And nearly jumped out of her skin when the double doors crashed open, and a long line of conga-dancing jokers came undulating into the street from between the neon thighs of the six-breasted stripper that adorned and formed the club's door. Leading the line was a beautiful-faced woman who was having no trouble with the sinuous curves of the dance, since from the neck down she had the body of a iridescent snake. Her tail, which ended in an incongruous tuft of feathers, was uplifted, and the joker immediately behind her in the line had a firm grip on the tip.

He wasn't wearing a mask, but he was one of the few. The rest of the swaying, yelling, shouting crowd wore a variety of dominos from elaborate feathered, jeweled, and sequined cre ations to hideous visages that were worse than the deformities they hid-perhaps.

At the tail end of the line clung a few nats looking both excited and self-conscious, and a touch belligerent, as if daring the jokers who inhabited the Bowery-and provided a wealth of skin-crawling, spine-tingling entertainment for the tourists-to object.

For a moment Roulette hated the thrill seekers with their bland, normal faces and smug security. I hope it is catching, came the vicious thought. God damn you all. But the thought was really meant for Josiah. Josiah, who had sworn to love and care for her, and instead had abandoned her when she most needed him. Apparently white liberal guilt wasn't enough to deal with a woman who had the wild card virus. Might be catching. And she could imagine her former mother-in-law seated in prissy splendor at her Newport mansion sipping tea and discussing how no matter how much you worked with one of those "black" girls it so often went to naught. Many times were simply too badly warped and scarred both mentally physically by the white man's oppression to enter white society. Wasn't it a shame. Sigh.

But she probably burnt the sheets and had every piece of furniture in the house re-covered after Josiah divorced me. Sanctimonious, hypocritical bitch!

Roulette realized that she had been walking blindly, shouldering past the throngs that filled the streets of Jokertown. The sound of hammers and staple guns echoed in the already sultry morning air, shouts of greeting and insult from the jokers busy setting up booths for the day-long party, the smell of cooking (good and bad) wafting over the exhaust-laden air. Overhead a small private plane droned by pulling a long banner that read JOKERS INTO ACES. RESULTS GUARANTEED.

On another corner the Church of Jesus Christ joker had a booth already up and running, handing out literature to anyone who could be stopped. Their results were guaranteed too, but in the afterlife. Beset on all sides, thought Roulette, charlatans for the here and the hereafter. Hopeless hope. Well, my people can tell you all about that, and it never gets any easier until there's some new and even more unpopular minority to take your place. And I can't conceive of a more unpopular and hideous minority than the jokers ever arising, you poor bastards.

There was a barricade across Henry Street. It wasn't legal, but Chrysalis was a major figure in Jokertown, and the area precinct had reason to be grateful to the owner of the Crystal Palace. More than one tough case had been solved because of her intervention, so the chief wasn't about to raise a stink over a few traffic snarls once a year. Chrysalis also had control of street decorations, so Henry Street projected an image of tasteful pride rather than the garish shock value that held sway on other streets. Roulette slipped past the barricade, and started down the street. To her right, and for about half the length of the block, there was an empty lot filled with piles of rubble, a reminder of the Jokertown riot back in '76. Waisthigh weeds and a few hardy saplings thrust up through the brick and plaster mounds. Several of the piles had dark openings like yawning little mouths, and she wondered if the place had become a haven for animals. She couldn't picture the fastidious Chrysalis allowing a rat warren to grow up next door to her bar. As she watched, there was a gleam from deep in the hole that soon resolved itself into a pair of bright eyes surrounded by hair. But it wasn't the shy muzzle of an animal that peered from the burrow. It was human-sort of-

With a gasp Roulette ducked her head and hurried on, passing Arachne, whose eight slender legs caught at the line of silk extruding from her bulbous body and wove it swiftly into one of her famous spider-silk shawls. Her daughter was busy in their booth hanging out an array of delicately dyed scarves and shawls. Most nats would never have purchased one of the trembling, almost transparent scraps of fabric if they'd seen it being created, but Arachne made a good living supplying the scarves to Saks and Neiman-Marcus. Roulette owned one, a delicate peach-colored creation that looked like she had thrown a sunset over her dark shoulders. If she had known Arachne was going to be on Henry Street she would have worn it to show the woman that she at least did not mind the source, and that she honored the artistry.

There was a low rumbling that gained in speed and intensity, and ended with a crashing boom as Elmo, the Palace's resident bouncer, rolled another metal keg of beer out the front door and into the street where it joined its brethren like a rotund cue slamming into a setup of stumpy balls. The bouncer, who looked rather like a beer keg himself, flexed his shoulders in satisfaction, and headed back for another one.

Kids darted up and down the pavement chasing a battered soccer ball while at the far end of the block an impromptu baseball game had begun. Ghetto blasters throbbed out a cacophony of conflicting music: soul, rock, country, classical. Children cried and mothers called, but this madness had a sense of serenity and security; a feeling of family. Nowhere did she sense that desperate and nerve-stretching drive to have fun that had gripped the dancing throng outside Freakers. These people, as hideous as many of them were, were at peace with themselves.

Roulette tore her eyes from the gang of playing urchins, and forced herself to scan the crowd for a distinctive, tiny, redheaded figure. Thirty minutes ago she had stopped at the jokertown clinic only to be told by Tachyon's very cool, very elegant, very beautiful, and very disapproving chief of surgery that the good doctor was not present, but could no doubt be found making house calls at any one of a number of bars. Roulette had tried Ernie's and Wally's and the Funhouse with no luck, and now the Crystal Palace…

And she found him.

Seated at a small table among many other small tables that had been squeezed onto the sidewalk out front of the Palace. Brandy snifter held lightly between long, slender fingers, glass tilting softly so the amber liquid flowed gracefully about the sides. Another glass figure standing at his left shoulder, but this one filled with the bone and viscera that form a human being, long nails painted an iridescent pink, a dusting of silverblue glitter across one unseen cheek. Chrysalis herself.

Roulette had reached the moment. She hadn't thought beyond simply finding the Takisian, but now having found him what did she do? Faint? Sprain an ankle? She knew-as did most of the world-of the alien's fascination with beautiful women, but there were lots of beautiful women in New York, and what if he'd already found a companion for the day? And if he hadn't, how could she insure that he picked her? Beauty she had, but not the skills that usually accompanied it. She had never mastered the art of flirting. And in that moment she felt a surge of relief. She would walk past; if he noticed… well, so be it. He was meant to meet his fate. If not… She tried not to think of the wizened little man lurking in his damp lair.