"You leave," Quasi said suddenly. "Water. Leprechauns. Fists." He looked at Gregg and scowled. "He knows how," Quasi said. "Do it."
"Do what?" Gregg asked him. "If you'd talk in something approaching a complete sentence, we might be able to make some sense of what you're saying."
"Gregg!" Hannah said, whirling around to look at him. "That's cruel. He can't help himself; you know that."
Gregg wrinkled his clown nose, squashing his round face like a hand puppet. The unfocused anger within him burned, and he wasn't sure who he was angry with: Quasi for interrupting their solitude, Hannah for making her affection for the joker so obvious, or himself for allowing it to bother him. "All right, I'm sorry. It's just - "
"You should leave," Quasiman said. Each word was an effort, separated by a breath.
"Leave New York?" Gregg asked. "Go to some other city?"
"Further than that," Quasiman answered. "Other countries. Sentences. You must leave. There's nothing you - " Quasiman's lower jaw disappeared. His tongue waggled helplessly like a gray slug for a moment before the jaw reappeared " - can do here," Quasiman finished. "Complete fucking sentences."
Gregg had never beard Quasiman swear before. The word was so surprising that Gregg almost laughed. Quasiman glared at Gregg, defiant. His arms disappeared, first the left, then the right. The glare went slack and empty, and the joker stood there like a wax dummy, empty and cold.
"Poor Quasi," Hannah sighed. She touched his shoulder above the bloodless wound of the missing arm. Quasiman didn't respond. He was gone to wherever he went in his fugues. "Gregg, you know he can glimpse the future. He's helped me so much before." She crouched down in front of Gregg, but she didn't touch him. Her eyes were full of something that might have been affection, but she didn't touch him. "I trust Quasi. He's seen something and he's trying to warn us."
"I can get as much information reading Nostradamus," Gregg muttered, and at her look: "All right. Maybe he's right. We sure aren't getting anything accomplished sitting down here. But what do we do?" There was a soft pop that echoed ringingly in the underground quiet. When Gregg looked up, the hunchback was gone. "So much for asking Mr. Complete Sentences."
"He wants us to leave the country," Hannah said. "I understood that much. It makes sense, especially if Rudo's fled the country, too."
"Right. And where do we go?"
Hannah looked at him. "Dutton said it back at the Museum: Rudo and Johnson will go to ground with the people they trust - the influential Sharks overseas. You're the one with the contacts. Let's use them."
Hannah watched him, and he saw his alien face reflected in her eyes. He wondered what she was feeling. He felt that if she touched him then, that he might be able to know, that the contact might spark some connection. Hannah's hand was lifted, as if she might reach out to him, but she drew it back and smiled grimly instead. "I just want to find Rudo and the vials," she said. "Wherever they've gone. I want this done."
So you can leave me then? Gregg wondered. So you can return to a normal life? He wondered, but the glimmerings of a plan had formed. "Let me make a call," he said.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
April Harvest looked down the short staircase dubiously.
"Are we going to hit every dive in town?" she asked.
"If we have to," Ray said. "You want to find jokers, you go to places where jokers hang out: Freakers, Club Dead Nicholas, The Twisted Dragon. Now this place is something special. I read all about it in an article by Digger Downs in Aces magazine. You'd be surprised how much goes onin a place like Squisher's."
"I think I'd rather not know." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I can smell it from here."
Ray grinned, the fluttering neon light from the sign for Uncle Chowder's Clam Bar making his face look surprisingly sinister. Squisher's Basement was located below street level under the clam bar. The small metal sign with the bar's name on it was peeling and rusted. The hand that pointed down the stairs had six fingers.
"Don't worry," Ray said. "I'll take care of you."
"You don't have to take care of me, Ray. I do that all by myself. It'd be better if you'd remember that I'm in charge of this investigation. I'm only following your suggestion because all our previous attempts at finding Hartmann have turned up empty."
Ray nodded. "Whatever you say."
Squisher's Basement was a dive, a joint where the locals went for cheap but bad food and serious drinking. It smelled like Jokertown: old and dirty and sad. Inside it was dark and quiet. Most of the light came from the fluorescents hanging above the huge aquarium behind the bar, where Squisher resided. The few muted conversations among the patrons dropped off into silence as Ray and Harvest walked to the bar. Every eye in the place was on the two, even Squisher's as he floated silently in his aquarium.
"I'm looking for someone," Ray announced.
"You'll be looking for your own ass in a minute," someone rumbled from the bar.
"Yeah, you tell him," a joker standing near Ray said.
"Yeah, tell him," the other head sprouting from the joker's torso said.
Ray smiled. There was genuine amusement in it, as well as anticipation. "Who the hell are you?" he asked the two-headed joker.
Actually, they had more than two heads. They shared a single massive set of legs and one pelvis, but were bifurcated from the waist up: two heads, two sets of shoulders and arms, two massive torsos. They were thickly built and looked strong hut unwieldy. Separately they would have outweighed Ray by sixty pounds each. Together, they dwarfed him.
The two heads looked at each other. "My name is Hans," one said with a sudden, strange accent. "This is Franz. Who are you, girly-man?"
Some of the bar patrons tittered. Ray smiled more widely and turned to face the jokers squarely.
"You must be as stupid as you are ugly," he said, "if you think you can get away with that weak shit. You're really ... uh ..."
"Rick and Mick Dockstedder," Harvest said crisply. "Cheap muscle. Used to work for the Shadowfists, now freelance."
"Right," Ray said. It seemed she did know her shit.
"Are you heat?" Hans - that is, Rick - asked.
"That's right, moron. The hottest kind. Federal. This is Agent April Harvest. My name is Billy Ray and I can lick every man in this place."
"Oh," Rick said.
"Oh," Mick said.
They sat down.
Ray looked up and down the bar. "We can fight," he said, "or we can drink. Either is fine with me."
There were some mutters, but no challenges.
"Okay," Ray said. "We drink. A round for the house on me. And give me a receipt."
The bartender drew the drinks and Squisher breathed easier in his aquarium as Ray explained his mission.
"I'm looking for Hartmann, Senator Gregg Hartmann. You may remember him. He's been jumped into the body of a guy named George G. Battle. Battle used to be a government agent, but he went bad. He turned into a joker, men switched bodies with Hartmann. Battle got his ticket punched but Hartmann's still around. He's hiding somewhere in J-town as a yellow caterpillar. Now I know all about joker solidarity and all that shit, but we need to talk to Hartmann about this Card Shark mess. I want his ass, and one of you can probably give it to me. There's bucks in it. You can reach each of us at the Carlington Hotel." He looked around the room. "Got it?"
Some of the jokers looked angry, some indifferent. A few looked thoughtful. "Okay," Ray said. "See you on the funny pages." He turned to Harvest, "Let's go."
"Think it'll work?" she asked as they started toward the stairs.
Ray shrugged. "Maybe. We just have to wait and see."
There was a sudden, unexpected pop, and a wide-eyed hunchback was standing in front of them. Ray and Harvest stared. Some of the bar patrons looked up, then went back to their drinks. It was no big deal in Squisher's.