Martin,George R.R. - Wildcards 05 - Down and Dirty

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

Wildcards V: Down And DirtyDown And Dirty

Book 5 of Wildcards

Edited by George R.R. Martin

ISBN: 0-553-27463-5

October 1986 - April 1987

Only the Dead Know Jokertown

by John J. Miller

I

Brennan moved through the autumnal night as if he were part of it, or it were

part of him.

The fall had brought a coolness to the air that reminded Brennan, however

palely, of the Catskills. He missed the mountains more than almost anything, but

as long as Kien was free they were as unattainable as the ghosts of dead friends

and lovers that had lately come to haunt his dreams. He loved the mountains as

surely as he loved all the people he'd failed down through the years, but who

could love the dirty sprawl of the city? Who could even know the city, could

even know Jokertown? Not him, certainly, but Kien's presence bound him to

Jokertown as solidly as chains of adamantine steel.

He crossed the street, entering the half block of urban debris that bordered the

Crystal Palace. With the sixth sense of the hunter he could feel eyes follow him

as he passed through the wreckage. He shifted the canvas bag that carried his

broken-down bow to a more comfortable position, wondering, not for the first

time, what sort of creatures chose to make the mounds of junk their home. Once

or twice he heard twittering rustles that weren't the wind and glimpsed flashes

of movement that weren't shifting moonshadow, but no one interfered as he swung

up onto the rusted fire escape hanging down the Palace's rear wall. He climbed

silently to the roof, went through the security system that would have given him

pause if Chrysalis hadn't keyed him to it, and entered through the trapdoor that

opened on the Palace's third floor, Chrysalis's private domain. The corridor was

totally dark, but he avoided, by memory the delicate stands cluttered with

antique bric-a-brac and let himself into her bedroom. Chrysalis was awake.

Sitting naked on her plush winecolored fainting couch, she was playing solitaire

with a deck of antique playing cards.

Brennan watched her for a moment. Her skeleton, her ghostly musculature, her

internal organs, and the network of blood vessels that laced through it all were

delicately lit by rosy light from the Tiffany lamp hanging above the couch upon

which she'd spread her cards. He watched the articulated skeleton of her hand

flip through the deck and turn over the ace of spades.

She looked up at him and smiled.

Her smile, like Chrysalis herself, was an enigma. Difficult to read because her

face was only lips and smudges of ghostly muscle on her cheeks and jaw, it could

have meant any of the thousand things a smile could mean. Brennan chose to

interpret it as a welcome.

"It's been some time." She looked at him critically. "Long enough for you to

start a beard."

Brennan closed the door and set his bow case against the wall. "I've had

business," he said, his voice soft and deep. "Yes." Her smile continued until

Brennan could no longer ignore the edge in it. "Some of which interfered with

mine." There was no doubt as to what she referred. Several weeks ago, on Wild

Card Day, Brennan had broken up a meeting at the Palace at which Chrysalis was

brokering a very valuable set of books that included Kien's personal diary.

Brennan, hoping that volume had enough evidence in it to nail Kien's damnable

hide to the wall, had eventually gotten it for himself, but it had proven to be

worthless. All the writing in it had been destroyed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I needed that diary."

"Yes," she repeated. Ghostly muscles bunched, indicating a frown. "And you've

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (1 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

read it?"

Brennan hesitated a beat. "Yes."

"And you'll not be adverse to sharing the information in it?"

It was more of a demand than a request. It would do no good, Brennan thought, to

tell her the truth. She probably would think he was trying to keep it all to

himself. "Possibly."

"In that case I suppose I coud forgive you," she said in a not-very-forgiving

voice. She gathered her cards together slowly, careful of their age and value,

and set them aside on a spider-legged table that stood next to the couch. She

leaned back languorously, her nipples bobbing on invisible pads of flesh whose

warmth and firm texture Brennan knew well.

"I've brought you something," Brennan said conciliatorily. "It's not information

but something you might like almost as well."

He sat down on the edge of the couch, reached into the pocket of his denim

jacket, and handed Chrysalis a small, clear envelope. When she reached out to

take it, her warm, invisible thigh touched, then rested on, Brennan's own.

"It's a Penny Black," he said, as she held the glassine envelope up to the

light. "The world's first postage stamp. Mint, in perfect condition. Rather rare

in that state, rather valuable. The portrait is an engraving of Queen Victoria."

"Very nice." She smiled her enigmatic smile. "I won't ask you where you got it."

