Dead Man's Hand Read online

  Otherwise he felt like shit. Both his elbows hurt, one from falling out of bed, the other from where that psychopath son of a bitch Yeoman had twisted his arm. His nose was still sore from getting mashed against the wall. He had a big bruise on his stomach where he’d gotten mugged by the Monstrous Joker Baby.

  He drank his coffee and considered what to do with this good early start he’d made. He had his list, down to four names now: Wyrm, Quasiman, the Oddity, and Doug Morkle. It had to be one of them. So why didn’t he believe it?

  The problem was, none of his four finalists seemed real tied in with all this other crap that kept turning up, the assassins and eskimos and imposters, and the agile little homunculus that Jay had chased futilely through the Dime Museum.

  He sat nursing his coffee until the bathwater was tepid, but all he came up with were more questions. It sure as hell looked like he was dealing with at least two different killers, the strongman who’d done Chrysalis and the chainsaw psycho who’d butchered Digger’s neighbors just for the hell of it. Were they working together? That suggested a conspiracy.

  Or maybe it was just one lunatic with lots of different powers, like the late, great Astronomer. Someone ought to go dig up the old man’s grave and see if he was still in it. But it wasn’t going to be Jay; he’d been there the night the Astronomer dropped by Aces High to have dessert and kill a few people, and he was perfectly willing to let someone else swing that spade.

  Besides, if he started considering dead suspects, he’d wind up checking where Jetboy had been the night of the murder.

  Chrysalis had hired George Kerby to go assassinate Leo Barnett. If Barnett had found out, maybe the killers were working for him. Except what ace in his right mind would work for Leo Barnett? Quasiman? Presuming he could even remember that Barnett had saved his life? Okay, so somehow Quasiman stayed smart long enough to do Chrysalis, so what about the chainsaw man and the body in the trash bag that Elmo had left for the neighbors last year, who was that, Friend o’ Quasiman? Jay tried to picture Father Squid whipping a chainsaw out from under his cassock, but the thought just gave him a headache.

  Digger Downs was the key. But Digger Downs was missing, maybe dead. It was a real big city out there, and a bigger country beyond it. He could be anywhere.

  On the other hand, there was sure as hell one place he wasn’t, and that was here in Jay’s bathroom. He took one last swig of ice-cold coffee, grimaced, set the cup aside, and climbed out of the tub to towel himself dry.

  9:00 A.M

  When Brennan awoke, Jennifer was still asleep in the rumpled bed beside him. He was so tired that he felt as if he hadn’t slept at all, and his back and shoulders were still aching from the pounding he’d taken from the Oddity. He wondered if age were creeping up on him, or if it was just that he was already bone weary of the city.

  He sat up and swung his feet off the bed, planting them on the threadbare carpeting of the cheap hotel room.

  It didn’t matter. He couldn’t leave until he’d found Chrysalis’s killer. He was clear of the murder, but now Elmo was the patsy. He couldn’t trust the police to get it right. Of course, Ackroyd was also on the case, but Brennan had never relied on anyone to do what had to be done.

  He felt cool hands run gently over his shoulders and glanced backward. Jennifer was awake. She looked at him seriously as she caressed his bruised and aching back. Her hair was damp with perspiration. Her small breasts and rib cage shone with it. She had wanted to accompany him to the funeral home the night before, but Brennan felt that that was a job he had to do alone. She’d been asleep when he’d returned to the hotel, and he’d been careful not to wake her.

  “How’s your back?” she asked him.

  He shrugged experimentally, then grimaced. “Sore. But I can deal with it. How about you?”

  “Sore,” she said, “but trying to deal with it.”

  She moved away from him, lay back down on the bed.

  “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” Jennifer said. “Enough at least to come and find you. You could have given me more time to think about things.”

  “You’re right.”

  Jennifer nodded, as if almost satisfied. “So. Did you find out about Chrysalis? Is she really dead?”

  Brennan frowned. “She’s in a coffin in Cosgrove’s Mortuary, all right.”

  “Then the voices we both heard could be, what? Mimics? Her ghost?”

