“It’s Christian,” he muttered, “it’s got to be Christian. But how did that limey bastard think he was going to get away with taking over? He’s too much of an outsider in the Shadow Fists to have a real power base.”
“Unless he was conspiring with Sui Ma,” Warlock suggested.
Cunningham shook his head. “She seemed genuinely surprised that her brother was dead. I think she really thought that I did it.”
“There’s Loophole,” Warlock said. “He might figure in somewhere.”
“He might,” Cunningham agreed. “That’s why I sent a few of the brothers to his office to pick him up. Maybe he can clear up some of the mystery.” He fingered a sheet of paper lying on the desk in front of him. “Like who the hell this is.”
It was a sketch done in colored pencil of the red-haired mind-control artist who’d killed Kien’s watchdog. Deadhead was really a talented artist, and he’d caught an expression of cruel delight in the kid’s smile that was doubly horrific on such a young, otherwise sweet face.
There was a respectful knock on the Sanctorum’s double doors, and Cunningham looked up from the sketch to see two Werewolves come in with Edward St. John Latham between them.
Latham was a lean, handsome man in a dark gray Brooks Brother suit with a light, almost imperceptible purple pinstripe. His face had no expression at all as he entered the room and nodded at Cunningham. He ignored Warlock as he sat down in the chair next to him, crossing his leg casually, ankle over knee. “I suppose congratulations of a sort are in order,” he said.
“Thanks, Sinjin.” Cunningham knew that Latham disliked being called Sinjin as much as he could be said to dislike anything. He was an emotionless, supposedly utterly loyal bastard. It was hard to see where he’d fit into a conspiracy against Kien. “But there’s still some things I’d like to clear up.”
“Such as?”
“Such as are you with me and Warlock, or the General and his sister?”
Latham smiled without humor. “I’ve already heard about the late General and his late sister. There’s not much of a decision to make, is there?”
“I’m glad to see that you’re being sensible. Tell me. What do you know about Leslie Christian?”
“Christian?” Loophole frowned. “Why?”
“He’s the missing ace from the deck. I’ve got the Werewolves scouring the city for him, but he seems to have disappeared. Not, however, before trying to pin Kien’s murder on me.”
Loophole looked faintly surprised. “Then you didn’t kill Kien?”
Cunningham shook his head. “No. Would I do a thing like that? I figure Christian had to have been involved in the killing somehow. He showed up right after I’d found the body and tried to frame me, then he disappeared.”
“Why would Christian kill Kien?” Latham asked.
“I don’t know. But what do we really know about him?” Cunningham asked, ticking the points off one by one on his fingers. “He’s an ace of some kind. He’s foreign. He drinks. Somehow he wormed his way into Kien’s confidence. He could have half a million reasons for wanting Kien dead, but we don’t know enough about him to guess what they might be.”
“Whereas,” Latham said dryly, “you just had one reason for wanting the General dead.”
“Okay,” Cunningham conceded. “We’re being honest with each other. I admit it. I wanted to be head of the Shadow Fists. I had … plans. But I didn’t kill Kien.” He reached across the desk and handed Latham the drawing of the youthful mind-control artist that had skewered Kien’s batrachian watchdog. “He did.”
Latham took it, glanced at it. Something flickered across his face, and for a moment Cunningham could swear that the usually unflappable lawyer was unsure of himself.
“The joker saw this kid mind-control Kien and make him shove his face into a bag of rapture. Then the kid killed the joker.”
“Interesting,” Latham murmured.
“You have any idea who this could be?”
Latham looked at him a long while, then said, “Perhaps.”
“Do you want to let me in on it?”
Latham considered it for another long moment, then nodded. “In the interest of truth,” he said without a trace of irony in his voice, “and justice.”
Cunningham suppressed a smile, but Warlock let out an audible snort.
“He runs with a street gang that’s done some work for the Shadow Fists,” Latham said. “His name is Blaise. He is Dr. Tachyon’s grandson.”
A half-dozen derelict jokers were sitting around the entrance to the boarded-up old movie theater in the heart of the Bowery, sharing a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag and soaking up the last rays of the autumnal sun like a clutch of bloated lizards.
