Dead Man's Hand

by George R. R. Martin

  “Rummaging through her closet.”

  Brennan shook his head. “I can’t see Chrysalis hiding anything important in such an obvious place.” He shook his head in bafflement. “And we’re forgetting someone. Doug Morkle. Whoever he is.”

  Jennifer massaged the knotted muscles in Brennan’s shoulders and neck. “It’s not getting any clearer, is it?”

  “No. And I have the feeling that if we don’t catch the killer soon, he’ll be long gone and out of the reach of any earthly justice.”

  Hartmann’s an ace,” Digger began. “I knew it the minute I met him, at the press conference before that WHO tour took off.”

  “How?” Jay demanded.

  Downs touched the side of his nose with a tiny finger. “The smell,” he said. “I got this thing, my own little ace in the hole. I can smell wild cards. Aces, jokers, latents, it don’t matter, they all smell the same. Kind of spicy sweet. Nats don’t have the scent. I’m never wrong. The nose knows, and it’s gotten me some big stories, too. Anyway, when I got a whiff of Senator Gregg, man oh man, I figured I’d just hooked the mother of all bylines. A secret ace in the U.S. Senate, with one eye on the White House!

  “So I started asking some questions. Chrysalis got wind of it, and before long we were working together. We dug up a few interesting rumors, but nothing hard, nothing I could go to press with. Until Gimli dropped the whole story right into our hands.”

  “Gimli?” Jay said skeptically. “Not a real reliable source where Hartmann is concerned.” The joker terrorist’s hatred of Hartmann had been common knowledge.

  “I know, I know. Just listen up, it all makes sense. This was last year, just a few weeks after the tour came home. Gimli meets secretly with Chrysalis. In Syria, when the Nur’s sister slit his throat, all kinds of bullets were flying. One of them richocheted off the Golden Weenie and clipped Gregg in the shoulder. Went right through, a clean wound, but they had to strip off his jacket to see how serious it was. The jacket got left behind when we pulled out. Well, that was what Gimli brought to Chrysalis, that jacket, with a bullet tear in the shoulder just soaked with Hartmann’s blood.”

  “Gimli wasn’t anywhere near Syria,” Jay pointed out. “He was in Berlin, conspiring to snatch Hartmann later in the trip. How the hell would he get hold of Hartmann’s jacket?”

  “From Misha,” Downs explained. “After she gave her brother that second smile, she couldn’t believe what she’d done. She got the jacket and had some blood tests run. They told her what I already knew. Senator Gregg’s an ace. She came to the States incognito, with her evidence. She was working with Gimli.”

  Jay gave the three-inch-tall reporter a dubious look. “With Gimli?” he said. “We talking about the same Gimli now? Real name Tom Miller? A joker dwarf with a nasty disposition and a big mouth? I thought the Nur’s people all hated jokers.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the abominations of Allah, don’t ask me why they were working together. They were. They wanted revenge but they knew nobody would believe them. So Gimli gave the jacket to Chrysalis. He wanted her to check it out and then go public with it. She had the credibility they didn’t, right?”

  “I’m with you so far.”

  “Yeah, well, Gimli got croaked right after that. They found his skin in an alley and he wound up stuffed and mounted in the Dime Museum. Meanwhile, Chrysalis had some tests run on the quiet, and they confirmed everything the little asshole had said. The blood type matched Gregg’s, the jacket was his size, and the test showed the presence of the wild card in the blood. We had him dead.”

  “So why didn’t you go public?” Jay asked.

  Downs looked unhappy. He got up off the stapler, stuck his hands in his pants pockets, paced restlessly around the pizza, then glared up at Jay. “Okay, okay, we got too fucking smart for our own good. The thing that Gimli didn’t realize was that Chrysalis had her own priorities. She didn’t want to destroy Hartmann, she just liked the idea of maybe having a little leverage over our next president. And me, I got to thinking, too. I mean, I write the story, it’s a big sensation, maybe I win a Pulitzer, but a year from now, who cares? Maybe there was a better way. Presidents need press secretaries, right? I could do that, get a little respect. I wouldn’t have Tachyon pouring drinks over my head or irate boyfriends punching me in the mouth. I might even get a decent table at Aces High.” He sighed. “You got to remember, we knew Hartmann was an ace, we even guessed he had some kind of hinky mind control, but that was it. So maybe he made Kahina slice her brother’s throat from ear to ear that day in Syria, so what? Better his neck than mine, right? And the Nur was going to off all of us.”

