Dead Man's Hand

by George R. R. Martin

  A thin teenager in worn leathers slid through the crowd, smiling, just three people down the line. How the hell could anyone wear leather in this heat? Jay wondered briefly.

  He was glancing away when something—the hunger in that lean face, the bright glitter in the boy’s eyes—caught his attention and held it.

  Tachyon touched—oh so lightly—the twisted fingers of a foul-smelling joker whose huge boils oozed with pus. He looked a little green, but he forced a smile.

  One of the boy’s shoulders was higher than the other.

  “NO!” Jay screamed, moving forward, hands sliding out of his pockets.

  The boy grasped Tachyon’s hand. “I’m Mackie Messer,” Jay heard him say as the buzz saw kicked in.

  “I was in medical school in 1946,” Mr. Bones said between sips of tea, “when the wild card came down out of the sky. My deformity was slight, but enough to get me banished from school. It was unusual enough to be a black man in medical school, but a joker black man couldn’t be tolerated.”

  “You use your antennae in your work, don’t you?” Brennan asked.

  Bones nodded. “After a while I discovered that they’ve given me a sixth sense, somewhere between taste and smell and touch that’s probably about as hard to describe as sight to a blind man. Through the years I’ve learned to use it to help detect wrongness in my patients.”

  He put down his cup and turned to Jennifer as she moaned loudly, the first sound she’d made in hours. He ran his antennae over her body, listened to her heartbeat, and said to Brennan, “Give me my bag.”

  Brennan brought it over and put it beside him. He reached in for a hypodermic and a bottle of clear fluid, and gave her an injection. Her breathing was fluttery and rapid, her forehead was beaded with sweat. She sat straight up and cried out, “Daniel, where are you, Daniel?” It seemed she couldn’t see him even though he was standing right next to her.

  Bones moved over and gestured for Brennan to take his place. He knelt down and held Jennifer. She clung to him fiercely and her skin was cold even though she was soaked with sweat.

  “Daniel,” she murmured, and suddenly went limp.

  Brennan looked at Bones desperately, who reassuringly put a large-knuckled hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s all right, son, let her down gently. I think she’s passed the crisis point.”

  Brennan held her at arms’ length and looked at her. She seemed to be sleeping deeply. Her breath was firm and measured. He let her down against the pillow and she sighed and turned over.

  “She needs sleep,” Bones said. “I’m going to give her a sedative and I don’t want her to be disturbed for at least twenty-four hours.”

  A vast sense of relief swept through Brennan. “She’ll be all right?” he asked.

  Bones nodded.

  “Thanks, doctor—I mean, Mr. Bones. What do I owe you?”

  Bones shrugged lean shoulders. “I don’t have set fees. My patients pay what they can.”

  Brennan reached for his denim jacket, which was slung over a chair next to the sofa. He took a flat roll of money from a secret pocket sewn into the inside and gave it all to Bones.

  “This is all I have with me,” he said. “If there’s anything else you ever need, call this number and I’ll do what I can.”

  Brennan scribbled the number down on a piece of paper he took from Father Squid’s secretary and handed it to him.

  Bones riffled through the money Brennan had given him. “You’re very generous,” he said.

  Brennan shook his head as he watched Jennifer sleep peacefully on the sofa. “You’ve done more for me than I could ever repay. I’ll always be in your debt.”

  Under the high, thin shriek of Tach’s screaming was the hideous wet sound of a power saw cutting meat. Fingers and pieces of flesh and bone were flying everywhere. The boy stood there, fine drops of Tachyon’s blood spattering his face and arm and leathers with a sound like summer rain, all the time smiling, his mouth open just a little, tongue moving slightly across his lower lip.

  It seemed to Jay like he was moving in slow motion. His hand came up, fingers sliding into the shape of a gun.…

  Tachyon staggered back, blood jetting from the ragged ruin of his right hand. The boy’s hands were a blur. A cop grabbed him by the jacket. The leather boy sliced off his arm clean at the shoulder like it was the easiest thing in the world and turned back to Tachyon. The alien had stumbled to his knees. The boy reached down for him, almost gently, as if he were going to caress his cheek, stroke that long red hair.