“How’s it going, fellows?” Cunningham asked the bums. A few looked up as he spoke. “Maybe you guys could help me. I’m looking for someone. This kid.” He waved Deadhead’s drawing. “I heard he hangs out here with a gang.” He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a twenty. That elicited a little more interest.
One of the joker’s eyes rotated forward like a chameleon’s and focused on Cunningham. “You a cop or something?”
“That’s right,” Cunningham told him.
“You look like a cop. Kind of clean-cut, anyway. A cop on television. That right, boys?” There was general murmured assent, and Cunningham decided that he’d better bring the conversation back on track.
“What about the kid?”
“That bratty asshole. Him and his gang of assholes. The theater used to be ours before they moved in. Now it’s loud music every time of the day and night and you really gotta be careful. They know when the welfare money comes in and they’ll take it right from you.”
“Is he inside now?”
“Yeah,” the joker said. “Him and his expensive clothes. You can tell he’s rich. He don’t need to hang out here. He should give it back to us and go home to Manhattan. Him and all those brats.”
Cunningham smiled, and dropped the twenty-dollar bill. It fluttered onto the bum’s lap and he grabbed at it as the other derelicts surged to their feet. Cunningham watched them scramble for the loot, and then weave and stagger to the liquor store across the street in the wake of the lucky stiff who’d grabbed it.
He crossed the street himself and looked into the window of the car idling at the curb. Warlock was driving. Deadhead was in the seat next to him, looking jittery and unsure as always. Latham was in the backseat, flanked by a pair of fierce-looking Werewolves. There were three cars parked at discreet distances behind this one. All were loaded with heavily armed Werewolves.
“Okay,” Cunningham said. He took a deep breath. “This looks like a job for Fadeout.” He smiled. “I’m going to try the back door. I want you guys to wait here for now.”
Warlock nodded. “Be careful,” he said.
“I will. Trust me on that.” He nodded to the Werewolf and recrossed the street.
The theater’s back door was locked, but the lock was old and cheap and yielded easily to Cunningham’s probe. The door opened into musty darkness, a dank, garbage-choked passageway that apparently led behind the movie screen, then forked into the auditorium. Cunningham froze in his tracks as the sound of gunfire suddenly blasted through the theater. He crouched in the darkness, listening. The sound had an unreal quality to it. The voice shouting over it was familiar and almost inhumanly loud. There was a thundering crash, the sound of roaring engines, and the plaintive cry, “I can’t die. I haven’t seen The Al Jolson Story yet!” and Cunningham suddenly realized what was happening.
Someone was screening a movie, apparently the hideous remake of Howard Hawkes’s classic Thirty Minutes Over Broadway. Cunningham waited in the darkness as the sound of a plane going down filled the theater. There was a loud explosion as it crashed on the Manhattan shoreline, then cheers and whistles from the audience. There were apparently few Jetboy fans in attendance.
Cunningham went on down the passageway. He brushed past a thic
k, dusty cloth hanging and found himself in the auditorium. It wasn’t crowded. There were twenty, maybe twenty-five kids sitting close to the screen in the center section. Few seemed very interested in the images flickering before them. Some were gorging themselves on candy and ice cream, others were making out—though making out was a rather tame term for some of the acts Cunningham witnessed in the light reflected from the huge white screen.
One boy, though, was riveted to the action on the screen, despite the underaged siren rubbing up against him like an affection-starved cat. Even in the darkness, Cunningham could make out his gorgeous red hair and delicately handsome features. It had to be Blaise, the kid Latham had identified as Tachyon’s grand-brat.
His eyes were glued to the screen, where people were now turning into rubber and plastic monsters courtesy of cheap special effects as the wild-card virus rained down from the sky. There was a scene cut, and Dudley Moore was suddenly strutting across the stage in a grotesque parody of Tachyon, wearing a ghastly red wig and an outfit that would have done justice to a drag queen.
