Wild Cards [07] Dead Man's Hand (24 page)

"You may be the smartest guy in the world, for all I know," Jay said. "But you're still wrong."

"Am I?" Dutton said. "Then why are you here?"

Jay hesitated. "You know the jacket is the real McCoy?"

"Yes." Dutton regarded him from eyes deep sunk in that ghastly yellow face. "Chrysalis hinted as much when she gave it to me to incorporate into our diorama."

"The purloined letter," Jay said. "Hide the goods in plain sight, where hundreds of tourists will see it every day and assume it's just a replica of itself. Not bad at all. Only she didn't tell you why she wanted it hidden, did she?"

"No," Dutton admitted. "It did pique my curiosity, but I had learned not to press her. After her death, I got the whole story"

"From us," the Oddity put in. "We told him, after you left, that night you led us here. You aces think jokers have shit for brains, but this time the joke's on you."

"Then you know about Hartmann?" Jay asked Dutton. "That he's a wild card?" Dutton said. "What of it? He remains the last best hope we jokers have. Yes, he hides his condition. In the present political climate a sane man has no other choice. The public will never vote for a wild card, not even a latent like Hartmann, not when there's a chance the virus will express and turn him into one of us. That's why Leo Barnett wants the jacket."

"I'm not working for Leo Barnett-" Jay started.

"Liar,"
the Oddity snarled. "You're taking his goddamned nat money to help him destroy Gregg."

"You're wrong," Jay said. "Hartmann's a killer ace, he-" The Oddity moved faster than Jay would ever have guessed, grabbing him by the hair, slamming his head back against the chair, and slapping him hard enough to rattle teeth. "Shut up! Gregg's the only friend the jokers
have!"

Jay had a mouthful of blood from his split lip. He spat it feebly at the fencing mask and called out to Dutton. "You just going to sit there and watch the Holy Trinity here beat me into ground chuck, or you want to hear me out?"

"Let him alone, John," Dutton said. "I want to hear what he has to say." Reluctantly, the Oddity let go of Jay's hair and stepped back away from the chair. The joker's massive body shuddered. The fingers of its left hand seemed to be thickening and its breasts were shrinking visibly.

"I don't even know Leo Barnett," Jay began.

"You're an ace who sells his services for money. I doubt that Barnett hired you personally. Nonetheless, you're working in his interests. Why else would you want the jacket?"

"That jacket got Chrysalis murdered," Jay said. "And h hate to mention this, especially when I'm sitting here trussed up like a Christmas goose, but this great joker hero of yours is looking more and more like the one who did the trick."

"That's not true," the Oddity said. The voice was softer than before, gentler, unmistakably a woman's voice. And now the left hand was the one that was blunt and callused. The fingers of the right had grown longer and lost their hair, and the skin had turned a deep chocolate brown. "Why should we want to hurt Chrysalis?"

"Because Gregg Hartmann told you to, and you just
love
Senator Gregg, don't you?" Jay snapped.

"Gregg is a good man," the Oddity said. Jay thought the joker sounded a little defensive.

"The Oddity couldn't possibly have killed Chrysalis," Dutton said patiently. "If you were a patron of the arts, Ackroyd, you'd know that Evan is a sculptor. Once he worked in clay, bronze, marble. These days, he sculpts in wax. But Patti and John lack the talent, so Evan can only work during the brief times when his mind and at least one of his hands emerge from the Oddity. He seizes those moments when they come, day or night." Dutton sounded almost sad as he dropped the other shoe. "Evan was right here during the murder, working on a new Mistral for our Gallery of Beauty. What does that do to your theory?"

Jay was suddenly aware of the blinding pain behind his eyes again, and all he wanted to do was go home and be sick. "Shit," he managed. "Then Hartmann must have sent some one else. Carnifex maybe, or Braun. Or maybe this guy Doug Morkle, I don't know"

"You're reaching, Ackroyd," Dutton said. He looked over at the Oddity. "Why don't you tell us what really happened, Patti?"

The Oddity turned toward Jay. Even the way the joker moved seemed different now, subtly feminine. "No joker would have hurt Chrysalis. She was one of us. The killer had to be working for Barnett, looking for the jacket. Maybe he was only trying to beat the secret out of Chrysalis, but he went too far." The Oddity sounded utterly sincere.

"That so?" Jay said. "Mind telling me the guy's name?"

