She was new. One of his girls had rescued her from a Brooklyn pimp named Ballpeen Willie, and Fortunato had paid five thousand dollars for her "contract." It was well known on the street that if Willie had objected, Fortunato would have spent the five thousand to have Willie hit, that being the current market value of a human life.

Willie worked for the Gambione Family and Fortunato had knocked heads with them more than once. Being black-half black, anyway-and independent gave Fortunato a feature part in Don Carlo's paranoid fantasies. The only thing Don Carlo hated worse were the jokers.

Fortunato wouldn't have put the killings past the old man except for one thing: he coveted Fortunato's operation too much to tamper with the women themselves.

Lenore came from a hick town in the mountains of Virginia where the old people still talked Elizabethan. Willie had been running her less than a month, not long enough to grind off the edges of her beauty. She had dark red hair to her waist, neon-green eyes, and a small, almost dainty mouth. She never wore anything but black and she believed she was a witch.

When Fortunato had auditioned her he'd been moved by her abandon, her complete absorption in carnality, so much at odds with her cool, sophisticated looks. He'd accepted her for training and she'd been at it now for three weeks, turning only an occasional trick, making the transition from gifted call girl to apprentice geisha that would take at least two years.

She led him up to her apartment and stopped with the key in the lock. "Uh, I hope it's not too weird for you."

He stood in the doorway while she walked through the room, lighting candles. The windows were heavily draped and he didn't see any appliances except a telephone-no TV, no clocks, not even a toaster. In the barren center of the room she'd painted a huge, five-pointed star surrounded by a circle, right onto the hardwood floor. Behind the sensual smells of incense and musk was the faint sulfurous tang of a chemistry lab.

He locked the front door and followed her into the bedroom. The apartment was thick with s.e.xuality. He could barely move his feet through the heavy, wine-colored carpet; the bed was canopied, with red velvet curtains, and so high off the floor it had stairs leading up to it.

She found a joint in the nightstand, lit it, and handed it to Fortunato. "I'll be back in a second," she said.

He took his clothes off and lay down with his hands behind his head, the joint hanging out of his mouth. He took a lungful of smoke and watched his toes uncurl. The ceiling overhead was deep blue, with constellations dabbed on in phosph.o.r.escent yellow-green. Signs of the zodiac, as far as he could tell. Magic and astrology and gurus were very hip right now. People at trendy Village parties were always asking each other what sign they were and talking about karma. For himself, he thought the Aquarian Age was just so much wishful think- ing. Nixon was in the White House, kids were getting their a.s.ses shot off in Southeast Asia, and he still heard the word "n.i.g.g.e.r" every day. But he had clients who would love this place.

If the psycho with the knife didn't put him out of business.

Lenore knelt beside him on the bed, naked. "You have such beautiful skin." She ran fingertips over his chest, raising gooseflesh. "I've never seen a color like this before." When he didn't answer she said, "Your mother is j.a.panese, they told me."

"And my father was a Harlem pimp."

"You're really f.u.c.ked up about this, aren't you."

"I loved those girls. I love all of you. You're more important to me than money or family or . . . or anything."

"And?"

He didn't think he had anything else to say until the words started coming out. "I feel so . . . so G.o.dd.a.m.ned helpless. Some twisted son of a b.i.t.c.h is killing my girls and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe not." Her fingers tangled in his pubic hair. "s.e.x is power, Fortunato. It's the most powerful thing in the universe. Don't ever forget that."

She took his p.e.n.i.s in her mouth, working it gently with her tongue like a piece of candy. It stiffened instantly and Fortunato felt sweat break on his forehead. He put out the joint with a wet fingertip and dropped it over the edge of the bed. His heels skidded on the icy slickness of the sheets and his nose filled with Lenore's perfume. He thought of Erika, dead, and it made him want to f.u.c.k Lenore hard and long.

"No," she said, taking his hand from her breast. "You brought me in off the streets, you're teaching me what you you know. Now it's my turn." know. Now it's my turn."