Moore clutched at his hair as if he were searching for cooties. “Burning sky!” he swore. “I warned them! I warned them all!” Then he broke into an hysterical fit of weeping.
Blaise stood, throwing aside the girl who had been squirming against him and licking his ear, and drew a handgun he’d had holstered at his side. Cunningham shrank back against the wall as Blaise squeezed off a round. The report was startlingly loud within the confines of the auditorium, making the soundtrack explosions sound like harmless popguns in comparison.
But Blaise wasn’t shooting at Cunningham. He hadn’t even seen him. He’d put a bullet through the screen right between Dudley Moore’s eyes. The ragtag audience of juvenile delinquents cheered, and Blaise sat down, a malevolent smile on his lips. In that moment Blaise looked as hardened and evil as the most twisted characters Cunningham ever had to deal with in the Fists. It was frightening to see such an expression on such a young face.
Cunningham shuddered, and moved on.
The lobby was dirty, dark, and deserted. The afternoon’s last light filtered in through the cracks between the plywood boards haphazardly placed over the theater’s glass doors. The concession stand was empty and dusty, though fresh popcorn was in the popper and cardboard boxes half-full of candy treats were stacked atop the counter. The confections all looked recent, probably brought in by the gang to devour while watching the main feature. They had, Cunningham remembered, also been eating ice-cream bars.
He went to the portable ice-cream cart parked next to the candy counter and opened the door in the top. He looked in it for a long moment. There, nestled among a couple dozen ice-cream sandwiches, was Kien’s head, raggedly cut off at the neck.
Cunningham found himself oddly reluctant to touch the cold, dead flesh. He wasn’t squeamish, and he’d had no great love for Kien when the General had been alive, but there was something ghastly about his manner of death that disturbed him. He looked down at the glassily staring eyes and sighed.
There was no way he was going to get any answers unless he got the head to Deadhead. He picked it up. It was cold as a block of ice. Somehow he felt better after he’d dumped a box of candy bars behind the counter, put the head in the box, and faded it all to invisibility.
He peeked into the auditorium. The movie had progressed through the scene where Tachyon had saved Blythe van Rennsaeler from a gang of crazed joker looters—to accompanying hisses and boos from the watching gang.
They were just raggedy-ass kids. Sure, some were armed and Tachyon’s grand-brat was a mind-control artist, but Cunningham had a couple of carloads of Werewolves outside waiting for his call. He crept back into the lobby and set the box with Kien’s head in it on the candy counter. He went up to the lobby doors. They were pulled shut with a chain looped around their bars with an open padlock dangling from the chain. He creaked the doors open cautiously and peered out the front of the theater.
The bums were back, but they were too engrossed in squabbling over the newly purchased bottle of booze to even notice Cunningham. He gestured at the cars parked at the curb across the street, waving vigorously, and doors opened and Werewolves got out. They crossed the street. The derelicts noticed them and realized at last that something was about to happen. They moved off silently down the street, clutching their paper-bag-wrapped bottles as if afraid the Werewolves were going to try to take them away.
“What is it?” Warlock asked as they approached.
“It’s Blaise and his fellow delinquents, all right. Round ’em up, but don’t start anything rough. Watch out for Blaise. He’s got a gun and some kind of mind-control powers, but he should be smart enough not to start anything when he sees there’s a bunch of us. And Deadhead.” The insane ace looked almost guiltily at Cunningham. “I’ve got something for you.”
“The head?” Warlock and Latham asked at the same time.
Cunningham nodded.
The Werewolves filed silently through the lobby. There were a dozen of them, big, tough mothers dressed in leather and armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and shotguns. Cunningham was at their head, after showing a happily drooling Deadhead the cardboard box on the candy counter and leaving him to it.
“Remember,” he warned the Werewolves, “keep it quiet, but if that Blaise brat tries to start anything, blow him loose.” He turned to the Werewolf leader. “Warlock, stick close to Latham. Make sure he behaves.”
“You heard him,” Warlock said. “Let’s do it.”
