Riders

by Lewis Shiner

The man was a Shinto priest, but in an attempt to satisfy everyone, he had worn a black suit and black turtleneck. There was enough March sunshine to make the clothing uncomfortable. He had visibly begun to perspire. "Dearly beloved," he said, with some sort of Asian accent, "we are gathered here today... to celebrate=" He stopped and looked down at the prayer book, puzzled. Then, looking horribly embarrassed, he flipped forward and started the service for the burial of the dead.

Veronica shifted uncomfortably on her metal folding chair, as did most of the small crowd of mourners. For Veronica, it was an attempt to keep from laughing. Ichiko, she thought, would have laughed. But Ichiko was dead.

" I did not know Ichiko personally," the priest said, beginning to drone. "But from what I understand, she was a kind, generous, and loving soul."

Veronica wondered how he could go through with it, to stand there next to her coffin and issue platitudes, to sum up the life of someone he'd never met. She tuned him out and looked around once again, hoping to see Fortunato. Ichiko was, after all, his mother. Veronica had sent the telegram herself to the monastery on Hokaido where Fortunato had retreated. There had been no answer, just as there had been no answer to any of the other letters or pleas that had been sent him. All she saw now was sunshine, birds splashing in the puddles left from a morning shower.

In all, maybe a dozen people had shown up for the service. Cordelia and Miranda, of course, who had been with Ichiko to the end. A handful of former geishas. Digger Downs, probably hoping for a glimpse of Fortunato. Three elderly men Veronica didn't recognize. None of Ichiko's famous clients, of course, could afford to be seen at her funeral. There were lots of flowers.

She looked at the old men again, wondering if one of them might be Jerry Strauss, in disguise. She hadn't heard from him since the previous fall, but it wasn't like Jerry to give up easily. It was Miranda who had told her about his ability to change his appearance, something he'd never let on about in all the time he was paying for her professional services. Still, if one of them had been Jerry, he would have been watching her. These three seemed to have trouble staying awake.

Then again, she thought, even Jerry might not recognize me now.

The transformation had started the night Hannah died, a year and a half before.

Hannah had become the thing Veronica lived for, the reason she cared what her body looked like, the reason she was able to wake up in the morning, the reason she went downtown everyday for her jolt of methadone mixed with sicklysweet orange drink. And Hannah had somehow, inexplicably, hanged herself in her jail cell before Veronica could get to her.

In the process of getting there, Veronica had learned something about herself even she hadn't known. Her sometime lover Croyd, temporarily spreading an infectious wild card virus, had given it to her. She had developed an ability that she didn't fully understand, that she had hardly used. It seemed to cause another person to become weak, helpless, devoid of willpower.

Even that power had not let her save Hannah's life. She'd left the police station and wandered back to the apartment she shared with Hannah and gone to bed, holding on to her cat and waiting and waiting for sleep. At three in the morning she came violently awake, sure that she was in danger. The police could find her there, and so could whoever had killed Hannah.

It was murder, beyond question. Some outside force had taken possession of Hannah in a midtown bank, while Veronica stood by helplessly. That same force had to be responsible for her suicide.

She packed a suitcase and put Liz in a cat carrier, and phoned for a cab. She waited in the shadows of the building's entrance until the cab arrived, then got in quickly and gave the address of Ichiko's brownstone.

Veronica had to go into Ichiko's bedroom and wake her up, which was more difficult than she'd expected. Finally Ichiko got out of bed and struggled into a kimono and took a few clumsy strokes at her hair with a brush. Veronica had never seen her without her makeup before. She had let herself forget how old Ichiko was, in her seventies now.

"I need help," Veronica said. "Hannah's dead. She killed herself-they say-in her jail cell." It was Ichiko who had sent her to Hannah in the first place, for drug counseling. "But she would never have killed herself. It's not like her."

"No," Ichiko said. "You are right. It is not her way."

"There's something between you two, isn't there?" A sudden pang of loss blinded her for a second. "I mean, there was something. You sent me to her, out of all the therapists in this city"

Ichiko nodded. "Years ago; she was part of a group, a feminist group."

"W O. R. S. E."

"Yes. That one. She had decided to make us her target. She wanted to have her people follow our geishas on their assignments and make trouble for them, draw attention to them, embarrass our clients. There is no doubt she could have destroyed the business this way."

"When was this?"

"Seven years ago. Nineteen eighty-one. She had just joined the group. She had many problems, with her marriage, with drinking and drugs. She was not... stable. She came to me and told me what she planned to do. She had not formally proposed it to the group yet."

"And?"

"And I gave her money not to."

"Hannah? You bribed Hannah?"

Ichiko held up her hands. " I made her an offer. A hundred-thousand-dollar anonymous donation to the organization. Enough money to keep them going for years. In exchange she would let me take my business apart slowly, in my own time, in my own way."

" I can't believe it."

"She was not the same woman then. When she brought in that donation, it gave her much power. She soon became president. That in turn gave her personal strength, let her conquer her private demons. There is no simple good and bad here."

"So the two of you stayed in touch."

"We shared that guilty secret. The guilt is mine also. I have done little to keep my end of the promise. Little until now. But perhaps the time has come."

"What about W O. R. S. E. ? Are you in touch with them? Could they help me?"

" I will try. But you are not safe here. Check into a hotel somewhere. Pay cash; do not use your real name. Tell no one. Call me tomorrow at noon. I will see what I can do."

Veronica did as she was told. The next day, Ichiko gave her a single name: Nancy. This was the woman who had arranged for Hannah's lawyer. Ichiko described her over the phone with typical precision: five foot three, long brown hair parted in the center, wire-rimmed glasses, small breasts, full hips. Veronica was supposed to meet her at Penn Station at three o'clock, by the ticket windows for the Long Island Railroad.

She stopped off for her methadone on the way. She still had a check from Ichiko in her purse, the check she'd been meaning to deposit two days before, when Hannah ...

Her numbness had started to wear off. The thought hurt her more than she could have imagined.

Finish it. When Hannah had gone berserk. Taken a guard's gun and started shooting.

The check would have to wait. She couldn't go back into that bank again, even if the cops weren't likely to be looking for her there.

Ichiko had said she was to be ready to travel, which meant lugging the suitcase and cat carrier with her. Liz hated being in the cage and squalled continuously. The suitcase, full of winter clothes, was enormously heavy. She was tired and sore and sweating by the time she made it through the labyrinth of tunnels to the LIRR.

Someone touched her elbow. "Veronica?"

