Dead Mans Hand

"She sent a hired assassin to Atlanta," Jay said. "Damn," Digger said. "Damn it. Yeah, it figures. She knew the score, but I guess' she just couldn't stomach it no more. If we exposed him, we were dead meat, he'd warned us about that. She must of decided to kill him first."

"Maybe she just couldn't live with the idea of Leo Barnett as president," Jay suggested.

Digger looked at him oddly. "Barnett?" he said. "What does Barnett have to do with it?"

Jay just stared at him.

"Not Barnett," Digger said quietly. "Gregg Hartma

Digger nodded.

The office was hot, airless, but Jay felt cold fingers tracing a path up his spine. "Maybe you better start at the begi

"Fadeout," Bre

There was a short silence, then a voice that Bre

"How did you find me?" Bre

There was another silence, then Fadeout said, "Good to hear from you so soon, Cowboy. Or should I call you Yeoman?"

"Call me whatever you like. Just tell me how you tracked me down."

"A little bird told me you were at the church."

"Lazy Dragon?"

"Exactly. I had him covering the funeral just in case anything interesting happened. When he told me you were there, I thought I'd avail myself of your offer to discuss things, so I had him deliver my message."

"I'm glad you did," Bre

Bre

"I'm not one to dwell in the past," Fadeout said expansively. "You caused me a few problems, but, as I said, I think we can help each other."

"Uh-huh. What would Kien say to all this?"

"Well…" Bre

"Yes. Sorry I didn't hang around, but I wasn't sure of the reception I'd get."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me. I think it's very possible that we can be a big help to one another."

"I see." Evidently Fadeout was an ambitious man. He might make a helpful, if not totally trustworthy ally. Bre

Bre

"Can we trust him?" Je

"Not too far. It sounds as if he wants to move up in the organization and he thinks I can help him. That gives us something of a basis for working together. He doesn't know everything the Fists do, but he's high enough in the organization to know about something as big as Chrysalis's murder."

Je

"There's nothing to link him to Chrysalis, other than the fact I caught him in the Palace after the murder."

"Rummaging through her closet."

Bre

Je

"No. And I have the feeling that if we don't catch the killer soon, he'll be long gone and out of the reach of any earthly justice."

"Hartma

"How?" Jay demanded.

Downs touched the side of his nose with a thick finger. "The smell," he said. "I got this thing, my own little ace in the hole. I can smell wild cards. Aces, jokers, latents, it don't matter, they all smell the same. Kind of spicy sweet. Nats don't have the scent. I'm never wrong. The nose knows, and it's gotten me some big stories, too. Anyway, when I got a whiff of Senator Gregg, man oh man, I figured I'd just hooked the mother of all bylines. A secret ace in the U.S. Senate, with one eye on the White House!"

"So I started asking some questions. Chrysalis got wind of it, and before long we were working together. We dug up a few interesting rumors, but nothing hard, nothing I could go to press with. Until Gimli dropped the whole story right into our hands."

"Gimli?" Jay said skeptically. "Not a real reliable source where Hartma

"I know, I know. Just listen up, it all makes sense. This was last year, just a few weeks after the tour came home. Gimli meets secretly with Chrysalis. In Syria, when the Nur's sister slit his throat, all kinds of bullets were flying. One of them richocheted off the Golden Weenie and clipped Gregg in the shoulder. Went right through, a clean wound, but they had to strip off his jacket to see how serious it was. The jacket got left behind when we pulled out. Well, that was what Gimli brought to Chrysalis, that jacket, with a bullet tear in the shoulder just soaked with Hartma

"Gimli wasn't anywhere near Syria," Jay pointed out. "He was in Berlin, conspiring to snatch Hartma

"From Misha," Downs explained. "After she gave her brother that second smile, she couldn't believe what she'd done. She got the jacket and had some blood tests run. They told her what I already knew. Senator Gregg's an ace. She came to the States incognito, with her evidence. She was working with Gimli."

Jay gave the three-inch-tall reporter a dubious look. "With Gimli?" he said. "We talking about the same Gimli now? Real name Tom Miller? A joker dwarf with a nasty disposition and a big mouth? I thought the Nur's people all hated jokers."

"Yeah, yeah, the abominations of Allah, don't ask me why they were working together. They were. They wanted revenge but they knew nobody would believe them. So Gimli gave the jacket to Chrysalis. He wanted her to check it out and then go public with it. She had the credibility they didn't, right?"

"I'm with you so far."

"Yeah, well, Gimli got croaked right after that. They found his skin in an alley and he wound up stuffed and mounted in the Dime Museum. Meanwhile, Chrysalis had some tests run on the, quiet, and they confirmed everything the little asshole had said. The blood type matched Gregg's, the jacket was his size, and the test showed the presence of the wild card in the blood. We had him dead."

"So why didn't you go public?" Jay asked.

Downs looked unhappy. He got up off the stapler, stuck his hands in his pants pockets, paced restlessly around the pizza, then glared up at Jay. "Okay, okay, we got too fucking smart for our own good. The thing that Gimli didn't realize was that Chrysalis had her own priorities. She didn't want to destroy Hartma