Brennan smiled in response, said nothing. He knew that she knew perfectly well

where he'd gotten it. He'd asked Wraith for it when they were inspecting the

stockbooks full of rare stamps she'd heisted from Kien's safe, the same safe

from which she'd removed his diary during the early hours of Wild Card Day.

Wraith had felt bad that Brennan hadn't gotten what he'd wanted from the

worthless diary and had gladly given him the stamp when he'd asked for it.

"Well, I hope you like it." Brennan stood and stretched as Chrysalis set the

envelope aside on her stack of cards. It had been a long day and he was tired.

He went to the sidetable by Chrysalis's canopied four-poster bed and lifted the

decanter of Irish whiskey that she kept there for him. He looked at it, frowned,

and put it down. He rejoined Chrysalis on the couch.

She edged forward lithely and covered his body with hers. He drank in the musky,

sexual scent of her perfume and watched the blood rush through the carotid

artery in her neck. "Change your mind about the drink?" she asked softly. "The

decanter was empty."

Chrysalis drew back a little, stared into his questioning eyes.

"You only drink amaretto." It was a statement, not a question. She nodded.

Brennan sighed. "When I first came to you, I only wanted information. I didn't

want anything personal between us. You started that. If it's to continue and

become meaningful, I have to be the only one in your bed. It's the way I am.

It's the only way I can give myself to anyone."

Chrysalis stared at him for several seconds before replying. "Whomever else I

sleep with is no concern of yours," she finally drawled in the British accent

that Brennan, with his ear for languages, knew was faked.

He nodded. "Then I'd better be going." He stood and turned.

"Wait." She stood too. They looked at each other for a long moment, and when she

spoke, it was in a conciliatory voice. "At least have your drink. I'll go

downstairs and fill the decanter. You can have your drink and we ... we can

talk."

Brennan was tired and had no other place in Jokertown he wanted to be. "All

right," he said softly. Chrysalis wrapped herself in a silk kimono spattered

with whisps of smoke shaped like galloping horses and left him with a smile that

was more shy than enigmatic.

Brennan paced the room, watching his image shift across the myriad antique

mirrors that decorated the walls of Chrysalis's bedchamber. He should get out,

he told himself, and leave well enough alone, but Chrysalis was as fascinating

out of bed as in it. His best intentions to the contrary, he knew that he needed

her companionship and, he admitted to himself, her love.

It had been more than ten years since he'd allowed himself to love a woman, but

as he'd been discovering since his arrival in Jokertown, the emotions that he

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (2 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

allowed himself weren't the only ones he felt. He couldn't live on hate alone.

He didn't know if he could love Chrysalis as he'd loved the French-Vietnamese

wife whom he'd lost to Kien's assassins. He didn't even want to love a woman

while he was on Kien's trail, but despite all his fixity of purpose, despite his

Zen training, what he wanted and what actually happened were often two entirely

different things.

He stood in the silence of Chrysalis's bedroom, studiously not thinking about

his past. Long minutes passed and he suddenly realized that Chrysalis should

have returned.

He frowned. It was almost inconceivable that something could happen to Chrysalis

in the Crystal Palace, but the habitual caution that had saved Brennan's life

more times than he cared to remember made him assemble his bow before going

after her. He would feel foolish if he bumped into her in the dark, but he had

'felt foolish before. It was preferable to feeling dead, a sensation he was more

intimately acquainted with than he liked.

Chrysalis wasn't in the corridors of the third floor, nor on the stairway

leading down to the taproom, but he heard murmuring voices as he crept down the

stairs.

He drew an arrow, placed it on the string of his bow, and peered around the edge

of the stairwell where it opened up into the back of the taproom. He gritted his

teeth. He had been right to be cautious.

Chrysalis was standing before the long, polished-wood bar that ran almost the

entire length of the taproom. The whiskey decanter, still empty, was forgotten

on the bar next to her. Her arms were crossed and her jaw was clenched. Her lips

were compressed in a thin, angry line.

Two men bracketed her and a third sat facing her at a table in front of the bar.

Brennan coud discern few details in the dimness of the night-light that burned

above the bar, but the men all had hard, tough faces. The one facing her drummed

his fingers on the tabletop next to a chrome-plated pistol.

"Come on," he said in a soft but dangerous-sounding voice. "We just want some

information. That's all. We won't even say where we got it." He leaned back in

his chair. "Soon there's going to be war, but we don't know who to hit."

"And you think I do?" Brennan recognized the edge anger put in Chrysalis's

drawl, but he also recognized the fear under the anger.

The seated man smiled. "We know you do, babe. You know everything about this

Jokertown shithole. All we know is that someone has put together these

nickel-and-dime gangs into something called the Shadow Fists. They're moving

into our territory, taking our customers, and cutting into our profits. It's got

to stop."