Ichiko's description had been carefully nonjudgmental. It had omitted Nancy's clear skin, her smiling Clara Bow mouth. No makeup, of course. Intelligent light brown eyes. "Yes," Veronica said.

"I'm Nancy," she said. "I'll watch your things. Get us two one-way tickets for East Rockaway. We can just make the 3:23."

Veronica bought the tickets and Nancy carried her suitcase onto the train for her. They got settled and Veronica opened the door of the cat carrier to stroke Liz, hoping to shut her up. "Where are we going?" Veronica asked.

"I'm putting you up at my place for the duration. You'll be safe there. Not even Ichiko knows."

"I don't know how to thank you. I mean, you don't even know me."

"Hannah knew you. That's enough."

Veronica noticed the past tense. "You've heard, then." Nancy looked away, nodded stiffly.

"I'm sorry" Veronica said. "I don't know you, I don't know what to say to you."

Nancy nodded again, and Veronica suddenly realized what an effort she was making to be polite. "You don't have to say anything at all."

They changed in Jamaica. The wind whistled through the open platform, and Liz huddled in a corner of her cage, crying softly. They boarded the Long Beach train in silence.

When the train stopped in Lynbrook, Nancy suddenly grabbed Veronica's suitcase and started for the doors. "Come on," she said. "This is us."

Veronica got off the train behind her. "I thought..."

"It never hurts to cover your trail. Carrying that cat around--somebody at the ticket window might remember you." They walked downstairs and crossed the street to Carpenter Avenue. Veronica had never been on Long Island before, and the sense of space made her uncomfortable. None of the buildings were over two stories high. There were lawns and vacant lots covered with trees and grass. The streets were nearly empty.

Nancy led her to a door in a row of tall, narrow woodframe houses across from the library. There was a dead bolt but no police lock or alarm system. They climbed two flights of stairs to a refurbished attic. There was a bed, a bathroom with a shower, a half-size refrigerator, and a hot plate. A huge leather-covered armchair sat by a lamp and a crowded bookshelf.

"If somebody comes along who's got a worse problem than you, we'll have to make other plans. Until then, you can stay. I'll do your shopping for you, at least for a while, until we see how hard they're looking for you."

"I've got money," Veronica said. Or she would have, once she could find a way to cash the check. "I can pay for the room."

"That'll help." Nancy stood up. "I'll get you some foodand a litter box for the cat-and then I've got to get back to the city. Will you be okay here?"

Veronica nodded. Her growing despair seemed to make the wood-paneled walls grow even darker. "I'll be fine," she said.

The priest droned to a close, and the coffin was lowered into the ground. Ichiko would rather have been cremated, Veronica suspected. Miranda had refused to hear of it. And she had come up with this bastard amalgamation of Shinto and Catholic for a funeral service. Miranda was Ichiko's oldest friend, and she was Veronica's mother, so she got her way.

They filed past the hole, and each threw in a ceremonial shovelful of dirt. Veronica's dirt hit the coffin with a hollow whack. She passed the shovel on and went to stand by her mother. Miranda had walked well away from the others and stood with her arms folded, watching the driveway.

"He's not coming, Mother," Veronica said.

"He's Ichiko's only son. How could he not be here?"

"What do you want me to say? I could tell you maybe his flight was delayed. Maybe he got held up in customs. But you know as well as me he just decided not to come. She's dead, there's nothing he can do."

Except, she thought, use his tantric powers to bring her back to life. A particularly nasty thought that she left unsaid. Miranda started to cry. "It's the end of everything. The business is closed down, Ichiko's gone, Fortunato might as well be dead. And you, you've changed so much..."

I must be getting stronger, Veronica thought. I can almost handle this. She put her arms around her mother and held her until the crying passed.

It had taken Veronica a week to settle in at Nancy's house. Nancy had gotten her a fake birth certificate, which they'd then parlayed into a driver's license and a bank account. Ichiko had rewritten the check with Veronica's new name on it. With the money Veronica had Nancy buy her a portable stereo and a TV set for her attic cell.

She also got on a methadone program at Mercy Hospital. This was the biggest risk of all, but there was no way around it. It meant riding the bus up Peninsula Avenue once a day.

The hospital, with all its Catholic paraphernalia, seemed comforting to Veronica, an island of her childhood.

More and more she would find herself remembering her comfortable middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Miranda had been making a lot of money working for Fortunato, most of it going into savings. There was enough left over for a good-size apartment in Midwood, new clothes every fall, food, and a color TV Linda, Veronica's younger sister, lived in the apartment now, with her good-for-nothing husband, Orlando. Between Orlando and the smack, Veronica hadn't seen her sister in two years.

Nancy tried to talk her out of the trips to the hospital. It would be safer, she said, for Veronica to go back to shooting up. The words alone brought back the memory of the rush.

The floor seemed to drop out from under her like she was in a high-speed elevator. "No," she said. "Don't even kid around about it." What would Hannah have thought?

On her first Saturday night in the attic, there was a meeting downstairs. People showed up all through the afternoon, and the sound of movement and laughter filtering up through the stairwell only made Veronica's loneliness worse. For a week she had been cooped up there, seeing Nancy for no more than ten minutes a day. She lived for her short bus rides to the hospital, where she might sometimes exchange a few words with a stranger. Her life was turning into a prison sentence.

On Sunday, when Nancy came up to check on her, Veronica said, " I want to join the organization."

Nancy sat down. "It's not that easy. This isn't NOW or Women's Action Alliance or something. Hiding fugitives isn't the only illegal thing we do."

" I know that."

"We only invite people to join us after months, sometimes years of observation."

" I can help you. I worked for Ichiko for over two years." She took a notebook out of the nightstand by her bed. "This is my client list. We're talking some major people here: restaurant and factory owners, publishers, brokers, politicians. I've got names, phone numbers, preferences, personal statistics you're not going to find in Who's Who."

There was more, but Veronica wasn't willing to tell her the rest, not yet, about her ace power. She still didn't know how it worked or how to control it. And she didn't know what Nancy's reaction would be. Veronica had been watching CNN there in the room and was just starting to realize how strongly the tide had turned against wild cards. Aces and jokers were even turning on each other, thanks to Hiram Whatsisname, the fat guy's, murder of Chrysalis.

Nancy stood up. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to have to say this, but you pushed me to it. Try and look at it from our point of view. You're a prostitute, a fugitive, and a heroin addict. You're not exactly a good risk."

Veronica's face felt hot, as if she'd been slapped. She sat motionless, stunned.

"I'll talk to the others," Nancy said. "But I can't make any promises."

Ichiko's funeral was on a Sunday. On Monday, Veronica was back at work. At the moment, she was the receptionist at a company that published trade journals: Pipeline Digest,

Catering!, Trout World. The owner, one of Veronica's former clients, was the only male involved in the business, and he was never there.

When she'd decided to go back on the job market, she'd gone straight to her client files. At her first two interviews, the men who'd once salivated at the sight of her naked body simply stared at her. She'd put on twenty-five pounds in the last four months, and her metabolism, still trying to adjust to life without heroin, had taken it out on her complexion. She wore no makeup, her hair was cut short, and she'd given up dresses for loose drawstring pants and bulky sweaters. The men smiled with faint distaste and told her they'd let her know if something came up. The third interview landed her a cooking job at one of the better New York hotels. After a couple of months, she moved up to a senator's office.

She'd been with Custom Publishing for six weeks. For the first time in her life, she felt comfortable, surrounded by competent women. She had even relaxed enough to stop for a drink with them now and again at Close Encounters, a fern bar across the street.

Which she did on the Thursday after the funeral. It was still only slowly dawning on her that Ichiko was dead, that the most significant part of her life thus far was finally and absolutely over. She needed a little companionship to ease the sudden fits of panic and loss that would sneak up on her. A drink would have helped, but she'd quit that when she quit the heroin.

She looked up from their corner table at the restaurant to see a man standing beside her.

"Veronica?" he said.

She'd gone back to using her own name, but none of her new friends knew about her past. She wanted to keep it that way. "I don't think I know you," she said coolly. Betty, a woman in her fifties with steel-gray hair, stared at the man hungrily. He was young, good-looking in a soap-opera sort of way, wearing an Armani suit.

"We ... went out together a couple of years ago. Donald? You don't remember?"

There had probably been more than one man she'd forgotten, what with the heroin. "No," she said. "I wish you'd quit bothering me."

"I wanted to talk to you, just for a second. Please."

"Go away," Veronica said. She didn't like the touch of hysteria she heard in her own voice. "Leave me alone!" People all around them were looking now. The manDonald?-held up both hands and backed away. "Okay," he said. "I'm sorry"

Veronica saw, to her horror, that her wild-card power was affecting the man, without her conscious control. He had turned pale and seemed barely able to stay on his feet. He caught his balance on the back of an empty chair and walked unsteadily out the door.

Donna, a thirty-year-old blond who wore short skirts all winter long, said, "Are you crazy? He was gorgeous. And that suit must have cost a thousand bucks."

Betty said, "This is the first we've ever seen of your sordid past." She turned in her chair, watching Donald move away down the street. "You can't blame us for being curious. You never drink anything but club soda, you never talk about dates or husbands, none of us even know where you live...." Veronica tried a smile. It was supposed to be mysterious, but she could feel the wrongness of it. "My lips are sealed," she said.

On a Saturday evening, her third week in the attic in Lynbrook, there had been a knock on her door.

Nancy stood in the stairway, looking uncomfortable. "It's okay for you to sit in on the meeting. But for God's sake, don't say anything, okay? You'll just make me look like an idiot."

Veronica followed her downstairs. A dozen women sat around Nancy's dining-room table. They were all dressed casually; most wore little or no makeup. Three of them were black, two Latin, one oriental. One was a joker who seemed to have too much skin for her body; she had no hair, and folds of flesh hung off her chin and neck and hands. She looked like one of those weird wrinkled bulldogs that rich people sometimes had.

Only one of the women was under thirty, and she stood out like a panther in a rabbit hutch. She couldn't have been out of her teens. Even with her bulky winter clothes, Veronica could tell she was a bodybuilder. It showed in her neck and the width of her shoulders, in the way she held herself. Her hair was black, shoulder length, and to Veronica's expert eye, almost certainly a wig.

Veronica found a chair. The meeting started and lurched slowly forward. Every issue was put to a vote, and then only after endless debate. The young bodybuilder seemed as bored as Veronica. Finally she said, "Screw all that. Let's talk about Loeffler."

The joker said, "I can't see that being as important as the joker issue. Wild-card violence is tearing this city apart." She slurred her words, and Veronica found it hard to understand her.

One of the black women-Toni, her name was-said, "Zelda's right. This joker shit could take forever. Let's talk Loeffler."

The joker woman objected and was quickly overruled. Even W O. R. S. E., Veronica thought, was not completely free of prejudice. As the discussion heated up, Veronica put the pieces together. Robert Loeffler was the publisher of Playhouse magazine and head of the entire Global Fun & Games empire. The group intended to confront him and force changes in the magazine's attitude toward women. The problem was, nobody knew a way to get through to him. A slight woman in her fifties named Frances offered to use her locksmithing experience. Zelda wanted to use a bomb.

After a half hour of debate, Veronica excused herself. She went upstairs and copied Loeffler's unlisted phone number and the combination to his penthouse elevator on a piece of paper. She took it downstairs with her, handed it silently to Nancy, and took her chair again.

Nancy, across the table from her, said, "Where did you get this?"

The debate stopped.

Into the silence Veronica said, "I used to fuck him." The table came to life. In ten minutes they had the outline of a plan. The rush of power went right through the top of Veronica's head, like a hit of crystal meth.

Toni said, "Let's go on this. My only question is, how soon?"

Marline, the joker woman, threw her weight behind the bandwagon. "How about tonight?"

"We haven't got time to get set up," Veronica said. "But tomorrow is possible. Sundays were always good for him." The next night, Nancy and Veronica took the train to Penn Station, and Veronica made the call from a pay phone in the lobby of the Penta Hotel across the street.

"Bob? Veronica."

"Veronica!" His voice was muffed, but he sounded pleased. "Darling, how are you?"

"I'm gorgeous, Bob. And the thermostat in here doesn't seem to be working. It's so hot! I had to take all my clothes off." A gust of freezing air came through the front doors, attacking her legs. The extra weight she had put on in the attic made her feel thick and clumsy, and her nerves were ringing like a switchboard at a radio station. "And one part of me is hotter than all the others. I bet you remember which part that is."

She heard a soft moan. "Don't do this to me, Veronica. I'm a married man now. Don't you read the papers? She was the May Doll of the Month."

"I don't care if you're married to Miss America. It's not marriage I'm interested in." At first, Nancy's jaw had dropped in amazement. Now she was starting to crack up. Veronica had to turn away to keep from losing it herself. "I'm freelance now, Bob. I'm offering a special to my very favorite clients. The first one's free. Just to remind you why you should always let a professional take care of your needs. All your special needs. Hint, hint."

"Oh god. We can't do it here. Bev would kill me."

"That's why the good lord made hotels."

"Tonight?"

Veronica covered the receiver and mouthed "Tonight?" to Nancy, who nodded. "Sure, baby. I'm just over here at the Penta, with the heat turned all the way up. Oh! It's really getting damp and sticky in here."

"I'll be there in an hour."

"Call it ten o'clock? I'm ready now, but by ten o'clock I'll really be ready. I'll have the room set up just the way you like it. Call me from the lobby."

She made a kissing noise into the phone and hung up, a little uncomfortable at how easily it all came back. She left Nancy to phone for reinforcements and rented a room under her own name.

By ten till ten, they had five more women, including Toni and Zelda and Martine, the joker. Nancy wanted Veronica to get into bed with Loeffler so they could take pictures. Veronica refused.

"It's not like you've never done it before," Nancy said. "How much could it hurt?"

"Leave the chick alone," Zelda said. "I wouldn't want nobody inside my body unless they was invited."

"The ends are the means," said Toni. "We can't victimize our sister."

"Okay, okay," Nancy said.

"I got a better idea," Zelda said, taking off her clothes. She was not as built-up as Veronica had thought. She was smooth and feminine, with extraordinary muscle definition. Veronica found it a little hard to look away.

The phone rang. It was Loeffer. Veronica gave him the room number and told him to hurry. She left the hall door slightly ajar and took the other women into the darkened bathroom.

"Don't nobody fart," Zelda said, and there was muffled laughter.

Veronica heard Loeffler come in, the door clicking shut behind him. "Veronica?" he said. "Did you bring the pickles?" One of the women strangled a laugh.

"Get undressed," Veronica said through the door. "I've got a surprise for you."

She heard the sound of a zipper. "Mmmmmm. I love surprises." Clothes hit the floor, covers swished back, the bedsprings creaked. "Okay, darling, do your worst."

Zelda was the first through the door. She pulled the sheet down and had Loeffer's erect cock in her hand by the time Nancy got the lights on and the camera focused. Somebody else threw a copy of that day's New York Times on the bed to verify the date. It took Loeffler at least three frames to shove Zelda away and say, "Veronica, what the hell is going on here?" Veronica shook her head. Toni stood at the foot of the bed and presented their list of demands. They weren't asking him to kill Playhouse or turn it into a women's-lib magazine. They wanted the Doll of the Month to become Woman of the Month, and feature the occasional professional woman over thirty. Feature articles supporting the ERA and condemning the NRA. Fiction by women. In short, finish out the decade with at least a minimum of social consciousness.

"And," Zelda said, "I want your centerfolds to stop lying about their waist sizes. Nobody has a twenty-two-inch waist. That is such bullshit!" Veronica giggled in spite of herself.

Loeffler was not amused. During the lecture, he had gathered up his clothes and gotten dressed. "Do you realize who you're fucking with, here?"

Nancy said, "Maybe you don't realize who we are."

"WORSE would be my guess."

"That's right."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"You should be," Toni said. "We can mobilize letterwriting campaigns that will get your magazine pulled from every convenience store in the country. Picket lines to keep your employees from getting to work. Media coverage that will have the fundamentalists all over you like flies on shit." She nodded toward Nancy and her camera. "Not to mention breaking up your marriage."

Loeffler sat down to put his shoes on. "If you'd come into the office like reasonable human beings and discussed this, I might have listened to you."

Martine said, "I've been trying for an appointment for three months. Don't pretend you're interested in our `input."' "Okay, then, I won't." He started for the door, then turned to look at Zelda. She was still naked and had been following him around the room. "And put some clothes on," he told her. "Looking at those muscles makes me sick."

Zelda didn't change expression. She merely leaned back, still smiling, and threw a side kick that snapped Loeffler's neck. His body hitting the floor was the only sound in the room. Veronica thought of the carnage in the bank and Hannah's swinging corpse. She thought she might pass out. She made herself kneel next to Loweffler's body and reach for a pulse in his throat.

Zelda slapped her hands away. "He's dead. Trust me."

"Jesus," Veronica said.

"Sorry," Zelda said without conviction. " I wasn't thinking."

"Zelda, for Christ's sake," someone said.

"You really are a loose cannon," Toni said.

Nobody but Veronica seemed particularly shocked or upset. Nancy looked at Veronica and said, "Uh-oh. Trouble." Toni took Veronica's hand and pulled her to her feet. "Give me your room key. We take care of this. You get across the street and catch a train home. Can you do that?" Veronica nodded.

"Shit," Toni said. "Nancy, you go with her. We handle this."

After they were out of the city, somewhere around Forest Hills, Nancy said: "Are you okay?"

"It's so weird.It's like ... like it was all a dream or something."

"That's right," Nancy said. "That's all it was. Just a dream."

It was all over TV the next day. Loeffler's body was found in an alley near Penn Station, apparently the victim of a robbery.

That evening, Nancy came up to tell her they were in the clear. "You don't need to know how they did it," Nancy said. She seemed radiant with success. "But they got him out, and there's nothing to connect us with him at all."

"Doesn't it bother you?" Veronica asked. "That he's dead?"

"Look, I'm not crazy about violence either. But you have to remember. The guy was scum. With him dead, his daughter takes over GF&G. It becomes a women's corporation, and that's going to make things better for women everywhere." Veronica remembered Loeffler's childlike energy, the way he threw himself into sex with unrestrained enjoyment. She remembered the flowers he'd always brought her, his sense of humor. "I guess," she said.

The next Saturday, one of the women brought in photos of Zelda and Loeffler that she'd printed up herself at work. They were passed around to much laughter and admiration.

There was a nervousness behind the bravado. Veronica felt it, and the others probably did too, but no one mentioned it. Veronica left the meeting early, and the next Saturday she stayed in her room. No one came to invite her downstairs, and Nancy never mentioned W O. R. S. E. again.

Donald-whoever he was-had put Veronica off her feed. She left Close Encounters and went home, put a frozen dinner in the micro, and turned on the news. They had a feature story on the Rox, a follow-up on the unsuccessful park ranger raid back in February.

"Admit it," the reporter said to some man in a ranger uniform. "Those kids could have done a lot worse if they wanted. It was like they didn't even take you seriously. A few people got shot up, but that was all. They made fools out-of you."

"Mister," the ranger said, "you don't know what's out there on that island. It's worse than you could ever imagine. Just pray to God you don't ever find out."

Veronica had saved one photo of Hannah. It had been sitting on an end table, but she'd gotten to where the constant sight of it was a reproach. Now she took it out again and sat down with it in front of the TV She realized she had never cried for Hannah, not once in the sixteen months since her death. With that thought, the tears came.

Jumpers, she thought. They made fools of all of us.

She turned the TV off. She couldn't seem to get herself back together since that man in the restaurant. It was the past come to haunt her. Like all hauntings, it was something she'd brought on herself. It was something she'd left undone. For over a year, she'd been pushing it away, but the questions had been there all this time, fighting to get out.

She walked nervously around the apartment. She wasn't going to be able to sleep tonight, not in this state. She had to do something, no matter how small, to buy off her conscience. She sat down and dialed Nancy's number.

"Hello?"

"Nancy?"

"Yes?"

"It's Veronica." After the odd terms they'd parted on, she didn't know how Nancy would react.

"Yes?" she said again, this time nervous, reluctant.

" I don't mean to bother you.It's just ... there's this question I always wanted to ask you. It's about... it's about Hannah."

"Go on."

Veronica could picture her standing on the faded carpet in the hallway, back stiff, eyes staring straight ahead, waiting for some inevitable ax to fall. "Ichiko told me W O. R. S. E. paid for Hannah's lawyer. I just wanted to know... I mean ... how did you know she was in jail?"

"You mean, did she use her one phone call to call us, instead of you? Is that what you're asking?"

"I guess so. I mean, she told me she was through with all of that."

"She was. She didn't call us. Latham, Strauss did."

"They called you?"

"It was Latham himself. He said they would provide Hannah an attorney free of charge, but they didn't want that fact to get out. They wanted us to say we were paying for it. It wasn't an offer I was willing to refuse at the time."

"How did he know where to find you?"

"I have no idea."

"Really? You don't have any ties to Latham?"

"We'd talked about targeting Latham for an action. Believe me, it was as much a surprise to us as it was to you." After a few seconds, Veronica said, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Life goes on. You know?"

"I know," Veronica said.

When she hung up, her hands were shaking. Latham. She's seen him on TV: elegant suits, razor-cut hair, eyes as cold as a winter sky. Jerry's brother was the Strauss in Latham, Strauss, and he'd told her stories about him. He was so inhuman that Jerry's brother had wondered if maybe he was a secret wild card, that the virus had somehow killed all his emotions. Just the idea that he could somehow be mixed up in Hannah's death was terrifying. It was like opening up a tiny box and finding everything in the world inside it.

There was nothing left to do that night. She went to bed but didn't sleep. Instead she lay awake, seeing Latham and Hannah. And Nancy.

When snow fell on Long Island, it stayed. It had lawns to pike up in and kids to make snowmen out of it. Veronica had sat in her cell that December and listened to the wind howl outside.

On Christmas Eve, Nancy brought her a bottle of white wine with a ribbon on it. Veronica had wrapped an antique silver comb just in case, and Nancy had seemed touched by it. Later, Veronica heard her crying downstairs.

She had only been in Nancy's apartment for W. O. R. S. E. meetings. She agonized for ten minutes, then went down quietly. Nancy was stretched out on the couch, clutching a pillow. She didn't even look up when Veronica lay down next to her and took her in her arms.

"Nobody should be alone on Christmas," Veronica said. "Everything, everything just kind of fell apart," Nancy said. "I was supposed to go to Connecticut, and then their kids got measles, and I..."

"It's okay," Veronica said.

"I can't believe you're being so sweet to me when everything's gone so badly. I've left you alone up there, night after night..."

"You've done so much," Veronica said, trying to be generous.

"No I haven't. I was jealous. Of you and Hannah. We used to be..." She didn't seem able to finish.

"You were lovers."

"Years ago. But she got tired of me."

Veronica kissed the top of her head. Nancy looked up at her, helpless and vulnerable. Veronica unhooked Nancy's glasses and put them on the table, then kissed her on the mouth.

They made love awkwardly, with vague passion and no conviction. Veronica was ashamed of her body. With nothing to do all day, her addict's metabolism had developed a craving for sugar that she couldn't control. It took all her strength to stay on methadone and off heroin. There was no strength left to diet. In a month and a half she'd already gained fifteen pounds and was still gaining.

Nancy's body was covered with fine dark hairs, and her skin seemed unhealthily pale. The taste of her vagina seemed odd and sour. Veronica would find herself remembering Hannah, then have to force herself to go on.

Eventually they moved into the bedroom. They held onto each other through the night but didn't try to make love again. Toward morning, Veronica woke to find that Nancy had turned away and was snoring softly into her pillow. Veronica got up a little after dawn and got into her clothes. She came back to kiss Nancy lightly on the forehead. Nancy woke long enough to squeeze her hand, then went back to sleep.

After that, Veronica stayed in her room. She stayed there through the bitter cold of January, into the worse cold of February. One Sunday, the temperature fell below zero, and all of Long Island was covered in ice. Veronica was unable to get out of bed. She thought about Hannah, about the things they'd done together. She thought about the scene in the bank, the change that had come over Hannah's face just before she took the guard's gun and started shooting. She thought about Hannah hanging in her jail cell, dead.

She curled deeper under the covers. She'd gained another ten pounds, and now she felt heavy all the time. Liz settled into the small of her back, and the two of them slept through the day.

By nightfall, Veronica was sick.

It was like nothing she'd heard or imagined. Suddenly she was outside her body, filling the room, lighter than air. Distantly she felt her body begin to convulse. Vomit trickled out of the distant body's mouth, and Veronica knew, distantly, that if the body did not roll over, it would likely strangle. The body did move, fortunately, when a fit of coughing made it double up on its side.

Nancy came upstairs to see what had happened when Veronica fell out of bed and crashed onto the floor. She found a bottle of Hydrocodone and made Veronica swallow three of them, forcing them past her raw and swollen throat.

It was another quarter hour before the spasms passed. "I have to get out from under this," Veronica whispered. "I don't care what it costs."

The next morning, she boarded Liz at the vets and checked into Mt. Sinai's drug-treatment program. It took six weeks. She lost all the weight she'd gained, then put it back on again. Handfuls of hair came out of her scalp, and the crow's feet that grew out of her eyes never went away, even when she finally got clean and was able to sleep again.

She still had money left from her hooking days, enough to get her through the end of the year, as long as she stayed out of the hospital. But she needed something to fill the empty days. No one seemed to be looking for her. She had her hair cut in a pageboy and bought herself new clothes, pants and sweaters, all dark, all loose-fitting.

She found her own apartment, a few blocks from Nancy's. Nancy only nodded when Veronica told her the news, cried a little when Veronica brought the last of her things downstairs. "I haven't been much help to you, have -I?" Nancy said.

"You saved my life."

Nancy squeezed her, then let her go.

Veronica took a job typing and filing at a Lynbrook insurance office. She made minimum wage and watched while the boss flirted with another of the secretaries, a hardened thirty-year-old who chewed gum. Veronica had less than no interest in a toupeed insurance salesman in a doubleknit suit. Still, it was the first time in her life a man had ignored her. And why not? She had taken herself out of the game. Overweight, severe haircut and clothes, no makeup or perfume, her sallow skin broken out from all the sweets.

It was late summer, the summer of 1989, before she saw how the world around her had changed. Instead of going home after work, she sat on the lawn of the library and watched the kids playing in the grass. It was a perfect afternoon, the skies clear, a light breeze rattling the leaves. She was able to look at it and realize, objectively, how beautiful it was. It seemed possible to her, for the first time in years, that one day she might be able to look at a sunset and actually feel it, and not be overwhelmed by Hannah's absence or her own fear of being discovered, or her worries about her weight and what she was to make of her life.

She suddenly wondered what was happening in the world. She hadn't even bothered to plug in the TV at her new apartment. She bought a newspaper, sat on the bench, and started to read.

The headlines were full of something called jumpers. She had to force herself not to skip ahead, ignoring the buzzing in her ears and the unease in her stomach. Teenage gang members all over the city had developed the ability to somehow trade consciousness with unwilling victims. The teenagers would ride around in the shanghaied bodies, killing and looting and terrorizing, and then would jump back into their own bodies when they were done.

Once more, Veronica remembered the scene in the bank, the handsome blond kid whose eyes had dulled at the same time that Hannah's had changed.

Hannah had been jumped.

The press-and everyone else-was convinced that this was a new manifestation of the wild card. It had cranked the anti-wild-card hysteria in the city to a new pitch. It was a good thing she'd kept quiet about her ace power. All the wild card victims were being treated with fear and hatred. New York State had started a "voluntary" registration for aces. Editorials argued for internment camps, and letters cried out for blood.

Veronica went home and studied herself in the bathroom mirror. In October, less than a month from now, she would be twenty-seven. It seemed beyond belief that so much of her life was already gone. She'd been hiding out almost a year. No one would recognize her the way she looked now. Reading the Times had reminded her how much she missed New York. She was strong enough now, she thought, to stay clean. It would be easier, really, once she was back in the city where there were places to go and things to do. The temptation was always lurking in Lynbrook because of sheer boredom.

It was time to go home.

On the Friday after Ichiko's funeral, Veronica got up with bags under her eyes and'a feeling of dread in her heart. Before she left for work, she called Latham, Strauss. She asked for Dyan Mundy, Hannah's lawyer. Mundy wasn't in, but Veronica got an appointment with her for that afternoon. Lunch at Close Encounters was the office tradition on Friday, followed by very little work getting done the rest of the afternoon. Their usual table for six was waiting for them when they got to the restaurant. Veronica looked around the bar nervously as she walked in, afraid she would see the man in the suit-Donald-again. Instead she saw a woman at the bar and froze where she stood.

Veronica could only see her from behind. She had dark brown hair worn loose past her shoulders. She had on a blue lame dress, cut below the waist in the back, completely inappropriate for afternoon.

It was Veronica's dress.

The woman turned slowly on her stool. Veronica knew, with the certainty of a nightmare, what she was about to see. She was right. The woman had her face, her old face, the one she'd had when she was hooking. Lean, languidly sexy. Lots of makeup. She stared at the firm breasts and trim waist that had once been hers.

The woman stared back.

Okay, Veronica thought, this is clearly not happening. I am clearly dreaming this.

The woman reached into her purse, and Veronica thought, she's going to pull out a gun and shoot me; then I'll wake up. She waited for the eternity it took for the woman's hand to come up out of the purse. It held a photograph, torn out of a newspaper. It showed a blond boy in a tuxedo-handsome, sensual, smiling with the confidence of money. It was the boy from the bank. The one who'd jumped Hannah.

"What do you want?" Veronica whispered.

The woman stood up, wrapped herself in a shawl. She took a few tentative steps toward Veronica, unsteady on her four-inch heels. "To talk," she said. It was Veronica's own voice. "Will you listen to me?"

Veronica nodded and followed the woman outside.

"I'll make this quick," the woman said. "I know a lot more about what's going on than you do. The kid's name was David Butler. He was seventeen. He was a summer intern at Latham, Strauss. As far as I can tell, he was the one running the kid gang when all this jumping business started."

"'Was'?"

"He's dead. But the jumping is still going on."

"Who are you?"

"Never mind that now. The point is, this is some kind of wild-card phenomenon. It's not just a coincidence that all these kids developed the same power. The wild card doesn't work that way. Somebody is giving it to them."

The way Croyd gave it to me, Veronica thought guiltily. Then, in an instant, her brain flashed from her own infection to what she had learned about Jerry. About how he could change the way he looked. Change everything.

The woman was saying, "We have to find-" Veronica took a step backward. "Jerry? Is that you?" The woman broke off. "What?"

"It is you, isn't it? You bastard, how did you find me?"

"Your mother. I convinced her it was life and death."

"Change back. Change back now. I can't stand looking at you like this."

"I haven't got anything else to wear. I'm not going to stand here as Jerry Strauss in a dress."

"Do something."

The woman's features melted and reformed. It was like a coat of facial mud washing off. Now Veronica was talking to the young Ingrid Bergman.

"Oh Christ," Veronica said. "Did my mother give you the dress, too?"

Ingrid nodded, blushing.

"What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do?"

"Help me find who's behind this. Whoever is creating these jumpers is responsible for my brother's death."

"Kenneth?"

"That's right. They killed him. Last fall. They killed Hannah, too. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Veronica slapped her, then swung her purse at her head when she tried to cover up. "Don't you tell me what Hannah meant to me. You bastard! Get out of my life and stay out!" Suddenly she saw the women from the office, watching her out the window of Close Encounters. They'd seen everything, of course. Her life was in a shambles again.

She turned and ran.

It had been Veronica's mother that told her about Jerry. Veronica had gone to see her that past Christmas. She knew at the time she was taking a risk, letting herself make contact with her former life, but she wasn't willing to go on living in fear forever.

The brownstone was dark when she arrived. At first, she thought something drastic had happened, that the Mafia or the Shadow Fists or Global Fun & Games had finally taken over and shut the place down. She rang the doorbell, and after a minute or so, Miranda's voice came over the speaker by the door.

"Yes? Who is it?"

"Mom, it's me." She had even called the week before to warn her. "Can't you see me?"

"Veronica? Is it really you?"

The door opened. Veronica stepped in with her shopping bag full of presents. Miranda hugged her. "I'm sorry, darling, it's just that. . ."

"I know. I've changed."

They had Christmas dinner: turkey in garlic sauce with rice and snow peas. Chinese food was as oriental as Miranda was willing to go as a cook. Ichiko's native Japanese cuisine appalled her. It was just Miranda, Cordelia, Ichiko, and Veronica. "Most everybody you knew was already gone," Miranda said. "Melanie is a translator for the UN, if you can believe it. Adrienne is doing shop windows at Bergdorf's. Everyone has decent jobs, and they all sent Christmas cards. We still get two or three calls a week from clients who hadn't gotten the word."

"They need me to help with the rent now," Cordelia said. Miranda said, "We have all the money we need, and you know it."

Cordelia shrugged. Her hair was cut short now, very businesslike. "Let me pretend I'm useful. I've got money to burn, now that I'm a producer. Everybody in GF&G moved up after Bob was killed."

Veronica tried not to let her guilt show. She turned to Ichiko. "Have you told Fortunato? About shutting down the business?"

"I wrote him and told him. I got no answer. I write him every so often, but it's always the same. The letters don't come back, but there is never an answer either." Behind the bitterness, Veronica saw how tired Ichiko was. The business was the only thing that had kept her going all these years. Veronica wondered how long she would last without it.

Miranda talked about Linda and Orlando. The marriage, it seemed, was on the rocks. "Pray God," Miranda said. "Mama!" Veronica said, shocked.

"You were right about him," Miranda said. "He's a good-for-nothing. She's better off without him."

"Give her my love, okay? I really want to see her."

"Maybe you should see her. I think she would like that." It was a thought. It would be good to see the old neighborhood again. Good to patch things up with Linda, to be friends with her. She had another helping of turkey. "What about Jerry?" she asked. "Do you ever hear from him?"

Ichiko and Miranda exchanged a look.

"Mama? What is it? What aren't you telling me?" Miranda looked at her empty plate. "Did Jerry ever tell you about ... his, uh, special ability?"

Veronica thought she had seen most of Jerry's abilities, and they were pretty average. "What are you talking about?"

"I was afraid of that."

"Mama, don't keep this from me."

"It's just, with things the way they are these days, you don't want to talk about it ... see, baby, Jerry is an ace."

"You're kidding. Jerry? He never said anything to me." But of course he wouldn't have. Jerry wanted her to love him for himself, as he'd told her more than once.

"Last winter, around the same time as ... as that business with Hannah, he was here." Miranda flushed, obviously sorry that she'd mentioned Hannah's name. "Some of those Shadow Fist people were here, threatening us. He ... I don't know exactly how he did it, but he's got this ability to change the way he looks. Everything about the way he looks. He turned himself into Fortunato. He made his skin dark, and he got all skinny and even-you know. The thing with the forehead."

Veronica couldn't get over it. Jerry an ace. Of course she was one, too, but she didn't dwell on it. As long as she didn't use her power, she couldn't say for sure that it was still there.

"We haven't seen him since," Cordelia said. "I think maybe he gave up on you."

Dessert was fried bananas in honey. Afterward, they gathered around the tiny bonsai pine in what had once been the waiting room. Miranda had bought Veronica a beautiful silk blouse that was now two sizes too small, even if Veronica still wore such things. Cordelia gave her earrings that she couldn't wear since she'd let the holes in her earlobes close. "They can put clips on them," Cordelia said awkwardly. Ichiko gave her a delicate china saki jug and bowls. Veronica didn't mention that she had given up drinking as well. Veronica had bought books for all three of them in a fit of idealism and repressed anger: The Marx-Engels Reader, The Women's Room, The Feminist Encyclopedia. There was a moment, when all the presents were opened, when Veronica was sure she was going to cry. Then Miranda said, "Some Christmas, huh?" and started to laugh. Then they were all laughing, arms around each other, huddled on the floor, laughing until they did cry, after all.

And as Veronica had feared, Ichiko hadn't lasted, dying on the last day of February. And Jerry, it seemed, hadn't given up on her, after all.

Close Encounters, and the magazine offices, were on Broadway north of Columbus Circle. When the first burst of energy from her anger and embarrassment wore off, she kept on walking, into Central Park. She found a bench and looked at the bare trees, the little knots on their branches showing the first fuzzy signs of the leaves to come.

A man and a woman, both in their sixties or seventies, shuffled past, wearing knit caps, gloves, and layers of sweat clothes. They seemed to be jogging in slow motion. And how long, Veronica thought, am I going to keep on running? How long am I going to hide my power and let other people make decisions for me?

The sky had started to cloud over, and the wind had turned cool. Veronica walked south, out of the park, and stopped for a cup of coffee at the Cosmic Cafe, a Greek-run lunch counter. She asked for a phone book and looked up Latham, Strauss. The address was on Park Avenue South.

She took a cab and got there a few minutes early for her appointment. It was an older building, and the wallpaper between the slabs of granite in the lobby was turning the color of nicotine. Latham, Strauss had one of only two suites on the eighth floor. It looked like a movie studio. Behind double glass doors was a reception desk, a single thin sheet of ebony supported by steel legs the diameter of pencils. There was nothing on the desk but a telephone. Behind it was a stunning blond in a white silk blouse, and behind her, on a wall covered in red velvet, was the name Latham, Strauss in gold.

Veronica walked in. "I'm here to see Dyan Mundy."

"Ms. Mundy is in conference just now. Do you have an appointment?"

Veronica gave her name. The receptionist directed her to a waiting area to her right, out of sight of the elevators. Veronica was fascinated by her precise, emotionless gestures. "What do you do if you have to write something down?" she asked.

The woman smiled mechanically. "We have secretaries for that."

Veronica looked through the magazines. Smithsonian, Fine Homebuilding, European Travel and Life. No Aces or Cosmo here.

In less than a minute, a woman appeared behind her and said, "Veronica?" She was six feet fall, heavily built, with strong features, glasses, and slicked-back hair. "I'm Dyan Mundy."

She was not the socialite Veronica had expected. It was comforting, but it made things more difficult as well. Mundy led her down wine-colored carpeting, past recessed lighting, toward a huge office with corner windows. Veronica caught a glimpse of someone she felt sure was Latham himself. Then they turned into a side corridor, and Mundy ushered her into an empty office.

As soon as Mundy sat down, Veronica said, "This is about Hannah. Hannah Jorde."

"I don't recall the name."

"You were hired by an organization called W O. R. S. E. to defend her. A shooting in a bank? There was all this weird stuff about the case. Only it never came to trial because Hannah killed herself in her cell."

"Yes, yes, I remember it now"

"The problem is, W O. R. S. E. wasn't paying you at all. Latham, Strauss volunteered to defend her. I want to know why." Mundy swiveled her chair around and scooted over to a file cabinet. " I remember you now. You were ... personally involved, I think."

Veronica gave her a small shrug.

"Ordinarily, the sort of information you're asking for is confidential. But I can promise you that you're on a wildgoose chase." She pulled an olive-drab hanging file out of the cabinet and opened it up on her desk. "Here's the case file. We show payment in full, by cashier's check. W O. R. S. E., as I'm sure you understand, is not a chartered corporation with bank accounts and so forth, so that is the form of payment we would be looking for in this situation."

If the woman was lying, it was beyond Veronica's ability to tell. Which meant the answers lay higher up.

With Edward St. John Latham.

From Jerry she knew that Latham worked long hours, nights and weekends. When he wasn't in the courtroom, he was in the office.

Getting a key was not difficult. She called Frances, from W O. R. S. E., who gave her a wax block in a small plastic case. "Be sure and get the whole key," Frances told her, "head and all, both sides."

At noon on the following Monday, Veronica rode the elevator up and down in Latham's building. On her third trip, a young guy in a suit got on at the eighth floor. She followed him to the street, then used her power to stagger him. She shoved him face first against a wall and smiled at the people passing by, who all turned their heads away. He didn't seem to notice as she took out his key ring and sorted through them. Two keys looked possible. She printed them both and put the key ring back in his pocket. By the time he turned around, she had faded back into the crowd.

Frances made the keys for her while she waited. "You sure you don't want no help? Been awhile. I'd love some action."

"It's a one-woman job," Veronica said.

"And you won't tell me who you're going after."

"You can read about it in the papers."

She sat in a coffee shop until ten P.M., so nervous that she ate three pieces of chocolate pie and drank four cups of coffee. There was a guard in the lobby when she went inside. She signed Dyan Mundy's name and got in an elevator. The guard never looked up from his copy of the Post.

The first key worked. The office was barely lit by a couple of pin spots. Veronica locked the door after herself and retraced the route she'd taken the day before.

Latham's office was lighted, the door closed. Veronica crept down the hall and tried the knob. It turned. She shoved the door open and stepped inside.

Latham looked up from his desk. He was working at a computer, with green-bar paper spread all around him. He didn't seem surprised to find a stranger in his office. "Yes?" he said.

"We have to talk," Veronica said. "I doubt that."

"It's about Hannah Jorde. She was jumped, and the jumper made her shoot up a bank. The jumper's name was David Butler."

That got a reaction. Latham's mouth twitched, and his eyes lost their focus for a second.

"Butler worked for you. You arranged to have Latham, Strauss represent Hannah in court. That let you send David down to see her in jail. Where he jumped her again-and made her kill herself."

Latham's finger moved a few inches and touched a button on his intercom. Veronica focused her power on him. The hum of the computer drive slowed and made a coughing sound. The lights flickered and dimmed. Before Latham could say anything into the intercom, he blinked, and his hands dropped to his sides.

"Don't touch that again," Veronica said. "Now. I think you're in this up to your neck. What's your connection with David? What do you know about these jumpers? Why are you helping clean up after them?"

"I-" Latham said. He never finished the sentence. Veronica saw a blur come at her from the right. She ducked reflexively and only caught a grazing blow to her shoulder. Even that was powerful enough to knock her across the room.

"Get rid of her," Latham said weakly.

Veronica focused her eyes. It was Zelda, minus the wig. Her head was shaved smooth. "You," Veronica said.

Zelda smiled. "Veronica. Long time no see." She bent and grabbed a fistful of Veronica's jacket. "You want her dead, boss?"

"Yes," Latham said. "Dead."

"I'll take her out to the Rox to do it. Bloat can find out what she knows."

Veronica felt the room start to spin. "You were working for Latham ... all the time."

Zelda threw her into the hallway and shut Latham in his office. Veronica started to crawl toward the receptionist's desk. "Boss had his own reasons to want Loeffer dead. He owed money to some of Boss's friends. Boss likes to keep his options open. Wanted to make sure Tina and her friends didn't come after him." She let Veronica crawl, stalking her. "Let me go," Veronica said. "I'll go away somewhere. You won't ever hear of me again. I promise."

Zelda laughed, and Veronica got up onto her feet, taking a couple of lurching steps. Her right shoulder was dislocated or worse. The sense of betrayal was almost as bad as the pain. Almost. To know that even W0. R. S. E. had been no more than a puppet of the male establishment. It made everything seem futile.

Stop it, she thought. If she didn't fight back, Zelda would kill her. She had to use her power, quickly, while she still had the chance. She turned and concentrated all her rage and despair against Zelda, burning it into her eyes.

The lights flickered, but Zelda was unaffected. "Trying to scare me, Veronica?" She swung a halfhearted side kick with her right leg, and Veronica jumped backward out of the way.

She stumbled against the receptionist's desk, and then the obvious truth hit her: her power was only good against men. "You'll have to do better than that," Zelda said. "Looks can't kill. Not since Demise bought it."

It made sense, in that twisted way the wild card sometimes had. The only power she'd ever had was over men. Probably had something to do with hormones. Didn't everything?

Veronica's hand touched plastic. The telephone. She lurched forward and swung the receiver at Zelda's head, catching her solidly across the temple. Zelda hopped back half a step and shook her head. Veronica swung again, but Zelda blocked it and knocked Veronica down with a punch to the solar plexus.

"That actually hurt," Zelda said. She seemed puzzled. Veronica couldn't breathe. She dropped to her knees, listening to the air squeal in her throat.

"I liked you, you know," Zelda said. "Out of that whole bunch, you were the only one knew who you were. Even if you don't take care of yourself for shit."

"Then ... let me ... go."

"Sorry, kid. No can do. You shouldn't have pushed this one."

As Zelda moved in, Veronica saw the cage she'd been in, how no matter how fast she ran, she never got anywhere, just like a rat on an exercise wheel. The never-ending cycle of violence, from Hannah's death to Veronica's own wild card power, from the murder of Robert Loeffler to this. It was so sad and small, and when she looked at it from this angle, it seemed like it should have been so easy to go another way. But now, of course, it was too late.

She tried to get up.

Zelda smiled and leapt into the air. The rest was darkness.