Wild Cards

“We call him Birdbrain,” Flowers chortled. “Because he can control the minds of birds—one at a time, that is.”

As a longtime baseball fan, Nighthawk had already detested Charlie Flowers. Now, interacting with him personally for the first time, he really loathed him.

The bird flew up from Kandiah’s shoulder, circled the table, and landed in front of Galante, where it proceeded to spread its wings and do sort of a bobbing and hopping dance in front of Galante’s pile of chips.

Galante had a look of intense dislike on his face. “Disgusting thing,” he said. “Rat with wings.”

Next to Nighthawk, Meek made a gesture with his right hand. A spectrum of light, like a rainbow, arced from his palm, striking the bird in mid-hop. The pigeon vanished.

Nighthawk looked at Meek with new interest in his eyes, as did everyone else in the room.

“I told you,” Meek said to him. “I make problems disappear.” He glanced at Timmy, who was looking at him with somewhat like horror. “Don’t worry, kid, he’s okay. I just sent him to a better place.”

Teleportation? Nighthawk thought. Interesting. An extremely potent power, and useful. There was more to Meek, he decided, than appearances would allow.

“All right,” Flowers said briskly, unconcerned by his nephew’s downcast expression. “Let’s get to business. Or sport, eh?” He elbowed Dagmar in the ribs, rubbing his meaty hands together briskly.

“Yeah.” Galante took his gaze from Meek and ostentatiously consulted the expensive Rolex on his wrist. “Well, we’re expecting one more player. He seems to be running late. It’s past nine. Let’s give him a couple more minutes—”

Even as Galante spoke there was a shimmering in the air, felt more by the brain than seen by the eye. Suddenly three newcomers stood in the room.

The woman in the center was the tallest. She was almost six feet and wore a robe of shining fabric that for some reason Nighthawk found difficult to focus his eyes on. Her skin was pale, her long black hair fell like a rippling cloak to her waist, but her silver eyes were her most arresting feature. Nighthawk felt that it might be unwise to look into them too deeply or for too long.

She embraced two others, one in the crook of each arm. The other woman was almost as tall as her, leggy, blond, with smoky-blue eyes and a bored expression on her exquisite face. She wore a black sheath dress that revealed the creamy skin of her upper breasts and displayed a lot of silky thigh. Around her long, graceful neck was a diamond choker with a single large sapphire shining like the tear of an angel.

Nighthawk was relieved—somewhat. The woman in the diamond choker was Margot Bellerose, internationally famous French actress. Nothing to worry about there. The ace who’d delivered her was another matter. Lilith. Teleporter and assassin. Mistress of the knife. The case that held the buy-in cash was slung around one of her shoulders.

As to the player himself—

“Siraj, Hashemite Prince of the Royal House of Jordan and President of the Caliphate of Greater Arabia,” Lilith announced in a voice that managed to be haughty and languid at the same time.

Siraj bowed a precise millimeter in the general direction of the poker table and put out his hand. Bellerose took it with an air of pouty boredom and they approached the table together. Siraj was short, handsome, and dark, if more than a little plump. He was reputed to have a sharp mind and an almost bottomless bank account.

Prince Siraj took the last empty seat at the table and snapped a finger to one of the two barmaids, who hustled up another chair. Bellerose slipped into it with the air of a queen about to expire from ennui, playing with her choker as she glanced disinterestedly around the table.

“Let’s get this show on the road!” Flowers suggested.

“Agreed,” Galante said with a degree of oily unctuousness, “but first, the house rules. They are few, but important. Number one, gentlemen. The buy-in.”

Khan strolled around the table, collecting the various bags, valises, and briefcases offered by the players or their seconds.

“The cash will be counted,” Galante said, “just for propriety’s sake, and be put in the suite’s safe for safekeeping. Your chips are already in place before you. Rule number two. The game is over when one player holds all of those chips. Rule number three. The play is table stakes, dealer’s choice, no limit. Is that all agreeable?”

Murmurs went around the table.

“Good. Play will be continuous, but if someone wants to take a break for a snack, or, whatever, heh-heh, there are private rooms in the suite to eh, freshen up in.”

Flowers, eyeing one of the barmaids, a lissome joker model with bunny ears and a cute fluffy tail, asked, “All part of the service?”

