Inside Straight

“You’ve been around these children. I expect your insights are better than my own.”

“Then let me have a presence in all camps. Bahir with Siraj. Noel can continue to liaise with the Yanks. And Lilith can join their little club. Lohengrin will forgive her if she asks prettily enough. After that I’ll just …” he flashed Flint a smile, “… improvise.”

Flint snorted to cover his amusement. He pointedly pulled out another file. “Keep me informed,” he said, without looking up.

Noel let his body shift. Felt the whisper of Lilith’s long hair across his hips. Soon he would measure his dark against Curveball’s gold, and find out if John Fortune really was a hero.

He doubted it.

Michael Cassutt Looking for Jetboy: Epilog

The last day of American Hero begins with the phone chittering in Jamal Norwood’s apartment in Sherman Oaks. It is Eryka, the cute female production assistant who replaced John Fortune—“Hi, Stuntman! We’re picking you up at nine A.M.!”

Jamal blinks, not sure what time it is, where he is. “I’ll be ready,” he mumbles, or something close to that.

Showered, somewhat fed, Jamal finds himself on Moorpark Street, waiting for the American Hero Humvee. Today is to be the last challenge. Today is to be the big live broadcast. What will he be tomorrow? Winner of American Hero? A million dollars richer?

Or the answer to the trivia question, “Whatever happened to the ace who came in second?” At this moment, he wishes the earth would open up and swallow him.

~ ~ ~

Stuntman has had zero contact with Rosa Loteria since the penultimate vote that named them the Terrible Two. As he follows Eryka into the gym of Carpenter Avenue School, he sees Rosa arriving with her escort at the same time. She actually smiles and offers a toss of the head by way of greeting. In fact, as they find themselves waiting at the entrance, she says, “Do you have any idea what this is all about?”

“None,” Jamal says. “Which means this is no different than any other day on this show.” And she laughs.

Peregrine and a camera crew are in the auditorium, along with three hundred grade-school kids who go wild when the aces enter. Jamal and Rosa look at each other with what the hell? faces. “You’ve seen them for the past couple of months! Now, here they are, the two finalists for American Hero, Stuntman and Rosa Loteria!”

And the applause grows even louder. The kids seem genuinely happy to be in the presence of real, live aces. As they climb up to the stage, Rosa says, “They must have us mixed up with the ones who went to Egypt.”

And what appeared to be a long day looks to be even longer.

~ ~ ~

While Jamal bounced back from the penultimate challenge, all hell had broken loose in the Middle East with the former Discards from American Hero making actual history, while Stuntman, Gardener, Jetman, Tiffani, Rosa Loteria, and the others were nothing but tabloid fodder.

Then came the visit with Mom and Big Bill Norwood.

His parents still lived in Baldwin Hills; not in the same house Jamal grew up in, rather, in a two-bedroom condo a few miles away. It was another dislocation that made Jamal feel as though he were visiting strangers.

His mother fussed more than usual, proud to have a celebrity in the family. More precisely, a wild card celebrity. “It was so strange to see you … being hurt like that!” Mom had never really accepted Jamal’s wild card. “You didn’t have it as a child!” she had protested the first time he gave his parents a demonstration of Stuntman’s powers. (Okay, maybe he was showing off, leaping from the fourth-floor roof of their condo building and going splat on the parking lot below.) But Jamal’s appearance on television—the sort of thing the neighbors could see—somehow made his condition more real to her. Being an American Hero made it okay for Jamal Norwood to be an ace in his own home.

That was Mom, of course. Big Bill Norwood was a whole different matter. When Jamal entered, Big Bill was in his easy chair, remote in hand, detached. He nodded a response to Jamal’s greeting, then let his eyes flick back toward a basketball game. (It always amazed Jamal that his father could follow four sporting events simultaneously on television, but couldn’t sustain a conversation longer than a few sentences.)

“Mom says you saw the show,” Jamal said, knowing there was no reason to postpone the inevitable conflict.

Big Bill grunted. “Yep.”

“What did you think?”

“Seemed kind of dumb to me.”

Jamal felt stung. He pointed a finger at the TV screen. “Dumber than Division III girls’ volleyball?”

Then Big Bill did a surprising thing. He clicked off the TV and set down the remote. “Yes, your show is dumber than those girls, because no one’s setting up phony challenges to make them look like fools.”

“You think I look like a fool?”

“Bill.” That was Mom, using her warning voice.