  “So you thought Hartmann was a good guy,” Jay prompted.

  Downs nodded. “We set up a meeting,” he said gloomily. He looked off into the distance, toward Oral Amy, remembering. “We thought we had the situation under control. We were wrong.” His voice had gotten very somber. “Oh, man, were we wrong,” he said. “That was when Gregg and Mackie Messer put on their little show. Hartmann knew everything, don’t ask me how. The hunchback delivered Kahina in a tarp, naked, covered with blood. He told us how he’d already raped her in the ass, and he went to work on her, humming ‘Mack the Knife’ the whole time. When he was done, he walked out through a wall.” Even talking about it made Downs go shaky.

  “If Hartmann’s everything you say, why didn’t he have his killer eliminate you and Chrysalis right then?”

  “Well, he didn’t want two more deaths to explain. Instead he put us in charge of the cover-up. He told Chrysalis to get rid of the body and warned me that if anything appeared in the press even hinting that he was an ace, Mackie would come for me.”

  “And you went along with this shit?” Jay could maybe believe it of Digger, but Chrysalis hated being told what to do. He couldn’t imagine her being easy to intimidate.

  “You weren’t there!” Digger snapped. “Hartmann’s little leather boy walks through walls, man! I checked up on him afterward. He’s German, part of the gang who grabbed Hartmann in Berlin, but somehow Gregg turned him around and made a house pet of him. Five’ll getcha ten he’s the one made sushi of the other kidnappers. Interpol’s still hunting his twisted little ass.”

  “Then why not tell the cops?”

  Digger laughed bitterly. “Oh, yeah. Go tell them that the former chairman of SCARE is in league with the terrorist who helped kidnap him, right. And pray that word don’t leak to Gregg. Except it always does, somehow. Either he’s a mind reader or he’s got one working for him, I don’t know. The point is, we couldn’t trust no one. Chrysalis had some idea about getting Yeoman to help us out, but she was never able to get in touch with him. So we just played along and stayed alive.”

  “Until Monday,” Jay said. “The name George Kerby mean anything to you?”

  Downs shook his head. “She wasn’t talking to anybody near the end. I don’t even think she trusted me.”

  It made sense, Jay thought. The fewer people who knew, the fewer people who could betray her. But if Digger was telling the truth, someone had betrayed her anyway. And fast—she’d barely set her plan in motion and she’d been lying dead on her office floor. Hartmann, if that was who it was, didn’t waste any time. “What about the jacket?” Jay asked.

  “The jacket,” Digger said. He snapped his fingers. “She kept it. Hidden somewhere. It was her last line of defense, she said. It was like a stalemate. If we went public with all we had, we’d be killed. But Hartmann had to watch out, too. If he left us with nothing to lose, we could use the jacket and bring him down.”

  “Real good,” said Jay. “So where is this jacket?”

  “In a safe place,” Downs said, with a helpless shrug. “That’s all she’d say. I told you, she didn’t trust no one. Have you checked her closets?”

  “No,” said Jay, remembering what Brennan had told him, “but I know someone who has. How much do you know about the Oddity?”

  7:00 P.M.

  Father Squid was standing in front of Our
Lady of Perpetual Misery when Brennan and Jennifer arrived.

  “You’re the last,” the priest told them. “If you’ll follow me, we can begin the reading while Quasiman guards against unwanted interruptions.”

  “Fine,” Brennan said, “but before we go in, I have a favor to ask of Quasiman. Where is he?”

  Father Squid pointed up.

  The crippled joker was standing at the top of the steeple, casually leaning against the metal spiral that projected from the base of the spire. He was looking far away at things neither Brennan nor Jennifer nor Father Squid could see.

  “Can you get him down?” Brennan asked.