  “Could be…” Brennan said softly, his voice trailing away.

  “Then what’s on for today?” Jennifer asked, reaching out and touching his shoulder gently.

  He looked down at her. “Her funeral is this afternoon. I thought we should attend.”

  Jennifer nodded again. “What about now?”

  “Now?”

  Jennifer pulled him down to her. She was slick with perspiration and desire. Her breasts tasted salty, her tongue moist and sweet.

  11:00 A.M

  It was beginning to dawn on Jay Ackroyd that he’d wasted the entire morning. He hung up the receiver once again and contemplated his dreary little two-room office. The air-conditioning was broken, the window was painted shut, and it was hot as hell. Jay was hungry and tired and sweaty, and he knew more about Digger Downs than any human being could conceivably want to know. “Except where he is,” he told his secretary.

  His secretary stared at him with her mouth puckered in a round little O of surprise. Her name was Oral Amy and her mouth was always puckered in a round little O of surprise. The manager of Boytoys had given her to Jay after he’d figured out which of the employees was putting the pin holes in the French ticklers, and he’d installed her at the front desk by his answering machine. She didn’t take dictation, but at least she was blond.

  “I’ve got a real bitch of a headache,” he told Oral Amy. She looked at him with her face all wrinkled up in sympathy. Well, either sympathy or a slow leak.

  All morning he’d been dialing the phone, asking for favors, and calling in old markers. All morning he’d been lying and shucking and posing as people he wasn’t to convince reluctant voices on the other end of the line that they ought to tell him what he wanted to know.

  The good news was, there was no one fitting Digger’s description in the morgue or any of the city hospitals. The rest was bad.

  Digger hadn’t booked a flight on any airline Jay could find. He hadn’t taken Amtrak or Greyhound either. He carried a MasterCard, two Visas, and a Discover, but the last charge on any of them was a Friday-night dinner at an Italian restaurant two blocks away from his digs on Horatio. The bill came to $63.19, and he’d stiffed the waiter. If Digger had hit the road, he’d been smart enough not to pay his tolls with plastic.

  Of course, he might have bought a plane ticket under an assumed name, and paid cash. Or boarded the Metroliner to D.C. and bought a ticket from the conductor. Or escaped to the wilds of Jersey on a commuter bus out of Port Authority, exact change only. Or walked across the goddamn Brooklyn Bridge. There were eight million ways to leave the naked city, and some you just couldn’t check.

  There were eight million places to stay in the naked city, too. Jay called a half-random, half-cunning selection of motels and hotels that struck him as Digger’s kind of place. He even tried a few that definitely weren’t Digger’s kind of place, just in case Downs had tried to be clever. Digger wasn’t registered anywhere.

  He did find Digger’s aged mother in Oakland, who told him that she hadn’t heard from Tommy since he sent the flowers on Mother’s Day, but she was still real proud of her boy the journalist. She kept scrapbooks with every word Tommy had ever written, even the little articles he used to do for his high-school newspaper, and said Jay was welcome to look at them the next time he was in the Bay area. Jay thanked her very much and left his number in case she heard from Tommy. Mrs. Downs read it back to him very carefully and suggested he might phone Peregrine, seeing as how she was Tommy’s girlfriend and all. Jay mentioned that this was news to him. Mrs. Downs said
it was a secret, on account of Peregrine’s image.

  His sister in Salt Lake City didn’t know where he was.

  Neither did either of his ex-wives. Wife number one asked if he was in trouble, and said, “Oh, good,” when Jay admitted that he was. Wife number two offered to engage Jay’s services on a little matter of alimony. He took it under advisement.

  His college roommate didn’t remember him.

  The journalism professor he’d listed as a reference on his job application was entirely fictitious.

  The phone company had no record of any calls from his home number yesterday.

  Jay tried Crash at Aces just in case, but no, there hadn’t been word one from Digger. Mr. Lowboy still wasn’t worried. He was telling them to save space in the August issue for a real Digger Downs blockbuster. “Real good,” Jay said glumly, wondering if the news of Digger’s grisly death would fit Lowboy’s definition of blockbuster. This time maybe Digger was really going underground for a story. Crash asked him if he was having any luck.

