Dead Man's Hand

by George R. R. Martin

  The alley was suitably dark and isolated. The joker was urinating against a brick wall and singing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Die” to himself, lowly and badly. He was zipping up his fly when Brennan laid the edge of his knife against his throat and said conversationally, “I think your voice would sound a lot better if I cut you right here. What do you think?”

  The joker stood paralyzed until Brennan stepped back, then he turned around slowly, carefully holding his hands out and away from his sides.

  “You some kind of crazy nat?” the joker finally asked.

  “Just visiting the big bad city to check on some of my old friends.” Brennan reached into the pocket of his denim jacket with his left hand. “My card,” he said, holding up an ace of spades.

  The huge joker seemed to shrink back into himself. “You the real thing, man?”

  “Try me,” Brennan offered, but the joker just shook his head. “I don’t want to dance,” Brennan said. “I just want to talk. I’m looking for one of the bigger fish. Warlock. Lazy Dragon. Maybe Fadeout. Seen any of them tonight?”

  “I seen Dragon earlier. He said he was going to be spending the night at Chickadee’s, but he wasn’t too happy about it. He was bodyguarding some Fist wheel, so he couldn’t party.”

  Brennan nodded. Lazy Dragon was a freelance ace who worked part-time for the Fists, often directly for a Shadow Fist lieutenant named Philip Cunningham, who was fairly high in the organization. Cunningham, who was also called Fadeout because of his ability to turn invisible, would know if Kien had put out a contract on Chrysalis. Brennan had once worked for Fadeout himself when he’d joined the Fists undercover in an attempt to bring them down from within. In fact he’d saved Fadeout’s life when the Mafia had attacked his headquarters. Perhaps they could come to some kind of accommodation.

  “Okay,” Brennan said. He gestured with his knife. “That the model the Werewolves are wearing this week?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your mask.”

  “Sure.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Brennan watched the Werewolf carefully. The common mask the gang wore was their symbol, their badge of belonging. Some fanatic Werewolves would kill before giving it up. This one visibly tensed, then sighed and relaxed. He obviously knew Brennan’s reputation, and despite his size and ferocious appearance had no wish to tangle with the man who had decimated Shadow Fist ranks the year before.

  He slipped the mask off and gave it to Brennan, turning his face down and away. Brennan took the mask, glanced at the man’s face, and said nothing. He’d seen worse, a lot worse, though he could understand why the fierce-looking Werewolf was ashamed of his face. It looked as if it had stopped growing during the man’s first year. It was a baby’s face, soft and beautiful, perched grotesquely in the middle of his oversized head. It contrasted weirdly with the joker’s savage, metal-and-leather appearance.

  Brennan stepped back and the Werewolf edged around him and backed away, face still averted. He started off down the alley.

  “Your fly’s still undone,” Brennan called out after him.

  “Sleep,” Ezili whispered to him, afterward.

  He was very drowsy. He felt as though he could just surrender, settle slowly into the deep soft pile of the carpet beneath him, close his eyes, and drift peacefully. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how exhausted he was.

  Ezili was smiling down at him, the soft weight of her breast against his arm. They’d never even bothered to turn on a light, but he could see her dimly by the light from the street lamp outside, filtering through softly blowing curtains. Her nipples were large and dark, the color of bittersweet chocolate. He remembered the taste of them. He reached out a hand, stroked the soft skin on the underside of her breast, but this time her fingers caught his wrist and gently took his hand away. “No,” she whispered, “just sleep. Close your eyes, little boy. Dream.” She kissed his brow. “Dream of Ezili-je-rouge.”

  Some part of Jay realized how crazy this was, but the rest of him didn’t care. He wondered if Ezili was going to try and hit him up for money. She was supposed to be a hooker, after all. He didn’t care. Whatever she charged, she was worth it. “How much for all night?” he whispered drowsily.

  Ezili seemed to find that amusing. She laughed a light, musical laugh and began to stroke his forehead with languid, knowing fingers. It was incredibly soothing. The room was warm and dark. He closed his eyes and let the world begin to drift away. Ezili’s fingers touched and gentled. Far off he heard her talking to herself, murmuring, “All night, all night,” as if it were the funniest thing anyone had ever said. There were other noises, too, more distant, a door opening somewhere, a rustling of clothing, as if there were someone else there with them, but Jay was too tired to care. He was floating, sinking into a warm sea of sleep, and tonight he knew his nightmare would not come.

