Aces High

"Demise, I like the sound of it." He nodded and put the pe

"Trust only those who identify themselves with the coin. Your friends and enemies are chosen for you now. Spend the night if you like. Tomorrow, we'll continue your education." The Astronomer picked up his robe and went back inside. Spector rubbed his temples and wandered back into the building. The pain began to grow again. He accepted it, even loved it. It would be the source of his power and fulfillment. He had drawn the Black Queen and suffered a terrible death, but a miracle occurred. His gift to the world would be the horror inside him. It might not be enough for the world, but it was enough for him.

He curled up under the statue in the foyer and slept the sleep of the dead.

JUBE: FOUR

On the third floor of the Crystal Palace were the private chambers Chrysalis reserved for herself. She was waiting for him in a Victorian sitting room, sitting in a red velvet wingbacked chair behind an oak table. Chrysalis gestured at a seat. She wasted no time. "You've piqued my interest, Jubal."

"I don't know what you mean," Jube said, easing himself down on the edge of a ladder-back chair.

Chrysalis opened an antique satin change purse and extracted a handful of gems. She lined them up on the white tablecloth. "Two star sapphires, one ruby, and a flawless bluewhite diamond," she said in her dry, cool voice. "All uncut, of the highest quality, none weighing less than four carats. All appearing on the streets of jokertown within the past six weeks. Curious, wouldn't you say? What do you make of it?"

"Don't know," Jube replied. "I'll keep an ear out. Did you hear about the joker with the power to squeeze a diamond until it turned into a lump of coal?"

He was bluffing and they both knew it. She pushed a sapphire across the tablecloth with the little finger of her left: hand, its flesh as clear as glass. "You gave this one to a sanitation worker for a bowling ball that he'd found in a dumpster."

"Yeah," Jube said. It was magenta and white, customdrilled for some joker, its six holes arranged in a circle. No wonder it had been dumped.

Chrysalis prodded the ruby with her pinkie, and it moved a half inch. "This one went to a police filing clerk. You wanted to see the records concerning a body liberated from the morgue, and anything they had on this lost bowling ball. I never knew you had such a passion for bowling, Jubal."

Jube slapped his gut. "Don't I look like a bowler? Nothing I like better than to roll a few strikes and drink a few beers."

"You've never set foot in a bowling alley in your life, and you wouldn't know a strike from a touchdown." Her fingerbones had never looked so frightening as when they picked up the diamond. "This item was tendered to Devil John Darlingfoot in my own red room." She rolled it across transparent fingers, and the muscles in her face twisted into what must have been a wry smile.

"It was mother's," Jube blurted.

Chrysalis chuckled. "And she never bothered to have it cut or set? How odd." She put down the diamond, picked up the second sapphire. "And this one truly, Jubal! Did you really think Elmo wouldn't tell me?" She placed the gem back with the others, carefully. "You need to hire someone to perform certain unspecified tasks and investigations. Fine. Why not simply come to me?"

Jube scratched at one of his tusks. "You ask too many questions."

"Fair enough." She swept a hand over the jewels. "We have four here. Have there been others?"

Jube nodded. "One or two. You missed the emeralds."

"A pity. I'm fond of green. The British racing color." She sighed. "Why gems?"

"People were reluctant to take my checks," Jube told her, "and it was easier than carrying large amounts of cash."

"If there are more where these came from," Chrysalis said, "see that they stay there. Let the word get around Jokertown that the Walrus has a secret cache of precious gems, and I wouldn't give a bloody fig for your chances. You may have stirred the waters already, but we'll hope the sharks haven't noticed. Elmo told no one but me, of course, and Devil John has his own peculiar sense of honor, I think we can rely on him to keep mum. As for the garbageman and the police clerk, when I purchased their gems I bought their silence too."

"You didn't have to do that!"

"I know," she said. "The next time you want information, you know how to find the Crystal Palace. Don't you?"

"How much do you know already?" Jube asked her. "Enough to tell when you're lying," Chrysalis replied. "I know you're looking for a bowling ball, for reasons incomprehensible to man, woman, or joker. I know that Darlingfoot stole that joker corpse from the morgue, presumably for pay. It's not the sort of thing he'd do on his own. I know the body was small and furred, with legs like a grasshopper, and quite badly burned. No joker matching that description is known to any of my sources, a curious circumstance. I know that Croyd made a rather large cash deposit the day the body was stolen, and an even larger one the following day, and in between had a public confrontation with Darlingfoot. And I know that you paid Devil John handsomely to reveal whose interests he had represented in this little melodrama, and tried without success to engage his services." She leaned forward. "What I don't know is what all this means, and you know how I abhor a mystery."

"They say that every time a joker farts anywhere in Manhattan, Chrysalis holds her nose," Jube said. He looked at her intently, but the transparency of her flesh made her expression impossible to read. The skull-face behind her crystalline skin stared at him implacably from clear blue eyes. "What's your interest in this?" he asked her.

"Uncertain, until I know what 'this' is. However, you've been quite valuable to me for a long time, and I would hate to lose your services. You know I'm discreet."

"Until you're paid to be indiscreet," Jube pointed out. Chrysalis laughed, and touched the diamond. "Given your resources, silence can be more lucrative than speech."

"That's true," Jube said. He decided that he had nothing to lose. "I'm really an alien spy from a distant planet," he began.

"Jubal," Chrysalis interrupted, "you're wearing on my patience. I've never been that fond of your humor. Get to the point. What happened with Darlingfoot?"

"Not much," Jube admitted. "I knew why I wanted the body. I didn't know why anyone else would. Devil John wouldn't tell me. I think they must have the bowling ball. I tried to hire him to get it back for me, but he didn't want anything more to do with them. I think he's scared of them, whoever they are."

"I think you're right. Croyd?"

"Asleep again. Who knows what use- he'll be when he comes to? I could wait six months, and he'll wake up as a hamster."

"For a commission," Chrysalis said with cool certainty, "I can engage the services of someone who'll get you your answers."

Jube decided to be blunt, since evasion wasn't getting him anywhere. "Don't know that I'd trust anyone you'd hire." She laughed. "Dear boy, that's the smartest thing you've said in months. And you'd be right. You're too easy a mark, and some of my contacts are admittedly less than reputable. With me as intermediary, however, the equation changes. I have a certain reputation." Next to her elbow was a small silver bell. She rang it lightly. "In any case, the man who'd be best for this is an exception to the general rule. He actually has ethics."

Jube was tempted. "Who is he?"

"His name is Jay Ackroyd. Ace private investigator. In both senses of the word. Sometimes he's called Popinjay, but not to his face. Jay and I do favors for each other from time to time. We both deal in the same product, after all."