Fort Freak by George R.R. Martin

had once been a secondary dining area or maybe an inconvenient parlor. Regardless, it was now a place where Dutton brought his friends, shelved his liquor, and kept a felted table with seven seats and as many ashtrays.
    Some years previously, someone (and no one seemed to remember who ) had made a joke about the Tiffany-style lamps, the wood paneling, the smoke, and the hunkered shoulders … to the effect that their gathering looked like a black velvet painting of dogs playing poker. At the next gathering, Lucas Tate—that aficionado of all things masklike and mask-related—arrived wearing a bulldog mask and toting half a dozen more dog masks to be shared with the group.
    Thus, the Black Velvet Society.
    And thus the four seated men who raised amber-colored drinks or saluted with freshly lit cigars.
    The greetings went around in a circle.
    “Doctor” Hendrik Pretorius was not a real doctor, but he sat closest to the bar and doled out the medicine with a generous hand. Lean and permanently tan, the man’s silver beard shot to a tidy point, a shorter analog to his ponytail. Many cops couldn’t stand the sight of the old civil liberties lawyer. There were reasons. There were also reasons that Leo didn’t mind him. “Detective.” Dr. Pretorius waved with a decanter before leaning back in his chair and sliding the crystal bottle back into its slot on a shelf.
    “Lawyer,” Leo replied. Another old joke. “Journalist,” he carried it a step farther, acknowledging Lucas Tate, editor of the Jokertown Cry with a halfhearted shot from a finger-gun.
    Tate was seated, masked, and languid, as usual. The elongated skin tags that passed for his hair were drawn back away from his face. “Cop.” Tate nodded from within his St. Bernard mask, which he indicated with aplomb as he then said to Father Squid, “Picked this one for you, tonight. I was feeling … holy. ”
    The priest said, “Yes, I bet you were. Toss me a stogie, would you?”
    “But of course.” Tate fished around in the box and made a selection.
    Lieutenant Harvey Kant threw back a slug of whatever very expensive beverage he’d been handed, swallowed hard, and said, “Leo,” with a friendly address of his long, brown index finger. The rest of him was brown too, and decidedly reptilian. He looked rather uncannily like a burly lizard.
    Lucas Tate said, “Catch,” and tossed the priest something that smelled Cuban.
    Father Squid caught it with the snap of a tentacle and motioned for a light, which Dutton swooped in to provide. The priest said, “You boys sure know how to take care of a guy,” and he settled himself into one of the remaining seats, beside Chaos—who adjusted three of his six arms in order to be more accommodating.
    “Oh, and uh … Sibyl,” Leo added quickly, spying the motionless blue woman standing unobtrusively naked in a corner. “Good to see you too,” he murmured.
    Sibyl didn’t have a vocational descriptor like the rest of the players, but then again, she wasn’t playing—she only accompanied the lawyer, whose side she rarely left. “Ice Blue Sibyl,” everyone called her. She never called herself anything. She never spoke at all, and no one knew how much she understood except, perhaps, Dr. Pretorius. Leo wouldn’t have admitted she made him uncomfortable with her smooth, seamless skin and her perpetual silence. But he didn’t have to.
    Leo shook the nearest hand Chaos offered him. “How’s it hanging?” he asked.
    “Let me unfold it and I’ll check,” Chaos offered.
    “I’ve heard that one. And for God’s sake, restrain yourself.” Leo used a cigar to distort one corner of his grin.
    Chaos wiggled in order to better wedge himself into place, so that he could play without elbowing anyone on either side. “You’re the one who set me up, tossing off a line like that. Nobody’s fault but your own.”
    “I was hoping for new material,” Leo told him.
    Charles Dutton said, “You young lads—always daring to