She took the rest of her clothes off. She was still graceful enough to get out of her panty hose without breaking the mood. Her bra had left lines around her chest and over her shoulders and there was dark stubble under her arms.

She got onto the bed and straddled Fortunato and began to touch herself. She started with her forehead and let her fingers trickle down her cheeks and back up to where her ears met her jawline. Goose bumps came up on her neck. She swayed forward until her full, sagging breasts were inches from his face. He leaned up to kiss them and she pulled away. "No," she said. "I told you to hold still."

She brushed her broad, dark nipples with her fingertips until they tightened and thrust out at him. Then she brushed lightly over her belly and buried her left hand in her pubic hair. With her right she touched Fortunato's lips again. He licked her fingers and arched his back.

She moved up the bed on her knees and lowered herself onto his mouth. "Gently," she said. "It's been a long time." As he licked and probed with his tongue she gradually began to melt and open to him. She took hold of the brass railing of the bed and slowly moved against him, her breath coming faster, her heavy thighs pressing against the sides of his head.

Then her body stiffened and she let out a tiny, hoarse scream and he drank the power from her, hungrily, gratefully. He felt it tingling through his body and hardly noticed as she bent to kiss him lightly on the mouth. "You taste like me," she said. "Take care, Fortunato."

She picked up her clothes and was gone.

Fortunato came downstairs to find a circle of beautiful women around the couch in the sitting room. In the middle sat a tall, striking girl in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

"Ichiko," Fortunato said, using his mother's geisha name. "What's the deal?"

"Ellroy found her in Jokertown," Ichiko said. Like Miranda, she'd put on weight in the last ten years. She was tall anyway, and now she looked positively Anglo-Saxon. She wore a black cotton sweater and skirt with a red-and-black silk blouse. The top three buttons were undone. She-moved across the room to Fortunato without sound or visible effort. "She was coming out of the Church of Jesus Christ Joker and looked like she was about to get in trouble with one of Gambione's scouts. Ellroy offered her a ride." She shrugged. "Here she is."

"She's beautiful."

"Yes," Ichiko said. "She is."

"Okay," Fortunato said to the others. "Break it up. Don't you ladies have places you're supposed to be?" They moved off, one at a time, Caroline stopping to slip one arm around his waist as she passed. Then he was alone with her. "I'm Fortunato," he said.

"Cordelia." She didn't stand up, but held her hand out to him. Fortunato took it for a second and then sat down next to her. "I appreciate the rescue," she said. Her voice was deep, a little breathless, very Southern. Sexy.

"Do you know where you are'?"

"Ellroy told me a little. He said there were no obligations, but I could hang around for an interview if I wanted."

"And?"

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

She was flirtatious, but she seemed terribly young. "I'll have to ask you some personal kind of things."

"Like am I a virgin, you mean?"

"For instance."

"No. I had a regular boyfriend back in Atelier Parish. And-well, you know what they say about virgins from Louisiana. They're just the girls without any close male kin." She laughed but Fortunato didn't.

"We need to talk some more," he said. "Do you have dinner plans?"

"'Dinner plans?' Not hardly! But from the way you're dressed I can't see myself going anywhere with you." Fortunato looked at his watch. "We can find you something here to wear. How soon could you be ready?"

7:00 p.m.

When his barber finished trimming his beard and swept away the apron, Hiram Worchester rose majestically from his chair, shrugged into a perfectly-tailored tuxedo jacket, and surveyed himself in the mirror. His shirt was silk, of the deepest, purest blue. His accessories were all silver. Blue and silver were the Aces High colors. "Very good, Henry," Hiram said. He tipped the barber handsomely.

Curtis waited just outside his office door. Beyond, his restaurant was ready. Waiters and bartenders stood at their stations. Kelvin Frost's astonishing ice sculptures had been moved out onto the floor, each one surrounded by a moat of crushed ice dotted with bottles of Dom Perignon. Tables of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres were scattered throughout the restaurant, to keep the guests from clumping. The musicians stood poised by their instruments. Overhead, the glittering art-deco chandeliers shone softly. The beginnings of a magnificent redgold sunset were visible to the west.

Hiram smiled, "Open the doors," he told Curtis.

A dozen people were already waiting in the foyer when the doors were opened. Hiram bowed to the women and kissed their hands, gave each man a firm handshake, performed the necessary introductions, and pointed them all toward the bar. The early birds tended to be obscure minor aces, insecure of their status and excited by Hiram's invitation. A few, only recently out of the deck, had never been to Aces High before, but Hiram treated them all like long-lost friends. The major aces tended to be fashionably late.

The first uninvited guest was a tall blond college student who looked uncomfortable in his rented dinner jacket. "What do I have to do to get in, guess your weight?" he asked when Curtis called Hiram over to pass on his admission.

"No," Hiram said, smiling. "That got a bit old, I'm afraid. But I see you've read your Wild Card Chic."!

"You bet. So what does it take to get in?"

"Show me proof that you've got an ace power," Hiram said.

"Right here?" The boy looked around uneasily.

"Is there a problem? What is your power, if I might be so bold?"

The boy cleared his throat. "It's kind of hard to-"

His date giggled. "He gets itsy-bitsy," she announced in a loud, clear voice.

The college boy turned a bright shade of red. "Yeah, uh, I compress the molecules of my body, I guess, to make myself smaller. I can, uh, shrink down till I'm six inches tall." He tried keeping his voice low, but it had gotten very quiet. "My mass stays the same," he added defensively.

"That's some power, kid," Wallace Larabee opined loudly from the buffet, where he stood holding a tiny buckwheat pancake that sagged dangerously under the weight of the caviar he'd piled atop it. "Whooeee, I'm sure scared."

Hiram wouldn't have thought it possible for the boy to turn a deeper red, but he did. "Don't mind Wallace," Hiram said. "He nearly ruined our 1978 get-together when he demonstrated his power, and he knows I'll throw him out if he ever does it again. They call him the Human Skunk."

There was general laughter, Larabee turned away to load up another pancake, and the boy seemed a bit less mortified. "Well," he said, "the only thing is, when I do it, I, uh, well, it's like this, I shrink, but my clothes don't."

Hiram understood. "Curtis," he said, "take him back to my office, and see if he can do what he claims."

Curtis smiled. "This way, please."

When they reemerged a few moments later, the maitre d' gave a slight nod, the assembled guests broke into applause, and the boy turned red again. "Welcome to Aces High," Hiram said. "I didn't catch your name."

"Frank Beaumont," the college boy replied.

"But I call him Itsy-Bitsy," his girlfriend volunteered. "Gretchen!" Frank hissed.

"You have my word, I'll take that secret to my grave," Hiram promised. He caught the eye of a passing waiter. "Soft drinks, or are you old enough to enjoy some champagne?" he asked Frank and Gretchen. "Please remember, the room is full of telepaths."