Dead Mans Hand

"You're right," Bre

"Uncle Chowder's Clam Bar," Tripod said.

"Right." Bre

He stood carefully and stretched his sore back and shoulder cautiously.

To hell with it, he told himself. He had never given in before. He wouldn't start now. He needed rest, but there was no time. He needed food, but he could take care of that easily enough. He needed Je

As he dressed he decided to leave his bow behind. There was no way he could pull it properly the way his shoulder felt. He'd lost his other weapon, his Browning, the night before, during his tussle with the Oddity.

Great, Bre

Tripod was lounging against a building whose grimy brick facade was in desperate need of a sand blasting. A flashing neon sign proclaimed the ground-floor restaurant UNCLE CHOWDERS CLAM BAR while a mollusk with a top hat and cane and pink neon smile did a fluttering dance on stick-thin legs. A picket fence of rusty iron bars screened off a stairway that led to the basement. The battered sign bolted to the fence had a pointing six-fingered hand painted on it, a sure sign that they were in Jokertown.

"Squisher's Basement," Bre

"I been watching," the joker said, "and he ain't come out."

Bre

"They don't much like nats in Squisher's," the joker said. Bre

Squisher's was already crowded with jokers who felt compelled to drink their breakfasts. It stank of infrequently washed bodies, spilled beer, and indifferently sopped vomit.

It was dimly lit, but Bre

The biggest aquarium Bre

"Don't get many of your kind in here," the joker finally said. His ghastly face was set in a hairless round head, his fish mouth was filled with rows of pointy teeth. "Nats, I mean. You are a nat, right?"

"I have business with one of your customers."

Squisher gave him the fish eye. "What kind of business?"

"It's none of yours."

Bre

"This is my place," Squisher said. "Whatever happens in it is my business." He glanced down into the water, reached out a long boneless arm, and caught something. Bre

Bre

Squisher squinted, then reached out a long sinuous arm that ended in a collection of twitching tentacles and took the card from Bre

Bre

He recognized the joker instantly. He'd only seen him once before during a crazy, confused brawl in Times Square almost two years ago, but Bludgeon didn't have the kind of face you could easily forget.

He was seven feet of ugly, with a puckered, scarred face and a right hand that was a twisted club of muscle and bone. He was thi

"Whadda fuck you want?" Bludgeon asked after a long moment.

"Talk on the street is that you killed Chrysalis," Bre

A spark of animation kindled in Bludgeon's sick eyes. "Yeah," he rumbled. "It was me. I offed the cocksucking bitch. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about it."

"First tell me how you killed her."

Bludgeon held up his clubbed right fist. "I beat the fucking whore's brains out with my hand. It's all I ever needed. Never needed a fucking gun, never needed no goddamn knife. Just my hand."

The twitch of disgust in Bre

"Where what?"

"Where'd you kill her?"

"In that shithole saloon of hers, man," Bludgeon mumbled. "I threw her on the bar and stuck my dick in her and fucked the living shit out of her." He laughed and a mad light shone in his sick eyes. "Then just to make sure she was dead I beat her fucking head in. Just to make sure."

"You scum," Bre

Bludgeon blinked, his porcine eyes staring at Bre

Bludgeon howled and swung his clubbed arm. Bre

Squisher rose agitatedly from the depths of his aquarium as Bre

"My tank!" the joker screamed. "Don't break the glass!" Bludgeon, pi

Bre

"You didn't kill her," Bre

"I need a fucking job," Bludgeon panted. "No one will touch me. No one will give me a fucking chance. I figured… I just figured Fadeout or somebody in the Fists would give me a chance, you know just give me a fucking chance…"

"You pathetic lying shit," Bre