Wild Cards [07] Dead Man's Hand (4 page)

Brennan nodded. "You hear the police think I killed her?"

Tripod shrugged. It was a peculiar gesture for a man who had no arms.

"Maybe, Mr. Y, but it wasn't done in your style."

"How do you know how she was killed?"

"Man over there," Tripod said, gesturing at a derelict who sat on the curb by a hotdog cart, "said he saw her body when they brung her out to the coroners wagon."

Brennan glanced at the cart. SAUERKRAUT SAM THE HOTDOG MAN was lettered on its side. It was manned by a joker who was continuously dispensing dogs, making change, and slapping mustard, catsup, sauerkraut, and relish on waiting buns with his extra sets of arms. The derelict sitting on the curb was bloated and alcoholic, but seemed to be a nat. He'd stationed himself next to the cart to cadge coins while endlessly repeating his story to all who would listen. Brennan nodded at Tripod and they joined the gawkers who were munching hot dogs and listening to the old man.

"I was in the back when they brung her out. I was there all right. I got a nice place to sleep right by the dumpster and t the ambulance woke me up. I was scared. I didn't know what all the fuss was about, but pretty soon they brung her out. I could see it was Chrysalis. I seen her a lot of times and it was her. She was dead, all right." He lowered his voice and leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially to his two dozen or so listeners. "Her head was squashed. Just squashed. If it weren't for her invisible skin, you couldn't tell who it was. Squashed, just like a watermelon dropped from a ten-story building." He nodded with some satisfaction at his simile. "I was there all right. I saw her when they brung her out...."

Brennan, impotent anger knotting his stomach, turned away from the cart as a cop came up and hassled the vendor about his license. Sauerkraut Sam complained in a loud voice with angry gesticulations of all his arms, but it didn't seem to get him anywhere.

Brennan and Tripod stood silently for a moment, watching the cop run off the hotdog vendor, who was wheeling his cart with four arms and still angrily gesturing with the others.

Chrysalis had been killed by someone-an ace strong enough to smash her utterly. That was at least a place to start an investigation. But Brennan knew he could use more information. A lot more information.

"You seen Elmo or Sascha around?" Brennan asked Tripod, after the crowd that'd been munching hot dogs and listening to the derelict had dispersed.

The joker shook his head. "They're gone, Mr. Y Ain't seen 'em, ain't heard of 'em all day."

Brennan sighed to himself. He knew, right away, that this was not going to be easy. He took two twenties out of his pocket and surreptitiously dropped them on the sidewalk.

Tripod's bare foot closed over them. His nimble toes picked them up and stuffed them in one of the pockets he'd sewn on the bottom of his pant leg.

"Keep an eye out for them. For anything about the killing. You can get in touch with me at the Victoria. I'm registered as Archer."

"Yessir." Tripod watched Brennan for a moment. "Good to see you again, Mr. Y"

"I wish I could say it was good to be back."

Tripod nodded once, then started down the street with his peculiar lurching gait. Brennan watched him go, then turned back to the Palace. The crowd of gawkers was still there. He wanted to get a good look at the crime scene, but now obviously wasn't the time for that. He'd come back when it was quiet and dark.

Now he had other avenues to explore. He wasn't convinced that Kien was actually behind Chrysalis's death, but it was as good a place as any to start his investigation. Kien, of course, wouldn't have done the killing himself, but the Shadow Fists had plenty of hired muscle capable of doing the job. Wyrm, for example, Kien's extraordinarily strong bodyguard, whom Brennan had witnessed threaten Chrysalis two Wild Card Days ago.

Of course, he'd been out of touch a long time. Things had probably changed, but there were people he could talk to, people who would be willing to pass on the latest information. Brennan hefted his bow case and started down the street.

The hunter had returned to the city.

4:00 P.M.

Jube lived in the basement of a rooming house on Eldridge, in an apartment with bare brick walls and a lingering odor of rotting meat. His living room featured a lot of second-hand furniture and some kind of weird modern sculpture, an imposing floor-to-ceiling construct with angles out of Escher and a bowling ball at its center. Every now and then the bowling ball seemed to glow.

"I call it
joker Lust,"
Jube told him. "You think that's strange looking, you ought to meet the girl who modeled for it. Don't look too long, it'll give you a headache. Want a drink?"

