Card Sharks

The Ashes of Memory

"I'd like you to ring Ms. Monroe's room."

The hotel clerk looked at Hannah as if he had gas. "I'm sorry, but Ms. Monroe has left very specific instructions that she not be disturbed. What did you say your name Was?"

"Rudo. Pan Rudo. R-U-D-O."

The clerk consulted his monitor, tapping at the keyboard. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Rudo. Your names is on the list she left. You may use the white phone to your right. Dial asterisk, then 44."

"Thank you." Hannah went to the house phone and punched in the number. The voice that answered was still instantly recognizable: breathy, soft, and warm, not much changed despite all the years. "Hello?"

"Ms. Monroe, I must see you."

"Who is this?" The voice took on a touch of irritation. "Who gave you this number?"

"Nick Williams asked me to call, Marilyn. You remember Nick, don't you?"

There was silence on the other end. For a few seconds, Hannah thought that Marilyn had hung up, then the woman spoke again, and her voice sounded much older. "Where are you?"

"In the lobby of the hotel. I need to see you alone, Ms. Monroe."

"Give … give me a minute and then come on up. I'm in the Lindsay Suite. Seventeenth floor."

Riding the elevator, Hannah had time to wonder whether this was a mistake. In the three days since she'd spoken with Lamia — three days in which she'd found herself starting at every noise and peering suspiciously at every person that entered the apartment building — Hannah had come up empty. Clara van Renssaeler, who might or might not still have a photograph of her father with Sirhan Sirhan, refused to meet her the first two times she called. The third time Hannah reached her, there was such a strange tone in the woman's voice when she agreed to a meeting that Hannah deliberately missed the appointment. A friend of Father Squid's, known as Blind Spot, went by the restaurant and reported back that the establishment was oddly deserted except for a table of three suspiciously attentive men. Hannah didn't try to call Clara again.

Much of Lamia's notebooks consisted of hearsay from friends, and none of them Hannah contacted cared to discuss what had happened back then. Most of them seemed to have put Joan van Renssaeler out of their minds entirely. "Her? She abandoned her daughter. Just up and left her family…."

It was Father Squid who read in the paper that Marilyn Monroe was in New York for a charity revue. Hannah had nodded, thinkin it simply a mocking serendipity, but the mention had nagged at her. She knew already that there was little that the three of them could do. They had nothing, nothing but hearsay and a few interconnected names.

Marilyn, if Nick's story were true, had once had hard evidence: the copies of Hopper's files. Hannah wished she could have brought Quasiman with her, but Hannah had figured that there'd be enough trouble getting to the woman as it was; with an obvious joker accompanying her, there'd have been no chance at all. And as much as she hated to admit it, Quasiman was becoming a liability. He seemed to have reached the limit of his ability to maintain his focus on their problem. For the last few days, he'd forget her or Father Squid for an hour or more, then suddenly snap back to lucidity for a few minutes before drifting away again. "I want to come with you, Hannah," he'd said. "Please. Let me help you." But she'd said no. "Just … just keep thinking about me," she'd told him. "Come and bail me out if you sense that I'm in trouble. Can you do that?"

"I'll try. I'll try…."

The problem was that, even as she knocked on the door to Marilyn's suite, Hannah still wasn't sure what she was going to do. She saw the glass of the peephole darken as someone looked through.

"You're the one who called?" asked a voice through the door.

"Yes."

"Come in." The door opened just wide enough to admit Hannah.

Marilyn was in her late sixties, Hannah knew, but the woman who closed the door behind her looked at least a decade younger. She was dressed in an expensive silk robe, the lacy white top of her chemise showing at the top. Her waist had thickened over the years, there was a network of fine wrinkles around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth, and the skin under her chin sagged, but the allure and the underlying hint of innocent sexuality were still there. Her hair was shorter now, and she'd allowed a touch of silver to accent her temples, but the rest was a gold-flecked brown, artfully disheveled as if she'd gotten up from a nap.

Hannah found herself feeling oddly plain alongside her, like a daisy in a vase with a rose.

