But she went in, showed her ID, and asked the receptionist for Doctor Tachyon. Then she sat down to wait, finding a corner seat and putting her briefcase on the chair next to her so no one would sit there. She tried to pretend that she didn't take any interest in the carnival freak show that continually walked past her.
"You're Agent Davis?"
Hannah was startled from her reverie. A centaur in a white lab coat was frowning at her. She didn't know why that startled her so much — the clinic was awash in strangeness: a fish-faced joker with his head immersed in a globe of water was sitting across from her, a shape-shifting something that looked to be made of quicksilver had oozed from the clinic doors not two minutes earlier, and the far corner of the room writhed with what looked to be a quartet of upright forearms, the hands of which were having an animated and soundless conversation with one another.
A human torso grafted onto a palomino pony's body shouldn't be so distracting. At least the centaur's upper body looked completely normal. In fact, that part of him was rather handsome. Hannah decided to concentrate on that. "Yes, I'm Agent Davis," she said.
"I'm Dr. Bradley Finn. I'm afraid Doctor Tachyon is … out of the country at the moment. The receptionist told me that you also wanted to see Troll. This is his day off. I want you to know — "
The centaur stopped. Looked down. One of the forearms was tugging at his rear left fetlock. Hannah could see little pseudopods at the bottom of the mobile limb. "Listen, Fingers, Dr. Cody will be with you in a few minutes, okay?" Dr. Finn said. The hand nodded like a hand puppet to Finn, then seemed to notice Hannah and waved. Feeling foolish, Hannah gave a quick wave back. Scuttling on the pseudopods, the arm went back to its companions.
The frown came back to Finn's face. "One of your people was already here today, a Peter Harris, asking about the fire victims that were brought here."
"You don't look pleased."
"I'm not."
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Hannah said. "I'm sure your main concern is the well-being of your patients. But you have to understand that we need information if we're going to catch the arsonist. And that means we have to talk to the survivors, even at times when we'd rather not bother them. I know that's usually not easy for them, and sometimes we're dealing with people in a lot of pain — "
Hannah stopped. Finn was holding up his hand. "Hold on," he said. "I think we have things a little backward. Why don't we go into my office — " He escorted Hannah through the clinic doors, his hooves clicking on the linoleum. They passed consultation rooms, most of them empty in the early morning. Another doctor, a woman with an eye patch, crossed from room to room down the hall in front of them, nodding to Finn. The doctor's office held a normal chair sitting before an abnormally high desk. Finn waved Hannah to the chair and moved behind the desk. She could see that the furniture was built for his convenience, so that he could work without having to bend down or sit. Hannah pulled the tape recorder from her purse, along with her notebook. She showed Finn the recorder; he shrugged and she set it on the edge of the desk.
"I wouldn't have minded if your man Harris had wanted to interview people," Finn said without prelude, glancing once at the turning hubs of the cassette and then ignoring the machine. "I could have understood that. But all your Harris did was check to see who we'd signed in. That's what bothered me. I actually asked him if he wanted to talk to them, but he just laughed. He didn't say that he had better things to do with his time, but he sure as hell implied it. What he did say was that he was 'following routine, that's all.' I asked him if he thought that maybe the death of a hundred jokers justified something more than just routine. He told me, and I quote: 'Not from me, it doesn't.' I don't take well to bigotry, Ms. Davis, and your Harris is, frankly, a jerk."
Hannah could feel the heat of her cheeks. "Harris is working for me," she told the centaur. "I apologize, Dr. Finn. A fire like this isn't routine. Not to me. I assure you that I'll check this out. All the patients here were available for Harris?"
"The ones that lived," Finn answered.
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I really am."
Finn looked slightly mollified. He nodded, fiddled with the stack of papers in his in-basket. "I hope so," he said. "Three of the people were brought here DOA; we lost two of the other ten people during the night. Almost all the rest are in for a long and extremely painful reconstruction, if they can afford it. So … are you going to talk to them?"
Hannah wondered if she hesitated a fraction of a second too long. "Yes. If you don't mind …?"
"I'll take you in." Finn started out from behind the desk, then stopped. He cocked his head at her as a muscle twitched in his long, gold-silk flank. The long tail flicked once. "You asked about Troll," he said. "It's none of my business, but on Black Queen Night Troll was here from the afternoon until the next morning. Any of us can verify that."
Hannah shook her head. "I — " she started, then let the air out of her lungs in a loud exhalation. "I think I can skip Troll. Someone thought he might know something about an old plot against jokers." She smiled to show that she gave the notion no credence, but Finn wasn't sharing the joke. "It's nothing," she said.
"Are you saying that this wasn't just random violence?" Finn was holding very still. Hannah could see the muscles tightening along his neck, and the tail was swishing back and forth like an angry cat's.
"No, I'm emphatically not saying that. In fact, in cases like this, it's very unlikely. One person can hate so intensely that they're driven to such violent ends, but groups … It's much rarer. Fortunately." Hannah smiled again. "I'd wager that most violence against the jokers stem from isolated incidents. It takes an unhealthy paranoia to see a plot behind every tree."
"A joker might think that's easy for a nat to say."
"Your nat might still believe it," she answered. This time he grinned back at her, a quick flash of teeth that disappeared as quickly as it had come.
"You're awfully naive."
"I prefer to think I'm optimistic."
"Right. I could tell you — " Finn stopped. Hannah didn't say anything. Every good investigator had to be part amateur psychologist, and she could see that something was inside him, pushing at the barriers. She waited, looking at him expectantly.
"I thought the same once, too. Since then, I've seen some of the nastiness and evil you don't seem to believe in." Finn shook his head. "I've seen it."
"Here?" Hannah asked quietly. A nudge.
"No, not here," he said. "Eight years ago, in Kenya. Funny, he tried to use fire, too …"
The Crooked Man
No amount of money will make up for a physiology which can't fit in the seats, or enter one of those broom closets that pass for restrooms aboard your average 747. So there I was making the long flight from Los Angeles, to New York, to Rome, to Nairobi on one of those big freight jobbies designed to carry horses, cattle, other varieties of prize livestock … and jokers.
The grooms, men truly without any kind of a country, had the usual reaction to a palomino pony centaur, but when they realized I had money to spare, and an addict's fever about poker, they loosened up. I lost enough initially to get them friendly, and the rest of the tedious journey passed in reasonable comfort and companionship. Actually, I'll let you in on a little secret — flying freight beats the hell out of more traditional modes of travel. Plenty of room to walk around, and when you get tired you bed down on the bales of hay and straw.