.

There was a nondescript man in a brown suit standing over the booth, talking to the young woman. He straightened as Jack approached. Jack faltered, then walked up to them. Ignoring the man in brown, Jack looked down at the woman. She started to smile.

"Uncle Jack?" The malachite eye in the silver alligator hanging from her left earlobe flashed as it caught light from the follow-spot clicking off on the stage.

"Cordeia"

She was instantly out of the booth and holding onto him as though she were traveling steerage and he had the only life preserver on the Titanic. They stayed that way for long seconds.

The man who had been talking to Cordelia said, "Hey, you want that, maybe you should rent a room." It seemed to be spoken without real malice. Jack looked up across Cordelia's shoulder at him. The man's suit jacket was rumpled. He wore no tie. To Jack, he looked as one might imagine a cashiered, down-at-the heels FBI agent on the skids. The man offered a wry grin. "Hey, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. No offense."

"Do I know you?" said Jack.

"The name's Ackroyd;" said the man. "Jay Ackroyd, PI" He put out his hand.

Jack ignored it. The two men looked each other in the eye for a few seconds. Then Ackroyd smiled. "It's over, man. For now, at least. Everybody's dead-butt tired. Truce." He gestured around the bar. "Besides, nobody'd do anything while Billy Ray's nursing his beer." Jack followed the line of Ackroyd's finger. He saw a guy wearing a white stretch fighting suit sitting alone at a table. The man's features were mismatched, asymmetrical. His jaw looked inflamed and he was sipping his beer through a straw. "Pride of the Justice Department. Baddest of bad-asses," said Ackroyd. "Listen, cool out, have something to drink, visit with your niece." He stepped away from the booth. "I gotta get some fresh air anyway." Ackroyd headed for the door, weaving just a little in his scuffed brown loafers.

"Sit down, Uncle Jack." Cordelia tucked him onto the seat beside her in the booth.

"What are you drinking?" He touched the glass. "7-Up." She giggled. "I wanted RC, but they don't have any up here."

"We've got it," said Jack. "You can get anything in Manhattan. You're just in the wrong neighborhood."

A barmaid in satin top and shorts, her visible skin showing a stitchwork of granular tumors, came over to the booth. "Something to drink?" Jack ordered a beer. Iron City. That was the sort of imported brew you could order in a place like this. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said. "Bagabondmy friend-and I have been looking all day for you. I saw you at the Port Authority-you got away before I could get through the crowd. You were with someone who looked like a pimp."

"He was, I guess," said Cordelia. "There was a man named Demise ... He saved me." She hesitated. "'Course then he helped try to kill me. This is a confusing town, Uncle Jack. "

"I owe him," said Jack. "One way or the other." For a split second, his face started to alter and his jaw to deform. He took a deep breath, settled back, felt his teeth resume their human size. "Why are you here? Your