Dead Mans Hand wc-7 Read online

  It was chilly in here, Jay realized suddenly. They must use the air-conditioning even at night on account of the waxworks. "Coffee would be real good," he admitted.

  Dutton fed quarters into the coffee machine and came to the table with two cardboard cups. He gave one to Jay. They sat. "So what do you think of my little museum now?"

  "Museums are like graveyards," Jay said. "Full of dead things. Dead things depress me."

  "The Famous Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum jokertown institution."

  Jay blew on his coffee. "The Palace is an institution, too."

  "Yes," Dutton said. "Of a different sort."

  "And now you own it, too."

  "Under the terms of our partnership agreement, the surviving partner assumes full ownership of the Crystal Palace, yes."

  "That why you had her killed?" Jay suggested casually.

  Dreams came again, but this time they were vague, formless things that chased Brennan through a cloying mist as he tried to find his way back to a home that didn't exist. The landscape was silent but for the unknowable twitterings of the things chasing him; then he heard someone softly, but insistently, calling his name. It was a woman's voice. It was Jennifer.

  He felt her cool hands on his face, and she was kneeling before him. She was dressed in a bathing suit this time, and she was softly saying his name over and over again. He tried to reach out to her, but he was still tied to his chair. She reached out and touched his bonds, and they dissolved. He tumbled forward. She broke his fall and they both landed on the floor, Brennan on top.

  She was beautiful. He kissed her for a long, long moment, but then she squirmed away.

  "We have to get away, Daniel, we have to get out of here before they come back."

  Brennan nodded. "We will," he said, "we will," and tried to kiss her again.

  She pushed him away. He fell off her to the floor and looked at her with hurt in his eyes. "Just like my other dream," he said, and had an overwhelming urge to cry.

  "This isn't a dream," Jennifer said firmly, but lowly. "This is real."

  She grabbed Brennan's hand and held it. Her hands were warm and solid. Brennan reached out and touched her face.

  "You are real," Brennan said wonderingly.

  "I am." She stood, and pulled on Brennan's arm.

  He tried to stand too, and immediately was struck by an intense attack of vertigo. He leaned on Jennifer, who staggered, but started him shuffling toward the door.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked. "Rescuing you. No time to talk now."

  Brennan's bow and quiver was by the door, as were assorted knives and other items Quincey had taken from him. They stopped to pick up the bow and quiver, but there was no time for anything else.

  It was dark outside. Brennan wondered foggily how long he'd been unconscious. They just managed to stumble behind a tall, thick hedge when they saw Fadeout enter the front door accompanied by a brace of Werewolves. Brennan took a deep breath. The night air seemed to help revive him, or perhaps the drugs had simply worked through his system. He followed Jennifer under his own power through the garden. They were past the lawn and into the trees before they heard an alarm raised back at the house.

  "My car's this way," Brennan said. "I know. I'm parked next to it."

  "How did you find me?" Brennan asked.

  Jennifer glanced at him as they made their way through the trees, their path lit by the light of a nearly full moon. "It took some doing. I spent a good part of yesterday and most of today looking through your old haunts, and finally tracked you down to the hotel. But you were gone, of course, and I'd never have found you if it hadn't been for the phone call."

  "Phone call?"

  "Yes. She said you were here, that you'd been captured." They broke out of the trees to the roadside. Brennan's keys were gone, so they piled into Jennifer's car and roared off down the road with Jennifer behind the wheel.

  Brennan ran through a breathing exercise, trying to clear his head. Jennifer kept her eyes on the road, occasionally glancing at him.

  "The funny thing," she said, "about the phone call." She fell silent and glanced at Brennan again. "Yes?" he prompted.

  "I could swear that it was Chrysalis on the other end of the line."

  Brennan slumped back in the car seat. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to Jennifer, but he couldn't speak. His head whirled with her revelations and the aftereffects of the drugs Quincey had pumped into his system. Something was wrong here, very wrong, and there was perhaps only one person who could set them straight, only one person who would know for certain if it was Chrysalis's shattered body that'd been found in her office.

  The man who had discovered it.

  Dutton sipped from his cardboard cup very calmly. "Would you prefer that I spill my coffee in shock or just quietly turn pale with guilt?"

