Down And Dirty

"NO, MAN, NO! STOP IT!" Tachyon rocked under the hard shaking. "It's okay," Trips added in a more moderate tone as the devil's mask that had slipped over Tachyon's normally pleasant features faded.

"I'm sorry, Mark," Tach whispered. "So very sorry."

"It's okay, man. Let's… let's just all calm down." Tachyon dropped into telepathy. Can you ever forgive me?

Nothing to forgive, man.

Meadows dropped to one knee before the sobbing boy, took him gently by the shoulders. "You see, you're as scared as Sprout was. It's no fun to be in somebody else's power."

"And yeah, Sprout's mind is weak, but that's all the more reason for someone strong like you to be kind, and to look out for people like her. You understand?"

Blaise slowly nodded, but Tachyon didn't trust the shuttered expression in those purple/black eyes. And sure enough, as soon as they were out on the street in front of the Cosmic Pumpkin, the boy said, "What a wimp!"

"GET IN THAT TAXI."

"Ancestors!" Glass crunched under bootheels, and for a brief, breath-catching moment time rolled back, and the past clung like a gnawing animal at his throat.

Glass shattering and falling, mirrors breaking on all sides, silvered knives flying through the air… blood spattering against the cracked mirrors.

Tachyon shook himself free of the waking nightmare and stared at the carnage that filled the Funhouse. A janitor with enough arms to handle three brooms was busily sweeping up the broken glass that littered the floor. Des, grey-faced and frowning, was talking with a man in a business suit. Tachyon joined them.,

"I'm not entirely certain your policy-"

"Of course not! Why should I think that twenty-four years of premiums paid on time, and no claims made, should entitle me to any coverage now," spat Des.

"I'll check, Mr. Desmond, and get back to you."

"What by the purity of the Ideal is going on here?"

"Do you want a drink?"

"Please." Tachyon pulled out his wallet, and Des stared down at the bills, a fu

"Now."

"That was a long time ago, Des."

"True."

Tachyon kicked at a sliver of mirror. "Though God knows this brings it all back.", "Christmas Eve, 1963. Mal's been dead a long time." And soon you will be too.

No, impossible to speak such words. But would Des ever speak? While Tachyon, of course, respected the old joker's desire for privacy as he prepared to die, it nonetheless hurt that he maintained his silence.

How am I to say farewell to you, old friend? And soon it will be too late.

The cognac exploded like a white-hot cloud on the back of his throat, banishing the lump that had settled there. Tachyon set aside the glass and said, "You never answered my question."

"What's to answer?"

"Des, I'm your friend. I've drunk in this bar for over twenty years. When I enter and find it busted all to hell, I want to know why."

"Why?"

"Maybe I can do something!" Tachyon tossed down the rest of his drink and frowned up into Des's faded eyes.

Des swept away the glass and refilled it. "For twenty years I've been paying protection to the Gambiones. Now this new gang is muscling in, and I'm having to pay off two of them. It's making it a little tough to meet overhead."

"New gang? What new gang?"

"They call themselves the Shadow Fists. Toughs out of Chinatown."

"When did this start?"

"Last week. I guess they waited until they knew I was back in town."

"Which means they made quite a study of Jokertown." A shrug. "Why not? They're businessmen."

"They're hoodlums." Another shrug. "That too."

"What are you going to do?"

"Keep paying both sides and hope they let me live in peace."

"However long that's going to be," Tachyon muttered, and drained the fresh cognac.

"What?"

"Oh, hell, Des, I'm not a blind man. I'm also a doctor. What is it? Cancer?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The old man sighed. "For a lot of complicated reasons. None of which I want to go into right now."

"Or ever?"

"That too is possible."

"I count you a friend."

"Do you, Tachy? Do you?"

"Yes. Can you doubt it? No! Don't answer that. I've already seen it; in your eyes and your heart."

"Why not my mind, Tachyon? Why not read it there?"

"Because I honor your privacy, and-" His face crumpled, and he sucked in a sharp breath. "Because I can't bear to face what I might read there," he concluded quietly. He tossed more bills on the bar and started for the door. "I'll see what I can do to make your hope a reality."

"What?"

"That you end your days in peace."

It had been the same story at Ernie's and Gobbler's Delicatessen and Spot's Laundry and so many others that he dreaded to even recall them all. Frowning, Tachyon tore the skin from an orange, the juice stinging briefly as it hit a hitherto u

He finished peeling the orange and popped a segment into his mouth. A light breeze ruled his curls and brought the sound of Blaise's delighted laughter. A rumbling call from Jack Braun sent the little boy scampering across the park, his red-stockinged legs a blur of motion. Braun leaned back the football cradled in his big hand and threw. He looked like a movie star; sun-bleached blond hair falling across his forehead, tan sinewy legs thrusting out from a pair of safari shorts, a very attractive, brilliantly colored Hawaiian shirt.

Tach threw crusts of bread to some interested pigeons. How ironic, Sunday in the park with Jack. Hated enemy transformed into… well, perhaps not friend, but at least a tolerated presence. It didn't hurt that Jack's visit had been prompted by a desire to see Blaise, which raised him in Tach's estimation. To love Blaise was to find favor. And this outing had at least pulled Tachyon out of the brown study that had held him for days since his visit to the Funhouse.

The orange segment finally slipped down, and Tach's stomach rebelled. With a moan he rolled onto his back on the blanket and fought down nausea. The wages of worry. Over the past few days his stomach had closed down into a tight and painful ball. He began a litany of problems.

The fear that lay like a palpable shadow over Jokertown. Leo Barnett offering to heal jokers with the power of his god, and if they failed to respond, then clearly it was an indication of the depth of their sin. What if he became president?

Peregrine. In a month her child was due. The ultrasound he'd run two days ago still indicated a normal, viable fetus, but Tach knew with soul-deep horror what the stress of the birth experience could do to a wild card babe. Blood and Line, let this little one be normal. If it wasn't, it would destroy her.

And he still hadn't been by the Jokertown precinct to work with a police artist on the preparation of a drawing of ames Spector…

A girl went jogging by, an Afghan hound loping at her heels. A sheen of sweat brought a golden glow to her skin, and several strands of long black hair lay plastered on her bare back. Tach watched the play of muscles in her legs and back, studied the ripe breasts bouncing beneath the halter top, and felt his mouth go dry and the urgent thrust of his penis against his zipper. It was a bitter and tantalizing glimpse of wholeness, for he knew after countless hopeless encounters that the power would fade when the moment came upon him.

Furious, he rolled onto his stomach and beat his fists on the ground-furious at his impotence, and at his flighty, undisciplined mind that could be distracted from concern over an ace killer by the sight of female flesh.