"There's no way to be certain," the Oddity said, the woman's voice somehow eerie and frightening coming from the huge, misshapen body. "Perhaps Quasiman. He's a poor simple-minded thing who does as he is told, and he owes his life to Reverend Barnett." The Oddity's right hand gestured daintily in the air. It was a man's hand, the nails bitten right down to the quick. "Or perhaps some ace who sells himself for money, the way you do."

"You're telling me Chrysalis died to protect Hartmann, 'cause he's such a great friend of the jokers, right?" Jay looked first at Dutton, then over at the Oddity. "Then answer me this. If she was so fucking concerned about keeping Hartmann's little secrets, why
didn't she destroy the jacket a year ago?"
The perpetual grin on Dutton's yellowed face pulled into a momentary grimace. "That question troubled me as well," he said, "but my partner's plans were often subtle, and her motives were sometimes obscure. No doubt she was playing some game."

"That jacket was her life insurance," Jay said. "Now that she's dead, it's time to cash in the policy."

"Do you have any idea what's going on down in Atlanta?" Dutton asked him patiently. "Thousands of jokers have gone south to peacefully demonstrate in support of Hartmann. They've been welcomed with arrests, street brawls, attacks by the Klan. Yesterday there was a near riot when a hundred men in Confederate uniforms fired on the crowd. Barnett has already managed to pull the teeth out of our jokers' rights plank, and if he's elected, the good reverend will put us all in camps. Many people believe that Gregg Hartmann is the only thing that stands between this country and joker genocide." `A lot of people believed in Hitler, too,' Jay said.

Dutton sighed. "This conversation is as pointless as your quest, I'm afraid. You see, it really doesn't matter who you're working for, Mr. Ackroyd. You're too late. Much as I hated to damage a genuine historic artifact, too much was at stake to take any chances. Go back to your employers and tell them it's over. We burnt the jacket."

"Ashes to ashes," the Oddity said. "You can't hurt Gregg now"

"The tainted blood is gone," Dutton told Jay, "and if God is merciful, Gregg Hartmann is going to be the next president of the United States."

5:00 A.M.

Squisher's Basement was still as crowded, still as dark, still as smelly as it was when Brennan had discovered it a few days before. The same bartender was behind the bar and mostly the same customers were scattered about the room, though this time around Bludgeon was absent. A couple of the regulars greeted Brennan jovially and one asked him if he was going to slap around another ace.

"Not today," Brennan said with a smile. "Just a drink and a few words with a friend." Tripod was perched on the edge of a bar stool at the end of the bar, his pelvic arrangement making it impossible to sit on the chair in a normal manner. "What'll it be?" the mouthless bartender asked, his voice rasping from a small hole cut at the base of his throat. "Irish whiskey. Tullamore."

The bartender continued to wipe glasses with a rag that Brennan wouldn't have used to wipe his nose.

Brennan sighed. "All right. Scotch."

"Scotch we got," the bartender said, taking down the bottle of Importer's from the wall and pouring a shot. Squisher peered cautiously from his aquarium. "How's it going, big guy?"

"All right," Brennan said, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket and peeling off a five.

"Hey," Squisher said, "your money's no good here. Friends of Squisher drink for free."

Brennan nodded and put the money back in his pocket. "Thanks. I'll remember that."

Brennan took his drink and joined Tripod at the end of the bar, where he was sipping a mug of beer through a straw. The joker asked, polite as always, "What's up, Mr. Y?"

"Anything new?" Brennan asked quietly.

Tripod pursed his lips. "Nothing, Mr. Y I been wearing my feet o$; but Sascha's gone, man. He's lying low somewhere, and I can't find him."

Brennan nodded, took a sip from his drink. "Something new has cropped up. It may be connected with the murder, but I'm not sure yet. You know anything about a drug called rapture?"

"Oh yeah." Tripod nodded. "Very new. Very chic. They say that it makes everything feel real good, you know, better than ever. Food. Sex. Other drugs. Even pain."

"Pain?"

"Yeah. Like some R-heads might take a razor blade to themselves 'cause it feels so good. It doesn't feel too good when they come down, though."

Brennan nodded. "Maybe Chrysalis discovered something about the drug that led to her death. It had to be something big, something awful, not just knowledge that the drug existed."

"You know," Tripod said thoughtfully, "Sascha's girlfriend was a rap-head. At least I seen her around with blue lips sometimes."