  "Either one, just so you confess," Jay said, "I'm not fussy."

  "Assuming that I was guilty, isn't it a bit naive to expect that I'd own up the moment I'm accused?"

  "Hey, it always works for Perry Mason," Jay said. "You can't blame a guy for trying."

  Dutton put down the coffee, took off his cloak, and draped it over the back of a chair. Beneath the banks of fluorescent light, his skin was a ghastly shade of yellow, here and there mottled with dry, dead patches of brown. "I happen to look like the popular image of the grim reaper," the joker said. "Sometimes that causes people to make unfortunate assumptions about me. I did not kill Chrysalis."

  "Not personally," Jay said, "but you had the bucks to hire it done. And you had the motive."

  "Did I?" Dutton seemed amused. "The land on which the Palace stands is worth quite a bit, agreed. The saloon itself is a good tax loss. I may keep it open and I may not, but I'd hardly kill for it."

  "Her other business was real profitable," Jay pointed out. "Tax-free, too." He took a sip of coffee. It was so hot it burned the back of his mouth going down. "You own part of that one, too?"

  "No," Dutton said. "Oh, she willingly shared certain pieces of information whenever she heard anything that might affect my business interests, and there was never any charge to me. That was part of our arrangement. But otherwise her little hobby was her own."

  "Only now it's yours by default," Jay suggested. "You wouldn't want to put all those snitches out of work."

  "Perhaps not," Dutton said. "Undoubtedly her files contain items of considerable interest, and others of considerable value; I won't pretend otherwise. Still, it's nothing I'd bloody my hands for. I could have bought and sold Chrysalis a dozen times over, I didn't need to murder her."

  "So who did?" Jay asked.

  "I'm mystified," Dutton said. "She was privy to a great deal of dangerous information, of course, but that very thing kept her safe. Alive, she could be dealt with. Kill her, and who knows what skeletons may come out of the closet."

  "There are a lot of closets in the Crystal Palace," said Jay. "You take my meaning then," Dutton said. He shrugged. "I wish I could give you something more to work on. Truly I do."

  "It's okay," Jay said. He took a last swallow of coffee and stood up. "Well, time to shuffle home to bed. You got a back door on this place?"

  "A side exit on the alley," Dutton said, rising. "Come, let me show you."

  The joker led him back through the labyrinth of silent wax, their footsteps echoing down the long corridors. They were crossing a small rotunda when Jay heard something behind them.

  He stopped, looked back. Nothing moving. "Are we alone here?"

  "Quite," Dutton said. "Is something wrong?"

  " I heard something," Jay said. "And I've got a funny feeling. Like we're being watched."

  Dutton smiled. "That's very common. It's the waxworks. People say their eyes follow you around the room."

  Jay glanced around. They were passing through the Gallery of Beauty. In the shadows he glimpsed Peregrine: Aurora, Circe. "Peregrine's eyes can follow me anywhere," he quipped, but somehow he didn't think that was it.
r />   "This way," Dutton said.

  They turned a corner. Jay took Dutton firmly but quietly by the arm and pulled him back into a dark alcove beside a towering metal-and-wax likeness of Detroit Steel. Jay held a finger to his lips. Dutton gave a small, quick nod.

  In the stillness, Jay heard soft padding footfalls. Coming toward them.

  It couldn't be the Oddity Whatever it was was lightfooted as a cat. And barefoot by the sound of it.

  Jay shaped his hand into a gun.

  A shadow darted past them, faster than Jay thought possible. It was small, no more than knee high, and it was out of sight before Jay could react. He jumped out of hiding, saw it-a hairless gray monkey thing, with too many arms-and pointed. Only it was faster than he was. It skittered up the front of a diorama, sliding over the glass quick as a lizard, and Jay popped a waxwork joker right out of his orgy and into the Aces High meat locker.

  "Damn," he swore. He pointed again, but the monkey thing jumped before he drew a bead, swung on a fluorescent lightning fixture, and somersaulted right over Jay's head. He turned to give chase and bumped into Dutton. "Where did it go?" he said.