  Father Squid shrugged massive shoulders. “I can try.”

  He looked up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “Quasiman!”

  The joker made no sign that he heard. Father Squid sighed and shouted again, louder. This time Quasiman looked down. He let go of the spiral, waved, and started to slip down the steeply inclined surface of the steeple.

  Jennifer gasped, but just as Quasiman slid off into empty space, he disappeared. There was a distinct popping sound, then he was standing next to Brennan and Jennifer on the sidewalk in front of the church.

  “Yes?” he said.

  Brennan stared at him for a moment. “I wanted to ask you a favor,” he finally said.

  “A favor?” Quasiman repeated.

  “Yes. You know that I’m trying to find out who killed Chrysalis. Well, I’m having a problem with an ace. An extraordinarily strong ace. I may need your help in handling him.”

  Quasiman glanced at Father Squid, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “All right.”

  “Thanks.” Brennan held up a small electronic unit, the size and thickness of a folded wallet. “When—if—we need you, we’d be able to call you with this.”

  Quasiman took the receiver dubiously. “All right.” He looked at the unit, his look lengthening into a stare as his mind drifted away to wherever it went when he phased out.

  “You know,” Father Squid said, “Quasiman is not the most reliable of men.”

  “He’ll have to do. There’s no one else to turn to.”

  Brennan didn’t mention the other reason he wanted Quasiman to carry the receiver. It was also a sensitive sending unit. He planned to monitor Quasiman to see if he had any contact with someone who might have wanted Chrysalis dead.

  “Very well,” Father Squid said as Quasiman suddenly returned to normal. “But now, the will.”

  They went into the church, leaving Quasiman outside on the sidewalk.

  The first four rows of pews were filled with people who worked at the Crystal Palace, from Jo-jo the microcephalic joker who swept out the place, to Charles Dutton, the skull-faced man who was Chrysalis’s silent partner. Only Elmo and Sascha were missing, Elmo because he was still being held by the police. Joe Jory was also present. As Brennan and Jennifer approached the pew where Jory sat by himself, he knocked back a drink from a silver pocket flask. Brennan couldn’t tell if grief was making him drink to excess or the thought of being so close to so many jokers. Either way Brennan found it hard to be sorry for him.

  Father Squid settled his immense bulk down behind the table set up before the rail and looked around expectantly as all whispered conversations stopped.

  “I’m glad that you could all come to hear Chrysalis’s last will and testament. This reading is not for outsiders. The lawyers weren’t told of it, neither were the police. Those formalities will be taken care of later. Tonight is for Chrysalis’s family.”

  Father Squid picked up a manila envelope, slipped out a sheaf of papers, and tapped them together into a neat stack.

  “As was my duty, I have already gone over Chrysalis’s will once in private. I will read it to you now.” He cleared his throat, then began.

  “I, Chrysalis, being of sound mind and as sound a body as I’ve had since the wild card changed me, give you my last will and testament. I have numerous bequests to make, Father, so please gather together everyone connected with the Crystal Palace, and a few others whom I know you know, but will be nameless here.

  “First, to Father Squid and the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, I leave the contents of the luggage locker that fits the key which you’ll find in this envelope. I know you will put it to good use.” Father Squid looked up. “This has already been taken care of.

  “Second, to Elmo Schaeffer, my right hand since I first came alone to the city, I give you what I could not give you in life: my love. If ever there was a man who deserved it, it was you.” The priest sighed, cleared his throat again, and went on.

  “Third, to Charles Dutton, I give outright my share of the Crystal Palace.” There was an audible intake of collective breath and half a dozen conversations broke out that Father Squid’s powerful voice hushed. “With the proviso that everything stays exactly as it is and everyone keeps their jobs as long as they shall live.”

  Dutton inclined his head and a wave of relief swept over the room.

  “Fourth, to Digger Downs I leave the coat. Wear it in good health, or use it as you will.”

  Perhaps, Brennan thought, the Oddity was searching for this coat in Chrysalis’s closet. Though what role a coat could play in Chrysalis’s murder was utterly beyond Brennan.

