Wild Cards V (11 page)

“Maybe you could pass on that I'd like to see him?” Rosemary had obviously tired of sparring with Bagabond.

“I can tell him.” Bagabond nodded. “No promises. Who's the lieutenant I report to?”

“Don't be ridiculous, Suzanne. You'll give anything you come up with directly to me.” When Rosemary met her eyes, Bagabond found no friendship at all.

Hands clenched atop a stack of case briefs, Rosemary stared out the window of her office. She was afraid for Chris. Until they found out who was behind the war on the Families, he was in extreme danger as the public chief of the Gambiones. And they still had few clues, although every day there was another Mafia loss. They'd hit all the numbers runners, dealers, small-timers, and extortionists they could find to try to get a lead to the top. It hadn't worked. The cells of lower-level criminals had no information about the cells above them. It was brilliant organization on someone's part, and it was destroying her people. She shook her head unconsciously, one part of her preoccupied with the Families while the other was trying to keep on top of her office's caseload. More and more she had come to depend on her assistants for aid in prosecuting the cases she would have dealt with personally a few months ago. She wondered if anyone had noticed and made a mental note to be more careful. But it was so hard to balance everything, so much more difficult than she had ever imagined.

“There's someone here to see you, Ms. Muldoon.” Donnis's quiet voice broke into her thoughts so abruptly that she jumped.

“Who is it, Donnis? I've got a desk full of cases.”

“Well, Ms. Muldoon, she says her name is Jane Dow.”

The name was familiar although Rosemary failed to place it for a moment. Then she had it: Water Lily. What did the girl want?

“I'll see her.”

Entering, the auburn-haired girl, no, young woman, Rosemary corrected herself, carefully closed the door after herself. “Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Muldoon.”

“Please have a seat, Ms. Dow. What can I do for you?”

Water Lily looked down at her twisting hands, and Rosemary saw droplets of liquid forming on her forehead. Rosemary wondered if sweating was the extent of her “ace” power. Just what she needed.

“Well, I thought maybe I could do something for you. I heard that you were looking for aces and—I know I'm not much of one, but I thought I could work for you. Help out.” For the first time Water Lily met Rosemary's eyes and shrugged. “If you have anything that I could do.”

“Possibly.” Rosemary sighed. She couldn't imagine what, but she was not about to turn down any help at this point. “Tell me what, precisely, is the extent of your power?”

“Well, I control water. I'm really good at floods.” Water Lily turned pink and the water on her face shone. She seemed very young. Rosemary heard dripping but chose to ignore it.

“All water, everywhere? I mean, do you have a range? Do you generate it, or can you use the water around you?” Rosemary stopped and smiled apologetically. “Sorry about the third degree. I'm just trying to see where you'll fit in.”

“It has to be fairly close, but I can use any water in my vicinity and control the force of its flow. And I can change the electrolyte balance in someone and knock them out.” Water Lily was looking fractionally less embarrassed now that she was being taken seriously. Rosemary no longer heard the dripping. “I was thinking that I would be good with crowd control, sweeping people off their feet without really hurting them with a small flood, or causing distractions if you needed it.”

“What about other forms of water, high-pressure steam, for example?”

“I don't know. I've never tried it.” Water Lily appeared to be interested in the idea.

“Okay, that sounds as if it could be quite helpful. Welcome aboard, Water Lily. Or do you prefer Jane?” Rosemary thought about the raids she was trying to organize on some of the Shadow Fist drug operations. A few burst pipes could do an amazing amount of damage. She smiled broadly at the younger woman without seeing her.

“Jane, please. You can reach me at Aces High. I brought a card. Just let me know what I can do.” Jane looked pleased by her acceptance.

Rosemary stole half an hour to familiarize herself with the cases stacked in front of her before she called in Paul Goldberg. His experience had made him an obvious choice to be her immediate aide, and Rosemary had taken advantage of it.

Paul came in and sat down uninvited. He held a fat sheaf of reports that he dropped on her desk with a thud.

“The latest info on our caseload. We won the case against Malerucci.” Rosemary glanced up from the paperwork at the mention of the name. “I know you didn't think much of the case we had, but I decided to go ahead with it. It worked out. Maybe you're not aware of this, but we've been taking some heat about the number of Mafia cases we're prosecuting, or rather
not
prosecuting. The cops have come to me several times complaining about doing all the work and getting no support from this office.”

“The cops are always complaining. You know that, Paul. They don't understand that we have this Constitution thing we have to pay attention to when we haul someone into court. Good work on the Malerucci case, but you took a chance there. The jury could have gone either way based on that evidence.”

“Especially after somebody got to the Police Evidence Lab and destroyed most of the coke.” Paul crossed his legs on Rosemary's desk and leaned back in the chair. “We haven't been able to trace that leak yet.”

“In the future, please stick to my instructions on which cases to go after. I'd appreciate it, speaking strictly as your boss.” Rosemary smiled at him and leaned back in her own chair.

“Boss, I've noticed a trend in the cases you okay, and I'm not the only one. Why aren't we going after the Mafia? With this war going on, we could put a lot of nasty people away. Their resources are stretched too thin to protect all of their people.” He reached out and tapped the stack of papers with a rigid forefinger. “It's all right here. I've even got a possible tax evasion on Chris Mazzucchelli. What do you say? Let me at 'im.”