“All part of the service,” Galante agreed.

“Great.”

“Finally, no telepathy.” Galante’s voice turned low with more than a hint of danger. “We have ways of detecting it and identifying whoever may be using it. The offender will lose their stake.” He paused a moment. “And probably more.” He looked around the table, his gaze resting momentarily on each player. “Understood?”

He got six answers in the affirmative. The last player he looked at was Dutton, and his eyes lingered.

“I know the world we live in, but this is a friendly game.” Galante’s smile was almost sincere. “Masks are not allowed at the table, Mr. Dutton, because of the unfair advantage that they give.”

Dutton may have smiled under his mask. At least, it moved a little bit on his face. “Far be it for me to take unfair advantage, Mr. Galante,” he said in his sepulchre voice.

He removed the mask and let it drop on the table before him. There were several audible gasps. Even Galante blanched a little. Flowers murmured, “Eew.” Bellerose, seemingly entranced, whispered, “Magnifique.” Golden Boy looked on, unmoved.

“Shall we play?” Dutton asked, what might have been a smile twitching across his face.

Galante grinned in reply and broke open a pack of cards sitting near him on the table.

“Of course,” he said. “As host, I deal the first hand. The game starts, as always, with a hand of Low Chicago. Afterwards, winner deals and chooses the play. Ante up, gentlemen.”

Everyone took one of the red chips from the pile before him and tossed five thousand dollars into the pot.

There was, Nighthawk thought as the game began, an authentic rush of excitement in the air. He’d been involved in a few marathon poker games in his life, nothing approaching stakes like these, of course, and he knew that they had a rhythm, a kind of ebb and flow, depending largely on the personalities of those involved. And the seven players here, he realized, had about as wide a range of personalities as could be found. It didn’t take too long to sort them out.

Galante was a bold, impulsive player. He also wore his emotions openly on his face. He took chances—it was gambling, after all—but more often than not he succeeded when he did. He also drank steadily, but he seemed to hold his liquor well.

Jack Braun, to his left, was the most distracted player at the table. One and sometimes both of the twins were hanging on to him. He had a fair poker face—a reviewer had once said that as an actor his facial expressions ran the gamut from A to B—but was careless with the way he held his cards and in the way he played. He didn’t drink as much as Galante, but then he didn’t hold his drink as well, either.

Charlie Flowers was the most intense player at the table. He gripped his cards tightly, he stared around at everyone as the bets were made like he was trying to read their minds. Unfortunately, he was a bad reader.

Siraj’s play was as smooth and deft as his manners. He was probably, in Nighthawk’s judgment, one of the two best players at the table.

Dutton, with his ultimate poker face, was the other. He too was suave and mannered, but he had the advantage of looking like Death.

Will Monroe was affable and full of chitchat. Nighthawk couldn’t tell if he was just a little scatterbrained, or was cunningly trying to distract the other players as he explained, sometimes in excruciating detail, the fine points of the game to his attendant, Abigail, who didn’t seem all that interested. Nighthawk kept wondering why she was there. She seemed more bored than anyone else present, except possibly for Timmy, who soon lost interest in the proceedings, but thankfully didn’t call in any more birds to play with.

John Fortune was all business, as if this were work for him, not fun. He concentrated on the game, though as it started he acknowledged Nighthawk with a nod. Which Nighthawk returned. He wondered if his presence was conjuring bad memories for Fortune, since the last time he’d seen him he was being held by the Midnight Angel and sobbing over his father’s death. It hadn’t been a pleasant time for anyone.

Flowers got off to a bad start, Siraj to a fast one. Within the first hour Siraj had won three hands in a row, taking a lot of chips from Flowers.

“Motherfucking—” Flowers began after Siraj had called his bluff and raked in a big pot.

Prince Siraj looked at him, quirking an eyebrow. “What did you say?”

Flowers gestured impatiently. “Hey, nothing personal. Wasn’t talking to you, directly.”

“There are ladies present,” Siraj said in his smooth English accent.

“Ladies,” Flowers snorted. “If by ladies you mean whor—”

“I mean ladies.” Siraj cut him off again, this time with iron in his tone. “And if you want to take a brief break and discuss this matter personally, I will be more than happy to indulge you.”