"Who are you?" Marilyn asked. Her gaze was skittish, yet Hannah was certain that she'd been appraised and judged already. "Where did you hear about Nickie? If this is some kind of joke …"

"Nickie …" Hannah said. "You killed him. You put a bullet in his chest to save your career. He's the father of your child. He loved you, he saved your life and gave you a son, and you murdered him."

It was either great acting or genuine emotion — Hannah couldn't tell which. Marilyn's haughty demeanor crumpled, as if it were a paper mask Hannah had ripped off to expose a lost, frightened child beneath. Her whole body sagged, almost as if she were about to faint, then she caught herself. She took in a long, gasping breath and tears shimmered in her eyes. Her hand came up to her mouth, as if she were stifling a sob, and she turned and walked into the living room of the suite, collapsing onto the couch with her legs drawn up to her body. Hannah followed her in. From beyond the balcony, the towers of Manhattan thrust through afternoon haze. A tape deck sat on top of the television set in the corner of the plush suite, a video playing softly in it — Hannah realized that the movie was Jokertown. She wondered if that was coincidence or if Marilyn had set it running as a deliberate backdrop, a bit of added scenery.

As a much younger, agonized Marilyn told a glaring Jack Nicholson about the Lansky / van Renssaeler plot, the real Marilyn looked at Hannah with stricken eyes. "How do you know …" she began, then stopped. On the TV, Nicholson vowed to put an end to the plot. "I loved him," Marilyn said. "I did. They were going to kill Nick anyway. If I hadn't shot him, we would have both died that night. I thought … I thought that at least that way one of us would live. I thought I could find a way to pay them back…."

"But you never did," Hannah said sharply. Her voice sounded shrewish and shrill against Marilyn's polished tones. "You and Nick stuffed the files into a toy tiger, but that's not what you gave Kennedy during that birthday party. You gave him a penguin. You never gave the president the information Nick died for, did you?"

Marilyn stared at Hannah, her cheeks as red as if she'd been slapped. The woman tugged her robe more tightly around her neck, as if she were cold. She sniffed, visibly trying to rein in the emotions. "How much do you want?" Marilyn asked Hannah. "I don't care what your proof is, I don't want to know how you know. Name your price, I'll pay it. Just leave me alone."

"I want the evidence you never gave to the Kennedys. I want the prints that Nick took of Hedda Hopper's files. The ones that tell the story of the Card Sharks. There were three copies, or did you give them all to Rudo and Hopper?"

The gasp Marilyn gave could not have been faked. Her skin went pale, the hands that came up to cover her face trembled. She was crying now, rocking back and forth on the cushions. "Oh God, I've been so frightened." She wept for a long time. Hannah waited, as Marilyn sobbed and on the television Jokertown burned. Hannah had come here with no sympathy for the woman at all. She'd come prepared to threaten, to blackmail, to confront Marilyn with her guilt. But Hannah now found that while she might not be able to forgive what Marilyn had done, she couldn't hate the woman at all. She was a victim too, as much as Nick. As Hannah had found with jokers, it was hard to blindly hate someone you understood.

"Ms. Monroe," Hannah said at last, softly.

Marilyn looked up, her face blotchy, her mascara now black streaks down either cheek. "Who are you? What are you after?"

"My name doesn't matter. What I'm after is the Sharks. What I'm after are the people who killed Nick and Jack and Bobby Kennedy and scores of others. I want to understand what happened."

"I was afraid," she said. "I knew Jack all too well; Bobby, too. They would have tried to do something with the information. Jack wasn't perfect, he wasn't a saint, but he wouldn't have left that kind of rot alone, and there were too many powerful people involved. They already hated Jack and Bobby both — hated their idealism and their liberal 'softness' and their courting of minorities: jokers, blacks, anyone. I was aware that they were already working against Jack's reelection. I knew there were a few who were already talking assassination and I was afraid that if Jack moved against them, that would be the last straw. I thought that by doing nothing, I might at least save him." Tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes, rolling untouched down her cheeks as she gave a short, bitter laugh. "So I said nothing. And then Jack went to Dallas …" Marilyn wiped at her tears angrily, defiantly. "You have no idea what you're facing, young lady."

