Dead Mans Hand

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 mule 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 out 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.