  Then the outer door slammed open with a loud bang, and someone screamed, “Where is he?”

  Bright light from the hallway fell across Jay’s face, jolting him awake. He sat up groggily and put a hand in front of his eyes. Through his fingers, he saw a man outlined in the doorway, indistinct against the glare. “Shit,” he complained, before he quite remembered where he was.

  Ezili was on her feet, screaming at the intruder in French. Jay didn’t speak a word of French, but he could tell from her tone that you wouldn’t find many of those words in your basic French–English dictionaries. He heard a muffled noise behind him and turned just in time to glimpse a dark shape vanish through a bedroom door. A child, he thought, with some kind of humpback or twisted spine, but in the dim light it was hard to be sure. Whoever it was slammed the door behind them.

  “I couldn’t help it,” the man in the doorway said. His voice was hoarse and shaky. Ezili spat more venom at him in French. “I didn’t know,” he pleaded. “Please, I can’t wait. Ezili, I need the kiss, I need it bad. Listen to me.”

  Jay knew that voice. He got to his knees, bumped into the edge of the couch, fumbled for a lamp, and turned on some light.

  “You don’t understand what I’ve been through,” Sascha said.

  “Shut up, fool,” Ezili said in English. “You have a visitor.”

  Sascha’s head turned slowly, until it faced Jay. “You.”

  Jay suddenly remembered that he was naked. His clothes were scattered all over the room, pants over the back of the couch, boxer shorts dangling from the lampshade, socks and shoes God knows where. Ezili was just as naked.

  Of course, Sascha had no eyes. Somehow Jay didn’t think it mattered. “Me,” Jay admitted, a little sheepishly. He snatched his boxer shorts off the lamp, climbed into them, and tried to think what else to say. Pardon me, Sascha, I came here to talk to you, but wound up fucking your girl on the living-room carpet, and by the way, she is one terrific piece of ass.… No, he couldn’t say that. Of course, he’d just thought that, and Sascha was a telepath, which meant that he already …

  “Coward,” Ezili snarled at Sascha. “Weakling. Why should you have the kiss? You don’t deserve it.”

  Jay looked at her, a little shocked. This was a whole different side to Ezili, and she sure as hell didn’t sound like a hooker talking to a well-heeled customer. She stood with her fists balled on her hips, naked and furious, and Jay noticed for the first time that she had a big, crusty brown scab on the side of her neck. He thought of various venereal diseases, then of AIDS, remembered that she was supposed to be Haitian, and felt like a total idiot. “Where the fuck is my shirt?” he said angrily, louder than he’d intended.

  Ezili and Sascha both looked at him. Ezili muttered something in French, spun on a bare foot, and stalked off toward the bedroom. She slammed the door behind her. Jay heard it lock.

  Sascha looked as though he was going to cry, although Jay wasn’t at all sure you could cry, without eyes. He sagged into an armchair and lifted his head to favor Jay with his eyeless stare. “Well?” Sascha said bitterly. “What do you want?”

  Jay, s
truggling into his pants, felt at a certain disadvantage, but he tried not to let on. “I’m looking for Elmo,” he said, zipping up his fly.

  “Everyone’s looking for Elmo,” Sascha complained. He looked like shit, Jay thought, except that he’d never seen shit look as pale and sweaty and trembly as Sascha looked right now. “Well, I don’t know where he is. He went off to run an errand and he didn’t come back.” Sascha giggled. It was a thin, high, frightening sound, on the edge of hysteria. “The dwarf who never returned, that’s Elmo. Good for him. They’ll hang him for it, you know. Wait and see. He’s only a joker.”

