Wildcards

Bre

He had to leave before the police arrived. He had to follow the slim lead that Minh had left him. Chrysalis. Crystal Palace.

But he stopped, turned to the freed hostages. "… eed a pen," he said.

One of the waiters had a felt-tip marker that he wordlessly handed to Bre

It wouldn't get to him right away, but, with enough messages, enough dead agents, it eventually would.

He scrawled a message next to the man nailed to the wall by his arrow. It said: "I'm coming for you, Kien."He stopped before signing it. His name wouldn't do. It would take the fear of the unknown from his attacks and give Kien, his agents, and his government contacts too concrete a clue to follow. He smiled as sudden inspiration struck him.

The code name of his last mission in Vietnam, when Kien had betrayed him and his unit into the hands of the North Vietnamese, had been Operation Yeoman. That name would make Kien think. He might suspect that it was Bre

He signed the short message Yeoman and then, in a burst of final inspiration, drew a small ace of spades, the Vietnamese symbol of death and ill-fortune, and colored it in. The Vietnamese waiters and kitchen help muttered to themselves at the sight of the mark, and the waiter from whom Bre

"Suit yourself," Bre

One of them stammered directions and Bre

The Crystal Palace, on Henry, was part of a block-long three-story rowhouse. About half the row had been destroyed in the Great Jokertown Riot of 1976 and had never been rebuilt. Some of the debris had been cleared away, some remained in great piles sitting next to tottering walls. As Bre

It was dark, crowded, and smoky. There was an occasional obvious joker, like the short, blubbery, tusked fellow peddling newspapers by the door and the bicephalic singer on the small stage managing some nice harmony on a Cole Porter tune. Some were normal enough until one looked close. Bre

It took Bre

"Those your samples?" he asked, gesturing at Bre

"Sascha."

One of the bartenders, a tall, thin man with a pencil mustache and an oily curl of hair falling limply over his forehead, turned toward the dwarf. Bre

"He's okay, Elmo, he's okay." The dwarf nodded and took his eyes off Bre

Bre

A woman sat at a corner table with a slim, light-ski

She wore pants that clung to her lithe figure and a sheathlike wrap that gathered over her right shoulder, leaving half her chest naked. Her skin was completely invisible, exposing vague, shadowy muscles and the organs that labored underneath them. Bre

She smiled at him. Bre

"Forgive me," he began, and ran down to silence. She laughed. It was good-humored, with no bitterness, reproach, or anger. "Forgiveness granted, masked man," she said. "I'm a sight to behold. No one seeing me for the first time can act casual about it. I'm Chrysalis, owner and proprietress of the Crystal Palace, as I guess you know. This is Fortunato." The black looked at Bre