Jokertown Shuffle

  Kien knew that Brennan and Cunningham had been chummy. Now, he thought, he'd discover exactly how chummy. "Show him in," Kien told his joker bodyguards.

  He made himself sit calmly when his longtime enemy entered the room. Brennan was wearing a mask, a simple black hood, that he took off after Rick and Mick had left the room, shutting the door behind them. He looked fit and tanned despite the winter season. He hadn't gained a pound since Vietnam, though his face had more lines in it and his hair was flecked with grey.

  He looked around the room curiously, then at Kien. His eyes were as flat and hard as Kien remembered them, though they had an even greater bleakness, as if a major new worry was gnawing at him. His bitch, Kien noticed, wasn't with him. Maybe the hit hadn't been a total washout after all. "Don't you think taking the man's office when you took over his organization was a bit much?" Brennan asked suddenly.

  Kien shrugged and smiled. This was his hidden hole card, the ace up his sleeve. Brennan thought he was Fadeout. That was all the advantage Kien needed to finally crush his long-time foe. "Why not? It's a nice place and the lease suddenly became open. Besides, I felt that it would help provide for a smoother transition of power."

  Brennan nodded, as if he bought the explanation, then sat down without being invited. Annoyed, Kien opened his mouth to say something, then suddenly closed it. Cunningham apparently tolerated such behavior.

  "Back in town for a visit?" Kien asked in as casual a voice as possible.

  Brennan nodded. "Someone hit my house this morning." Kien put a shocked look on his face. "Any idea who?"

  "I would guess Kien," Brennan said steadily, "if he wasn't dead."

  Kien nodded. "Good guess, but he's dead. I saw his body myself."

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  "I've heard," Brennan said, "that there was something a bit odd about the corpse. Something that usually doesn't happen to heart-attack victims."

  Kien shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Ah, the severed head, you mean," he guessed.

  Brennan nodded silently.

  "Well," Kien said, suddenly inspired to mix truth and lies in equal proportions, "there was a lot of information locked up in his brain."

  "Deadhead?" Brennan asked.

  Kien tried to look defensive. "There was a lot I needed to know"

  Brennan let out a deep breath. "I guess I can believe that."

  Deadhead was an insane ace with the capability of accessing people's memories by eating their brains. When Kien had set the trap to catch the disloyal Philip Cunningham, he used his own corpse as bait, having been jumped into the body of Leslie Christian. He then had his head removed from his own body so Cunningham couldn't feed the brain to Deadhead and uncover his plot.

  "If Kien didn't send the killers, then who did?" Brennan asked, half to himself.

  "Well, Captain, you've made a few enemies along the way." Kien paused as if deep in thought. "And I can't pretend to have total control over the Shadow Fists, particularly the Egrets. Maybe elements loyal to Kien's memory finally tracked you down and tried to eliminate you."

  "Maybe," Brennan said tightly.

  "And you know," said Kien, as if struck by sudden inspiration, "maybe these same elements will be going after Tachyon as well. Maybe someone should warn him."

  "Maybe," Brennan said thoughtfully. "I'll mention it to Tachyon when I go back to the clinic to check on Jennifer."

  "So you've seen Tachyon already?" Kien asked. Brennan nodded abstractedly. "I took Jennifer to the clinic. She was wounded during the hit."

  "Not too seriously, I hope," Kien said as he stifled his glee.

  Brennan stood. "No, not too seriously."

  Kien rose to walk him to the door. "I'm sure she'll pull through. And if you need anything, just call."

  Brennan slipped the hood back on and stared at him with his hard unblinking gaze. "All right," he said, and left the office, going by Rick and Mick who were arguing because Rick couldn't concentrate on his comic book while Mick had the television on.

  Kien watched him go, a smile of sudden unexpected glee on his face. He had managed to maneuver all of his targets into the same basket. Now he could strike once and get rid of them all.

  4.

  "What's up, boss?" Brutus asked when Brennan returned to the van.

  Brennan glanced down at the homunculus, who was huddled against the cold in one of Brennan's old work shirts that he'd dragged up from the back. "I don't know," Brennan said. "But I don't believe that things are as they seem. As is usual in this town."