“Hey, Prince, it was just locker room talk—”

“We are not currently in a locker room, Mr. Flowers,” Siraj said, “and when you were you didn’t know how to behave decently. Your actions were beneath contempt.”

Next to him, Bellerose tittered.

Flowers flushed red for a moment. He turned and looked at Julie Cotton, the joker bar attendant, who was standing nearby, just having brought Galante another tumbler of whiskey, straight up. “Hey, girlie,” he said. “Bring me a bourbon.” He paused. “Does that tail come off with the costume, honey?”

Bellerose tittered again.

“No, sir,” Cotton said with as much dignity as she could muster.

“Enough,” Galante said impatiently. “Deal the cards. We’re playing poker here, right?”

By two A.M. Nighthawk was starting to think that all the bodyguards were a bit unnecessary. The game progressed with intensity, but without untoward incidents. Even though the fortunes of all players were shifting, no one was yet showing signs of worry.

Whether Dutton’s supreme poker face helped him or not, he and Prince Siraj were the big winners. They had piles of chips stacked before them, representing about half the total table. John Fortune was playing with stoic skill, but so far the cards weren’t favoring him. He was essentially even after the first five hours of play. Jack Braun was drunk as a lord and losing steadily, but he seemed unconcerned and was paying more attention to Hildy and Dagmar than the cards. He’d left the table with them twice, taking them to one of the private rooms for two half-hour breaks, and returning each time if not more sober at least with a happy look on his face. He and Galante, who was drunk as a pissed-off mafioso, and Will Monroe, who was steadily sipping scotch and ginger ale, had about two million in chips among them. Charlie Flowers was moaning over his pile, which was about half as high as when they’d started.

The various bodyguards all mostly remained in a state of taciturn alertness. None of them had partaken of alcoholic beverages, although the one who looked like Tor Johnson had consumed an ungodly amount of bar snacks ranging from chips and salsa to caviarspread crackers to a dozen doughnuts of various types and fillings. Others had eaten more sparsely of the spread, which was dispensed efficiently and prettily by the bunny-eared joker and the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl, who’d also been kept busy serving single malt to Braun, bourbon to Flowers, whiskey to Galante, and other beverages to the rest of the players.

Abigail was the most attentive of the onlookers. She sat in a chair a little behind Will Monroe, following every turn of the cards. Pug the ex–child star was asleep on the far right sofa that lined the suite’s outside wall. Flowers’s nephew with the contemptuous nickname of Birdbrain was soundly asleep on the middle sofa. One of Fortune’s bodyguards, the dancer or martial artist, occupied the third one, but she at least was alert … though it seemed to Nighthawk that she was watching him and Meek more closely than the game. Nighthawk never looked at her directly, but he could feel her eyes upon him and Meek and he wondered why they were the center of her attention.

“Shit!” Flowers exclaimed crudely and loudly, throwing his cards down in disgust as John Fortune raked in the current pot. “I need something to change my luck!” He stood and grabbed the arm of the dark-haired bar attendant named Irina. She’d just passed by his seat after delivering another whiskey to Galante. “Come on, baby, let’s see what you can deliver besides drinks.” He pulled her into one of the bedrooms and closed the door after them.

Fortune piled his chips, tossed in a red for the ante. “Seven-card stud,” he announced.

He liked, Nighthawk had noticed, the more straightforward games, without wild cards or split pots.

By five o’clock Golden Boy was busted. All his chips were gone, as was one of the twins, who’d disappeared with Bellerose into one of the private rooms, unnoticed by everyone but Nighthawk. At least, no one had the poor taste to remark upon their absence. Braun himself was still seated at the table, but was asleep, head down upon it. Dagmar (or was it Hildy?) was curled up on the chair behind Braun, also asleep, but a lot cuter than Jack, who, much to Galante’s disgust, was snoring.

“Somebody wake that stiff up. He’s drooling on my card table,” Galante said. “And order me a steak sandwich.”

His redheaded bodyguard named Cyn stood, stretched like a cat, and went to Braun’s side. She was a pleasure to watch as she pulled Golden Boy Braun upright and settled him back in his chair, then continued on her way to call room service. “Ah, Mom,” Braun moaned. “It ain’t time to milk the cows yet. Lemme sleep s’more.”

There were general guffaws and titters around the table.