  But Jay was pointing. No one heard the pop. Too many people were screaming. But suddenly Mackie Messer was gone.

  Dazed, trembling, Jay was hardly aware of the big blond man who came crashing out of the crowd an instant later, glowing as yellow as a bug light and staggering almost in a circle as he punched at an assassin who was no longer there. “Who did that?” he shouted. All around them people were shouting, running into each other. The Secret Service had knocked down Jesse and covered him with their bodies. “An ambulance,” a distant voice was calling. “Someone get an ambulance. Dammit, dammit, someone get an ambulance.” Everybody was waving guns and Straight Arrow was holding a flaming arrow up over his head. TV cameras were circling like sharks. Jay heard someone say “Ackroyd,” but he wasn’t sure who. The policeman was still making a hideous noise, but Tachyon had fallen silent. When Jay reached him, the little alien lay on the pavement, still as death, his eyes closed, his right arm clutched to his chest. Blood still came in short, ragged spurts from his wrist, and the ruffles of his lace shirt were as red as his hair. Jay smelled something burning somewhere behind him. Then he was shoved aside, none too gently. Straight Arrow knelt over Tachyon. Dimly, from his own haze of confusion and shock, Jay watched. The man held his hands over the raw wet stump. Pale yellow flames leapt from his fingertips, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Tachyon’s body thrashed feebly. The stump was black and seared when Callendar stood up. A couple of paramedics lifted Tachyon onto a stretcher. Jay wasn’t sure when they’d arrived.

  “Ackroyd,” someone said. Jay looked around. Straight Arrow was talking to him. “Where did you send him?”

  Jay couldn’t think straight. “Yeah,” he said. His hand was still clenched tightly in its gun shape. He flexed his fingers, ran them through his hair. “Oh Jesus,” he said, patting himself to make sure he was intact.

  “You!” someone bellowed at him. It was the big blond guy. He looked almost as young as the leather boy. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Jay Ackroyd,” Straight Arrow told him. “Private cop. They call him Popinjay.”

  “I had the bastard!” The blond guy made a fist, crushing a pack of cigarettes that he didn’t seem to realize he was holding. Little bits of tobacco drippled down over his pants. “I could have turned him into Jell-O! Aw, fuck!” He threw down the squashed cigarettes and kicked them into the crowd. Suddenly Jay recognized Golden Boy. The reports of Braun’s death were obviously exaggerated. Nobody ever told him anything.

  “Where’d you send him, Ackroyd?” Straight Arrow asked.

  “Popped him…” His lips were very dry. When he licked them, Jay tasted blood.

  The Mormon ace grabbed his lapels and shook him. “Where’d you send the assassin?”

  “Oh,” Jay said. “New York. The Tombs.”

  Straight Arrow let him go. “Good.”

  But Golden Boy was a lot less pleased. “He walks through walls!” he yelled. He seemed to feel a need to scream everything. Jay was starting to understand why Braun had never made it as an actor. “He’s out by now.”

  That made Straight Arrow very unhappy. The Mormon gave a long sigh, then turned and walked away. Jay followed him, leaving Braun alone with his histrionics. “Tachyon,” Jay asked, grabbing Callendar by the arm. “Is he going to live?”

  “Only God can answer that question, Ackroyd. Pray.”

  6:00 P.M.

  Brennan sat in Father Squid’s rectory, waiti
ng for the dark. The priest was out on an errand for Brennan. Jennifer was still sleeping peacefully on the couch. Brennan had turned on the Father’s small black-and-white television, and with the volume turned way down was watching with disbelief the day’s events in Atlanta.

  The highlight, shown repeatedly from every conceivable angle—and in excruciating slow motion—was Tachyon losing his hand. It was shown again and again until Brennan thought he was going to be sick. The latest word accompanying the footage was that Tachyon had lost a lot of blood and that he’d had such a severe shock to his system that the wound might prove fatal.

  Brennan prayed that the little alien would pull through. They were friends and comrades, having fought both the Swarm and the Shadow Fists together, but also Brennan felt that Tachyon was one of the few people in the world who understood his motivations. Tachyon knew why he’d been compelled to fight Kien and the Shadow Fists. He had a sense of personal duty as deep as Brennan’s.