  “Lots of it,” Jay told her. “All bad. I don’t suppose he had any friends on the staff there? One of the other reporters, maybe? A poker buddy, a drinking companion, the best man at his weddings, that kind of thing? Somebody who’d let him crash on his couch until all this blew over?”

  “No,” Crash said. “He was too good. The other reporters resented the way he always got the big assignments and the cover stories. You should have heard them gripe when Lowboy sent him on that tour around the world. Digger can be charming when he wants, but he’s very competitive when he’s going after a story.”

  “Damn,” Jay said. “Did the guy have any friends at all?”

  “Well,” Crash said, thinking, “he must have.”

  “Famous last words,” Jay said.

  “I know a lot of people thought Digger was a pain in the neck. He could be very abrasive, but he had a sweet side, too. You’d be surprised. A lot of the people he wrote up just loved him.” She paused thoughtfully. “Well, at least until the stories came out,” she amended.

  “Terrific,” Jay said with a minimum of enthusiasm. “Listen,” he started, “maybe you can—” His mind went off on a tangent, and the words stopped coming.

  “Jay?” Crash asked after a moment of silence. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” he said. “But I just had this real weird idea.”

  NOON

  The sun was a shiny coin flung high in the sky, obscured by a haze of pollution and a sheath of angry clouds that were motionless in the thick air. The heat and humidity made it hard to breathe as Brennan and Jennifer waited patiently in the queue that was shuffling forward into Our Lady Of Perpetual Misery. Jokertown always took care of its own and Chrysalis was going to have a fine send-off.

  People walked, crawled, hopped, and slithered into the church past a couple of bored cops who were stationed at the entrance. At least the city had enough sense to assign Kant, their tame joker cop, to this duty, but Brennan wondered what the police were supposed to detect in a gathering where masks were common. They barely glanced at Brennan, who was wearing a full-face mask, reserving most of their attention for Jennifer, who looked a lot better in black than Brennan.

  The church was packed. The pews already full, Brennan and Jennifer found standing room in the back next to the droning fans that were trying to move the stifling air. Chrysalis’s casket sat near the altar, covered with a carpet of flowers. There was a vast, hurried mumbling as the Living Rosary Society told their beads as they said their prayers for the repose of Chrysalis’s soul.

  The procession began after the final paternoster. A joker altar boy led the way, bearing a bronze helix hung with Joker Jesus. He was followed by two others—an altar boy with no visible mouth and an altar girl with too many—swinging censers that sent clouds of sickly-sweet incense billowing into the already redolent air. Other servitors followed, including priests who would assist at the funerary Mass. Father Squid brought up the rear, wearing his finest surplice. It was embroidered with a scene depicting a nat Madonna turning her back on Joker Jesus while a pair of jokers and a small, delicate, red-haired man wearing a white lab coat took Him from the helix and wrapped Him in funerary cerements.

  They passed the front pew where the principal mourners sat. Tachyon, wearing a brilliant scarlet and gold waistcoat, sat next to a tanned, uncomfortable-looking man in a black suit. Next to them was a man with a death’s-head face. This last, Brennan realized, was Charles Dutton, Chrysalis’s silent partner in the Palace. Various Palace employees sat in the pew behind them, but neither Elmo nor Sascha were present.

  Father Squid reached the altar, set his missal in place, then turned to the crowd and raised his arms wide and said in his sad, soft voice, “Let us pray.”

  The Mass began. It was similar to the infrequent Catholic masses Brennan had attended as a child, but with some unfamiliar twists of symbolism and ritual. Everyone took off their masks with the first prayer. Brennan looked around apprehensively for the cops, but either they’d never entered the church or were off in another part of the congregation. He and Jennifer removed their masks and no one gave them a second glance.

  During the Mass there were only a few references, veiled in strange symbolism, to the Mother, reflecting the ambiguous role she played in the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, theology. Praise for the Father was effusive and tainted with an air of placation, as if He were the vengeful God of the Old Testament, the God who saved with one hand and damned with the other.