  "Into the rotunda," the joker said, "but…"

  Jay ran. It was gone when he hit the rotunda, but he caught a glimpse of motion down one corridor. He sprinted after it, turning the corner just in time to see it grab hold of an overhead pipe. It paused long enough to hiss like a feral cat, then ran down the pipe into a pitch dark room. Jay went after it. He was looking up at the ceiling pipes, running flat out. He never saw the display pedestal.

  It was like running into a telephone pole. Jay clutched his stomach and sat down hard, gasping with pain. The pedestal wobbled back and forth, and toppled over on top of him. Glass shattered. Liquid drenched him, and something soft and pale and slimy flopped onto his chest with a wet squish. There was an overwhelming smell of formaldehyde. He closed his eyes.

  There were footsteps behind him. "Are you all right?" Dutton's voice asked.

  "No," Jay said.

  "I tried to warn you," Dutton said. He flicked on the lights.

  "Am I where I think I am?" Jay asked, eyes still closed. He thought he sounded surprisingly calm, all things considered. "I'm afraid so," Dutton replied. "Welcome to the Monstrous Joker Babies. Can I do anything for you?"

  "Yes," Jay said. "You can get it off me!"

  By the time he did, the monkey was long gone.

  11:00 P.M.

  Brennan smelled Ackroyd even before he opened his apartment door. Moving with sure, swift-grace, he caught him by the elbow, propelled him in a half circle, and slammed him against the wall. Jennifer materialized from nowhere and shut the door.

  "Keep quiet and don't move," Brennan ordered. He had Ackroyd in a painful wrist lock, grinding the detective's forearm into the small of his back.

  "Jesus Christ," Ackroyd muttered aggrievedly, his face mashed up against the wall. "I think you broke my goddamn nose."

  Brennan's own nose twitched. "What the hell have you been drinking? You smell like you've been dipped in a vat of bad booze."

  "Close," Ackroyd muttered as Jennifer looped a rope on his free wrist and twisted it gently to his back where she tied his hands together.

  Brennan turned Ackroyd around and shoved him onto a plush chrome-and-leather sofa that looked wildly out of place in Ackroyd's shabby apartment.

  The PI fell onto the couch with a loud 'Oooof' and wiggled around uncomfortably on his hands. He sniffed and held his head back, trying to keep the blood that was seeping out of his nose from dripping onto his chest. He squinted at Brennan.. "Yeoman, I presume. Since we're all such good friends, can I call you Dan?"

  "How do you know my name?" Brennan said quietly. Ackroyd shrugged. It was difficult to do that and keep the blood from running onto his shirt. "One of the first things I learned in detective school was how to find out stuff. Like the names of masked vigilantes."

  "Why don't you just answer my question?"

  "Or what?" Ackroyd said angrily. He struggled to find a comfortable position on the sofa. "You think you can just come in here and-"

  Jennifer stepped between them. "We don't `think,' Mr. Ackroyd, we have," she said practically. She found a bunch of Kleenex in her handbag and stanched the flow of blood coming from his nose. She felt it gingerly and Ackroyd winced. "It doesn't seem to be broken." She made a face herself and stepped out of close smelling range.

  "Thanks," Ackroyd muttered grudgingly.

  Jennifer gave Brennan a significant look. He took a deep, calming breath and began again.

  "Mentioning my real name to the wrong parties would cause me no end of trouble-"

  "Trouble," Ackroyd interrupted. "What about the `trouble' you caused all those people you killed? How many was it? Do you even remember?"

  "Every face," Brennan said in a slow, hard voice. He sank down on his haunches so that he and Ackroyd were eye to eye, and stared at the detective. "You don't like me or what I do, and I couldn't care less. I do what I have to."

  "Ambushing innocent-"

  "I can't point my finger at people and make them go away," Brennan said in the same hard voice. "And no one I killed was innocent. Maybe not everyone deserved to die for what they'd done, but they were playing the game, consciously and willingly. I'm not to blame if they were too stupid to realize the consequences of their involvement."

  "Game?" Ackroyd asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Brennan gestured angrily. "I'm not going to justify myself to you. I'll just say this. It is"-he stopped, looked at Jennifer and corrected himself-"was me against the Shadow Fists. One man against hundreds. I did what I had to do. I don't regret any of it. Nor have I forgotten any of it."