  As he watched the clip of Tachyon losing his hand for the nth time, Brennan suddenly recognized someone else in the scene. Popinjay was at Tachyon’s side. What the hell was the PI doing in Atlanta? Had he abandoned Chrysalis’s case, or had some clue taken him to the convention?

  As Brennan was wondering about all this, Father Squid returned, carrying a gym bag and a large, flat-sided leather case. He put the bags down before Brennan and said seriously, “I don’t know if I should be encouraging you in this, Daniel.”

  “You’re not encouraging me, Father. You know that I’m doing only what must be done.” He unzipped the leather case and took out his backup bow. The police had his other bow, and most of his arrows, but Brennan had some left. Enough, he hoped.

  He opened up his gym bag and took out a black jumpsuit. He draped it over a chair and continued to wait for the dark.

  8:00 P.M.

  “I wish George was here,” Blaise said.

  For a moment Jay thought the boy was talking about George Bush. The hospital waiting room had two television sets, both tuned to the convention, and he’d been hearing a lot about George Bush from the commentators. He was about to tell the kid that the last thing any of them needed right now was a Republican when it dawned on him that Blaise meant his jolly old KGB uncle. “George is in New York,” Jay told him. Mackie Messer was in New York, too, but he wasn’t in the Tombs. Jay had phoned. Mackie had freaked out, turned a couple of his cellmates into Alpo, and walked right through the bars.

  The carnage in front of the Omni kept playing and replaying in his head, like a bad splatter movie. Jack Braun was one of the champion weenies of all time, but maybe he was right, maybe Jay had fucked up, had inadvertently saved Mackie Messer by popping him away before Braun could get to him. Or maybe he’d saved Tachyon’s life. He just wasn’t sure. And whether Golden Boy could actually have gotten to Mackie or not, teleporting him into the Tombs had been a ghastly mistake. There were other places Jay could have picked, empty, deserted places where no one would have died. Mackie was psychotic, he knew that from Digger, he should have thought about what his reaction would be when he found himself in that cell. But there hadn’t been time to think. Everything had happened so goddamned fast.…

  A horsefly was buzzing around Jay’s head. He brushed it away and sighed. This afternoon was over. There was nothing he could do about it now. Except live with it. For a long, long time.

  They were the last ones left in the waiting room. A few reporters still haunted the steps outside, but only family, friends, and VIPs had been admitted to the hospital itself. There had been quite a few during the first hour of their vigil. Jokers by the score had come and gone, some bearing flowers or books or other tokens of their esteem. Hiram Worchester sat with Jay for almost an hour during the dinner recess, pale and silent. “I have to get back to the floor,” he said when he finally stood to leave. “Tell him I was here.” Jay had promised that he would. Leo Barnett prayed for Tachyon and the TV cameras during his visit. “Lord,” the reverend had proclaimed, “Hear me now, and spare this sinner. Grant him his life, that he may come to wisdom at last, and know Your power and mercy, O Lord, and accept You into his heart as his personal savior.” Carnifex had swung by briefly, flashed his badge, and grilled one of the doctors. Jay was too far away to overhear what was said, but Ray seemed satisfied. A man in a cheap rubber frog mask had stuck it out longest, pacing restlessly as they waited for word, finally leaving as quietly as he had come. He was the last; now there was only Jay and Blaise.

  “You think Tisianne is going to die?” Blaise asked. He didn’t sound very upset about the possibility; his tone was more one of idle curiosity than of fear.

  “Nah,” Jay said. “If he was going to die, he’d have done it already. We been here, what, three hours? They got to have him stabilized by now.” He wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure, the boy or himself.

  “If he dies, Baby belongs to me,” Blaise mused.

  “Baby?” Jay said, confused. “What baby?”

  “That’s his spaceship,” the boy said, with all of a child’s contempt for an adult who didn’t know something he assumed everyone ought to know. “It’s a stupid name. I’m going to think up a better name for her when she’s mine.”

  “Tachyon’s not dead yet,” Jay said.

