Inside Straight

The mosquito whined again. Simoon paused in the narrow strip. One hand held her cell phone to her ear. Her head bowed, and she sighed.

“I’ll try, okay? If the occasion comes up, I’ll try—and don’t push me, Mother. Honest to God, if you give me any more shit about this, I won’t even talk to him.”

The mosquito was much quieter.

“You too,” Simoon said. “Give my love to Uncle Osiris.”

The cell phone closed with a click, and Jonathan rapped gently on the door, swinging it open an inch in the process. Simoon looked up, her eyes round and surprised. Jonathan waved, hoping the gesture was appropriately friendly and not particularly stalkerlike.

“Oh my God,” Simoon said, her brows furrowing with concern. “What happened to your thumb?”

“Oh,” Jonathan said, sticking his hand back in his pocket. “It’s nothing. It just does that sometimes. Little bits of me kind of wander off. They’ll be back.”

“Oh,” Simoon said, and Jonathan mentally removed her from the list of women who would ever, under any circumstances, consider sleeping with him.

“I was just… I couldn’t help overhearing you, ah, shouting at your mother there.”

Simoon sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. She looked smaller than he’d thought. “Sorry about that,” she said. “It’s this whole long thing.”

“The camera guys are still watching Joe Twitch and Spasm fight it out,” Jonathan said. “You want to talk about it?”

“It’s nothing,” Simoon said.

“Egypt. John Fortune. Something that wasn’t your fucking problem?” Jonathan said.

Simoon shook her head, paused, looked up at him.

“Okay,” she said. “But just between us, okay?”

“Absolutely,” Jonathan lied.

“My mom’s a god. The wild card hit Egypt way back when, and a bunch of the people who got it wound up looking like the ancient gods. You know. Crocodile heads or lion bodies, that kind of thing. They called themselves the Living Gods. My mom’s Isis, or, you know, an Isis. There are several.”

“She’s in Egypt?”

“No. Vegas. A bunch of them emigrated and got jobs at the Luxor. My mom hooked up with Elvis when she got here, and here I am. Daughter of a god and the King, and still kicked off the show. But anyway, I have a lot of family back in Cairo. Cousins and stuff.”

Jonathan moved slowly into the room and sat on the couch there. The bed would have seemed a little too familiar. “So how does John Fortune figure in?”

“My uncle Osiris has this thing where he sees the future. Bits of it. They don’t even let him into the casino part of the hotel. Anyway, ever since the Twisted Fists killed the Caliph there’s been a lot of antijoker sentiment in the old neighborhoods. And Osiris told Mom that there’s some kind of amulet they gave Peregrine back in the ’80s, and that it’s time she got John Fortune to wear it.”

“Ah,” Jonathan said. And then, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s supposed to give him the powers of Ra, whatever that means. And that’s supposed to help things back in Egypt. I don’t know all the details, and Uncle Osiris really likes to play how he’s all mystical and wise and shit, so getting a straight story out of him is, like, good luck. It’s all destiny this and fate that. But Mom decided that I should tell John Fortune about the amulet. And now she’s giving me all kinds of shit about how I haven’t done it yet.” Simoon shrugged like it was obviously the worst idea in the world.

“And you don’t want to because…?”

“I came on the show to help my career. Get some exposure,” Simoon said. “If I go talking crazy shit like this to Peregrine’s kid, what kind of reputation do I get? And anyway, after what happened to him before, he probably doesn’t even want powers, you know?”

“Have you ever tried Rolfing?” Jonathan asked.

“What?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Just gimme your phone for a minute.”

“Why?” Simoon asked, suddenly suspicious. Late in the game for that, Jonathan thought.

“Trust me,” he said.

He dialed with his remaining thumb. The connection rang twice, then a click.

“Hello?” Curveball said.

“Hey,” Jonathan said. “Give him the phone.”

There was a pause.

“What are you talking about, Hive?”

“I don’t know his phone number. I know yours from when we were all buddies and gosh-darn-it friends for life, so I’m calling you. Now slide the phone across the table, okay? I need to talk to him.”

Simoon, jaw slack with horror and surprise, made a waving motion with both hands. Don’t do this. Jonathan gave her history’s least-successful thumbs-up.

“Jonathan?” Fortune said at the other end of the line.

“Hey,” Jonathan said. “I’m over at Losers Central with Simoon, and you need to get over here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a story you’ve seriously got to hear. And funny thing is, it’s all about you and how you get ace powers back.”

There was a pause.

“Is this a joke?” Fortune asked.

“That’s the funny thing,” Jonathan said. “It really isn’t. Get over here as soon as you can.”

He hung up before Fortune could say anything else, and tossed the cell back to Simoon. She didn’t look pleased.