"Girlfriend?" Brennan said. "Sascha had a girlfriend?"

"Yah. You didn't know about her? She's a real hot babe by the name of Ezili Rouge. But it's not as if she's real close to the blind boy. She's got a lot of boyfriends. Girlfriends too. I hear she's even real fond of puppy dogs and like that." Brennan frowned. "Is she a hooker?"

"Probably. She gets dough from somewhere and she's got a lot of it."

"Do you know where she lives?"

"Hey, she's not in my league. I've seen her around. Face of an angel gone bad. Weird red eyes and a body that'd tempt a saint to sin. I'd give a leg to get a piece. 'Course, I got more legs than I know what to do with anyway."

"What about the police? Was she ever mixed up with them?"

Tripod shrugged. "Maybe. She's spent a bundle on drugs. You gotta figure the police have been at least interested."

"What kind of drugs?"

"You name it, she's bought it. H, crack, coke, speed, ludes, pot, PKD, dust, designer stuff like rapture. Christ, if the rumors are half-true she's bought enough dope to send an army up the highway to heaven."

Brennan frowned. Perhaps Sascha had gotten hooked on something that'd put him under Ezilfs control. Perhaps he'd let slip something to Ezili, who told Quincey, who told Wyrm. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. "Where does she hang out?"

"Couple places." Tripod gave him the names of some clubs, none of which had savory reputations.

Brennan finished his drink, put the glass down on the bar, and surreptitiously dropped two twenties on the floor.

"Thanks." He turned to leave, stopped, looked back at Tripod, who was slipping the bills into his ankle pocket with the oddly articulated toes of his middle foot. "One last thing. Ever hear of an ace named Doug Morkle?"

"Morkle? What the hell kind of name is that for an ace?" Brennan shook his head. "Damned if I know."

The back half of Dr. Finn looked like a palomino pony; the front half looked too young to be a doctor. "What happened?" Finn asked as he taped up Jay's ribs.

"I was looking for a sport jacket," Jay said morosely. "Remind me never to use your tailor," Finn replied. He finished the taping. "There. How's that feel?"

"Tight," Jay complained. He tried to flex his arm and winced at the pain. "Makes it hard to move."

"Good," Finn said. "I wouldn't want you doing too much moving until that rib knits. You're very lucky, Mr. Ackroyd. A few more inches, and the bone might have punctured a lung."

"What about my head?"

"The X-rays show only a very mild concussion," Finn . told him. Nothing to worry about, as long as you take it easy.

"Might as well," Jay said, "can't dance."

"Too bad," Finn said. He grinned and did a quick little four-legged softshoe. "I cut quite a rug myself."

"I'll just bet. Do I get anything for the pain? This headache would be killing me if I wasn't so distracted by my rib."

Finn took a pad out of his pocket and scrawled a prescription. "Here," he said, ripping off the top sheet and handing it to Jay. "This ought to help."

"Thanks." Jay hopped down off the examination table. It was a mistake, and the broken rib let him know that right away. "Oh shit," he said, gritting his teeth.

"Don't want to go around jarring yourself that way," Finn said, altogether too cheerfully for Jay's taste. "I wouldn't drive in your condition either. Do you have a ride home?"

"I'll take a cab," Jay said. Charles Dutton had taken him to the clinic, after he'd satisfied himself that Jay had nothing more of value to tell him, but he didn't imagine that the joker had hung around in the waiting room. Even if he had, Jay figured he'd had more than enough of Dutton and the Oddity for today. "You did the autopsy on Chrysalis, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes," Finn replied. "The police always call us in on joker autopsies. The coroner doesn't feel qualified to deal with our unique joker physiology." The little centaur looked away and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "A terrible thing. We see a lot of murder victims here in the clinic and it's never pretty, but the way her body was mutilated..." Finn shook his head.

"Yeah." Jay touched his bruised and swollen face, thinking that he knew just how she must have felt.

5:00 P.M.

Brennan awoke still soaked with sweat and numb from a half-remembered dream in which all of his friends and lovers were killed slowly and excruciatingly by some unseen agency he was powerless to stop. He was reassured somewhat when he spotted Jennifer sitting in the room's only chair, listening distractedly to the transmitter they'd planted on Quasiman. She heard Brennan stir, turned to watch him sit up and run his hands through his hair.

"About time you woke up," she said. "I'm suffering from terminal boredom listening to Quasiman stumble through his day."