She pushed him down flat on his back, his arms over his head, and ran her black-polished fingernails down the tender skin over his ribs. Then she began to move over his body, touching him with her lips, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the ends of her hair, until his skin felt hot enough to glow in the dark. Then, finally, she straddled him and took him into her.

Being inside her gave him a rush like a junkie's. He pumped his hips and she leaned into it, taking her weight on her arms, her hair waterfalling around her head. Then, slowly, she lifted her eyes and stared at him.

"I am Shakti Shakti," she said. "I am the G.o.ddess. I am the power." She smiled when she said it, and instead of sounding crazy it just made him want her even more. Then her voice broke into short, rattling breaths as she came, shuddering, throwing her head back and rocking hard against him. Fortunato tried to turn her over and finish it but she was stronger than he would have believed possible, digging her fingers into his shoulders until he relaxed, then caressing him again with aching slowness.

She came twice more before everything turned red and he knew he couldn't hold back any longer. But she sensed it too, and before he knew what was happening she had pulled away and reached down between his legs, pushing one finger hard into the root of his p.e.n.i.s. It was too late to stop and the o.r.g.a.s.m took him so hard that it lifted his b.u.t.tocks completely off the bed. She pushed his chest down with her left hand and held on with her right, cutting off the sperm before it could shoot out, forcing it back inside him.

She's killed me, he thought as he felt liquid fire roar back into his groin, burning all the way through to his spinal cord and then lighting it like a fuse.

"Kundalini," she whispered, her face sweating and intent. "Feel the power."

The spark rocketed up his backbone and exploded in his brain.

Eventually he opened his eyes again. Time had come out of the sprockets of the projector and he saw everything in single, unrelated frames. Lenore had both arms around him. Tears ran out of her eyes and down his chest.

"I was floating," he said, when he finally thought to use his voice. "Up around the ceiling."

"I thought you were dead," Lenore said.

"I could see the two of us. Everything looked like it was made out of light. The room was white, and it seemed like it went on forever. There were lines and ripples everywhere." He felt a little like he'd had too much cocaine, a little like he had his fingers in a socket. "What did you do to me?"

"Tantric yoga. It's supposed to . . . I don't know. Give you a charge. I never heard of it taking anybody so hard before." She turned her face up to him. "Did you really get out? Out of your body?"

"I guess." He could smell the peppermint shampoo she used on her hair. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and wet and her tongue flickered against his teeth. He was still diamond-hard and he started to shake with wanting her.

He rolled onto her and she guided him inside where he could feel her burning for him. "Fortunato," she whispered, her lips still so close that they brushed his when they moved, "if you finish, you'll lose it. You'll be so weak you can barely move."

"Baby, I don't give a s.h.i.t. I never wanted anybody this much." He pushed himself up on his forearms so he could see her, his hips thrusting frantically. Every nerve in his body was alive, and he could feel the power surging through them, then slowly drawing back, ma.s.sing somewhere at the center of his body, ready to roar out of him, to pump him dry, leave him weak, helpless, drained . . .

He pulled away from her, rolled to the end of the bed, and bent double, clutching his knees. "Jesus!" he screamed. "What the f.u.c.k is happening to me?"

She wanted to stay with him, but he sent her to geisha cla.s.s anyway. He would be here, he promised, when she got home.

The apartment seemed vast and empty without her, and he had a sudden, chilling vision of Lenore alone on the street, with Erika's killer still loose.

No, he told himself. It wouldn't happen again, not this soon.

He found a gaudy oriental robe in her closet and put it on, and then he walked back and forth through the apartment, pacing out the inaudible hum in his nervous system. Finally he stopped in front of the bookcase in the living room.

Kundalini, she'd said. He'd heard the name before and when he saw a book called The Rising Serpent The Rising Serpent he made the connection. He took it down and started to read. he made the connection. He took it down and started to read.