  Jay couldn’t find one of his socks. He shoved the other one in a pocket and sat on the edge of the couch to lace up his shoes. The couch was new, expensive, upholstered in plush wine-colored velvet. Jay gave the apartment a good once-over, really seeing it for the first time. The floors were covered by deep-pile wall-to-wall carpeting, as white as snow. On the far side of the pass-through was a modern kitchen where rows of copper-bottomed pots hung between a towering bronze refrigerator-freezer and a microwave that could double as a hangar for small planes. The living room was full of weird but expensive-looking primitive art that Jay figured must be Haitian. Elaborate painted symbols covered the walls. Off to his left, the loft had been subdivided into a maze of smaller rooms; it looked like there could be five or six bedrooms back there.

  “What is this place?” Jay said, a little baffled.

  “It’s a place you don’t belong,” Sascha said. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

  “I will. As soon as you’ve answered a few questions.”

  That made Sascha furious. “No!” he shouted. “Now. I told you, I can’t wait, damn it, you get out of here, I need the kiss, I don’t want you here, I don’t want you bothering me.”

  Jay had never seen Sascha this way. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked. “Sascha, are you hooked on something?”

  Sascha’s rage suddenly changed to giggles again. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Kisses, oh, kisses sweeter than wine.”

  Jay stood up, frowning. “Kisses,” he repeated sourly. Ezili was real good in bed, but if this is what a long-term relationship with her did to you, he’d settle for a one-night stand. “Sascha, I don’t give a damn about your love life, I just need to find Elmo. He knows me well enough to know I won’t turn him in. I just want to talk. He might know something that could help me figure out who killed Chrysalis.”

  Sascha stroked his little pencil-thin mustache in a motion that was almost furtive. “But we know who killed her, don’t we? He left his calling card, didn’t he? Yes, I see you remember, I can see the picture in your head right now.”

  It made Jay feel a little creepy to have Sascha fooling around in his mind. “Someone dropped an ace of spades on the body,” he said, “but I’m not convinced it was Yeoman, he—”

  “It was him!” Sascha interrupted. He surged to his feet angrily. “Yeoman! That’s who it was! There’s your murderer, Popinjay, oh yes. He’s back in town. I just saw him.”

  Jay was unsure. “You saw him?”

  Sascha nodded rapidly. “Out at Brighton Beach. My mother’s place. He came looking for me. He’s after Elmo, too.”

  “Why?” Jay demanded. “Why would he kill Chrysalis?”

  Sascha looked around the room, as if to make sure that no one else was listening, then leaned forward and whispered, “She knew his real name.” He giggled. “Would you like to hear it? If I tell you, will you go away and leave me alone?”

  “You know it, too?”

  Sascha nodded eagerly. “She never said it aloud, but sometimes she thought it. I picked it right out of her mind one day. If Yeoman knew, he’d kill me, too. Do you want it?”

  “Tell me,” Jay said.

  “You promise you’ll go away? You won’t bother me anymore? You won’t pry into my affairs?”

  “I promise,” Jay said impatiently.

  “Daniel Brennan,” Sascha said. “Now get out.”

  Jay looked back once on the way out as he pulled the door of the apartment shut behind him. Sascha was kneeling by the bedroom door, eyeless face pressed up against the wood, pleading for a kiss.

  11:00 P.M.

  Chickadee’s was located in the heart of the Bowery. Its exterior was plain, almost severe, greystone, with no sign, canopy, or doorman to announce its existence. Chickadee’s didn’t have to advertise. Word of mouth was enough.

  Brennan went up the steps empty-handed, having stashed his bow case in a rental locker, and was met in the bordello’s anteroom by a joker with the approximate size and musculature of a male gorilla. The joker gave him the once-over, and sniffed, a little put off by Brennan’s jeans and T-shirt. Nevertheless he open the antechamber’s inner door, leading, as Chickadee’s thousands of satisfied customers thought, to paradise.

  Twelve-Finger Jake was playing the piano in the corner of the greeting parlor, pounding out the complicated chords of the super-syncopated music he called j-jazz—joker jazz—that took all twelve of his fingers to play properly. Johns, dressed mostly in expensive-looking three-piece suits, were sitting on the parlor’s comfortable chairs and sofas, drinking and chatting with the girls. The women of the house ran the gamut of races and colors. All were beautiful, but since this was Jokertown some of them had decidedly unusual attributes.