“C’mon,” Flowers said, “we gonna play cards or milk the cows? I got a lot of money to win back.”

“Good luck with that,” Will Monroe observed dryly. He tossed in a red chip to ante for the next hand. “You got enough to cover that?”

Flowers had maybe a dozen blues and a slightly higher stack of whites, the two lowest denominations at a thousand and five hundred dollars each, respectively.

“You worry about your own pile, movie boy,” Flowers said gruffly, but Nighthawk thought that the ex–baseball player had to know that Monroe was right. He was one, maybe two losing hands away from being busted.

At this point Dutton was the big winner, Fortune and Siraj were roughly tied with the second largest piles of chips. Monroe and Galante were both down.

“I’ll give you a chance to last another couple hands,” Galante, who had won the previous pot, said generously as he started to deal. “Five-card stud.”

Galante dealt the first card facedown around the table, then the second, faceup. The exposed cards ranged from John Fortune’s deuce to a queen for Prince Siraj. Siraj checked and the bet went around the table to Galante, who had a ten showing.

“Bet a thousand,” he said, and everyone added a blue chip to the pot.

The third up card was dealt and Flowers got an ace, but Monroe received a second eight.

“A thousand on each,” the producer said. All called but Galante, who folded.

Flowers smiled when Galante dealt him a second ace in the fourth round. He had the high hand showing, though Fortune was dealt a second deuce to join the ballplayer and Monroe with pairs. “About time,” Flowers said, not bothering to conceal a smile. He tossed four whites into the pot for another raise of two thousand dollars.

Prince Siraj folded without a word or expression. Dutton folded with a smile that could only be described as sinister.

“I’ll keep you honest,” Monroe said to Flowers with a straight face, tossing in two blues.

Fortune silently added two of his own to the pot.

Galante dealt the last round to the three who were still in the game. Monroe got a nine, Flowers a queen, and Fortune a three.

Flowers looked from Monroe, who was expressionless, to Fortune, who had a small smile on his face. Flowers had one blue and ten white chips left.

“Check,” he said.

Fortune’s smile grew wider. He added six thousand dollars to the pot.

Flowers stared at him. Fortune looked back levelly. Seconds ticked away.

“Shit,” Galante said, “you might as well go all in in case he’s bluffing. You’ll be gone the next hand, anyway.”

Seconds more passed like hours crawling by. Nighthawk could see sweat beading Flowers’s forehead. His hands twitched once, reaching for his final chips, and then froze as the door to the hotel suite opened. He looked back over his shoulder, but it was only a waiter delivering Galante’s sandwich on a covered silver tray. He also carried a small folding table.

“Goddamn it,” Flowers swore.

The waiter, an elderly man in hotel livery, came to the table.

“Who ordered the steak sandwich?” he asked.

Cyn, who had resumed her seat, nodded at Galante. “Over here.”

“Bring me a whiskey on the rocks,” Galante said with a glance at Irina. He returned his attention to the game as the waiter deftly set the folding table down, after Cyn scootched her chair over to make room.

Irina approached with the drink as Flowers pushed his remaining chips into the pot with an agonized gesture. Fortune looked at Monroe, who shook his head.

“Your move,” he said.

Still smiling, Fortune turned over his hole card, revealing a third deuce.

“Goddamn it!” Flowers stood up suddenly, pushing his chair back and bumping into Irina, who staggered. The drink that she was delivering to Galante slid from her tray into his lap.

For one brief moment time seemed frozen and Nighthawk could smell the danger that suddenly speared the air. He started to rise. Irina, a stricken look on her face, started to bend over, reaching out with the cloth napkin that had been draped over her forearm. “I’m sor—”

Galante swiveled in his chair. “You clumsy bitch!” He slapped her in the face hard enough to knock her to the floor.

There was another moment of silence, broken by a wordless shout of rage from the waiter, who swung the tray bearing the steak sandwich and accompanying fries at Galante, catching him on the side of the head and knocking him and his chair onto the floor.

And suddenly all hell broke loose.

Khan rose from his seat with a feline roar and reached for the waiter, but the old man was changing. In the blink of an eye his body mass seemed to double, shredding the uniform that he wore. All the added mass was solid muscle. The waiter backhanded Cyn and she slammed into the wall and rebounded, stunned. Khan reached across Galante’s fallen chair and he and the waiter grappled. They stood locked together for a moment, clearly matched in strength.