  “Fifth, to my loving father, if he has bothered to attend this reading…” Father Squid stood and passed a large manila envelope to Jory. He took it with shaking hands, broke the seal, and slipped out a sheet of heavy paper, eight by ten inches. Brennan could see from where he was sitting that it was the famous Annie Leibowitz photograph of Chrysalis. She was naked from the waist up and you could almost see her blood race, her lungs pump, her heart throb to the pulse of her life. “… so that you’ll remember your darling little girl, day in and day out,” the priest continued in his remorseless voice, “as long as you shall live.”

  It was a gift with a sharp, but just, edge to it, Brennan thought. Once, in what was probably the most vulnerable mood he’d ever seen her in. Chrysalis had told him that the virus had manifested itself in her at puberty. Her family had then locked her away in a wing of their mansion. They’d kept her hidden in their shame and disgust until she’d managed to escape six years later.

  Father Squid sat back down behind his table. The church was silent but for the sobbing that Jory couldn’t muffle by covering his face with his shaking hands.

  “Sixth, to my archer, if he has heard of my death and cared enough to attend this meeting, I leave two things. The first…” Brennan stood and reached out a steady hand to take the small envelope that the priest held out. He opened it. Inside was a small bit of plastic-laminated paper, two and a quarter by three and a half inches, a brand-new, crisp, clean ace of spades. “… to place on the body of my murderer. The second to toast to offers I should have accepted, promises I should have made.”

  Father Squid picked up a box from the floor and placed it on the table.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in his gentle voice. “It seems that a vandal broke into Chrysalis’s bedroom and smashed most everything, this included. I can dispose of it if you’d like.”

  It was the decanter she’d kept by her bedside filled with the Irish whiskey that Brennan favored.

  “Thank you, Father. I’ll take it.”

  There were more bequests. Most everyone was given a little something that they needed, or perhaps just something that they wanted but could never have afforded. Everyone was touched by the depths of feeling there was to the woman who had known everything, it seemed, and shown nothing. Brennan wondered again, Jennifer’s hand a comforting presence on his right forearm, what would have happened if Chrysalis had taken the offer of his protection, had given him the promise of her love. He looked at Jennifer, wondering if she could read the questions in his eyes.

  The reading ended. There were tears of sadness and genuine grief as Father Squid moved among the Palace employees, comforting them with his gentle, stolid presence. Jory had ceased sobbing and had passed ou
t drunk. Father Squid detailed Lupo to get him to his hotel room.

  As everyone stood about chatting, Brennan thought he felt eyes on him, as if someone were waiting in ambush in the rear of the church. He glanced back and saw a huge, bulky figure dressed in a floor-length cloak slip out of the back of the choir loft. He handed the box with the broken decanter in it to Jennifer.

  “Take this to the room and wait for me. There’s someone I have to see right now.”

  She nodded and took the package from him. “Be careful,” she said, but Brennan was already out in the night, following the Oddity as that mysterious entity went on its mysterious rounds.

  9:00 P.M.

  The Oddity wasn’t listed in the phone book or the city directory. At least not under “Oddity.”

  The joker had other names: Evan, Patti, John. That much Digger had remembered from that story that Mr. Lowboy had refused to print. The Oddity wasn’t one person but three, two men and a woman. They’d been roommates and lovers, Digger told him, a ménage à trois, until the wild card had fused them into a single nightmare creature, three minds sharing one massive body, its flesh alive with the agony of perpetual transformation. Evan, Patti, John; but no surnames.

  As for an address, the best that Downs could recall was that they lived down in Jokertown somewhere. That much Jay could have guessed by himself.

  He took a cab to Jokertown and hit the streets, making the rounds until his feet began to hurt. The snitches at Freakers gave him some leads, after he’d dropped a few bills, but nothing had panned out. The Oddity didn’t drink in any of the usual gin joints, eat in any of the usual greasy spoons, or get his or her ashes hauled in any of the usual cathouses. Jay finally tried the cophouse, ducking in through the side entrance to avoid his buddies Maseryk and Kant. There had been rumors about the Oddity, Sergeant Mole told him, but no complaints, no arrests, and no address on file.