He read about the Great White Brotherhood of Ultima Thule, located somewhere in Tartary. The lost Book of Dyzan Book of Dyzan and the and the vama vama chara chara, the lefthand path. The kali yuga kali yuga, the final, most corrupt of ages, now upon us. "Do whatever you desire, for in this way you please the G.o.ddess." Shakti Shakti. s.e.m.e.n as the rasa rasa, the juice, of power: the yod yod. Sodomy that revived the dead. Shape shifters, astral bodies, implanted obsessions leading to suicide. Paracelsus, Aleister Crowley, Mehmet Karagoz, L. Ron Hubbard.

Fortunato's concentration was absolute. He absorbed every word, every diagram, flipped back and forth to make comparisons, to study the ill.u.s.trations. When he finished he saw that twenty-three minutes had pa.s.sed since Lenore walked out the door.

The trembling in his chest was fear.

In the middle of the night he reached out to touch Lenore's cheek and his fingers came away wet. "Are you awake?" he said.

She rolled over and huddled tight against him. The warmth of her naked skin electrified and soothed him at the same time, like the taste of expensive whiskey. He combed through her hair with his fingers and kissed her fragrant neck. "What are you crying for?" he said.

"It's stupid," she said.

"What?"

"I really believe in that stuff. Magick. The Great Work, Crowley calls it." She p.r.o.nounced magic with a long a a and Crowley with a long and Crowley with a long o o like the bird. "I did the Yoga and learned the Qabalah and the Tarot and the Enochian system. I fasted and did the Bornless Ritual and studied Abramelin. But nothing ever happened." like the bird. "I did the Yoga and learned the Qabalah and the Tarot and the Enochian system. I fasted and did the Bornless Ritual and studied Abramelin. But nothing ever happened."

"What were you trying for?"

"I don't know. A vision. Samadhi Samadhi. I wanted to see something besides a G.o.dd.a.m.ned Greyhound stop in Virginia where they try to lynch kids for growing out their hair. I wanted out of myself. I wanted what happened to you this afternoon. And it happened to you and you don't even want it."

"I read some of your books tonight," he said. In fact he'd read two dozen of them, nearly half of her collection. "I don't know what's going on, but I don't think it's magic. Not like that guy Crowley's magic. What you did to me set it off, but I think it was something already inside me."

"You mean that spore thing, don't you? That wild card virus?" She had tensed up involuntarily, just at the mention of it.

"I can't think of anything else it could be."

"There's that Dr. Whatsisname. He could check you out. He could probably even fix you back, if that was what you wanted."

"No," he said. "You don't understand. When I read those books I could feel all those powers they talked about. Like if you were a high diver and you read about some complicated dive you'd never done, but you knew you could do it if you practiced on it. You said I didn't want this, and maybe I didn't, not right at first. But now I do." There was one picture, among the giant s.e.x organs and impossible contortions of a j.a.panese pillow book: the Tantric magician, forehead swollen with the power of his retained sperm, fingers twisted in mudras mudras of power. He had stared at it until his eyes burned. "Now I want it," he said. of power. He had stared at it until his eyes burned. "Now I want it," he said.

"You've definitely drawn a wild card," the little man said. "An ace, I'd say."

Fortunato had nothing in particular against white people, but he couldn't stand their slang. "Could you put that in plain English?"

"Your genetics have been rewritten by the Takisian virus. Apparently it was dormant in your central nervous system, probably in the spine. The intromission apparently gave you quite a jolt, enough to activate the virus."

"So now what happens?"

"The way I see it, you've got two choices." The little man hopped up onto the examining table across from Fortunato and brushed long red hair back over his ears. He looked like he should be in a rock band or working in a record store. He didn't make a convincing doctor. "I can try to reverse the effects of the virus. No guarantees there-I've got about a thirty-percent success rate. Every once in a while people end up worse than before."

"Or?"

"Or you can learn to live with your power. You wouldn't be alone. I can put you in touch with other people in your situation."

"Yeah? Like the 'Great and Powerful Turtle'? So I can fly around and pull people out of wrecked cars? I don't think so."

"What you did with your abilities would be up to you."

"What kind of 'abilities' are we talking about?"

