Down And Dirty

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?"

Brennan nodded. He wasn't at least he tried not to be, introspective. His memories of the past were frequently painful, but Wraith-Jennifer Maloy-had often been on his mind since their meeting in September. It was more than the adventure they'd shared on Wild Card Day, more than the easy comradeship and grudging confidence between them, more than her tall, athletic-looking body. Brennan couldn't, wouldn't, admit why, but he knew that he'd try to get himself on the Shadow Fist task force that'd been given the job of hunting her. In that way he'd be in position to help her if the Fists got too close.

Not, he thought, that they'd be able to use Gruber's memories to track her down. Although Wraith had never told Brennan his name, she'd mentioned that she hadn't trusted her fence and had, in fact, never even told him her real name.

They drove on in silence. Whiskers finally pulled over and killed the engine in front of a three-story brownstone in the heart of Jokertown.

"Cowboy, you and Lazy Dragon help Deadhead. He can't do much on his own while he's digesting."

Brennan took his left arm, Lazy Dragon took his right, and they dragged him across the sidewalk and up the flight of stairs to the brownstone's entrance, where Whiskers was already talking with one of the Egrets who'd been standing in the foyer. They passed them on into the interior of the building, where another Egret guard spoke briefly into a house telephone and then told them to go upstairs. Getting Deadhead up two flights of stairs was like dragging a sack of half-set cement, but Whiskers didn't offer to help. Another Egret nodded to them on the third-floor landing. They went down a corridor with a threadbare carpet, and Whiskers rapped smartly on the door at the end of the hall. A masculine voice called out, "Come in," and Whiskers opened the door and preceded Brennan, Lazy Dragon, and Deadhead into the room.

It was a comfortably appointed room, rather luxurious compared to what Brennan had seen of the rest of the house. A man in his thirties, handsome, well-dressed, and fit-looking, was standing in front of a well-stocked liquor cart, having just fixed himself a drink.

"How did it go?"

"Fine, Fadeout, just fine."

Brennan didn't recognize him. He'd last seen him on Wild Card Day, but Fadeout had been invisible until Wraith had bashed him on the head with a garbage can lid and he'd fallen unconscious to the street. Brennan had had his hands full of Egrets at the time and had only spared the fallen ace the briefest of glances. It was evident that Fadeout also didn't recognize Brennan, who'd been masked at the time. "Who's this?" the ace asked, nodding in Brennan's direction. "New guy named Cowboy. He's all right."

"He'd better be." Fadeout stepped away from the cart, settled himself in a comfortable chair nearby. "Help youself," he said, gesturing at the liquor.

Whiskers stepped forward eagerly. Brennan and Lazy Dragon turned to dump the near-comatose Deadhead, who was now mumbling about excessive overhead and the price of cocaine, in a convenient chair, when a sudden, terrifyingly loud explosion boomed through the building, shaking it to its foundations. It seemed to come from the roof.

Fadeout's drink sloshed over his suit, Whiskers fell into the liquor cart, and Lazy Dragon and Brennan dropped Deadhead.

"Jesus Christ!" Fadeout swore, lurched to his feet, and staggered to the door as the ratcheting roar of automatic gunfire came from below.

Brennan followed Fadeout and found himself staring at three men armed with Uzis who'd come through a hole they'd blasted in the ceiling. Fadeout stood rooted in place by fear-induced paralysis. Brennan, acting instinctively, knocked the ace to the floor as a stream of slugs from their assailants' compact machine guns ripped into the wall above their heads. Brennan carried his Browning Hipower in a shoulder rig, and he knew that he couldn't draw it in time to return fire, he knew that he was going to be nailed to the floor by the next burst of slugs. Cursing the fate that had brought him to die among his enemies, he grabbed for his gun.

Something tossed from the room behind them fluttered in the hallway, a small sheet of paper that had been intricately folded. Before Brennan could draw his automatic, before their assailants could trigger another burst, there was a twisting shimmering in the air as the paper changed, transformed, grew, into a breathing, living, roaring tiger charging down the corridor, its eyes red and glaring, its mouth full of long, sharp teeth.

It caught a burst of slugs but didn't stop. It hurled itself at the three men at the end of the corridor, and Brennan heard bones splinter as it landed among them.

Brennan got to his knees, drew and aimed his Browning.

Lazy Dragon was holding one man down with his front paws, and with a single, quick motion bit cleanly through his throat. Blood sprayed over the hallway as a panicked gunman put a long burst through Dragon from point-blank range. The red dot from the sighting mechanism of Brennan's pistol shone on the gunman's forehead, and Brennan shot him as the tiger collapsed, falling with all its weight on the third assailant.