"If I knew a name," Chrysalis said, coming down hard on the if, "it would cost

you more than you can pay to learn it." The man sitting at his table shook his

head. "You don't understand," he said. "This is war, babe. And it's going to

cost you more than you can pay to keep your mouth shut." He let his words sink

in while he drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "Sal," he said after a moment,

nodding at the man who stood to Chrysalis's right. " I wonder if her famous

invisible skin would scar?"

Sal considered the question. "Let's see," he finally said. There was a loud

snick and Brennan saw light glint off a shiny blade. Sal waved it in Chrysalis's

face, and she shrank back against the bar. She opened her mouth to scream, but

the man standing on her left clamped his gloved hand over it. Sal laughed and

Brennan stood and loosed the arrow he'd been holding. It struck Sal in the back

and catapulted him over the bar. No one had any idea what had happened, except

possibly Chrysalis. The man seated at the table snatched his pistol and leaped

to his feet. Brennan calmly shot him through the throat. The thug holding

Chrysalis let out a startled stream of obscenities and fumbled under his jacket

for a pistol that he carried in a shoulder rig. Brennan shot him through the

right forearm. He dropped his gun and spun away from Chrysalis, staring at the

aluminum-shafted hunting arrow skewering his arm and mumbling, "Jesus, oh,

Jesus." He stooped to pick up his pistol.

"Touch it," Brennan called from the darkness, "and I'll put the next arrow

through your right eye."

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (3 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

The thug wisely stood up and backed against the bar. He clutched his bleeding

arm and moaned.

Brennan stepped forward into the diffuse light cast by the nightlamp burning

over the bar. The man stared at the razor-tipped arrow nocked to his bowstring.

"Who are they?" Brennan asked Chrysalis in a harsh, clipped voice.

"Mafia," she replied, her voice cracking with tension and fear.

Brennan nodded, never taking his eyes off the thug who stared at the arrow that

was pointed at his throat.

"Do you know who I am?"

The mafioso nodded violently. "Ya. You're that Yeoman guy-the bow 'n' arrow

killer. I read about you alla time in the Post." The words tripped out of his

mouth in a fear-filled torrent.

"That's right," Brennan said. He spared the man who'd been sitting at the table

a quick glance and saw that he was curled on the floor in a widening pool of

blood, a foot of arrow sticking out from the nape of his neck. He didn't bother

checking Sal. He'd had a clean heart shot on him.

"You're a lucky man," Brennan continued in his same dead voice. "Know why?"

The mafioso bobbed his head vigorously side to side, sighing in relief when

Brennan relaxed the tension on the taut bowstring and set the bow aside.

"Someone has to deliver a message for me. Someone has to tell your boss that

Chrysalis is off bounds. Someone has to tell him that I have an arrow with his

name on it, an arrow I would not be slow in delivering if I heard that something

had happened to Chrysalis. Do you think you could tell him that?"

"Sure. Sure I could."

"Good." Brennan reached into his back pocket and showed the thug a playing card,

a black ace of spades. "This is so he knows you're telling the truth."

He grabbed the man's wounded arm by the elbow and yanked it straight. The thug

groaned as Brennan stuck the card on the arrowtip.

"And this," Brennan said through gritted teeth, "is to make sure you don't loose

it."

With a sudden, forceful jerk he impaled the man's other arm on the arrowpoint.

The mafioso screamed at the sharp, unexpected pain. He sagged to his knees as

Brennan bent the aluminum shaft of the arrow under and around both of his arms,

pinning them together as tightly as handcuffs would. Brennan yanked him to his

feet. The man was sobbing in fear and pain and couldn't look Brennan in the eye.

"If I ever see you again," Brennan said, "you'll die." The thug staggered away,

sobbing and gibbering incomprehensible protestations. Brennan watched him until

he tottered through the front door, then turned to Chrysalis. She was looking at

him with fear in her eyes, more than some of which, he was sure, was directed

toward him. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

"Yes ... yes, I think so.... "

"You'll have to answer a lot of questions," Brennan said, "unless we get rid of

the bodies."

"Yes." ; She nodded sharply, suddenly decisive, suddenly in control again. "I'll

call Elmo. He'll handle it." She looked him straight in the eye. "I owe you."

Brennan sighed. "Does your entire life have to consist of rigidly tabulated

credits and debits?"

