Dead Mans Hand

"Was the Oddity upset that the story never ran?"

"Not as much as Digger was," she said.

Jay frowned. "You have any idea where Digger might have gone?"

Crash shook her head. "All I know is he's not at home. I've phoned him a half-dozen times, but all I ever get is his machine."

"That just means he's not answering the phone. Could be hiding under his bed, for all we know." He could be dead, too, he thought, lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, his brains leaking onto the rug. He didn't say it. "I better check." Jay. looked at her thoughtfully. "Before, you said something about my file."

"Sure," she said. "We have files on all the aces."

Jay put his hand on top of the computer. "Can you get at them through this thing?"

"You can tap into our data library from any work station, if you've got the password," she said. "But I could get fired for giving unauthorized access to our files."

"No problem," Jay said. "I'm sure Digger will understand. If he's still alive."

Crash looked at him for a moment, then got up and pulled the dustcover off the computer. Jay leaned over her shoulder. She turned on the machine and typed in Digger's password.

"Nose?" Jay asked.

Crash shrugged. "It's his password, not mine. What file do you want to look at?"

"Chrysalis got killed by someone who was inhumanly strong. Five'll get you ten that Digger's hiding from the same guy. I want to know who that could be."

" I can call up a list of all aces on file with that power, but it's going to be awfully long. Enhanced physical strength is the third most common wild-card power, after telepathy and telekinesis."

"Do it," Jay urged.

Her fingers moved expertly over the computer keyboard. "You want just aces, or jokers, too?"

"I thought Aces didn't report on jokers?"

"We don't, but the library draws from all kinds of sources. SCARE reports, scientific papers, clippings from the daily press. The research department is very thorough."

"If it's strong enough to pulp a human skull, I don't care if it's an ace, a joker, or a rutabaga."

"We don't have the rutabaga data on line yet," she said, entering a series of commands. It seemed a god-awful long time before the computer completed its search.

"Three hundred nineteen cases," Crash read cheerfully from the screen. "Not as many as I thought. That's everyone we know of who's ever displayed physical strength beyond the normal human range. Want me to print out the list?"

"Three hundred nineteen suspects might be a little cumbersome," Jay said. "Is there some way to narrow it down?"

"Sure," she said. "Factor in some other parameters. Some of these people are dead. We could eliminate them."

"Dead people make lousy suspects," Jay agreed.

Crash typed in a command. "Three hundred and two," she said. "Not much of an improvement. What if I restrict it to city residents?"

Jay thought about that for a moment. "No," he said reluctantly.

"Why not?" she asked. "It would cut the list by seventy or eighty names, at least. The computers counting aces from all over the country… Detroit Steel, Big Mama in Chicago, Haymaker in Kansas City. You don't think it was one of them?"

"No," Jay admitted. "I figure it's more likely our killer is somebody who actually met Chrysalis. It usually works out like that in murder cases. Problem is, there are some out-oftowners who qualify. Billy Ray and Jack Braun, for two."

"It couldn't be Golden Boy," Crash pointed out. "He's down in Atlanta. Besides, Digger was always saying what a weenie he was."

"Obviously the mere mention of Braun's name reduced him to a state of abject error," Jay said. He put his hand on her shoulder. She didn't seem to object. "Listen, can this thing cross-index several factors at once?" he asked.

"No problem," she said.

"Real good," he said. "I want anyone with a criminal record or a history of mental illness. Hell, give me anyone who's been arrested for a crime, never mind whether they were convicted. Also anyone who's ever been linked to Chrysalis or the Crystal Palace. Anyone who lives in Jokertown. Or near Jokertown… the Lower East Side, Little Italy, Chinatown, the East Village, anywhere down around there. Can you do that?"

"I think so," she said.

Jay gave her shoulder a squeeze and watched her work. When it was done, Crash leaned back in the chair, stretched, said, "Here goes nothing," and pressed the enter key.

The machine began to hum and search.

"It's working through the three hundred two candidates, name by name, taking each suspect and searching the data banks to see if any of our criteria fit," she explained. "You gave me four parameters-arrests, mental illness, ties to Chrysalis, geography. I programmed it to flag each name with stars to indicate the number of fits."

"Real good," said Jay, who hadn't thought of that.

Jay grabbed the paper as it slid out of the laser printer, still warm to the touch. Nineteen finalists had survived.

BRAUN, JACK GOLDEN BOY*

"How does it look?" Crash asked him.

"Like a start," he said. He showed her the list. "Any of these people ever threaten to rearrange Digger's features?" She looked over the names carefully. "Well," she said, "Billy Ray was pretty upset with him once. Digger wrote a piece on the strongest men in the world, and he said that Billy Ray was minor league compared to Golden Boy and the Harlem Hammer. Ray took it the wrong way." She turned off the computer. "But he's in Atlanta, too, isn't he?"

"He better be," Jay said, "he's Senator Hartma

Well, he thought afterward, one out of two wasn't bad.

Bre

"Morning, Mr. Y" It was Tripod. "I've found someone you may want to have a word with. Name's Bludgeon."