Fadeout had faded. Brennan half-stood and ran in crouching, crablike fashion down the corridor. He put a bullet through the head of the man who was trying frantically to pull himself out from under Lazy Dragon, then dropped to his knees before the gigantic cat. It was covered in blood, whether its own or from the slain men around it Brennan couldn't tell, but it was perforated by scores of wounds and was panting heavily. Brennan had seen enough mortally wounded creatures to know that Dragon was dying. He had no idea what he should do, or what this meant to Lazy Dragon's human form. He paused to pat the tiger sympathetically, then quickly moved on.

Bursts of automatic gunfire still rattled below as Brennan cautiously made his way down to the second-floor landing and carefully peered over the rail to the ground floor.

The foyer's double doors were open. Half a dozen Egrets, shot to pieces by automatic gunfire, lay on the stained marble floor. As Brennan watched, the few living members of the assault team backed grudgingly through the wreckage of the front door, swapping gunfire with the Egret guards and their reinforcements. Within moments the firefight had moved unto the stret outside, where gunfire echoed loudly in the night.

Brennan stood up. "Goddamn wops."

He looked over his right shoulder. A pair of blue eyes, nerve tendrils and connective tissue dangling eerily from them, were floating five and a half feet above the floor. Fadeout blinked into existence, looking slightly rumpled and very, very angry.

"The Mafia?" Brennan asked.

"That's right, Cowboy. Rico Covello's men. I recognized what was left of their ugly faces from our dossiers." He paused, his anger replaced by sudden gratefulness. "I owe you one. They would've had me if you hadn't knocked me down."

Brennan shrugged. "If not for Lazy Dragon, we'd both be chopped meat. Wed better see if he's okay. His tiger got shot to shit."

"Right."

They went back upstairs. Brennan was relieved to see then immediately angry at himself for the feeling-that Dragon was sitting calmly in one of Fadeout's comfortable chairs. He looked up as they entered the room.

"Everything is all right?" he asked.

"I wouldn't say that," Fadeout replied, still angry. "Those guinea bastards just waltzed in here and almost offed me." He looked angrily at Whiskers, who was standing uncertainly in the middle of the room. "What were you doing about it, you joker shitbag?"

Whiskers shrugged. "I-I thought someone should stay with Deadhead-"

"Take off that goddamned mask when you talk to me!" Fadeout ordered angrily. "I'm sick and tired of looking at Nixon's mug. No matter how ugly you are, it can't be worse."

Lazy Dragon watched Whiskers with calculated interest, and Brennan's hand crept closer to his holstered Browning. Werewolves had been known to fly into killing rages when unmasked, but Whiskers, as indicated by his earlier actionor lack of action-wasn't the fiercest of Werewolves. He took off his mask and stood in the center of the room uncomfortably shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Every bit of his face, except for his eyeballs, was covered with thick, coarse hair. Even his tongue, which was nervously licking his lips, was furred. No wonder, Brennan thought, his voice was so mushy.

Fadeout grunted, said something under his breath that Brennan didn't quite catch but had 'joker bastard' in it, and turned away from the Werewolf.

"We've got to leave. The police will be here any minute. Dragon, you and Whiskers get that freak,-he nodded at Deadhead, who was still slumped muttering in his chair, and bring him around back. Get the car and pick me up in front. Cowboy, come with me. I have to do a quick damage assessment."

Dragon stood. Brennan stopped in front of him and they looked at each other for a long moment. There was something strange about Lazy Dragon, Brennan suddenly thought, something hidden, something utterly unfathomable that went beyond his unusual ace power. But the man had saved his life.

"Lucky you had a tiger on you."

Dragon smiled. "I like to have a backup handy. Something more deadly than a mouse."

Brennan nodded. "I'm in your debt," he said.

"I'll remember that." Dragon turned to help Whiskers with Deadhead.

Downstairs there were five dead Egrets, and half a dozen deceased mafiosi. The surviving Egrets were buzzing like angry bees.

Fadeout shook his head. "Damn. It's escalating. Little Mother isn't going to like this."

Brennan squelched the expression of sudden interest before it reached his face. He said nothing, because he was afraid his voice would betray him. Little Mother, Sin Ma, was the head of the immaculate Egrets. If Fadeout was a lieutenant in Kien's organization, she was at least a colonel. In all his months of investigation he'd discovered only that she was an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who'd come to the states in the late 1960s to become the wife of Nathan Chow, the leader of a penny-ante street gang called the Immaculate Egrets. Her arrival corresponded with a quick rise in the fortune of the Egrets, little of which was enjoyed by Chow. He had died under unspecified but mysterious circumstances in 1971, and Siu Ma took over the gang, which continued to grow and prosper. Kien, then still an ARVN general, used it to funnel heroin into the States. There was no doubt that Siu Ma was very high in Kien's organization, very high indeed.

"We have to split before the cops arrive," Fadeout said. He turned to an Ingram-toting Egret. "Leave this place. Take all the files, all valuables."

The Egret nodded, sketched an informal salute, and started shouting orders in rapid Chinese.