  He started the van and pulled away from the curb. "Where're we headed?" Brutus asked.

  Brennan glanced at him as he drove into an alley that bordered Kien's apartment building. "I'm going back to the clinic," Brennan said, "but you're staying behind to keep an eye on things here."

  Brutus stretched, peering over the edge of the dashboard. "It looks cold out there," he said.

  "All the more reason to find a way inside as soon as you can."

  "Right."

  Brennan pulled up next to a pile of overflowing garbage cans and opened the van's passenger door.

  "So what am I supposed to be watching?" Brutus asked. "Cunningham."

  "Why?"

  Brennan shook his head. "I'm not sure. Cunningham seemed… odd. Not normal. I can't really put my finger on it, but things aren't right. He called me `Captain.' He's never called me that before. There's no way he could even know I'd been a captain in the army… unless…" Brennan shook his head again.

  Brutus grunted and jumped down from the van. The sun had risen, but the sky was dark with clouds and the promise of snow. A cold wind cut through the alley as Brutus scurried behind a pile of garbage, mumbling to himself. Brennan leaned out of the van's passenger door as Brutus disappeared in the trash.

  "And Brutus."

  The manikin poked his head from around a greasestained brown-paper bag. "Yeah?"

  "Be careful."

  The homunculus smiled. "You too, boss," he said, then vanished into the garbage.

  Brennan pulled the door shut and drove off, telling himself not to worry. Brutus had been one of the Chrysalis's best spies. He knew how to take care of himself.

  Chrysalis. His thoughts turned to her for the first time in quite a while. They were linked inextricably with the events that had occurred the last time he'd seen Tachyon, when he confronted the doctor, Jay Ackroyd, the EL, and Hiram Worchester, Chrysalis's murderer.

  Ackroyd had been incensed with Brennan. For a man neck-deep in a sordid and violent business, he had a more than somewhat unrealistic view about violence. But Brennan didn't hold that against him. He never held a man's ideals against him.

  But Tachyon. Tachyon had missed an important point with his speech about slavish obedience to the letter of the law. Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.

  The only thing a man can do is decide for himself what is right or wrong and what must be done to combat the wrong. And then he must face the consequences of his decision, no matter what they are.

  Brennan pulled up before the Jokertown Clinic, killed the engine, and got out of the van. He walked through the sliding glass doors that led into the receiving area and entered chaos.

  A half-hysterical woman was shouting to a harried-looking nurse that no, dammit, her baby was always that sort of suffocated purplish color, but still, her gills just weren't working right, while another white-uniformed nurse was explaining to an excessively furry man that Blue Cross usually didn't consider electrolysis a necessary medical procedure, no matter how badly he wanted a career in the food-service industry. Another joker-female and quite attractive if you discounted the mottled, flaking condition of her skin w
as sitting reading an eight-month-old copy of National Geographic while her toddlers slithered after each other in and out of the chairs, circling around a gaunt, hollow-eyed old joker who was coughing continually and spitting up unhealthy-looking gobs of something into a styrofoam cup clutched firmly in his chelate forepaws.

  Someone behind Brennan muttered, "Excuse me," in a harried voice, and swept by. It was Tachyon. He was accompanied by a woman who was attractive in a gaunt, hard-edged sort of way, despite the eye patch and the jagged scar that ran down her right cheek. She moved in a graceful economical manner that suggested she knew how to handle herself in almost any situation. That was rather a necessity for anyone who spent a lot of time around the doctor.

  "Tachyon."

  He turned with a put-upon sigh that caught in his throat as he recognized Brennan and he frowned at the expression on Brennan's face. "What is it? Is Jennifer-"

  "We have to talk," Brennan said, glancing at the woman. "Somewhere in private."

  She looked curiously from Tachyon to Brennan and back again to the alien. Tachyon gestured at her vaguely with his small delicate-looking hands. "Daniel, this is Cody Havero, Dr. Cody Havero. Cody, this is, uh, a friend of mine…"

  As usual, Tachyon's mouth had worked faster than his brain, mentioning Brennan's real first name. Brennan, exlast year as the mysterious bow-and-arrow vigilante known as Yeoman, preferred to keep such information private. "Daniel Archer," Brennan supplied.