"I'm facing you."

Marilyn took a sharp breath. "Me? I'm nothing," she said. "I never have been. Not to them. You want to know the truth? I hate them. I hate them more than I hate myself for never having the courage to do something about it." She sat up suddenly. "You have to go," she said. "You can't stay here."

"I'm not leaving until I have answers."

"Why?" Marilyn cried in that breathless little girl voice of hers. "What good is anything I know? Who can you go to? Who can you trust?"

"I don't know that yet. But I'll find out," Hannah answered. "I'll do something."

For several seconds, Marilyn just looked at her. "I'm not as flighty and reckless as the gossip says," she said finally. "Not really. They told me what I was to do if anyone ever confronted me. I was going to keep you here. I'd talk to you if I had to, pretend to give you what you wanted, until … Stay here a moment," Marilyn got up from the couch, moving now like an old person, and went into the bedroom of the suite, returning quickly. Hannah felt the breath go out of her when she saw what the woman held in her hands.

A bedraggled stuffed tiger.

"I kept this with me, all those years," Marilyn said. "The other sets I gave to Hedda — I had to, you understand. But these … I kept them, always thinking that one day I'd do something with them, that I'd pay them back for making me kill Nick. I must have started to do it a hundred times, even after the birthday party, but something always held me back. I was afraid of what they'd do to me, to my son. Every time I started to make the call, every time I wanted to call Jack or Bobby or anyone, I'd see Nick floating in my pool, the water going red around him and his open eyes staring at me, and I'd stop. After awhile, I didn't even try. Everyone I might have trusted seemed to be dead and I didn't know anyone else. I was so scared, don't you understand? So scared …"

She held the tiger out toward Hannah. "Here," she said. "Take it before I change my mind again. Now, please — "

Someone rapped on the door, several quick knocks. "Marilyn?"

Hannah knew the voice. Marilyn put a finger up to her lips, then pointed to the bedroom. At the same time, she seemed to draw on some inward calm, inhaling deeply and rearranging the robe around her. Her demeanor changed, seeming to be that of someone younger and more vulnerable. As Hannah clutched the tiger and moved quickly into the bedroom, Marilyn rose from the couch and went to the door. "Pan!" Hannah heard her exclaim, and then the words came all in a rush: "Oh, Pan, I was so scared. The woman called me from the lobby, saying that she knew about Nickie…."

There was a door leading to the hall from the bedroom. Hannah turned the knob as softly as she could, listening to the conversation in the other room. "Where is she? Is she still here?"

"The woman banged on the door for the longest time. I was afraid to call Security — I didn't know what she'd say or do. She finally left — I don't know, ten, fifteen minutes ago. Come in, Pan. Hold me. Stay with me. I was so frightened…."

Hannah opened the door and slipped out into the empty hall.

She thought she was away and free, but as Hannah pressed the button for the elevator and watched the doors slide open, she heard the door to Marilyn's suite open again. She caught a glimpse of Rudo as she stepped into the compartment. There was a frightening moment of eye contact down the hall, then Rudo began to run stiffly toward her as the elevator doors closed. His fists pounded futilely on the door as she started down.

He can't get another elevator before I get downstairs. I'm okay. I'll have time.

The elevator stopped at 15. It seemed to take forever for the doors to open, for the elderly couple to shuffle inside and the doors to close again. They smiled at her, a young woman. desperately clutching a stuffed toy tiger. Hannah gave them a quick, nervous smile back, then stared at the numbers:

14 …

12 …

11 …

10 …

They stopped again. And yet again at 6. Hannah was beginning to panic, hoping that Rudo would be having the same problem. He can't do anything in a crowd. Just stay with them. He doesn't want any of this out in the open.