  "What you had to-"

  "That's that," Brennan said flatly. "We have more important things to discuss. We don't have to be friends. We don't have to like each other. We don't have to work together. But we should talk."

  Ackroyd nodded, but gestured stubbornly with his bound hands. "I'm not saying anything tied up like this."

  "All right." Brennan drew a knife from his ankle sheath and slashed Ackroyd's bonds. The two men stared at each other for a long moment as Ackroyd rubbed his wrists angrily and then tenderly felt his nose.

  "My name," Brennan prompted.

  Ackroyd shrugged. "All right. Sascha gave it to me. He said he'd plucked it from Chrysalis's mind. Said you were probably involved in the murder, though I figure he was lying. Something had him really scared. Why all this mystery about your real identity, anyway? Other than the fact that you're wanted for multiple homicides, of course."

  Brennan looked at him coolly. "I'm in the country illegally. Maybe I'll explain it someday when we have a couple of spare hours. Only Wraith"-he nodded at Jennifer-"and my enemy knew my name. Apparently also Chrysalis."

  "You're wanted by the feds?"

  "I deserted from the army. It's complicated and it doesn't have anything to do with Chrysalis's death. If she's really dead," Brennan said significantly.

  "If?" Ackroyd said. "What do you mean `if? I found her body."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure? She was not merely dead, she was most sincerely dead."

  Brennan sighed, rubbed his face tiredly. "I don't know…." he said softly.

  "Look, are you crazier than I think, or what? I saw her-"

  "And I heard her voice. Yesterday."

  "What?" Ackroyd asked quietly.

  "And I heard her voice today," Jennifer added. Brennan looked at him closely. "What is it?"

  "I heard it, too," Ackroyd admitted quietly. Then he looked at Brennan and shook his head. "But it couldn't have been her voice. Christ, I was just at the funeral parlor where she was lying in her coffin."

  "You're certain, one hundred percent certain, that it was Chrysalis in the coffin?"

  "Do you know anyone else with invisible skin?" Ackroyd said. "It was her body I found. Besides, the wiseguy who called me had to be an imposter. She didn't know the, uh, real
story of the relationship between me and Chrysalis and she was telling me all kinds of screwy stuff. Claimed you'd been captured by eskimos."

  Brennan sighed and shook his head. "Well, she was right about that." He held up his hand, forestalling any more questions on Ackroyd's part. "All right. So you're convinced she's dead. Do you have any suspects, any idea at all who killed her?"

  Ackroyd looked at him for a long moment before he spoke. "Suspects I got." He fished a sheet of paper out of the inside breast pocket of his battered jacket and handed it to Brennan. It was soggy and had the same horrible smell that Ackroyd had. It was a list of names, most of them crossed off. "These are your candidates?" Brennan asked as Jennifer peered at the list over his shoulder.

  Ackroyd nodded. "Those that are left. I crossed the others off because of my years of experience as a trained investigator and my keen insights into the human psyche."

  "Hmmm," Brennan said. "Well, you can also cross off Bludgeon. I beat the hell out of him this morning in a place called Squisher's Basement."

  "You?"

  "Don't look so surprised," Brennan said with something of a smile. "Actually, something's wrong with him. He's obviously sick. He claimed that he killed Chrysalis, but he didn't know enough details to make his claim convincing. It was all just a pathetic attempt to rebuild his reputation."

  "Okay." Ackroyd produced a pen and struck a line through Bludgeon's name. "I'll take your word for it. That still leaves us with four prime suspects."

  Brennan nodded. "I know Wyrm."

  "What about him?" Ackroyd asked.

  Brennan and Jennifer exchanged glances. "We've gone mano a mano a few times. He's strong, but I don't know if he's strong enough to do what Chrysalis's killer did to her. Also, bludgeoning isn't his ordinary M.O."

  " I thought about that already," Ackroyd interjected. "He likes to use his fangs, doesn't he?"

  Brennan unconsciously rubbed the side of his neck. "That's right."

  "But all of us heard him threaten Chrysalis," Jennifer said.

  "Right. And he is one of Kien's chief lieutenants, high in the Shadow Fist Society."

  "Kien?" Ackroyd asked.