Dutton, Nighthawk thought. He grabbed his client, hoisted him over the bar, and dropped him behind it onto the floor, turning back in time to see Khan and the waiter smash onto the table and roll over it, scattering chips and cards. John Fortune dove away. Tor Johnson stood, uncertain. Flowers drew a pistol he’d had in a shoulder holster. Lilith drew a blade and moved to Siraj, but Meathooks, next to her, lashed out, catching her in the side with the metallic hooks that’d sprung from his hands. Lilith staggered backwards, her gown suddenly torn and very bloody.

It was all happening so fast that Nighthawk could do nothing but stand his ground. Besides, his duty was to Dutton and his job was to stay between him and whatever danger might come his way. So far, all of the action was across the table.

Meathooks stumbled against Flowers as he avoided the sweep of Lilith’s blade. Charlie Flowers was shouting and spraying shots. One struck Prince Siraj as he rose from his chair. Khan and the waiter were hammering at each other, as a dazed Cyn pushed to her knees and unleashed a gout of flame that ripped the chandelier from the ceiling and set off the smoke alarm. Part of the heavy glass-and-metal fixture landed on Siraj. Fortune shouted, “Help him,” but before either of his bodyguards could move, Khan and the waiter, still locked together, lurched off the table and bumped into Cyn. Her flames licked across the room. Nighthawk felt the heat of it wash over him, but he was only at its very edge. Part of it flicked across Meek, who cried out in pain, raised both hands, and filled the suite with rainbow light.

The rainbows seemed to wrinkle the very air. Whoever they touched simply disappeared. Only Charles Dutton, on the floor behind the bar, and Nighthawk, at Meek’s side, remained. All that remained of the other players, companions, and servers were a few untidy heaps of clothing and jewelry that marked where they’d been standing, sitting, or sleeping.

The window drapes were aflame. Nighthawk, quelling the questions screeching in his brain, arose and put out the fire before the sprinklers came on, using a soda water bottle from the stocked bar. As he was spraying down the draperies the two women emerged from the bedroom, where they’d been occupied.

“Siraj?” Margot Bellerose cried. “What happened? What happened?” Her voice rose in panic. “Where is everyone?”

Nighthawk turned to Meek, who was slapping at the burning sleeve of his jacket. Teleportation, he thought. “Where did you send them?” Nighthawk demanded.

But Meek shook his head. “Not where. When.”

Down the Rabbit Hole

by Kevin Andrew Murphy

NICK WILLIAMS HAD NEVER been to Chicago before, let alone its Gold Coast district. The Playboy Mansion was Beaux Arts, built to impress, four stories of classical French brick and exposed limestone with a steep slate roof and attic windows flanked with Grecian urns. The chauffeur who’d met him at the airport carried his suitcase up the walkway. Nick carried the Argus’s case himself. He paused for a moment to read the brass plaque set over the main door: Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare. Nick grinned, his high school Latin coming in handy for more than the mottos of movie studios: If You Don’t Swing, Don’t Ring.

The February weather was much cooler than Los Angeles, and he wished he’d brought a heavier coat. But it was warmer inside, especially in the parlor off the black-and-white marble foyer. Hef awaited in an ornate Victorian wingback chair upholstered in rose velvet, flanked not by classical urns but by classic beauties. Two young women, a blonde and a brunette, lounged on matching divans to each side, attired in diaphanous gowns like the Muses of old … or perhaps a more sybaritic interpretation of Old King Cole’s attendants, since the blonde was pouring Hef a snifter of cognac from the requisite decanter of an unlocked tantalus while the brunette reclined near a Delft tobacco jar and a matching porcelain box. The pipe was in Hef’s hand, and he was dressed in a rich black velvet smoking jacket and slippers, all the better to enjoy the roaring fire in the parlor’s fireplace. The porthole television in the burl-wood cabinet opposite glowed like a fortune-teller’s crystal ball. The all-seeing eye within winked and vanished, the CBS logo replaced by the Olympic rings, then the dizzying melody of Strauss’s “Acceleration Waltz” started up, a Dutch beauty entering the Squaw Valley ice arena.