They reached the lobby. Hannah slipped out first, looking back at the numbered plate above the other elevator. As she watched, the indicator light shifted from 3 to 2. She started across the lobby with the older couple, trying to look as if she were their daughter. Two dark-suited men were standing near the street doors, one who looked like a movie version of a Sicilian thug, the other a tall and massive black man whose suit seemed to strain to contain his sculpted body. Swallowing her panic, Hannah turned to the woman. "That's such a nice sweater," she said. "It's perfect for a chilly afternoon like this."

The woman smiled. "Thank you, my dear."

"I can't believe it's gotten so cold in the last few days. Fall's definitely here to stay this time, I think …" The men were watching the trio suspiciously. Behind them, an elevator chimed. Hannah could feel Rudo's gaze on her back but she didn't dare look behind her. A few more steps and they'd be outside….

"Ms. Davis," he called loudly to her. "Such a lovely surprise."

The Sicilian and Muscles moved to intercept her at the same moment. Her elderly escorts looked as if they were about to protest, but Hannah, an icy resignation settling in her stomach, gave them a rigid smile. "He's a friend," she said, giving them what she hoped was a convincing smile. She kept the smile cemented to her lips until the couple left the hotel; the expression vanished as she turned to confront Rudo. He was dressed elegantly and expensively, as always. His neatly-trimmed gray hair was slightly mussed; disturbed, she thought inanely, when he ran down the hallway after her. He brought a hand up and smoothed down the errant strands.

"Rudo," she said. Rudo's men flanked her on either side, silent.

"I see you've dropped any pretense of politeness, Ms. Davis."

"You've lost any right you had to it," she answered. "Card Sharks — such an apt name for your little group of murderers."

"Shut up, lady," Muscles snarled in her ear. His voice matched the body: low and powerful. "Don't make yourself sound more like a fool than you are."

"Mr. Johnson, please," Rudo said. He smiled at Hannah. "Name-calling will get us nowhere," he said. "I won't bore you with justifications or the philosophy. My friend is right, however — you fail to see the larger scope of the problem we're facing. You have something of ours, and we'd like to have it back. That's all I care about; then we'll even let you go your own way — for now."

Hannah clutched the tiger closer to her as Johnson grabbed her elbow. The lobby was busy, though no one had noticed them as yet. People were passing, going in and out on their way to the rooms or the street or the bar. "We're in public, Rudo. You really want a scene?"

The corner of Rudo's mouth lifted. "Someone used my name at the desk to gain access to Ms. Monroe's room. That same someone stole an item from her bedroom and then ran, as I am certain Ms. Monroe will testify. Fans steal things like that all the time. A scene, Ms. Davis? I assuredly don't want one. It would be a shame for you to be arrested — jail is such a dangerous place." He held out a hand. "The stuffed toy, Ms. Davis, if you please…."

Behind Rudo, a familiar form was suddenly there.

"Quasiman!"

The hunchback looked as if he were about to rush headlong at Rudo. His slab-like hands were fisted, muscles bunched up all along the massive forearms. The Sicilian was already reaching inside his jacket. Hannah knew that if the joker attacked, no matter how strong or quick he was, they would lose. Quasiman was fast, but he couldn't move faster than a trigger could be pulled nor was he any less vulnerable than anyone else to a bullet. And if Hannah just happened to be shot in the attack….

"Here!" she shouted, and tossed Quasiman the stuffed tiger before either of the goons could stop her. "Go!" she shouted as Quasiman caught the toy. "Go on!"

But Quasiman only glanced at the stuffed toy dangling by one leg in his massive hand, and the sudden vacancy in his eyes terrified Hannah. His aggressive stance relaxed, his body slumped. He gaped at Hannah as if seeing her for the first time, drool running from the side of his slack mouth, and she knew they were lost. The cavalry had come, horns blowing and flags flying, but it had forgotten why.