  Tachyon nodded, and Havero offered her hand. "What is it? Is Jennifer all right?" Tachyon repeated. Brennan shook his head as he released Havero's hand. "I haven't had a chance to check on her yet. There's something else we have to discuss. Immediately."

  Havero glanced again from Tachyon to Brennan. "I can take a hint," she said. "I have to go over some patient histories with Nurse Follet at the front desk. We can finish our discussion after you two are done."

  "Right," Tachyon said. "Thank you, Cody." He glanced around the reception area. "Come," he said to Brennan, taking his arm. "The coffee machine seems to be deserted. We can talk while I get some caffeine into my system. It looks like it's going to be one of those days."

  Mother and gilled baby rushed past them with a sympathetic nurse, and the squealing joker children played tag around them as they walked by, but the area around the vending machine was deserted. Tachyon put eighty cents into the coffee machine and got a small paper cup full of a black, strong-smelling liquid.

  "Can I get one for you?" Tachyon asked Brennan, but Brennan shook his head. "That's right," Tachyon said. "You take tea. I can have some brought from my office-"

  Brennan shook his head again. "Let's get down to it, Doctor."

  Tachyon looked at him, hurt in his lilac eyes. "We used to be friends, Daniel. We fought the Swarm togetherl We="

  "We fought many battles together, Doctor," Brennan said stiffly. "That didn't keep you from walking into my mind and taking it when you saw fit."

  "I had to do that! You were going to kill Hiram, and Jay wanted you sent to jail! Burning Sky! What was I supposed to do?"

  "There are no easy answers," Brennan said. "Neither of us follows the herd. Both of us do what we have to do. Both of us have to live with the consequences of our actions."

  "We were friends," Tachyon whispered.

  "Once," Brennan said.

  There was a moment's silence, and Tachyon looked down into his coffee cup. He took a sip and grimaced. "Now it's cold," he said. "Well. What did you want to see me about?"

  "I think that Kien may have been behind the attack," Brennan said.

  Tachyon stared at him. "Nonsense," he snorted. "Kien is dead."

  Brennan shook his head. "Maybe. But maybe he's reaching out from the grave. Maybe he gave his underlings orders to kill all his enemies when he died."

  Tachyon frowned, considering it. "Why would they wait over a year to strike?"

  Brennan shrugged. "I don't know. But remember. You were on Kien's hit list too."

  "I was, wasn't L" Tachyon sighed. "Yet another complication in an already too-complicated life." He looked at Brennan and was about to add something more, but a shout from the reception desk made them both turn and stare.

  "Tachyon!" Havero called out suddenly. "Alert the staff, stat! Something's-"

  Even as Havero spoke, there was a commotion at the door. An ambulance, lights flashing, sirens wailing, roared up and braked to a sudden halt. Havero reached over the counter, punched a button on the hospital intercom, and was reeling off orders as the ambulance attendants leapt out of the vehicle. One ran around to the rear of the ambulance; the other approached the clinic's double glass doors, which whooshed open as he neared.

  "Gang fight," the driver cried. "Killer Geeks and Demon Princes. We've got a load, and there's more on the way." Tachyon cut across the reception area, Brennan on his heels. The driver headed back to help the attendant open the vehicle's back door. They slid a blanket-covered gurney from the ambulance, and Havero, standing in front of the reception counter, screamed, "Everyone get down!"

  Brennan and Tachyon reacted with the reflexes of seasoned combat veterans. They hit the polished linoleum floor as the figure on the ambulance gurney sat up, threw his blanket off, and emptied a clip from an Uzi into the reception area at full automatic.

  Brennan rolled as he hit the floor. In a frozen second he saw the bullets whine through the reception area like a swarm of angry bees. The old man spitting into the cup was stitched across the chest. He hunched forward and slid off the chair, surprise and pain on his face as his expression froze and his eyes glazed.

