Inside Straight

He knew she’d ask. He’d formulated a hundred replies to the question on the way, but they’d all evaporated in the heat and sunlight and her presence. He licked dry lips. “I wanted … the way things happened back on American Hero … I don’t know, Kate. I really don’t. It’s all fucking mixed up in my head. I wasn’t happy where I was. Even playing with the band wasn’t helping. I felt like if I came here—if I showed up …” He tapped at his chest; a mournful, low dhoom answered. “Y’know, back in L.A., we talked about doing something genuine, something that wasn’t faked and artificial. I’ve been on stage most of my life; I worked my ass off to get where I am. But I know I could do more. The fame, the money—I have all of that I need. I can either play with it all, or I can use it. The visibility, the publicity, the money—they can be tools, just like what the wild card gave me. Sometimes they’re better.” He flicked his fingers over his chest; a rapid drumbeat answered as the throats along his neck pulsed—a quartet of paradiddles, followed by the splash of a cymbal. “I’ve always been able to get what I want if I work at it hard enough.” He found her gaze, held it. “Every time but once. I really hate fucking up. With you, I fucked up worse than I ever have, and I’m not even sure why. I know I’ve regretted it every day since.”

“Sometimes you can’t have what you want just ’cause you want it.” She hefted the marble; her arm arced back and forward almost too fast to see. He heard the hiss of the glass ball through the air. A moment later, far out in Lake Nasser, a fountain of white water erupted. “I like you, Michael. I do. You can be charming and funny and empathetic, and when you drop the rock star act there’s actually a great person underneath.”

“But?”

“I can’t trust you. You’ve proven that.”

He spread all six hands wide. “How can I show you you’re wrong, Kate?”

“You can’t. And …” She stopped.

“And you’re with him. Fortune.”

One shoulder lifted. “I’m not here because of John. I’m here to stop the genocide. You should understand the difference.”

“You can trust him, with that thing in his brain? That’s not even Fortune talking half the time. What if he’s just a marionette dancing on Sekhmet’s strings? Remember how he was when we first met him? Just Berman’s toady, Momma Peregrine’s little fetch-it boy. We all thought that he was a joke. Even you, I bet.”

“Shut up, Michael.” Her cheeks flushed. “Look, I’m—I’m glad you’re here. I’m sure we can use your strength.”

He flexed his arms reflexively. “My strength. But that’s all.”

She caught her lower lip in her teeth, as if trying to stop herself from saying more. “We should get back,” she said finally. “We’ll need to find you a place to sleep. Maybe you could share a tent with Rusty.”

“Toolbelt? The iron bigot? No fucking way.”

“He’s not that. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”

“If you say so.”

~ ~ ~

“No. Here. Hold it like this.” Michael demonstrated the proper way to hold a drumstick to the child, a dark-skinned, dog-headed boy. He was thinking that Ahmed the cabdriver had been right: animal-headed jokers were common as sand among the followers of the Living Gods. He gave the drumstick back to the kid and a loud percussive crack followed as the boy slammed the stick onto Michael’s chest.

Michael lay on the ground outside his tent, his top arms under his head, the others set close to his body as a crowd of joker children gathered around him, laughing and jabbering excitedly as they played him as if he were a drum set. Parents and other adults watched, smiling from the periphery. Masud, his soldier fan, stood nearby, clapping and smiling. A joker with eyes set on long stalks and press credentials draped around his neck pulled a heavy, professional video camera to his shoulder and put his eyestalk to the viewfinder. A red light pulsed next to the lens.

The racket was incredible, and Michael’s neck throats yawned open as he let the sound boom out. There was a definite beat—the two kids kneeling by the lowest of the tympanic rings on his abdomen poured forth a subsonic phoom that was more felt than heard, a steady rhythm that struck the onlookers like invisible, soft fists. The children playing the higher-pitched, smaller rings above unleashed a cascade of varied tones as Michael shaped the noise with the matrix of vocal cords layered in his thick neck.

The noise radiated out, forte.

Rustbelt came out from the tent, yawning with a groan like ancient hinges. One of the kids rushed to him and began tapping at his leg with a drumstick. “Hey, you’re not a half-bad cowbell,” Michael said to him, half-shouting.

Rustbelt glanced at the knot of kids flailing at Michael’s body. “Cripes,” he said. “What are you doing, fella?”

“Getting to know the locals. Kids are kids, no matter where you are.”

Rustbelt glanced at the joker with the videocam. “Yeah.”