Rudo snatched for the stuffed animal. At the same moment, Hannah tore loose from Johnson. She shoved Rudo aside as Quasiman stared at her quizzically. Hannah felt movement at her back and half expected to feel a bullet tear into her from behind. Desperate, she took Quasiman's ugly head between her hands, hugging him as she whispered. "Please, Quasiman. You've been holding it all together for so long. Don't forget now." She kissed him, int his lips didn't open to her. She might have been kissing marble. "Damn it, remember! — "

"How touching." Johnson's fingers dug furrows in her biceps, dragging Hannah back. Quasiman just watched, a faint scowl on his face as if he were trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Rudo put his manicured hand on the tiger. "It's mine," he told Quasiman. "You will give it to me now." He pulled the toy from Quasiman's yielding grasp.

"Quasi!" Hannah cried desperately, and in that moment, there was the barest flicker of recognition in his eyes. Quasiman moved in a blur, snatching the tiger back before Rudo could react.

"Hannah," he said. "I remember." A breath later, Quasiman and the toy had vanished.

Hannah let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. Relief coursed through her, molten. Rudo whirled around to her, glaring. "Where?" he said.

"I don't know," Hannah told him defiantly. She tried to pull her arms away from the Suits. They held her tightly. "It's a lovely day for a ride, don't you think?" Johnson said in Hannah's ear, beginning to pull her toward the door. People were staring at them, and the desk clerk was talking earnestly with a security guard, pointing in their direction.

"No." Rudo said sharply before Hannah could shout. "Not here. Not now." Johnson released her at Rudo's shake of his head. Hannah grinned triumphantly, rubbing her arms. Rudo leaned close to Hannah before she could step away, so that only she could hear what he said. "Listen to me." In the face of her triumph, he was almost smiling, a smile made of dry ice and stone. "You win this round, but nothing else. Nothing. The information will do you no good. No one's going to believe you, no one's going to listen. If you go to the media with this, they will think you are paranoid or even deranged. That is, if you even get the chance to speak. The fact is, Ms. Davis, you are dead. Maybe not today, but very soon. You are already dead and rotting in your grave."

His words caused the grin to vanish from Hannah's face. She felt sick. Rudo's proximity raised the goose bumps on her flesh and brushed icy hands down her back.

Then Rudo straightened and smiled again: at her, at the desk clerk, at the security guard who had stopped halfway to them, at the people watching the confrontation from around the lobby. He began walking away with a casual stride.

"Rudo!"

The man stopped and turned. Alongside Rudo, Johnson glared back at her, scowling.

"It was a mistake, wasn't it?" she asked him. "The fire, I mean. It had to be. That's not the way you people Work. You just recruited the wrong person with Ramblur, someone who echoed your hatred and bigotry in the simplest, most direct way. Tell me. I deserve to know."

"We all make mistakes, Ms. Davis," Rudo answered softly. He regarded her with his cold, light eyes. "That one was rectified. As will be the others," he added.

With that, Rudo left the hotel, nodding politely to the doorman as he passed, the two guards in tow. The Sicilian opened the door of the limousine outside for him; Johnson watched the street carefully. Rudo paused, staring back into the lobby. He nodded to Hannah before getting into the car.

***

She found Quasiman by the kitchen window, staring out into the Jokertown dusk, his twisted, deformed body slumped against one of the cheap metal chairs. A streetlight flickered on, smearing dirty light over the streaked glass. The stuffed tiger sat on the kitchen table, wedged between a catsup bottle and the sugar bowl. Hannah picked up the toy and cuddled it to her chest.

"Quasiman?"

His face turned toward her. His eyes narrowed. "I don't know you," he said. "Am I supposed to know you?"

"I'm Hannah. You saved me again, not many hours ago. You'll remember soon. Just wait a few minutes…."

"I'm not sure," a voice spoke: Father Squid, behind her. Hannah looked at the priest quizzically. "Hannah, I've known Quasiman for many years. In that time, I have never — never — seen him hold onto reality this long or this coherently. I don't think we can understand the strain that was for him: trying to keep you in his head, trying to maintain coherency and some semblance of why any of this was so important. You saw him over the last several days — he was getting worse, losing more and more of what had happened and what you were doing. The poor man … It was a valiant effort, but it was also a battle he was doomed from the start to lose." Father Squid sighed, the tentacles over his mouth quivering. "He's been like this since he came back. I guess I've been expecting it. I don't expect his mental state to change — not soon, maybe not ever. I'll be surprised if he manages to come bash, to nus for that long again."