She looked at little startled, but nodded. "Yes," she said firmly. "Yes, it

does. It's the only way to keep track, to make sure . . ." Her voice trailed

away, and she turned and went around the bar. She looked down at Sal's body, and

when she spoke again, she voiced a totally different thought. "You know, Tachyon

invited me to go on that world tour of his. I think I'll take him up on it. No

telling what information I'll pick up rubbing elbows with all those politicians.

And if there's going to be street warfare between the Mafia and Kien's Shadow

Fists,"--she looked into Brennan's eyes for the first time-"I would be safer

elsewhere."

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Brennan nodded.

"I'd better be going, then."

"Your whiskey?"

Brennan let out a long sigh. "No." He looked at the body at his feet. "Drink

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (4 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

brings memories, and I don't need any tonight." He looked back at her. "I'm

going to be ... indisposed ... for the next few weeks. I probably won't see you

before you leave. Good-bye, Chrysalis."

She watched him go, a crystalline tear glistening on her invisible cheek, but he

never looked back, he never saw.

II

The Twisted Dragon was located somewhere within the nebulous boundary of an

interlocking Jokertown and Chinatown. One of Brennan's street sources had told

him that the bar was the hangout of Danny Mao, a man who had a moderately high

position in the Shadow Fist Society and was said to be in charge of recruitment.

Brennan watched the entrance for a while. The swirling snowflakes that missed

the brim of his black cowboy hat caught on his thick, drooping mustache and in

his long sideburns. A fair number of Werewolves-they were wearing Richard Nixon

masks this month-were going into and out of the place. He'd also seen a few

Egrets, though for the most part the Chinatown gang was too picky to hang out in

a joint frequented by jokers.

He smiled, smoothing the tips of his mustache in a gesture that had already

become habitual. Time to see if his plan was a stroke of genius, as he sometimes

thought, or a quick way to a hard death, as he more frequently thought.

It was warm inside the Dragon, more, Brennan guessed, from the press of bodies

than the bar's heating system, and it took a moment for him to spot Mao, who

was, as Brennan's source had told him he'd be, sitting in a booth in the back of

the room. Brennan threaded his way between crowded tables and the shuffling

barmaids, staggering drunks, and swaggering punks who crossed his path as he

headed toward the booth.

A girl, young and blond and looking vaguely stoned, sat next to Mao. Three men

crowded the bench across the table from him. One was a Werewolf in a Nixon mask,

one was a young Oriental, and the one in the middle was a thin, pale,

nervous-looking man. Before Brennan could say anything a street punk stepped in

Brennan's path, blocking his way.

He was a lean six four or five, so he towered over Brennan despite the cowboy

boots that added an inch or two to Brennan's height. He wore stained leather

pants and an oversize leather jacket that was draped with lengths of chain. His

spiked hair added several inches to his apparent height, and the scarlet and

black scars crawling on his face added apparent fierceness to his appearance, as

did the bone-a human finger-bone, Brennan realized-that pierced his nose.

The scars that patterned his cheeks, forehead, and chin were the insigna of the

Cannibal Headhunters, a once-feared street gang that had disintegrated when

Brennan had killed its leader, an ace named Scar. Gang members not slain in the

bloody power struggle after Scar's demise had for the most part gravitated to

other criminal associations, such as the Shadow Fist Society.

"What do you want?" The Headhunter's voice was too reedy to sound menacing, but

he tried.

"To see Danny Mao." Brennan spoke softly, his voice pitched in the slow drawl

that he remembered so well from his childhood. The Headhunter bent lower to hear

Brennan over the cacaphony of music, manic laughter, and half a hundred

conversations that washed over them.

"'Bout what?"

"'Bout what's not your business, boy."

Brennan saw out of the corner of his eye that conversation in the booth had

stopped and that everyone was watching them.

"I say it is." The Headhunter smiled a grin he fondly thought savage, showing

filed front teeth. Brennan laughed aloud. The Headhunter frowned. "What's so

funny, asshole?"

Brennan, still laughing, grabbed the bone in the Headhunter's nose and yanked.

The Headhunter screamed and reached for his torn nose and Brennan kicked him in

the crotch. He fell with a choking moan, and Brennan dropped the bloody bone

he'd ripped from his nose onto his curled-up body.

"You," Brennan told him, then slid into the booth next to the blond girl, who

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (5 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

was staring at him in stoned astonishment. Two of the three men sitting across

the table started to rise, but Danny Mao waved a negligent hand and they sat

back down, muttering at each other and staring at Brennan.

Brennan took his hat off, set it on the table in front of him, and looked at

Danny Mao, who returned his gaze with apparent interest.

"What's your name?" Mao asked. "Cowboy," Brennan said softly.

