George Martin - Dead Mans Hand

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."