Inside the auditorium the movie had progressed to the famous scene between Dudley Moore as Tachyon and Pia Zadora as Blythe van Rennsaeler, with Moore, rose in mouth, playing an elephantine melody on the piano while Zadora sang of “alien love” and the audience roared with laughter.
Time to end this, right now, Cunningham thought. He stepped into the auditorium, drew his pistol, and fired off a round into the ceiling.
That got everyone’s attention. Candy and popcorn went flying as the teenage delinquents leaped to their feet and made abortive attempts to flee.
“Hold it, everyone!” Cunningham shouted in his best authoritative voice. Either his tone of command worked or the sight of a dozen heavily armed Werewolves did. Everyone froze. Everyone but Blaise.
He stood slowly, and faced Cunningham from across the auditorium. “What do you want?” he shouted over Zadora’s sudden squeals of ecstasy as Dudley Moore had his way with her on the piano bench.
“Just to talk,” Cunningham said. “There’s nothing to fear.”
“Sure,” Blaise said. He sauntered up slowly to the head of the auditorium, fully aware that everyone’s eyes were on him and playing his role as gang chieftain to the hilt. “What do you want to talk about?” he asked Cunningham casually.
Cunningham jerked his head back to the lobby. “In there.” He looked at the Werewolves. “You five keep an eye on the kids. The rest of you come with us.”
The Werewolves followed Cunningham, Blaise, Warlock, and Latham back into the lobby. Deadhead looked around guiltily. “Chinese food,” he said through a full mouth, and turned back to his task.
Blaise frowned. “Oh,” he said. “I see you found it. Too bad. He said I could have it.”
“He?” Cunningham asked, leaning forward eagerly in anticipation.
“Me,” a new voice drawled.
Everyone turned to look at the stairs leading up to the projection booth to see a middle-aged, blond, weather-beaten man standing there, smiling. Something in his smile made Cunningham feel cold.
“Christian,” he said, swiveling his gun toward the British ace. “I knew it! Why did you do it? Why did you kill Kien?”
Christian’s sardonic smile widened as he ambled casually down the remaining stairs and joined the others on the floor of the lobby. “But I didn’t,” he protested.
“You can’t deny that you were this brat’s accomplice.”
“I’m not denying that at all,” Christian said bland
ly. “I’m simply denying that we killed Kien.”
“What?” Cunningham asked.
As if on cue, Deadhead suddenly moaned and turned and faced them. “Why are you doing this to me?” he whined. “Why are you stealing my body? Why, Kien?”
A cold wind blew through Cunningham. “Kien?” he repeated softly.
Christian leaned against the candy counter. “Of course,” he said with a sardonic smile on his tanned features. “You’ve been plotting and planning to take my place for a long time. I got sick of it. I decided to flush all the conspirators into the open, using,” and he nodded at Blaise, “my jumper friend here to provide me with a perfect cover.”
“No,” Deadhead whined. “Please, no. I’ve been loyal.…”
“Jumpers?” Cunningham said. The realization that Blaise and the others were jumpers made him turn cold. “You changed bodies with Christian and faked your own murder?”
“Exactly. Latham had brought the jumpers into our sphere of influence some time ago. I decided, however, to bypass him this time and approach Blaise directly. I used him to switch bodies. Since then I’ve been using Christian’s astral projection to keep track of you and the others.”
That explained a lot, Cunningham thought, grateful that he was surrounded by a band of friendly Werewolves. “Too bad, in the end, you miscalculated.” He turned to Warlock. “Waste him,” he said.
Warlock’s face was unreadable behind the Michael Jackson mask. He lifted his pump shotgun, then turned and placed its barrels directly under Cunningham’s chin. “Sorry,” he said.
Christian—Kien—laughed. “Splendid!”
“What are you doing?” Cunningham demanded. “Kill him! Kill him and it’s all over.”
“It is over,” Warlock said gently. “You see, my power allows me to see death on people’s faces. I saw it this morning on yours at Sui Ma’s. I knew then that you would die before the day ended.”
Cunningham felt sudden sweat spring up on his forehead. “But kill him! All you have to do is kill him!”
Wild Cards VIII: One-Eyed Jacks Page 42