Mao picked up the glass in front of him and took a short sip. He looked at

Brennan as if he were some kind of odd bug and frowned. "You for real? I ain't

never seen a Chinese cowboy before."

Brennan smiled. The epicanthic folds given his eyes by Dr. Tachyon's deft

surgical skills had combined, as he had known they would, with his coarse, dark

hair and tanned complexion to give him an Oriental appearance. This slight

alteration of his features, his newly grown facial hair, and his western manner

of speaking and dressing all added up to a simple but effective disguise. It

wouldn't fool anyone who knew him, but he wasn't likely to run into anyone who

did.

And the irony of his disguise, Brennan thought, was that every aspect of his new

identity, except for the eyes given him by Tachyon, was true. His father had

been fond of saying that the Brennans were Irish, Chinese, Spanish, several

kinds of Indian, and all-American.

"My Asian ancestors helped build the railroads. I was born in New Mexico, but

found it too limiting." That, too, was true.

"So you came to the big city looking for excitement?" Brennan nodded. "Some time

ago."

"And found enough so that you have to use an alias?" He shrugged, said nothing.

Mao took another sip of his drink. "What do you want?"

"Word on the street," Brennan said, his intense excitement buried under his

southwestern drawl, "is that your people are going to war with the Mafia. You've

already hit them once Don Picchietti was assassinated two weeks ago by an

invisible ace who shoved an ice pick in his ear while he was eating dinner at

his own restaurant. That was certainly a Shadow Fist job. The Mafia will

undoubtedly retaliate, and the Shadow Fists will need more soldiers."

Mao nodded. "Why should we hire you?"

"Why not? I can handle myself."

Mao glanced at his erstwhile bodybuard, who had managed to drag himself to a

hunched position on his knees, his forehead resting on the floor. "Fair enough,"

he said thoughtfully. "But do you have the stomach for it I wonder?" He looked

at the three men crowded together on the bench across the table, and Brennan,

too, looked at them closely.

The Werewolf sat on the outside and the Oriental, probably an Immaculate Egret,

was on the inside. The man they sandwiched, though didn't look like a street

tough.

He was small, thin, and palid. His hands looked soft and weak, his eyes were

dark and bright. Many street toughs had a streak of madness in them, but even on

first sight Brennan could see that this man was more than touched by insanity.

"These men," Danny Mao said, "are going on a mission. Care to join them?"

"What kind of mission?" Brennan asked.

"If you have to ask, maybe you're not the type of man we're looking for."

"Maybe," Brennan said, smiling, "I'm just cautious."

"Caution is an admirable trait," Mao said blandly, "but so is faith in and

obedience to your superiors."

Brennan put his hat on. "All right. Where're we headed?" The pale man in the

middle laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "The morgue," he said gleefully.

Brennan looked at Mao with a lifted eyebrow.

Mao nodded. "The morgue, as Deadhead says."

"Do you have a car?" the Werewolf asked Brennan. His voice was a mushy growl

behind the Nixon mask.

Brennan shook his head.

"I'll have to steal one," the Werewolf said.

"Then we can go to the drive-up window!" the man called Deadhead enthused. The

Asian sitting next to him looked vaguely disgusted but said nothing. "Let's go!"

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (6 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

Deadhead pushed at the Werewolf, urging him out of the booth.

Brennan lingered to glance at Mao, who was watching him carefully.

"Whiskers," Mao said, nodding at the Werewolf, "is in charge. He'll tell you

what you need to know. You're on probation, Cowboy. Be careful."

Brennan nodded and followed the unlikely trio onto the street. The Werewolf

turned and looked at Brennan.

"I'm Whiskers," he said in his indistinct growl. "This is Deadhead, like Danny

said, and this is Lazy Dragon." Brennan nodded at the Oriental, realizing his

initial assessment of the man had been wrong. He wasn't an Egret. He wasn't

wearing Egret colors, and he didn't have the demeanor of a gang member. He was

young, maybe in his early twenties, small, about five six or seven, and slender

enough so that his baggy pants hung loosely on his lean hips. His face was oval,

his nose slightly broad, his hair longish and indifferently combed. He didn't

have the aggressive attitude of the street punk. There was a reserve about him,

an air of almost melancholy thoughtfulness.

Whiskers left them waiting on the corner. Lazy Dragon was silent, but Deadhead

kept up a constant stream of chatter, most of which was nonsensical. Lazy Dragon

paid him no attention, and neither did Brennan after a while, but that seemed to

make no difference to Deadhead. He burbled on and Brennan ignored him as best he

could. Once Deadhead reached into the pocket of his dirty jacket and pulled out

a bottle of pills of different sizes and colors, shook out a handful, and tossed

them into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed noisily and beamed at Brennan.