St. Elmo's fire flickered disturbingly across the surface of the construct. Jay sat down on the edge of the couch. "I'll take a scotch and soda," he said. "Go easy on the soda."

"All I've got is rum," Jube said, waddling into his kitchen. "Yum," Jay said, deadpan. "Sure."

Jube brought him a water tumbler half-full of dark rum, with a single ice cube floating on the surface. "The papers say it was the ace-of-spades killer," he said as he eased his bulk into a recliner, his own glass of rum in hand. His was decorated with a little paper parasol. "The
Post
and the Cry both."

"There was an ace of spades next to the body," Jay agreed, sipping his drink. "The cops don't buy it."

"How about you?"

He shrugged. "I don't know." He'd spent the last couple of hours reading the police file on the yahoo who signed himself "Yeoman." Now he wasn't sure what to think. "The M.O. is all wrong. Our friend likes to litter the landscape with corpses, but most of them have arrows sticking out of sensitive parts of their anatomy."

"I remember the papers used to call him the bow-andarrow killer, too," Jube said.

Jay nodded. "Not that he isn't flexible. If he can't put a razor-tipped broadhead through your eye, he'll strangle you with a bowstring or use an arrow with an explosive tip to blow you to hell. The cops have him down for one job with a knife and two with bare hands, but those have question marks next to them. Mostly he goes in for theme murders. He's got a real grudge against Orientals, too, judging from the number he's offed. But he's not fussy, he'll kill anyone in a pinch." Jay sighed. "The only problem is, Chrysalis was beaten to death by someone who was inhumanly strong, and our friend with the playing-card fetish is a nat."

"How can you be sure?" Jube asked.

"I took a crack at archery once," Jay said. "It's hard. You'd need to work at it for years to get good, and this psycho is a lot better than good. Why bother, if you're an ace?"

Jube plucked thoughtfully at one of his tusks. "Yeah," he said, "only. . ." The fat little joker hesitated.

"What?" Jay prompted.

"Well," Jube said reluctantly, "I think maybe Chrysalis was frightened of the guy."

"Tell me," Jay said.

"The last ace-of-spades murder was something like a year ago," Jube said. "Then they just stopped. It was about the same time that Chrysalis changed. I'm sure of it."

"Changed how?" Jay asked.

"It's hard to explain. She tried to act the same, but if you saw her every night like I did, you could see she wasn't. She was too ... too
interested,
if you know what I mean. Before, when you came to her with some information to sell, she always acted a little bored, like she didn't care one way or the other, but this last year, it was like she didn't want to miss any little piece of information, no matter how trivial. And she was especially desperate for any kind of word on Yeoman. She offered to pay extra."

"Shit," Jay said. This put him back at square one.

"You couldn't exactly tell if she was frightened, not with Chrysalis," Jube said. "You know how she was. She always had to be in control. But Digger was jumpy enough for both of them."

"Digger?" Jay asked.

"Thomas Downs," Jube said. "That reporter from
Aces
magazine. Everyone calls him Digger. He's been hanging around the Crystal Palace ever since he and Chrysalis came back from that round-the-world tour last year. Two, three nights a week. He'd come in, she'd see him, and they'd go upstairs."

"Was he getting any?" Jay asked.

"He stayed past closing all the time," Jube said. "Maybe Elmo or Sascha could tell you if he was still there in the morning." He scratched at one of the stiff red bristles on the side of his head. "Elmo, anyway."

That comment struck Jay as odd. "Why not Sascha? He's the telepath. He'd know who she was fucking if anyone would."

"Sascha wasn't spending as much time around the Palace as he used to. He's been seeing this woman. A Haitian, I hear, lives down by the East River. Word is she's some kind of hooker. One of the roomers here, Reginald, works night security at a warehouse near there. He says Sascha comes and goes a lot. Sometimes he doesn't leave until dawn."

Not good," Jay said. He was starting to get an inkling of why Chrysalis thought she needed a bodyguard. Sascha had never been a major-league telepath, only a skimmer plucking random thoughts off the surface of a mind, but for years his abilities had sufficed to give Chrysalis early warning of any approaching trouble. But if Sascha had been spending a lot of nights out..."

