"I'm rich and young, sort of." Jerry hadn't aged physically in the twenty years he'd been an ape. Legally, though, he was in his forties.

"Feeling sorry for yourself again?" Kenneth said, reappearing and sitting back down.

"Constantly," Jerry said.

"Right. Did you ever contact any of those film people I mentioned your name to? You have talent. Beth and I are both impressed with your abilities."

"I'll get around to it. I have a lazy muse," Jerry said. "I know you went to a lot of trouble."

"Not as much trouble as proving that you weren't legally dead when you showed up last year." Kenneth smiled. "Nobody wanted to believe you'd been a giant ape for over a decade. Too many precedents."

Jerry sighed. "Sorry I was so much trouble."

"It's not that and you know it. When you're born into wealth like we were, there's a larger obligation to society that comes with it."

Jerry shrugged. "I like to think I'm keeping my bank from going under. It's the romantic in me."

Beth smiled, but Kenneth shook his head. "The romantic in you is going to get you into trouble someday. You can pay people to not call you Mr. Strauss, but you can't make them give a shit when it's crunch time. People don't love you for money, they love you in spite of it."

Jerry didn't need to hear this right now. He turned to Beth. "Why did you marry this guy?"

Beth smiled and held up her hands, palms about a foot apart.

"Nasty girl," Jerry said. " I guess it runs in the family." Kenneth fingered a cuff link. "I don't want to be a pain, but you can count on me keeping after you about this. You need to find something to do with your life."

There was a burst of applause and people began standing. Jesse Jackson was making his way slowly from the back of the room, shaking hands as he went.

"I suppose we can expect a speech now," Jerry said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'd rather be home watching a movie."

"Democracy is hell, bro," Beth said.

"I'll drink to that." Jerry snagged a waiter's arm and indicated he needed more wine. The only thing that numbed his butt quicker than politics was alcohol.

After rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful, he felt like staying up late. Jerry split time between his apartment and his room at the family house on Staten Island where Kenneth and Beth lived. He'd had to overhaul the place when he got back. His sixteen-millimeter projectors were shot and the neglected cans of film had gotten brittle with age. He'd replaced them with a largescreen TV and videotape. Nobody collected actual films anymore. But there was no romance in video. It was cheap and easy. He was hardly in a position to be judgmental about people who went that way, though, considering his relationship with Veronica. Although she wasn't cheap and was getting less easy all the time.

He was watching Klute. It was a bad choice. At least Veronica didn't wear a watch while they did it. She probably never came either, though.

There was a soft knock at the door and Beth stuck her head in. Jerry paused the tape and motioned her in. "Entrez. I'm watching Klute. Ever seen it?"

"Twice, at least." She sat down on the sofa next to him. " I love the scene where she licks the spoon after eating the catfood." Beth licked her lips.

"You're sick."

"Afraid so." She picked up two other tapes off the table. "What have we got here? Irma La Douce and McCabe and Mrs. Miller." She paused. He knew she expected him to say something.

"Yeah, well. I like to mix it up, you know. Murder mystery, period piece, comedy. I try to get a bit of everything." He shrugged. "I've got lots to catch up on."

She patted him on the shoulder. "You don't want to talk about it. I can tell. I always feel better when I talk about things. If I hadn't had some good friends and a decent analyst a few years back, Kenneth and I would have wound up divorced."

"I didn't know you two had any problems."

She laughed. "It's tough being married to a lawyer. You always have the feeling that anything you say can and will be used against you. And sometimes he did. I know he didn't mean to, or at least I hope that, but at the time it was hard to tell. You can't ever be another person and know how they really feel. That's kind of scary. But eventually you just decide to believe in them or not. I decided to believe in Kenneth and I'm not sorry"

"I'm glad." The words sounded flatter than he'd intended. "Really. You've been a big help to me. I know I'm not adjusting very well, but I will."

Beth kissed him on the cheek. "You can talk to me any time you feel like it." She pointed to the TV screen. "Want to know who the killer is?"

"No, thanks. I don't want to cheat myself out of guessing wrong and then feeling stupid."

"Good night." She closed the door.

Jerry shut off the TV and VCR. He didn't much like the way this one was headed, anyway. He crossed the floor to his dressing room. It hadn't changed much in thirty years. Back when he was the Projectionist, he'd practiced his Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando in front of the same mirror. Bogart died even before Jerry had drawn the wild card, and Brando was old and fat. He sat down, opened a drawer, and pulled out a picture of Veronica and a wig. The hair was as close a match as he could find for hers.

He stuck the picture in the corner of the mirror and looked at it for a second or two, then at his own reflection. His features began to change; his skin darkened. Hair was still a problem. He couldn't quite get it to do what he wanted yet. In the old days he could actually have turned into a woman, but that had always made him feel weird. He pulled on the wig and closed his eyes, waited a moment, then reopened them.

"I love you."

It was even less convincing than the few times Veronica had said it herself. He pulled off the wig and changed back. Beth was right, you couldn't know what another person was thinking or feeling. Couldn't ever actually be them. He tossed the wig and picture into the drawer and slammed it shut.

Who the hell would want to, anyway?

Luck Be a Lady by Chris Claremont

Once they heard where she was going, nobody would take her. Some cabbies were apologetic, others curtly dismissive, a couple offered rude gestures and ruder words.

If the plane had arrived on time, when the dispatchers were on duty, she might have fared better-but mechanical delays and rotten weather en route had delayed the flight so long it was well past midnight before she finally landed, and there was nobody official to turn to.

One asked point-blank why Cody was going there and, hoping it might persuade him to change his mind, she told him: "A job interview"

"Where fo'?" he asked, "ain't nobody hirin' down there."

"The clinic," she said.

"Shit, missy, you got better places to go an' better things to do wit'chu life than waste it down 'at shithole, trust me."

"Absolutely," a friend chimed in, his accent so thick Cody barely understood the word.

"Decent lady got no bizness goin' there," the driver continued, hands weaving a fascinating pattern in the air before him as he spoke, took a sip of coffee, spoke, took a drag on a Marlboro, without ever missing a beat. "Shit, nobody human got any bizness there. Unless…" Suspicion dawned and he looked narrowly toward her. "Maybe you're one of 'em."

The way he asked, far too deliberately casual, trying to mask the sudden burr of fear and hostility barely hidden underneath, caught Cody's attention and she tilted her head to give her one eye a better view of him.

"One of what?" she asked, genuinely confused. "Them," as if that was the most obvious reference in the world. "Jokers, aces-whole fuckin' crowd."

"I'm a doctor."

"Cops got a name for their precinct down there, `Fort Freak.' Fuckin' fits, y'know. Ain't there enough sick people needful amongst your own, why you gotta go take care o' them? Pardon me for sayin', lady, but you ain't got the look o' no Mutha Teresa, know what I mean?"