"Take vitamins?"

Brennan wasn't sure if Deadhead was offering him some or asking if he took

vitamins himself. He nodded noncommittally and turned away.

Whiskers finally showed up with a car. It was a dark, late model Buick. Brennan

hopped into the front seat, leaving the back for Deadhead and Lazy Dragon.

"Good suspension. Smooth drive," Whiskers commented as they pulled away from the

curb. Brennan looked into the rear-view mirror and saw Lazy Dragon nod and reach

into his pocket for a small clasp knife and a block of soft, white material that

looked like soap. He opened the knife and began to whittle.

Deadhead kept up a stream of running chatter that no one listened to. Whiskers

drove smoothly, cursing potholes, spotlights, and other drivers in his muffled

voice, continually glancing in the mirror to follow Lazy Dragon's progress as he

carefully carved the small block of soap with delicate, skillful hands.

Brennan didn't know where the morgue was or what it looked like, but the dark,

forbidding structure that they finally stopped before met all of his

expectations.

"Here it is," Whiskers announced unnecessarily. They watched the building for a

few moments. "Still looks busy." Occasional lights illuminated scattered rooms

throughout the multistoried structure, and as they watched, people occasionally

entered or left by the main entrance.

"Ready yet?" Whiskers growled, glancing into the mirror. "Just about," Lazy

Dragon said without looking up. "Ready for what?" Brennan asked, and Whiskers

turned to him.

"You gotta take Deadhead to the room they use for long-term body storage. It's

in the basement. Deadhead will take it from there. Dragon will go first and

scout. You're muscle in case anything goes wrong."

"And you?"

Whiskers may have grinned under his mask, but Brennan couldn't be sure. "Now

that you're here, I just wait in the car."

Brennan didn't like it. This wasn't the way he liked to do things, but he was

obviously being tested. Equally obviously, he had no choice. He made one more

try for information.

"What are we looking for?"

"Deadhead knows," Whiskers said, and Brennan heard a disquieting titter from the

backseat. "And Dragon knows the general layout. You just deal with anyone who

tries to interfere." He glanced back into the mirror. "Ready?"

Lazy Dragon looked up. "Ready," he said calmly. He folded his knife, put it

away, and stared critically at what he had carved. Brennan, mystified and

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (7 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

curious, turned around for a better look and saw that it was a small but

credible mouse. Lazy Dragon studied it carefully, nodded as if satisfied, set it

on his lap, settled back comfortably in his seat, and closed his eyes. For a

moment nothing happened, then Dragon slumped as if asleep or unconscious, and

the carving began to twitch.

The tail lashed, the ears perked up, and then, creakily at first but with

increasing fluidity, the thing stretched. It stopped for a moment to preen its

fur, then it leaped from Dragon's lap to the shoulder of the driver's seat.

Brennan stared at it and it stared back. It was a goddamn living mouse. Brennan

glanced back at Lazy Dragon, who seemed to be sleeping, then looked at Whiskers,

who was watching impassively beneath his Nixon mask.

"Nice trick," Brennan drawled.

"It's okay," Whiskers said. "You carry him."

Lazy Dragon, who seemed to be vitalizing and possessing the little figurine he'd

carved, climbed up on Brennan s shoulder, scurried down his chest, and popped

into his vest pocket. He peeked out, holding the pocket-top with his little

clawed paws. This was, Brennan thought, more than passing strange, but he had

the feeling that things would get stranger before the night was over.

"Okay," he said. "Let's do it." Whatever it was.

They entered the morgue through an unlocked service entrance in a side alley and

took the stairway to the basement. Lazy Dragon popped out of his pocket, ran

down his vest and pant-leg, and scurried down the poorly lit corridor in which

they found themselves. Deadhead started after him, but Brennan held him back.

"Let's wait until the mou-until Lazy Dragon gets back." Deadhead's eyes were

shiny and he was even more jittery than usual. His hands shook as he took out

his pill bottle, and he dropped a dozen capsules on the floor as he gulped down

a mouthful. The pills scattered on the concrete floor, making loud skittering

noises. He grinned maniacally and the corner of his mouth kept twitching in a

torturous grimace.

What the hell, Brennan thought, am I doing in a morgue corridor with a madman

and a living mouse carved out of soap?

