Dead Mans Hand

"Uh-oh," Jay said. "You hear that, Maseryk? Your partner was threatening me with police brutality. Do all lizards have such nasty dispositions, or is it just him?"

Kant came around his desk. He towered over Jay, all teeth and scales. "That's it. C'mon, asshole. Let's dance." Jay ignored him. "I've got a proposition for you," he said to Maseryk. "Why don't you tell your partner to go sun himself on a rock while we talk privately?"

Maseryk looked at Kant. "Give us a moment, Harv"

"You're going to buy into this bullshit?" Kant said. Maseryk shrugged. "He might have something." They walked down to an empty interrogation room. Maseryk shut the door, swung a chair around, and sat down with his arms crossed on its back, studying Jay with those piercing violet eyes. "This better be good," he said.

"It's a modest little deal, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption," Jay said. "You give me ten minutes with Elmo, I'll give you the name of the ace-of-spades killer."

Stony Brook-or, as the note had said, Stoney Brookwas a small suburban town in Suffolk County, Long Island. Bre

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The lockup in Fort Freak had special cells for special customers. Elmo rated a windowless cubicle with a reinforced steel door. There were unseemly bulges in the metal where some previous tenant had tried to punch his way out.

When they entered, Elmo was seated on the narrow bed, feet dangling a foot off the floor. His arms were locked in the most massive pair of handcuffs Jay had ever seen. "Custom design," Maseryk told him. "For perps with more muscles than mother nature intended." He was using his bad-cop voice, hard-edged and nasty. Maybe he and Kant really did swap roles with jokers.

"Take them off," Jay said.

"That wasn't part of our deal," Maseryk said. "You've got ten minutes." He locked the cell behind him. They listened as his footsteps receded down the corridor.

Elmo looked up for the first time. "Popinjay," the dwarf said. He was about four feet tall and almost as wide. His arms and legs were short but massive, thick with cords of muscle. "They tell me you're not talking."

"Nothing to say. I still got my phone call coming. Know any lawyers?"

"Try Dr. Pretorius," Jay said. "He any good?"

"He's a pain in the ass, but yeah, he's good. And he's had lots of practice defending scapegoats."

"You don't think I did it?"

Jay sat down on the toilet. "She was scared. No offense, Elmo, but I can't imagine her being scared of you. She hired me as extra security, told me I'd start the next day. That make any sense if the guy you're scared of lives downstairs?"

The dwarfs normally stolid features twisted in pain. "I was her bodyguard," he said. "For years. I never let nothing happen to her. This is my fault. I should have been there."

"Why weren't you?"

Elmo studied his hands. His fingers were blunt and stubby, ridged with calluses. "She sent me on an errand."

"Then it's not your fault. You did what she told you to do. What kind of errand?"

Elmo shook his head. "Can't say. Her business."

"She's dead," Jay pointed out, "and you're going to take the fall for killing her. You think Jokertown is bad? You ought to see how jokers get treated up in Attica. Talk to me, Elmo. Give me something to work with."

Elmo looked around the cell. "I delivered a sealed envelope and an airline ticket to a man in a warehouse," he said after a while. "The meeting went off without a hitch, but when I got back to the Palace, there were cop cars out front. I didn't like the looks of that, so I figured I'd lay low until I found out what was going on. When I heard over the radio, I decided it'd be healthier to leave town. I didn't have nothing to go back for anyway."

"Who was the man?" Jay asked.

Elmo closed his hand into a fist. "Don't know"

"What did he look like?"

Elmo opened his fingers again. "It was dark, and he wore a mask. A bear mask. Black, with big teeth."

Jay scowled. "He look strong?"

Elmo laughed. "We didn't do any arm wrestling. I delivered an envelope, that's all." Then he fell silent, staring at his fingers as he opened and closed his hand.

"What else?" Jay prompted. He got no reply. "C'mon, Elmo, we've only got ten minutes. Help me."

The dwarfs face was expressionless for a moment, his eyes locked on Jay's. Then he nodded slowly and looked away. "Yeah," he said. "Okay. It's hard. She…" Elmo groped for words. "She didn't tell me not to say nothing, but she never had to. I knew when to keep my mouth shut. If you didn't, you didn't stay around the Palace for long. But now it don't matter, does it? She's gone."

"Tell me about the meeting."

"The envelope was full of money. A lot of money. She was buying a hit. I knew it. She knew I knew. We both pretended otherwise. That was the way she liked to do things." He looked up at Jay. "He must have hit her first, that's all I can figure."

Chrysalis had never been a model citizen, Jay knew. She made her own rules. Murder, though… that didn't sound like the woman he'd known. "Who did she want dead?"

"In the envelope with the money was a folded-up piece of paper with a name on it," Elmo told him. "I never saw it, but when the guy in the bear mask read it, he made a crack."

"He said, 'Shit. Never ask for anything small.' Then I knew. The money in the envelope was way more than the going price for a hit, and that was only part of the payment. And that airline ticket? Round-trip to Atlanta."

"Atlanta?" Jay said. For a moment he wondered who the hell Chrysalis could possibly know in Atlanta. Then he got it, and a cold sick feeling spread over him. "Oh shit," he said.

"She was never interested in politics until last year," Elmo confided. "Then she got real interested. I figured, I don't know, maybe some of the stuff she'd seen on the tour."

"She wasn't like old Des or some of those other joker politicos, but she was a joker."

"Leo Barnett?" Jay said. Elmo nodded. "Gotta be."

"Great," Jay said. "Just fucking greatl" For a moment he couldn't think. "Tell me about the hit man," he said.

"Tall, ski

"George Kerby," Jay repeated. The name sounded vaguely familiar. "When was this flight?"

"Today," Elmo said.

"Shit," Jay said. "Shit shit shit." He glanced at his watch. His time was almost up. "Maseryk will be here in a minute to chase me out, we need to hurry. Tell me about Yeoman."