Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

"They're trash," Hannah said finally. "Harris went to the Jokertown Clinic and did nothing. 'Not available.' Well, that's a bald-faced lie. I talked to them. Dr. Finn was entirely cooperative."

"Are you in the habit of checking up on the work of your agents?" Coan asked. His voice was no different than the rest of him: cutting and thin. Malcolm can make "Good Morning" sound like an obituary — Hannah had heard that joke the first day on the job.

"No sir," she answered. "I much prefer to believe that they'll give me their best effort. The fact that I caught this was coincidental, but I did. Now I can't trust any of Harris's work, and I don't like his attitude, either. He obviously doesn't care."

"And you want me to terminate Mr. Harris."

"Malcolm, the regulations — "

"I know the regulations perfectly well, Ms. Davis." Coan smiled, but there was no amusement in the expression. "I also know Mr. Harris's work. In fact, I would have considered him for your position had I not been" — he paused — "persuaded otherwise. He has done excellent investigation for me in the past."

"With all due respect, not this time."

"Nonetheless …" Coan swiveled in his chair. The Times lay at right angles to the corner of his credenza. Coan plucked the front section from the stack and placed it on the desk so that Hannah could see it. "Today's edition," Coan said. "You will note that your fire has dropped entirely off the front page. You'll find no mention of it anywhere until page seven."

The anger inside Hannah suddenly went cold. "What are you telling me, Malcolm? That no one cares about jokers? I already figured that one out."

"It means, Ms. Davis, that I have very little incentive to keep an already-overburdened staff working overtime on your case. It means that since you dislike Mr. Harris's efforts so much, I can oblige you by taking him off this assignment. I can use him elsewhere."

"Take him off … " Words dissolved in her shock. "I'm already understaffed for something like this, Malcolm."

"I can't afford to lose good agents, Ms. Davis. I also can't afford to waste this much manpower" — he actually smiled at her with the word — "on this case. You don't want Mr. Harris, that's not a problem."

"Malcolm — "

"And I want your preliminary report on my desk tomorrow morning at eight o'clock," he continued. "For the press, should they be interested."

"You're going to ignore what I've told you about Harris?"

"Give me a signed IOC and I'll make sure it goes in his personal file along with my notes on this meeting and a formal reprimand. Will that be satisfactory, Ms. Davis?"

Hannah swallowed the remark she wanted to make. "Do I have a choice, Malcolm?"

"Frankly, Ms. Davis, no. You don't. This decision, at least, is mine."

Hannah nodded curtly. "Then I'll get started on that IOC," she said.

"Eight o'clock for your report," Malcolm told Hannah's retreating back. "No later."

One of the lab techs was waiting for her in the corridor. She took a look at Hannah's expression, whistled softly, and handed Hannah a sheet of paper with exaggerated caution. "It couldn't have been too bad," she said. "Your head's still attached."

Hannah grimaced. "This going to make me feel better, Jo Ann?"

"I doubt it. We tracked down the fuse components that were identifiable — a pretty standard hobby store chip used with nine-volt batteries: that was your timer. The piece of small canister that you found had a few flecks of green paint on it. Suggest anything to you?"

"Oxygen," Hannah said, and Jo Ann nodded. "Anybody who works around oxygen knows that you can't let pure oxygen come into contact with petroleum products without combustion and probably a small explosion. So he made a timer to puncture the canister about the time the JP-4 was rising in the sink." A premonition ran cold fingers down Hannah's spine. "So who'd know about that reaction?"

"Anybody who works with oxy. Welders?" Jo Ann suggested. "Someone in a hospital?"

Hannah nodded. She hated the thought that had just occurred to her. "Right. Thanks, Jo. This is great stuff. Excuse me, but I need to run a background check …"

Arnold Simpson was one of the agents Hannah liked. He acted no differently around her than anyone else. He didn't seem to have a problem with the idea of a woman in a position of authority. As he said once to her, after a staff meeting particularly thick with innuendos and unsubtle digs in Hannah's direction: "Hey, I'm their showcase black agent; you're the showcase woman. I know exactly what's going on. At least we ain't damn jokers."

"This Ramblur guy doesn't exactly live on Park Avenue, does he?" Simpson flipped through the printouts Hannah had given him as Hannah unlocked the staff Escort in the bureau's parking garage. "Nice priors, too. Don't you just love our criminal justice system?" Simpson threw the file on the dash and swung his long legs around the passenger seat. "NYPD thinks he's the one been dousing the lone jokers and torching 'em, huh?"

"Yeah," Hannah said, sliding behind the wheel. "I talked with somebody named Ellis out at the J-Town precinct. Said they're pretty sure it was him. They just don't have enough to drag him in."

"You think maybe's he's tired of doing things one corpse at a time?"

"We'll see." Hannah turned the key and put the car in gear. She started to pull out of the space.

And then stood on the brakes, the tires screeching in protest. "Shit!"

Quasiman stood in front of the Escort, an inch from the bumper. Hannah didn't have any idea where the joker had been hiding, but there he was.

Simpson started to surge out of the car, but Hannah stopped him with a hand on his arm. "It's okay," she said. "I know this guy. Just … just give me a second, all right?" Hannah took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart, and got out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Quasiman actually smiled at her. It didn't help her temper. "You're Hannah." He seemed inordinately proud of the fact that he'd remembered her name.

"Yes, I'm Hannah. And you're in our way. Get the hell out of here before I call security."

"I saw something," Quasiman persisted. "I came right away so I wouldn't forget it all."

"More dreams? More crystal ball stuff about you seeing the future?"

A nod. "It's already half gone, like a fog. That's why I had to come. It's all leaving me so fast…."

"Then you've wasted your time. Get it through your head — I'm not interested. You want me to solve the case, then let me get on with what I'm doing. Get out of our way."

Quasiman went berserk at that. He banged his fist against the hood, the sound echoing through the garage like a car crash. His fist came away leaving a dimpled crater in the metal. The joker shouted, nearly frothing in his effort to get the words out. "There was a doctor , Hannah! Fan … fan … fan-ool? And his nurse …"

"Go away!"

"They were in a jungle. Lots of green. Hot, very hot. And death that wasn't death." Quasiman was coming around the side of the car. Hannah jumped back in and slammed the door shut, hitting the locks. She was fairly sure that the joker could rip the door off if he wanted to, but he just continued his ranting from the other side of the glass. "You went to see someone called Rudo," Quasiman shouted, his voice muffled, his face smearing saliva across the glass. Hannah gunned the engine and he stumbled back. "You go to Rudo!" he screamed as she slammed the gearshift into drive and careened away. "Green canisters, Hannah! There were green canisters!"

His voice trailed away as Hannah turned the corner onto the garage's exit ramp. The sound of Quasiman's voice seemed to echo far too long in her mind.

Green canisters …. Fan-ool …. "Damn it, how did he know I checked?" Hannah muttered.