  Blaise yawned. He was stretched out across his chair in a boneless sprawl that said he could care less, his legs thrown up carelessly on the coffee table. “Was it really as gross as they say?” he asked. His eyes moved restlessly, tracking the fly as it circled around his head. “The Secret Service guy, the one who drove me, he said there was blood and fingers and everything just flying through the air.”

  “It was real ugly,” Jay said. The conversation was making him distinctly uncomfortable.

  “I bet he cried,” Blaise said contemptuously. “He should have let me come, I could have grabbed the guy with my mind, just like that!” He shot his hand out suddenly and caught the fly in his fist. Jay could hear it buzzing between the boy’s fingers. “I could have made him cut himself up.” Blaise closed his fist hard around the fly. “That would have been something,” he said casually, opening his fingers and staring at the remains of the insect with a strange little smile on his face.

  Jay had a sudden image of the little hunchback killer lopping off his fingers one by one and singing “I’m a Little Teapot” as blood fountained from the stumps. “You know, Blaise,” he said, “you are one weird fucking kid.” Maybe he was being uncharitable. The boy might be in shock, terrified at the thought of losing his only living relative, hiding fear beneath a pose of indifference and adolescent bravado. Only somehow Jay didn’t think so.

  The boy looked up at him. Beneath his tousled mass of glittery red hair, his eyes regarded Jay haughtily. They were purple, Jay saw, so dark that they were almost black. Under the bright fluorescent light of the hospital waiting room, they looked like pools of violet ink. “I’m not a kid,” Blaise informed Jay. “On Takis I’d be leaving the women’s quarters.”

  “Figures,” Jay said. “Just when you get old enough to want in, they throw you out.”

  9:00 P.M.

  The tunnels were dark, deserted, and very quiet. Brennan had figured they would be. He knew that the police had staked out the Crystal Palace, but he’d hoped they didn’t know about the secret underground entrance Chrysalis had built.

  And they didn’t. At least so far it seemed as if they didn’t. Brennan had left Father Squid’s rectory with the priest still watching over a sleeping Jennifer and had gone underground two blocks from the Palace. He left the main line at Henry Street and went down the tunnel he’d used to gain access to the Palace the night he’d surprised the Oddity in Chrysalis’s bedroom.

  There was, he remembered, a short spur off the tunnel that he’d never investigated before. He stopped before it, debating his course of action, the only light a dim beam from the flashlight he held in one hand. In the other was his bow, already assembled.

  As he stood there debating with
himself he heard a noise coming from the tunnel before him. It was a small, skittering noise, as of many tiny feet trying to be silent. He shone his light into the darkness with little effect.

  He didn’t want to keep the flashlight illuminating himself as the perfect target in the otherwise dark tunnel, but he couldn’t stand the thought of turning it off and standing there in utter blackness.

  He put it down at his feet and backed away, taking an arrow out of his quiver and placing it on his bowstring.

  As he stepped out of the feeble circle of light cast by his flashlight, he heard a voice. Her voice.

  “Daniel, my dear archer. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  It was Chrysalis’s voice—or her ghost’s. There was no denying it.

  The double doors to the waiting room opened with a bang. “Are you the family?” a tired voice asked.

  Jay got to his feet. “I’m a friend,” he said. He jerked a thumb toward Blaise. “He’s the grandson.”

  “Grandson?” The doctor sounded momentarily nonplussed. “Oh, that’s right,” he finally said. “I keep forgetting the patient is older than he looks, isn’t that right?”

  “The question is not how old he is,” Jay said. “The question is, is he going to get any older?”

  “He’s suffered massive blood loss, not to mention major systemic shock,” the doctor told them. “And it appears he was in a terribly weakened condition to begin with. Fortunately, first aid was applied at the scene; that made all the difference. Any more blood loss and he might have been DOA. We started him on plasma as soon as he arrived. The hand … I’m afraid we had to lose it. It wasn’t a clean cut, you have to realize, the paramedics brought us two of the fingers, but with the way the flesh was … well, chewed up … ah, there just wasn’t a hand to reattach them to. Amputation seemed the only viable op—”