"Let's go," Fadeout repeated, carefully picking his way among the bodies.

"Where to?" Brennan asked as casually as he could. "Little Mother's place in Chinatown. I've got to tell her what happened."

A sleek limo pulled up to the curb. Whiskers was driving, Deadhead lolled in the backseat with Lazy Dragon. Fadeout got in and Brennan followed him, excitement thrumming through his body like tautly stretched wire.

He carefully noted the route that Whiskers took, but he had no idea at all where they were when the limo finally stopped in a small, ramshackle garage in a dirty, garbage choked alley. His unfamiliarity with the area irritated him and upset his fine-tuned sense of control. He hated the helpless feeling that had been plaguing him lately, but there was nothing to do but swallow it and go on.

Whiskers, his mask back in place, and Lazy Dragon dragged Deadhead from the limo on Fadeout's order. The significance of that wasn't lost on Brennan. He knew that he'd gone up a notch or two in Fadeout's estimation, which was exactly what he wanted. The closer he got to the core of Kien's organization, the easier it would be for him to bring it tumbling down like a house of cards.

The door they approached wasn't as flimsy as it appeared. It was also locked and guarded, but the sentinel let them in after peering through a peephole when Fadeout knocked.

"Siu Ma is asleep," the guard said. He was a large Chinese dressed in traditional baggy trousers, broad leather belt, and matching tunic top. The machine pistol holstered on his broad leather belt was a jarring anachronism with his antique style of dress, but, Brennan reflected, was a sensible compromise with what was apparently Siu Ma's strongly developed sense of tradition.

"She'll want to see us," Fadeout said grimly. "We'll be in the audience chamber."

The guard nodded, turned to a very modern intercom system, and spoke Chinese too quickly for Brennan to follow. The audience chamber was as luxurious as the outside of the building was dilapidated. The decorating motif was dynastic China. There were rich rugs, beautiful lacquered screens, delicate porcelain, a couple of massive green bronze temple demons, and undoubtedly valuable knickknacks of ivory, jade, and other precious and semiprecious stones set about on tables of teak and ebony and other rare woods. Wraith, Brennan thought, would love this place.

Although it could have been overwhelming, the room's overall effect was actually quite pleasing. It was like a living museum exhibit that had been assembled with a discerning eye and in the utmost good taste.

Siu Ma was already waiting for them. She was seated on a gilt chair that dominated the chamber's rear wall, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She was short with a round, plump face, dark, long-lashed eyes, and black glossy hair. She looked to be in her early thirties. She stiffled a yawn with a pudgy hand and frowned at Fadeout.

"This had better be important," she said, glancing distastefully at Deadhead and his attendants, curiously at Brennan. Her English was excellent, with just a lingering trace of a French accent.

"It is," Fadeout assured her. He told her of the Mafia hit on his brownstone. As he spoke, a young girl bearing a tray came into the room and poured her a small cup of tea. Siu Ma sipped the tea as she listened to Fadeout's story, and her frown deepened.

"This is intolerable," she said when he'd finished. "We must teach those comic-book criminals a lesson they won't forget."

"I agree," Fadeout said. "However, our spies have told us that Covello has withdrawn to his estate in the Hamptons. It's one of the Mafia's most heavily fortified strongholds. It has two walls around it-an armored outer wall that encircles the entire estate and an inner electrified fence that protects the main building. Covello's entrenched there with a company of heavily armed Mafia thugs."

Siu Ma looked at Fadeout coldly, and Brennan could see ruthless strength in her near-black eyes.

"The Shadow Fists have weapons too," she said. Fadeout bobbed his head. "I agree, but we don't want to expend our men in a futile attempt at revenge. And think of the unwanted attention such an assault would draw from the authorities."

There was an uncomfortable silence as Siu Ma sipped her tea and stared coldly at Fadeout. Brennan saw his chance.

"Excuse my interruption," he said in his soft drawl, "but one man can often go where many would be unwelcome." Fadeout turned to him, frowned. "What do you mean?" Brennan shrugged depreciatingly. "A one-man sortie might accomplish what a full-scale raid could never hope to do."

Brennan felt Siu Ma's eyes boring into him. "Who is this man?" she asked.

"His name's Cowboy," Fadeout said, distraction in his voice. "He's new."

Siu Ma finished her tea and set the cup down on the tray. "He sounds as if he has a head on his shoulders. Tell me,"she said, speaking directly to Brennan for the first time, "are you volunteering to be this man?"

He bobbed his head in a respectful bow. "Yes, Dama." She smiled, pleased as he'd hoped she'd be by the respectful form of address.

"It will be dangerous, very, very dangerous," Fadeout said cautiously.

Siu Ma turned her gaze to him. "Never," she said, "stop to count danger in a matter of revenge."

Brennan suppressed a smile. Siu Ma, it seemed, was a woman after his own heart.