Lazy Dragon came scampering back before Brennan could think of a satisfactory

answer to this disturbing question, his tiny feet moving as if he were being

chased by the hungriest cat in the world. He stopped at Brennan's feet, dancing

with excitement. Brennan sighed, bent over, and held out his hand. Lazy Dragon

jumped up on his palm, and Brennan, still hunkered down, lifted the mouse close

to his face.

Lazy Dragon sat up on his haunches, his beady eyes bright with intelligence. He

drew his tiny right front paw over his throat repeatedly. Brennan sighed again.

He hated charades.

"What is it?" he asked. "Danger? Someone in the corridor?" The mouse nodded

excitedly and held up his paw. "One man?" Again the mouse nodded. "Armed?" The

mouse shrugged a very human-looking shrug, looked doubtful. "Okay." Brennan let

the mouse down, then stood up. "Follow me." He turned to Deadhead. "You wait

here."

Deadhead nodded a jittery nod, and Brennan went off down the corridor, Lazy

Dragon scurrying at his heels. He had no confidence in Deadhead and wondered

what part in the mission he could possibly play. It's hard, he thought to

himself, when your most dependable man is a mouse. Around the bend of the

corridor a man was sitting in a metal folding chair, eating a sandwich and

reading a paperback. He looked up as Brennan approached.

"Can I help you, buddy?" He was middle-aged, fat, and balding. The book he was

reading was Ace Avenger #49, Mission to Iran.

"Got a delivery."

The man frowned. "I don't know nothing about that. I'm the night janitor. We

usually get deliveries during the day." Brennan nodded understandingly. "This is

a special delivery," he said. When he was close enough, he reached behind his

back and drew the stiletto he carried in a belt sheath under his vest, touching

the tip of its blade lightly against the janitor's throat. The janitor's lips

made a round O of astonishment and he dropped his book.

"Jesus, mister, what are you doing?" he asked in a strangled whisper, trying to

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (8 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

move his throat as little as possible. "Where's the long-term storage room?"

"Over there, over that way." The janitor made little jerking motions with his

eyeballs, afraid to move even a muscle.

"Go get Deadhead."

"I don't know no one with that name," the fat man pleaded, sweat beading his

forehead.,

"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the mouse."

"O Lord." The janitor started to mumble an incoherent prayer, sure that Brennan

was a crazed maniac who was going to murder him.

Brennan waited patiently until Lazy Dragon returned with Deadhead.

"Anyone else on this floor?" he asked, urging the janitor up with a slight flick

of his knife wrist. The janitor, catching on quickly, stood immediately.

"No one. Not now."

"No guards?"

The janitor looked as if he wanted to shake his head, but the proximity of the

knife to his throat stopped him. "Don't really need them. No one's broke into

the morgue for, jeez, months now."

"Okay." Brennan eased the knife away from the janitor's throat and the man

visibly relaxed. "Take us to the storeroom. Be quiet and no funny business." By

way of emphasis Brennan touched the tip of the janitor's nose with the tip of

his knife, and the janitor nodded carefully.

Brennan squatted and held out his palm, and Lazy Dragon climbed onto it. He put

the mouse in his vest pocket, holding back a smile at the janitor's bug-eyed

stare. He looked as if he wanted to ask Brennan a question, then thought better

of it.

"It's this way," the janitor said, and Deadhead and Brennan, with Lazy Dragon

peering from his pocket, followed him.

The janitor let them into the room with his key. It was a dark, cold, depressing

room with floor-to-ceiling body lockers in the walls. It was where the city kept

all the corpses that no one wanted or that no one could identify, before their

pauper burials.

Deadhead's jittery smile widened when they entered the room, and he hopped from

foot to foot with ill-suppressed excitement.

"Help me find it!" he commanded. "Help me find it!"

"What?" Brennan asked, truly mystified.

"The body. Gruber's fat, cold body." He looked frantically at the lockers,

capering in a macabre dance as he went along the wall.

Brennan frowned, herded the janitor in front of him, and started searching the

opposite wall. Most of the name tags set into the little metal holders on the

locker doors simply had anonymous ID numbers. A few had names.

"Say, this what you looking for?"

The docile janitor, who was preceeding Brennan, looked back helpfully. Brennan

stepped to his side. The locker he was pointing at was third up from the floor,

about waist high. The tag on it said Leon Gruber September 16.

"Here it is," Brennan called softly, and Deadhead scuttled across the room.

There had to be, Brennan thought, some sort of message on the corpse, something

that only Deadhead could decipher. Perhaps this Gruber had smuggled something

into the country in a body cavity... but surely, he thought, anything like that

would've been found by the morgue technicians.

