Jokers Wild Page 0,169

in the street and pointed toward the sky. "Will you look at that?"

They all looked. Jack squinted and at first didn't realize what he was staring at. Then the details coalesced.

It was Jetboy's plane. After forty years, the JB-1 soared again above the Manhattan skyline. High-winged and trouttailed, it was indisputably Jetboy's pioneering craft. The red fuselage seemed to glow in the first rays of morning.

There was something wrong with the image. Then Jack realized what it was. Jetboy's plane had speed lines trailing back from the wings and tail. What the hell? he thought. But for the moment, he was as transfixed by the vision as everyone else around him. It was as though they were all collectively holding one breath.

Then things came apart.

One wing of the JB-1 started to fold back and tear away from the fuselage. The plane was breaking up. "Jesus-fucking-jumping-joker-Christ," someone said. It was almost a prayer.

Jack suddenly realized what he was seeing. It wasn't the JB-1, not really. He watched bits of aircraft rip loose that were not aluminum or steel. They were fashioned of bright flowers and twisted paper napkins, two-by-fours and sheets of chicken wire. It was the plane from the Jetboy float in yesterday's parade.

Debris began to fall slowly down toward the streets of Manhattan, just as it had four decades before.

Jack saw what had been masked within the replica of Jetboy's plane. He could make out the steel shell, the unmistakable outline of a modified Volkswagen Beetle.

"God bless!" Someone said it for all of them. "It's the Turtle!"

Jack could hear cheering from the next block, and the block beyond that. As the last bits of the JB-1 replica sifted down toward the city, the Turtle snapped into a victory roll.

Then he swept around in a graceful are and seemed to vanish in the east, occulted by the sun now edging above the tops of the office towers.

"Can. you beat that?" said one of the refugees from Freakers. "The Turtle's alive. Fuckin' terrific." The grin on his face echoed in his voice.

Jack realized Cordelia was no longer standing beside him. He looked around in confusion. From just behind his shoulder, Ackroyd said, "She said to tell you she had things to do. She'll let you know how things work out."

Jack spread his hands helplessly. "How will I find her?" Ackroyd shrugged. "You found her this morning, didn't you?" The man hesitated. "Oh yeah, she also said to tell you she loves you." He put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Come on, I'll buy you a brew." He turned toward the neon woman. She had paled now in the breaking daylight. Back over his shoulder, the detective said, "i'll give you my card. Worst comes to worst, you can hire me."

Jack hesitated.

Ackroyd said, "Also I'll introduce you around. I heard you started to change in there. I don't know you, but I've got a feeling there are quite a few of our colleagues you don't know either. It's about time you made their acquaintance."

Billy Ray had overheard. "Fuck you, Ackroyd," he said. Ackroyd grinned. "Those justice boys have a thing about us gumshoes."

Before Jack followed him into Freakers, he looked one more time into the east. In the sun-glare, he couldn't see the Turtle.

It was a new morning. But then they were all new mornings.

It had taken Spector the better part of an hour to track down a cab in Jokertown. He sat in the back seat, thumbing through the early edition of the Times. Except for the Astronomer, all the dead aces had their pictures on the front page, surrounded by a black border. There was a question mark next to the Turtle, but he was obviously still alive and kicking. Specfor was almost glad. But he couldn't figure out why he wasn't dead too. He'd always managed to survive. Most losers did. "Yesterday was a hell of a day, I'll tell you," the cabbie said.

"Yesterday?" Spector shook his head. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. It was like a long, bad dream.

"Yeah. It would suit me fine if all those aces killed each other off I got no use for them."

Spector ignored him and pulled out the sports section. He wondered if the Nets would be any better this year.

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"What do you think about aces?"

"I don't. Why don't you just shut your mouth and drive." It was several minutes before the cabbie spoke again. "Here we are. What the hell do you want down here?"