Jokers Wild Page 0,32

on, passing Arachne, whose eight slender legs caught at the line of silk extruding from her bulbous body and wove it swiftly into one of her famous spider-silk shawls. Her daughter was busy in their booth hanging out an array of delicately dyed scarves and shawls. Most nats would never have purchased one of the trembling, almost transparent scraps of fabric if they'd seen it being created, but Arachne made a good living supplying the scarves to Saks and Neiman-Marcus. Roulette owned one, a delicate peach-colored creation that looked like she had thrown a sunset over her dark shoulders. If she had known Arachne was going to be on Henry Street she would have worn it to show the woman that she at least did not mind the source, and that she honored the artistry.

There was a low rumbling that gained in speed and intensity, and ended with a crashing boom as Elmo, the Palace's resident bouncer, rolled another metal keg of beer out the front door and into the street where it joined its brethren like a rotund cue slamming into a setup of stumpy balls. The bouncer, who looked rather like a beer keg himself, flexed his shoulders in satisfaction, and headed back for another one.

Kids darted up and down the pavement chasing a battered soccer ball while at the far end of the block an impromptu baseball game had begun. Ghetto blasters throbbed out a cacophony of conflicting music: soul, rock, country, classical. Children cried and mothers called, but this madness had a sense of serenity and security; a feeling of family. Nowhere did she sense that desperate and nerve-stretching drive to have fun that had gripped the dancing throng outside Freakers. These people, as hideous as many of them were, were at peace with themselves.

Roulette tore her eyes from the gang of playing urchins, and forced herself to scan the crowd for a distinctive, tiny, redheaded figure. Thirty minutes ago she had stopped at the jokertown clinic only to be told by Tachyon's very cool, very elegant, very beautiful, and very disapproving chief of surgery that the good doctor was not present, but could no doubt be found making house calls at any one of a number of bars. Roulette had tried Ernie's and Wally's and the Funhouse with no luck, and now the Crystal Palace...

And she found him.

Seated at a small table among many other small tables that had been squeezed onto the sidewalk out front of the Palace. Brandy snifter held lightly between long, slender fingers, glass tilting softly so the amber liquid flowed gracefully about the sides. Another glass figure standing at his left shoulder, but this one filled with the bone and viscera that form a human being, long nails painted an iridescent pink, a dusting of silverblue glitter across one unseen cheek. Chrysalis herself.

Roulette had reached the moment. She hadn't thought beyond simply finding the Takisian, but now having found him what did she do? Faint? Sprain an ankle? She knew-as did most of the world-of the alien's fascination with beautiful women, but there were lots of beautiful women in New York, and what if he'd already found a companion for the day? And if he hadn't, how could she insure that he picked her? Beauty she had, but not the skills that usually accompanied it. She had never mastered the art of flirting. And in that moment she felt a surge of relief. She would walk past; if he noticed... well, so be it. He was meant to meet his fate. If not... She tried not to think of the wizened little man lurking in his damp lair.

She focused her eyes on the barricade, and began to count her steps, noting how the crepe-rubber soles of her shoes seemed to spring away from the concrete, and the way her slacks whispered against her ankles, and the brush of her braided hair against--

"I think you're a fool." Chrysalis bit off the words in her clipped British way. "Every year you start out here, having your first brandy of the day, remain sober long enough to get through your speech, begin soaking up beer at the game, maintain your liquid diet right through Hiram's dinner, and then to put a perfect cap on the day, you end up back here, blind drunk, guilty, and miserable. Why don't you take my advice and-"

"And every year you give me the same advice," Tachyon said in lilting counterpoint.

"Go to Miami," they concluded in chorus.

Tachyon's smile

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