"I can't say for sure. It looks like they're still coming on. The EEG shows strong telekinesis. The Kirilian chromatograph shows a very powerful astral body that I expect you can manipulate."

"Magic, is what you're saying."

"No, not really. But it's a funny thing about the wild card. Sometimes it requires a very specific mechanism to bring it under conscious control. I wouldn't be surprised if you need this Tantric ritual to make it work for you."

Fortunato stood up and peeled a hundred from the roll in his front pocket. "For the clinic," he said.

The little man looked at the money for a long time, and then he stuffed it in his Sgt. Pepper jacket. "Thank you," he said, like it hurt him to get the words out. "Remember what I said. You can call me anytime."

Fortunato nodded and walked out to look at the freaks of Jokertown.

He'd been six years old when Jetboy exploded over Manhattan, had grown up with the fear of the virus, the memory of the ten thousand who'd died on the first day of the new world. His father had been one of them, lying in bed while his skin split open and healed itself over and over again, the whole cycle not taking more than a minute or two. Until one of the cracks opened through his heart, spewing blood all over their Harlem apartment. And even while the old man lay in his coffin, waiting his turn for a two-minute funeral and a ma.s.s grave, he kept splitting open and healing, splitting and healing.

The memory never faded, but in time it got pushed aside by newer ones. Gradually Fortunato came to believe that nothing was going to happen to him. For those the virus didn't touch, life went on the way it always had.

He realized early on that he was going to have to make his own way. From listening to his mother complain about American women he came up with the idea of the prost.i.tute as geisha; at age fourteen he brought home a stunning Puerto Rican girl from his high school for his mother to train. That had been the beginning.

He looked up and saw that night had fallen while he'd been walking aimlessly through Jokertown. The grays and pastels had turned to neon, street clothes to paisley and leopard prints. Just ahead of him demonstrators had blocked off the street with a flatbed truck. There were drums and amps and guitars up there and a couple of heavy-duty extension cords running in through the open door of the Chaos Club.

At the moment the stage was empty except for a woman with long red curly hair and an acoustic guitar. A banner behind her read S.N.C.C. Fortunato had no idea what the letters stood for. She had the audience singing along with some folk song or other. They all went through the chorus a couple of times without the guitar, and then she took a bow and they clapped and she got down off the back of the truck.

She wasn't beautiful in the way Lenore was; her nose was a little large, her skin was not that good. She was in the radical uniform of blue jeans and work shirt that didn't do anything for her. But she had an aura of energy he could see without even wanting to.

Women were Fortunato's weakness. He was like a deer in their headlights. Even as low as he felt he couldn't help but stop and look at her, and before he knew it she was standing next to him, shaking a coffee can with a few coins in the bottom.

"Hey, man, how about a donation?"

"Not today," Fortunato said. "I don't have a lot of politics."

"You're black, Nixon's president, and you don't have any politics? Brother, have I got news for you."

"Is all this about being black?" Fortunato didn't see another black face in the crowd.

"No, man, it's about jokers. Whoa, did I strike a nerve or something?" When Fortunato didn't answer she went on anyway. "You know how long the average life expectancy of a joker in 'Nam is? Less than two months. If you take the percentage of jokers in the U.S. population and divide it by the percentage of jokers in 'Nam, you know what you get? You get about a hundred times too many jokers over there. A hundred times times, man!"

"Yeah, okay, so what do you want me to do about it?"

"Make a donation. We're going to get lawyers on this and stop it. It's the FBI, man. The FBI and SCARE. It's like McCarthy all over again. They've got lists of all the jokers and they're drafting them on purpose. If they can walk and hold a gun, they're not even getting a real physical, it's off to Saigon. It's genocide, pure and simple."

"Yeah, okay." He dug out a twenty and dropped it in the can.

"You know what I wish?" She hadn't even noticed the size of the bill. "I wish those f.u.c.king aces would do something about their own, you know? What would it take for Cyclone, or one of those other a.s.sholes, to wipe out those files? Nothing, man, nothing at all, but they're too busy getting headlines."