Quasiman had been listening, his head cocked as he stared from the priest to Hannah. For all he reacted, they might have been discussing someone else. "It's not fair," Hannah said.

"It's the way the wild card remade him," Father Squid answered.

Hannah shook her head. "Quasiman …" The joker looked at Hannah. "What's my name, Quasiman?" she asked again. "You can remember it. I know you can."

Quasiman's mouth opened. His brow furrowed. "I don't know you. I don't remember …"

"I just told you, a few minutes ago. Try."

Quasiman shut his eyes. Opened them again. "I can't … It's not there … Who are you? I want to remember." He looked at her desperately. His hands were fisted, beating uselessly on his thighs.

Hannah knelt down in front of him. She placed the stuffed tiger on his lap and took his hands in her own. She kissed them softly: one, then the other.

"I'm Hannah," she told him. "Your friend. And I'll remember for you."

"Who can you trust?" Marilyn had asked me.

"No one's going to believe you," Rudo had said.

Funny … I'd solved the case, after all. You'd have thought that I'd have felt some sense of satisfaction, of closure. I didn't. I felt soiled and dirty and still very scared. Maybe the way Marilyn had felt for years….

I convinced Father Squid that we had to leave his apartment and stay somewhere else that night. We were lucky — because that same night, someone broke in and trashed the place. If any of us had been there … well, you can figure that out as well as I can. I figured that each day we held onto our little treasure trove of tapes and notebooks was just one more day they had to find us. I knew we had to make our decision and act on it.

I had the evidence in my hands. Hard evidence, real evidence. Right there. With my tapes and the transcripts, with what Marilyn had given me, I had enough to make people take us seriously if — if — the right person brought it forward. The very fact that Rudo wanted it so much told me how valuable it could be, no matter what he claimed. But in one sense, he was right. Who to give this to? If we chose the wrong person, if this material landed in the wrong hands, it would all get buried. There might be a series of new deaths, more accidents and suicides, and everything we'd brought into the light would be lost again, maybe permanently this time.

Burned maybe. Cremated in another convenient fire. That'd be poetic justice, wouldn't it?

One thing all this has taught me is paranoia. For a long time, I couldn't think of anyone I felt certain had the power and the inclination to do something about this. Father Squid and I talked about it, endlessly. Quasiman … well, Father Squid was right. Even when we told him everything that had happened, he'd forget it all again an hour later. The Sharks had been willing to kill me in Vietnam, where Quasiman and I would have been "innocent bystanders" slain by an act of political terrorism. Here, they tried to be more subtle until it was obvious that we were going to keep digging. Now they'll use the sledgehammer approach, and none of us are big enough to dodge that. We can't go to the police or the FBI or the CIA — in one way or another all of them are compromised. We need to give this to someone with the same kind of clout the Sharks have. This is bigger stuff than any of us realized when we started. It needs someone bigger than me to handle it. I can't go any further than I have, not alone. Rudo's still out there, with Faneuil and Durand and Battle and Van Renssaeler and God knows who else….

Then I realized …

I'm not exactly a wild card historian, but you're one person who has always come down squarely in the joker's camp, even when it wasn't to your advantage to do so. You're one person who has always tried to bring some sanity to all this, to make peace. You've spoken out against the violence; you've been visibly shaken by it. I mean, my God, you lost a hand to the wild card and you're still fighting for the rights of those infected by the virus.

In the end, we had to trust someone. That's why I've spent so much time talking with you about this and giving you the whole story. I feel good about you. I don't think you have any evil in you at all.

So I'm handing all this to you. Please, look it over carefully … I know you'll see the same things I've seen. And then do something about it. Do what none of us have the connections and power to do.

Don't disappoint us, Senator Hartmann.