Dead Mans Hand

5:00 A.M.

Squisher's Basement was still as crowded, still as dark, still as smelly as it was when Brennan had discovered it a few days before. The same bartender was behind the bar and mostly the same customers were scattered about the room, though this time around Bludgeon was absent. A couple of the regulars greeted Brennan jovially and one asked him if he was going to slap around another ace.

"Not today," Brennan said with a smile. "Just a drink and a few words with a friend." Tripod was perched on the edge of a bar stool at the end of the bar, his pelvic arrangement making it impossible to sit on the chair in a normal manner. "What'll it be?" the mouthless bartender asked, his voice rasping from a small hole cut at the base of his throat. "Irish whiskey. Tullamore."

The bartender continued to wipe glasses with a rag that Brennan wouldn't have used to wipe his nose.

Brennan sighed. "All right. Scotch."

"Scotch we got," the bartender said, taking down the bottle of Importer's from the wall and pouring a shot. Squisher peered cautiously from his aquarium. "How's it going, big guy?"

"All right," Brennan said, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket and peeling off a five.

"Hey," Squisher said, "your money's no good here. Friends of Squisher drink for free."

Brennan nodded and put the money back in his pocket. "Thanks. I'll remember that."

Brennan took his drink and joined Tripod at the end of the bar, where he was sipping a mug of beer through a straw. The joker asked, polite as always, "What's up, Mr. Y?"

"Anything new?" Brennan asked quietly.

Tripod pursed his lips. "Nothing, Mr. Y I been wearing my feet o$; but Sascha's gone, man. He's lying low somewhere, and I can't find him."

Brennan nodded, took a sip from his drink. "Something new has cropped up. It may be connected with the murder, but I'm not sure yet. You know anything about a drug called rapture?"

"Oh yeah." Tripod nodded. "Very new. Very chic. They say that it makes everything feel real good, you know, better than ever. Food. Sex. Other drugs. Even pain."

"Pain?"

"Yeah. Like some R-heads might take a razor blade to themselves 'cause it feels so good. It doesn't feel too good when they come down, though."

Brennan nodded. "Maybe Chrysalis discovered something about the drug that led to her death. It had to be something big, something awful, not just knowledge that the drug existed."

"You know," Tripod said thoughtfully, "Sascha's girlfriend was a rap-head. At least I seen her around with blue lips sometimes."

"Girlfriend?" Brennan said. "Sascha had a girlfriend?"

"Yah. You didn't know about her? She's a real hot babe by the name of Ezili Rouge. But it's not as if she's real close to the blind boy. She's got a lot of boyfriends. Girlfriends too. I hear she's even real fond of puppy dogs and like that." Brennan frowned. "Is she a hooker?"

"Probably. She gets dough from somewhere and she's got a lot of it."

"Do you know where she lives?"

"Hey, she's not in my league. I've seen her around. Face of an angel gone bad. Weird red eyes and a body that'd tempt a saint to sin. I'd give a leg to get a piece. 'Course, I got more legs than I know what to do with anyway."

"What about the police? Was she ever mixed up with them?"

Tripod shrugged. "Maybe. She's spent a bundle on drugs. You gotta figure the police have been at least interested."

"What kind of drugs?"

"You name it, she's bought it. H, crack, coke, speed, ludes, pot, PKD, dust, designer stuff like rapture. Christ, if the rumors are half-true she's bought enough dope to send an army up the highway to heaven."

Brennan frowned. Perhaps Sascha had gotten hooked on something that'd put him under Ezilfs control. Perhaps he'd let slip something to Ezili, who told Quincey, who told Wyrm. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. "Where does she hang out?"

"Couple places." Tripod gave him the names of some clubs, none of which had savory reputations.

Brennan finished his drink, put the glass down on the bar, and surreptitiously dropped two twenties on the floor.

"Thanks." He turned to leave, stopped, looked back at Tripod, who was slipping the bills into his ankle pocket with the oddly articulated toes of his middle foot. "One last thing. Ever hear of an ace named Doug Morkle?"

"Morkle? What the hell kind of name is that for an ace?" Brennan shook his head. "Damned if I know."

The back half of Dr. Finn looked like a palomino pony; the front half looked too young to be a doctor. "What happened?" Finn asked as he taped up Jay's ribs.

"I was looking for a sport jacket," Jay said morosely. "Remind me never to use your tailor," Finn replied. He finished the taping. "There. How's that feel?"

"Tight," Jay complained. He tried to flex his arm and winced at the pain. "Makes it hard to move."

"Good," Finn said. "I wouldn't want you doing too much moving until that rib knits. You're very lucky, Mr. Ackroyd. A few more inches, and the bone might have punctured a lung."

"What about my head?"

"The X-rays show only a very mild concussion," Finn. told him. Nothing to worry about, as long as you take it easy.

"Might as well," Jay said, "can't dance."

"Too bad," Finn said. He grinned and did a quick little four-legged softshoe. "I cut quite a rug myself."

"I'll just bet. Do I get anything for the pain? This headache would be killing me if I wasn't so distracted by my rib."

Finn took a pad out of his pocket and scrawled a prescription. "Here," he said, ripping off the top sheet and handing it to Jay. "This ought to help."

"Thanks." Jay hopped down off the examination table. It was a mistake, and the broken rib let him know that right away. "Oh shit," he said, gritting his teeth.

"Don't want to go around jarring yourself that way," Finn said, altogether too cheerfully for Jay's taste. "I wouldn't drive in your condition either. Do you have a ride home?"

"I'll take a cab," Jay said. Charles Dutton had taken him to the clinic, after he'd satisfied himself that Jay had nothing more of value to tell him, but he didn't imagine that the joker had hung around in the waiting room. Even if he had, Jay figured he'd had more than enough of Dutton and the Oddity for today. "You did the autopsy on Chrysalis, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes," Finn replied. "The police always call us in on joker autopsies. The coroner doesn't feel qualified to deal with our unique joker physiology." The little centaur looked away and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "A terrible thing. We see a lot of murder victims here in the clinic and it's never pretty, but the way her body was mutilated…" Finn shook his head.

"Yeah." Jay touched his bruised and swollen face, thinking that he knew just how she must have felt.