"There's something else," Jube said. Thick blue-black fingers worried at a tusk again. 'About ten, eleven months ago, Chrysalis had a whole new security system installed.

"Cost a fortune, all state-of-the-art stuff. I know a man who works for the company that did the work. According to what I heard, Chrysalis wanted them to design-now get this-some kind of defense to kill anybody who tried to walk
through her
walls!"

Jay picked up the glass. The ice cube had melted. He didn't like the taste of rum anyway. He drained the glass in one long swallow, feeling more and more angry with himself. Yeoman had come in through the front door, that night at the Crystal Palace. None of them heard him enter, but when they looked up he was there. But his girlfriend, the sexy little blond bimbo in the black string bikini...
she
came in through a wall, stepping out of the mirror behind the bar, and ducking out the same way after Jay sent Yeoman off to play in traffic. "What's wrong?" Jube asked.

"Nothing but my goddamned instincts," Jay said bitterly. "Did they build her the trap she wanted?"

"They told her there was no such thing," Jube replied. "Pity," Jay said. "Pity."

The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Misery was nearly empty. A few scattered penitents were kneeling on the scarred wooden pews, head-or heads-bowed in silent prayer to the god who was more real to them than the clean-featured Jesus of the old Bible. The hunchback called Quasiman was puttering about the altar, humming to himself as he dusted the tabernacle. Dressed in a sharply pressed lumberjack shirt and clean jeans, he moved in a stiff, jerky manner, dragging his left leg behind him. The wild card virus had twisted his body, but had also given him extraordinary physical strength and the ability to teleport. He put the tabernacle down and watched Brennan as he approached the altar.

"Hello," Brennan said. "I'm here to see Father Squid."

"Hello." Quasiman's eyes were dark and soulful, his voice soft and deep. "He's in the chancellery"

"Thanks-" Brennan began to say, but stopped when he realized that Quasiman was staring at him with unfocused eyes. The joker's jaw was slack and a line of spittle drooled down his chin. It was obvious that his mind was wandering. Brennan simply nodded to him and went through the door at which he still pointed.

Father Squid was sitting behind his battered wooden desk, reading a book. He looked up and smiled when Brennan knocked on the open door. Or at least he looked as though he smiled.

Father Squid was an immense, squat man in a plain cassock that covered his massive torso like a tent. His skin was gray, thick, and hairless. His eyes were large and bright, and gleamed wetly behind their nictitating membranes. His mouth was masked by a fall of short tentacles that dangled like a constantly twitching mustache. His hands, closing the book and setting it on the desk before him, were large, with long, slim, attenuated fingers. Rows of circular pads-vestigial suckers-lined his palm. He smelled faintly, not unpleasantly, of the sea.

"Come in, sit down." He regarded Brennan with the benign affection with which he usually faced the world. "Here I am reading the words of an old friend"-he gestured at the book, A Year in
One
Man's
Life: The
Journal
of Xavier
Desnwnd-"and another old friend appears. Though"-he wiggled his long fingers in reproach-"it would have been nice if you had dropped by to see me before you vanished. I was somewhat worried about you."

Brennan smiled with little humor. "Sorry, Father. I told Tachyon my plans, trusting he'd pass the word to those who cared. I hadn't figured on ever returning to the city, but recent events have made me change my mind."

Father Squid looked troubled. "I can guess. The death of Chrysalis. I knew that you two were ... close... at one time."

"The police say I killed her."

"Yes, I'd heard."

"And not believed?"

Father Squid shook his head. "No, my son. You would never have killed Chrysalis. While I can't say that I approve of some of the things you've done, only he who is without sin should cast the first stone, and I'm afraid that the antics of a far from unblemished youth have left me unable to claim spiritual purity." Father Squid sighed. "Chrysalis, poor girl, was a sad soul searching for salvation. I hope that now she has at least found peace."

"I hope so, too," Brennan said. "And I'll find her killer."

"The police--" Father Squid began.

"Think I did it."

The priest shrugged massive shoulders. "Perhaps. Perhaps for now they are grasping at straws, but will eventually set their feet upon the proper path. I'll not deny you my help if you are determined to proceed on your own. If, that is, I know anything of value." He rubbed the spot where his nasal tentacles gathered. "Although I cannot conceive what I would know that would be useful in tracking her killer."