  The woman reading the National Geographic was unharmed until she saw her children cut down as they stood rooted in terror in the center of the room. She leaped to her feet, an endless hysterical scream ripping out of her throat. The furry guy was lucky, too, but Cody Havero's luck was miraculous. The gunman seemed drawn by her scream and half instinctively swept his weapon in her direction. But she leaned backward, doing a strange sort of limbo, and Brennan saw out of the corner of his eye that most of the burst punched through the counter above her.

  By then, he had reached the Browning holstered in the small of his back. Stomach pressed tight to the floor, he drew and aimed with one fluid motion, almost forgetting that he had a gun, replaying in his brain the instant coordination of muscle and mind that was his when firing a bow. He held the pistol out before him, both arms extended, hands clasped loosely, muscles relaxed, eyes almost closed. He squeezed off a single shot, and the man sitting on the stretcher bucked backward. Brennan's mind trapped the moment like an insect encased in amber. He played it back as the man fell and saw a round black hole punched in the middle of the assassin's forehead.

  "Christ!" one of the ambulance attendants swore, and fumbled for something buttoned up under his coat. Brennan now knew that he had plenty of time, and he knew that they needed some questions answered. He shot both attendants in their kneecaps.

  Tachyon was on his feet before they hit the floor. The hideous screaming of the joker mother suddenly ended, and she slumped into the pool of her children's blood. Brennan glanced at Tachyon.

  "Told her to sleep," the little alien said shortly. He stood, fury clenching his delicate face into a hard, angry fist. "Ancestors! In my clinic. My clinic!"

  "Better see to Dr. Havero," Brennan said. "I think she took a round."

  Havero straightened as Tachyon ran toward her and waved him off. "Two rounds," she managed to say. "Just flesh wounds. I'm all right."

  Tachyon changed direction in midstride, heading for the leaking bodies of the joker children. Brennan didn't bother. He could still see the snapshots his mind had taken of the bullets ripping their bodies, and he knew there was no hope. He went to Havero. She had two flesh wounds, upper arm and calf. The bullets had missed all bones and major blood vessels.

  "How'd you do it?" Brennan asked her as Tachyon moved helplessly from corpse to corpse.

  She shifted her weight and grimaced. "The old Havero luck,
" she said.

  Brennan nodded. I should be so lucky, he thought. The reception room was suddenly the focal point of an explosion of activity. Brennan knew that he had little time to waste. Someone had assuredly called the police, and he couldn't be here when they arrived. Also, maybe this was just a diversion. Maybe the real attack had gone through a side entrance and up a freight elevator to a supposedly secure room on the clinic's upper floor.

  He walked calmly toward the two hit men still writhing on the floor. Neither looked very happy, but then, neither did Brennan.

  "Talk," he said to the one who had been the spokesman. "I don't know, I don't know nothing, man."

  "How about a busted elbow to go with your blown knee?" Brennan asked, aiming the Browning.

  "No, man, I swear, I swear to Christ!"

  Brennan aimed his pistol. The hit man shrieked and blubbered, but his cries didn't stop Brennan. Tachyon did. "He's telling the truth," Tachyon said. The alien sounded bone-weary but not especially surprised at the violence that entangled him. "They're freelance muscle, hired by the man on the gurney whom you shot. And he's not going to talk anymore."

  Brennan nodded and holstered his gun. "Yes he is, in a way," Brennan said. He hunkered over the body and tore off its shirt, pointing to the bulky bandage high on the left shoulder blade. "I hit the only survivor of the attack on my country place right about there. This was his second try." He stood, reached into his back pocket, and took out an ace of spades. He scaled it at the body, and it stuck, face up, to the blood running from the dead man's forehead. "Something for your friends from the law to think about when they finally get here from the doughnut shop," he said, and turned away.

  "Wait a minute," Tachyon said. "Where are you going?"

  Brennan glanced overhead. "To check on things." Tachyon nodded. "I understand. Be careful."

  Brennan nodded. Avoiding the lumbering elevator, he took the stairs up to the clinic's top floor. The corridor was dark and quiet. He went down it like a skulking cat, and when he flung open the door to Jennifer's room, a startled Father Squid whirled to stare at him.