"The body's been here a long time," Brennan commented as Deadhead opened the

locker door and pulled out the retractable table on which the corpse lay.

"Yes, it has, yes, indeed," Deadhead said, staring at the dingy sheet that

covered the body. "They pulled strings. Pulled strings to keep it here until I

... until I could get out."

"Get out?"

Deadhead pulled the sheet down, exposing Gruber's face and chest. He had been a

fat young man, soft and pastylooking. The expression of fear and horror pasted

on his face was the worst that Brennan had even seen on a corpse. His chest was

puckered with bullet holes, small caliber from the look of them.

"Yes," Deadhead said, but he never looked up from Gruber's dead, staring eyes. "

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Marti...-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (9 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

I was in prison ... hospital, really." From somewhere on his person he had

produced a small, shiny hacksaw. His lips twitched in incessant, spasmodic

jerks, and a line of spittle ran from the corner of his mouth to drip off his

chin. "For corpse abuse."

"Are we taking the body with us?" Brennan asked through tightly clenched lips.,

"No thanks," Deadhead said brightly. "I'll eat it here." He began to saw

Gruber's skull. The blade cut through the bone easily. Brennan and the janitor

watched, horrified, as the top of the skull came off and Deadhead, with

maniacal, somehow furtive glee, scooped chunks off Gruber's brain and stuffed

them in his mouth. He chewed noisily.

Brennan felt Lazy Dragon dive into his vest pocket. The janitor vomited and

Brennan fought off the rising tide of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him,

holding on with grim, tight-lipped self-control.

III

Brennan gagged the janitor with his handkerchief and bound him at wrist and

ankle with packing tape Lazy Dragon found in a corner of the storage room. He

had to do all the work himself because Deadhead, mumbling incoherently, had

sagged against the wall after wolfing down Gruber's brain. After Brennan took

care of the janitor he guided the mumbling maniac out of the storeroom. Brennan

wished that Lazy Dragon could tell him what the hell was going on.

"How'd it go?" Whiskers asked when Brennan threw open the Buick's rear passenger

door and pushed Deadhead in. Brennan slammed the door and slid onto the front

seat before answering.

"Fine, I think. Deadhead had a snack."

Whiskers nodded, started the car, and pulled away from the curb. Lazy Dragon

climbed from Brennan's pocket, balanced precariously on the shoulder of the car

seat, then leaped onto the lap of his human body, which, after a moment, awoke,

yawned, and stretched. The mouse, undergoing a transformation somewhat analagous

to that of Lot's overcurious wife, turned back into a block of soap.

"How'd it go?" Whiskers mumbled again, glancing up into the rearview mirror as

he dove.

"Lazy Dragon dropped his mouse-sculpture in his jacket pocket and nodded. 'As

planned. We found the body and Deadhead ... dined. Cowboy did fine."

"Great. We'd better get Deadhead to the boss while he's still digesting."

"Now that we're all buddies," Brennan drawled, "maybe you can tell me what's

going on."

Whiskers flipped off a driver who'd cut in front of them. "Well ...I suppose

it'd be all right. Deadhead there," he snickered, "is an ace, sort of. He can

get people's memories by eating their brains."

Brennan made a face. "Jesus. So Gruber knew something that Mao wants to know."

Whiskers nodded and gunned the Buick, running a red light. "We think so. We hope

so, anyway. You see, Danny Mao's boss is this guy named Fadeout who wants to

find some ace who calls herself Wraith. Gruber was her fence before she bumped

him off. Mao figures Gruber probably knew enough about her so we can use his

memories to track her down."

Brennan pursed his lips, suppressing a smile. He knew more about this than these

guys did. Fadeout was one of Kien's aces who had tried, and failed, to capture

him and Wraith on Wild Card Day, and Wraith had told him that someone-not

her-had killed her fence that very day. "Why'd you wait so long to get to

Gruber's corpse?" Brennan asked.

Whiskers shrugged. "Deadhead was in some kinda hospital. Cops caught him doing

his thing with a body he'd found on the street back on Wild Card Day, and it

took the lawyers a couple of months to spring him."

Brennan nodded, and to stay in his role as bewildered newcomer, he asked a

question he already knew the answer to. "So why does Fadeout want to find this

Wraith?"

Because she'd lifted Kien's private diary in the early morning hours of the

wildest Wild Car Day ever, Brennan thought, but the Werewolf evidently didn't

know that. He shrugged. "Hey, you think I'm Fadeout's confidant or something?"

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Mart...%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt (10 of 264) [1/17/03 7:04:56 PM]

Martin, George R.R. - Wildcards 05 - Down and Dirty

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: