Read Wild Cards [02] Aces High for Free Online Page B

Gambione Family, I think. Where'd you hear that?"
    Jube gave him a rubbery grin. "Got to protect my sources too, chief. You hear the one about the guy married this joker, just gorgeous, long blond hair, face like an angel, body to match. On their wedding night, she comes out in this white teddy and says to him, honey, I've got good news and bad news. He says, yeah, so give me the good news first. Well, she says, the good news is that this is what the wild card did to me, and she whirls around and gives him a good look, till he's grinning and drooling. So what's the bad news? he asks. The bad news, she says, is that my real name is Joseph."
    Crabcakes grimaced. "Get out of here," he said.
    The regulars at Ernie's relieved him of another few Crys and a Daily News, and for Ernie himself he had the issue of Ring that had come in that afternoon. It was a slow night, so Ernie stood him to a piiia colada and Jube told him the one about the joker bride who had good news and bad news for her husband.
    The counterman at the all-night doughnut shop took a Times. As he turned up Henry to his final stop, Jube's load was so light the shopping cart skipped along behind him.
    Three cabs stood outside the canopied entrance to the Crystal Palace, waiting for business. "Hey, Walrus," one of the hacks called out as he passed. "Got a Cry there?"
    "Sure do," Jube said. He swapped a paper for a coin. The cabbie had a nest of thin, snakelike tendrils in place of a right arm, and flippers where his legs should be, but his Checker had special hand controls and he knew the city like the back of his tentacle. Made real good tips, too. These days people were so relieved to get a cabbie who spoke English, they didn't give a damn what he looked like.
    The doorman carried Jube's cart up the stone steps to the main entrance of the three-story turn-of-the-century row house. Inside the Victorian entry chamber, Jube left his hat and cart with the coat-check girl, gathered the remaining papers under his arm, and walked into the saloon's huge, highceilinged barroom. Elmo, the dwarf bouncer, was carrying out a squid-faced man in a sequined domino as Jube entered.
    There was a nasty bruise on one side of his head. "What did he do?" Jube asked.
    Elmo grinned up at him. "It's not what he did, it's what he was thinking of doing." The little man pushed through the stained-glass doors with the squid-face slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
    It was last call at the Crystal Palace. Jube made a circuit of the main taproom-he seldom bothered with the side rooms and their curtained alcoves-and sold a few more papers. Then.he climbed up on a barstool. Sascha was behind the long mahogany bar, his eyeless face and pencil-thin mustache reflected in the mirror as he mixed a planter's punch. He put it down in front of Jube without words or money being exchanged.
    As Jube sipped his drink, he caught a whiff of familiar perfume, and turned his head just as Chrysalis seated herself on the stool to his left. "Good morning," she said. Her voice was cool and faintly British. She was wearing a spiral of silver glitter on one cheek, and the transparent flesh beneath made it seem to float like a nebula above the whiteness of her skull. Her lipstick was silver gloss, and her long nails gleamed like daggers. "How's the news business, Jubal?"
    He grinned at her. "Did you hear the one about the joker bride who had good news and bad news for her husband?" Around her mouth, the ghost-gray shadows of her muscles twisted her silvered lips into a grimace. "Spare me."
    "All right." Jube sipped at his planter's punch through a straw. "At the Chaos Club they put little parasols in these."
    "At the Chaos Club they serve drinks in coconuts." Jube nursed his drink. "That place on Division, where they film the hard-core stuff? I heard it's a Gambione operation. "
    "Old news," Chrysalis said. It was closing time. The lights came up. Elmo began to circulate, stacking chairs on tables and rousting