  A nat hostess met Brennan at the door. At least she looked like a nat, and the garter belt, nylons, and high heels she wore could have done very little to conceal joker deformities. It was true, though, that some of the girls at Chickadee’s were different in very subtle ways.

  “Hello, Joe,” she said. “I’m Lori. Want to party?”

  Brennan smiled. “I’m looking for a man,” he began.

  “Wrong place, Joe. We got all kinds of girls—white ones, black ones, brown ones, ones like you never seen before, but if you want a man—”

  “A friend, I mean,” Brennan added hastily. “Lazy Dragon—”

  “Oh.” Lori nodded. She linked arms with Brennan and drew him toward her. Her sleek hip pressed against Brennan’s, her long, lean silk-covered thigh brushed against his as they walked. “I should have guessed with the mask and all. Marilyn Monroe, right? She’s one of my favorites. I’ll take you up myself. I can use another taste.”

  “Sure.”

  Brennan followed, somewhat mystified, but satisfied that his minimal disguise was doing its job. They went through the parlor area, raucous with the j-jazz flowing from Twelve-Finger Jake’s nimble digits and the chatter of thirty girls and fifty prospective johns, up a flight of stairs, and down a corridor ending in closed double doors guarded by a couple of Werewolves wearing Mae West masks identical to Brennan’s.

  “What’s up?” one of them asked as Brennan and the girl approached.

  Brennan nodded. “Relief. Let me check in with Dragon.”

  “Just one of you? Who gets off?”

  Brennan shrugged. “Not my decision.”

  The Werewolf grunted, stood aside, and Brennan and Lori went through the doors.

  Inside was a large room decorated with the exuberantly lavish taste one might expect in an establishment like Chickadee’s. Half the walls were wallpapered in a silver-and-gold paisley pattern, the other half were mirrored, making the room seem much bigger than it really was. The overstuffed couches and fat hassocks scattered about the room were all occupied by house girls and men wearing suits that were as tasteful as the wallpaper.

  A naked girl was lying languorously on one of the couches with lines of what looked like cocaine laid out on her body between and over her ample breasts, up her sleek legs, and converging at the juncture of her thighs. Three men were taking turns snorting lines leading to their favorite body parts. Other girls wearing mostly makeup were circulating with trays with drinks and little silver bowls filled with powders or pills of various sorts.

  Lori said, “See you later, hon,” and moved off into the drift.

  Lazy Dragon was sitting in a corner of the
room, sipping a drink from a long-stemmed glass. As Brennan watched he virtuously turned down a bowl of white powder offered him by a sleek black woman whose body was covered by fluffy feathers.

  “What do you want?” Dragon asked as Brennan approached. He was a young man, Asian, small and trim looking. He was also a potent ace who could animate then possess animal figurines he carved or folded out of paper. Right now he didn’t appear to be in a good humor.

  “No rest for the wicked, is there?”

  Dragon stiffened at the sound of Brennan’s voice, half rose, then sank down in his chair. “What the hell are you doing here, Cowboy?” he said, using the name Brennan had taken when he’d gone undercover and joined the Fists.

  Brennan shrugged. “Looks like a fun party. I’d hate to see anything break it up.” He looked steadily at Dragon. “What’s going on, anyway?”

  Dragon looked at him for a long time before answering. “The guy over there,” he said, indicating a tall, thin, wasted-looking man in white linen trousers, jacket, and shirt, “is Quinn the Eskimo. You’ve heard of him.”

  Brennan nodded. Quinn the Eskimo—his real name was Thomas Quincey—was head of the scientific arm of the Shadow Fists. He specialized in the development of synthetic drugs with extraordinary special effects.

  “Trying out a new product?” Brennan asked.

  As Brennan watched, Lori approached Quinn and spoke to him. He smiled and handed her a vial of blue powder, some of which she snorted, some of which she rubbed on her nipples and breasts, turning them the same bright blue color of the powder. Quinn and the men standing around him laughed. At Quinn’s urging one of the men started to lick her breasts. She closed her eyes and leaned up against a nearby wall, and, as the man sucked her nipples, came to an obvious, powerful orgasm.

  “What the hell was that?” Brennan asked.

  Dragon shrugged. “The new product. Demonstrating for the distributors. What do you want, anyway?”