Inside Straight

It might not help that they were very, very drunk.

“Fortune has a beetle in his head,” Jonathan said. “That’s not an accepted recipe for clear thinking.”

“Your head turns into bugs,” Lohengrin replied. Somehow that seemed to be a refutation.

“Wasps,” Jonathan said, and gave a little belch. “Not beetles. Wasps. Anyway, what does John need us for? Isis said he’ll have the power of Ra. Ra, Ra, sis-boom-bah. You got Ra on your side, you don’t need bugs. Did I tell you about my system for blackjack?”

They had been playing Stump the Barman. Lohengrin had never known that so many drinks were served in pineapples and coconuts, and his amazement pushed Jonathan to think of more and more obscure drinks, just for the expression on his face. Some were garnished with cherries and slices of pineapple, some with olives, some with onions. One had a shrimp in it. Their table was covered with paper parasols and tiny plastic swords. After a Slimer, a Sledgehammer, a Blue Motherfucker, a Purple People Eater, and a Sloe Screw on the Beach, Lohengrin started talking about the day at Neuschwanstein when he walked into the castle to face the terrorists. “The gate was sealed, but I cut through it with my sword. They shot at me, but they could not hurt me. There were five of them.”

“You’re not talking five wingnuts down in Egypt. You’re not talking the Bavarian Freedom Front. Millions of pissed-off Muslims, that’s what we’re talking here. We could be killed. I don’t have the power of Ra. Did I mention that?”

“You are an ace. A warrior.”

“You may be a warrior, Mein Herr. I turn into bugs.”

“Many, many, many bugs,” said Lohengrin. “Too many for anyone to kill them all, nein? Why do you have this power, do you think?”

“There was this virus. Maybe you heard about it. There were aliens and a guy with a blimp and some dude called Jet-boy. The guy with the blimp might have been German, come to think of it, but I won’t hold that against you. I try to be well-mannered. I haven’t mentioned Hitler once in all the time I’ve known you.”

“God,” said Klaus. “God made the world. All the worlds. The aliens, the germs, he made them, too. Jetboy.”

“I think the press made Jetboy.”

Lohengrin ignored that, which was too bad. Jonathan thought it was a pretty good line. “God wanted us to have these powers. You and me. He puts a sword into my hand and armors me in ghost steel, and he turns you into flies.”

“Wasps. Hello? Flies are gross.”

“Jonathan, my friend, why would God have given us these powers, except to protect the weak and innocent?”

“Oh please. Do I look like a caped crusader? Are you my plucky sidekick? God did it to fuck with our heads. Or to win a bet with Satan. He did it for the same reason he gives kids leukemia. How should I know? He’s God; he doesn’t explain this stuff to me. Did you miss the part where I was saying how we could get killed?”

“Who will help these people, if not us?”

“The United Nations. The secretary-general’s flying into Cairo. Not Kofi Annan, the new one. He was on the TV in the bar when you were up in the suite screwing what’s her name. Lilly of the Valley.”

“Lili Marlene. We were making love. She was beautiful, Jonathan. Perhaps God sent her as well.”

“Him or the night manager. Ask what escort service he used, you can ring her up again. I promise you, you’re not going to bump into her in Egypt. Hey, what say we check out the Excalibur? I hear they have jousting. You’d like that, I bet.”

“Jonathan, Isis said that people are dying.”

Jonathan put down his drink and focused on the great muscle-bound lunk at his side.

“People are always dying somewhere in the world,” he said. “When they’re not dying in Cairo, they’re dying in Timbuktu, Kalamazoo, Hoboken, Hohoswinegrunt, or some other goddamned place.”

“Hohenschwangau, but no one died there. I saved them. With this.” Lohengrin stood up, a broadsword appearing in his hand, white, shimmering, its edge a razor. He brought it down hard, shearing through the steel and mica table in one sudden, savage cut. Coasters, coconuts, and paper umbrellas flew everywhere.

“Great,” Jonathan said, “that’s a good argument. Beat up the furniture.”

The waitress—a blond woman in her midthirties with an expression that could stun rats at twenty yards—came up to them.

“You can put it on the room,” Jonathan said.

She nodded in a way that assured them both that she would, while simultaneously informing them that they had had their last alcohol for the evening. All without speaking. She was very talented that way.

“How about a cup of coffee?” Jonathan asked.

She nodded again, turned, and walked away.

“We are men,” Lohengrin said. “We are blessed among men. Our actions should be guided by what is right and noble!”

“We’re drunks in Vegas,” Jonathan said. “Our actions should be guided by vice and alcohol.”

Lohengrin shook his head. He managed to look deeply disappointed without precisely focusing his eyes.

“Do you have no dreams, Jonathan?”