“No.” Rosemary put on her best inscrutable madonna look. “I want to wait until the war has shaken out some more. The Mafia appears to be self-destructing anyway. We can just save ourselves the trouble.”

“You know that if we put some of these people behind bars we might just be saving their lives.” Paul was watching her closely. His scrutiny made Rosemary uncomfortable.

“I make the decisions here.” The tone in her voice was meant to shut Paul up and it worked, but she still didn't like the stare she got after she said it.

After working out strategy for the twenty most urgent cases they had, Rosemary had relaxed and so had Paul. In many ways it reminded her of working with Chris. She came up with the plan and he carried it out. Only with Paul, everything was on the right side of the law. It was after six and she was leading Paul and his stack of cases to her door when he turned around to speak to her once more.

“You ever go to Holy Innocents?” Paul asked about her Catholic elementary school in offhand tones.

“Me, are you kidding? That's for rich Italian kids. I went to good old P.S. one ninety-two in Brooklyn.” Rosemary studied his face.

“I didn't think so. Friend of mind went there. He said the craziest thing the other night. Thought you looked just like Rosa Maria Gambione grown up. What a crock, huh? She died back in the early seventies. See you in the morning.” Paul nodded his farewell and Rosemary wondered if she had seen a warning in his eyes—or an indictment.

Bagabond moved quickly through the subway maintenance tunnels, accompanied by the black and one of his kittens. The kitten, a mottled ginger, was even bigger than he was. She had watched Jack return to his old home in the nineteenth-century abandoned station through the eyes of a succession of rats. Bagabond waited to catch him when he was still underground. It always felt more natural talking to him here. When she met him above, he was different. They both were. She pulled the ragged blue coat farther up above her knees and hurried to cut him off before he could go. The black paced her while his daughter loped ahead to spot trouble.

Bagabond reached the door and opened it onto Jack reaching for the knob. The compact, pale man smiled in surprise.

“'Allo dere.” He set down the box he had been cradling and knelt to let the black sniff the back of his hand. The other cat kept her distance, standing in front of Bagabond to protect her.

“I haven't seen you for a long time. I've been a little worried.” Jack stood up to face the woman in tattered clothing. “Come on in and sit down.”

“You've been busy.” Bagabond had swung her snarled hair back down across her face and hunched within the pile of ill-fitting dresses and pants she wore. She knew that with her rough voice and trembling manner she now looked at least sixty years old.

“So have you.” Jack looked at her hesitantly making her way down the carpeted stairs. He grinned broadly. “You could win a Tony for that, you know. I met this Broadway producer, he's looking for an actress.”

“Friend of Michael's?” Bagabond straightened as she sat on the edge of the Victorian horsehair sofa. The ginger sat tensely at her feet. The black leaned against Jack's leg and looked up at him.

“Yes, a friend of Michael's. Why won't you come over and spend some time with us? Get to know Michael. You'd like him.”

“Why don't you get to know Paul?” Bagabond drew her feet up under her and looked at Jack sitting on the equally antique chair opposite her.

“I don't think a yuppie would see much in a blue-collar transit worker.”

“
I
don't think Michael would approve of my style sense.” Bagabond spread out her layers of mismatched clothing along the couch.

“So there we are, hmm? I don't like it and neither do you, but we've become trapped in our undercover lives as normal people.” Jack looked sad. “Have you seen Cordelia?”

“Yeah.” Bagabond shrugged. Another shrug, another avoidance of responsibility. She straightened her shoulders. “I tried. I don't know.”

“When you see her again, tell her … tell her I understand. I grew up there too, after all.” Jack ran the palms of his hands down his sharply creased black denim jeans. “So, you tracked me down. What can I do for you?”

Jack reached down to scratch behind the black's ears, and they both listened to the loud purring for a few moments.

“Rosemary wants to see you.” Bagabond had pulled her knees up and drawn her armor back around her. She refused to meet Jack's eyes.

“No.”

“Jack, she's just trying to keep everything cool. She could use some help.”

“For Christ sake, Bagabond, she's on the side of the bad guys. She's the head of the frigging Mafia.” Jack got up and began pacing on the Oriental carpets. The black got up to join him, then looked at Bagabond and lay back down. Bagabond got a flash of warning from the cat. She didn't know if it was for her or for Jack. “What the hell does she need me for anyway?”

“Well, you could help with surveillance. You could keep your ears open for anything strange going on.”

“Oh, right. Am I supposed to be her lead into the gay community? No, maybe she thinks the reptiles are against her too. Or maybe she just wants me to bite off a strategic foot or two.” Jack turned to face Bagabond. “No fucking
way.
”

“Jack, she just needs someone on her side—”

“Someone on her side! She's got the whole Mafia. I find it a little hard to believe that one were-alligator would make all that much difference.” Jack walked over to the sofa and looked down on Bagabond. She refused to look up to meet his eyes. “Suzanne, you stay out of this. She doesn't care about you anymore. She'll use you too. Get you killed. And not even blink.”

The black stood up and moved between Jack and Bagabond. The ginger began growling deep in her throat, the hair on her back standing up. Jack retreated a few steps.