  During Communion the altar boys and girls went out into the congregation bearing small hampers that had been blessed by Father Squid. The hampers contained loaves of bread that the servers passed out to the people sitting at the heads of the pews, who broke off bits for themselves before sending them on.

  After Communion Father Squid summoned Tachyon to the altar to deliver the eulogy. As Tachyon approached the rail Brennan suddenly realized that the church’s father, the small, delicately featured man with red hair, looked exactly like Tachyon. That, he thought, would make any man feel strange, but the alien’s vast ego was probably capable of dealing with it.

  The only somber element about Tachyon’s clothing was a black ribbon tied around his upper right arm. His scarlet coat, hung with gold braid and piping like tinsel on a Christmas tree, looked out of place at a funeral. But, Brennan reminded himself, Tachyon was heir to an alien culture that had all kinds of odd sensibilities.

  Tachyon took his place behind the lectern and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe at his eyes. It was hot in the church and Tachyon’s velvet coat looked stifling. He was red-faced from the heat and his coppery curls were damp from perspiration. His eyes, too, were red, and Brennan realized that he’d been crying. Tachyon’s emotional displays made some think less of him, but not Brennan. More than once Brennan had seen the iron underneath Tachyon’s foppish exterior and in fact he envied Tachyon his ability to show emotion.

  Tachyon looked out over the congregation. His expression was solemn; his husky voice was so soft that it was difficult to hear him over the thrum of the fans.

  “Exactly one year ago on the twentieth of July, 1987, we gathered in this church to bury Xavier Desmond. I spoke his eulogy, as I shall speak Chrysalis’s. And I am honored to do so, but the melancholy truth is that I am weary of burying my friends. Jokertown is a poorer place because of their passing, and my life—and yours—is diminished by their loss.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

  “A eulogy is a speech in praise of a person, but I am finding this one to be very difficult. I called myself Chrysalis’s friend. I saw her frequently. I even traveled around the world with her. But I realize now that I didn’t really know her. I knew she called herself Chrysalis and that she lived in Jokertown, but I didn’t know her natal name or where she’d been born. I knew she played at being British, but I never knew why. I knew she liked to drink amaretto, but I never knew what made her laugh. I knew she liked secrets, liked to be in control, liked to
appear cool and untouched, but I never knew what made her that way.

  “I thought about all of this on the plane from Atlanta and decided that if I couldn’t speak in praise of her, at least I could speak in praise of her deeds. A year ago, when war waged in our streets and our children were in danger, Chrysalis offered her place—her Palace—as a refuge and fortress. It was dangerous for her, but danger never disturbed Chrysalis.

  “She was a joker who refused to act like a joker. The crystal lady never wore a mask. You took her as you found her, or you could just be damned. In this way, perhaps, she taught some nats tolerance and some jokers courage.” Tachyon stopped again to wipe at the tears that suddenly ran down his cheeks, then continued with a brighter, louder voice that gained strength as he spoke.

  “Because we worship our ancestors, Takisian funerals are even more important than births. We believe our dead stay close by to guide their foolish descendants, a belief that can be terrifying or comforting, depending on the personality of the ancestors. Chrysalis’s presence, I think, will be more terrifying than comforting because she will require much of us.

  “Someone murdered her. This should not go unpunished.

  “Hate rises like a smothering tide in this country. We must resist it.

  “Our neighbors are poor and hungry, frightened and destitute. We must feed and shelter and comfort and aid them.

  “She will expect all this from us.”

  He paused, his gaze sweeping over the congregation, his eyes shiny with tears, but also, Brennan thought, with strength and hope that he had somehow imparted to those gathered to mourn Chrysalis’s death. A bank of votive candles burned near the lectern. Tachyon went to it, then turned to face the congregation again.

  “In one year,” he said, “Jokertown has lost two of its most important leaders. We are frightened and saddened and confused by the loss. But I say they are still here, still with us. Let us be worthy of them. Win honor in their memories. Never forget.”