"You should write a book. Clearly your vast experience has made you an authority on child rearing."
"Ah, hell, Tachyon. I like the kid. I even occasionally like you. Love him, Tachyon, and relax."
"I do love him."
"No, you love what he represents. You're obsessive about him because your im-" He bit off the words and flushed a deep red. "Ah, hell, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring that up."
"How do you even know?"
"Fantasy told me."
"Bitch."
"Hey, relax there too, and everything will probably work out. It's no big deal."
"Braun, you cannot conceive of what a big deal it is. Progeny, continuance-Oh, fuck! Are you also planning to offer psychiatric counseling at your new casino? Do what you do best, Jack-drift and make money. But leave me alone!"
"With pleasure!"
Seizing the picnic hamper and the blanket, Tachyon stormed away in search of Blaise.
"Where's Uncle Jack?"
"Uncle Jack had an appointment in Atlantic City."
"You two had a fight again. Why do you two fight so much?"
Ancient history,
"Then you should forget it."
"Don't you start too." Tach waved down a cab. "Where are we going?"
"To Mark's."
"Oh."
"J. J., Please wait for me," Tachyon instructed when they pulled up in front of the Cosmic Pumpkin.
"Hokay, but the meters she keeps running," the man replied in a thick and unplaceable accent.
"That's fine."
"I'll wait too," said Blaise in a small voice. And Tachyon felt a moment's shame, remembering his lack of control the last time they had visited the Pumpkin.
He stuck his head in the door. "Mark."
"Yo."
"Quick question. Have you been bothered with emissaries from various criminal organizations?" The handful of diners from CUNY stared at the Takisian wide-eyed. "Huh?"
Tach expelled air in a sharp puff of irritation. "Have you been asked to pay protection?"
"Oh, is that what you meant. Oh, yeah, man, months ago, but I like
… had one of my… friends show up, and they haven't been back."
"Would that everyone had friends like yours, Mark."
"Is that it?"
"That's it."_ "Anything I can do to help?"
"I don't think so."
Tachyon slid into the cab and gave the hack the clinic's address.
"Ohhhh, Jokertowns. Yous that doctors?"
"Yes."
"I sees you on the televisions. Peri Green's Perches."
"That's Peregrine, and yes, that was me."
"Holy Jesus!"
The driver's exclamation jerked Tach's attention to the road ahead. A jumble of police cars, their lights flashing, blocked Hester Street. With a wail an ambulance shot past. "Shit, must be anothers, how you says, hits."
"Stop, stop at once."
Leaping from the cab, Tach darted under the police tape. A woman's keening filled the air, and a basso voice amplified by a bullhorn ordered knots of muttering people to move along. Tachyon spotted Detective Maseryk and pushed up to him.
"What?",
"How the hell… oh, hi, Doc." The detective stared curiously at the small boy who gazed with interest at the sprawled bodies in the shattered restaurant.
Tachyon rounded on Blaise. "Get back to the cab and wait there."
"Ahhh-"
"Now!"
"Looks like another little party," said Maseryk when Blaise had reluctantly drooped away. "But this time an uninvited guest got mixed up in it too." He jerked his head toward the sobbing woman, who was clutching at a small form in a bodybag being lifted into the ambulance.
Tachyon ran to the stretcher, unzipped the bag, and stared down at the child. He hadn't been very attractive to start with, a squat-bottomed heavy body sat upon broad flippers, and he looked a lot worse with half his head shot away. Spinning, the Takisian caught the woman in a tight embrace.
"MY BABY! MY BABY! DON'T LET THEM TAKE MY BABY!"
A rescue worker approached, hypodermic at the ready. Tachyon stilled the sobbing mother with a brief touch of his power and handed her to the man.
"Treat her kindly."
"Looks like Gambione boys," Maseryk called as he stared thoughtfully down at one sprawled body. Several strings of spaghetti hung from the corpse's mouth, leaving wet, red trails on his chin. "The Fists came cruising by and opened up. Car will be found, and be stolen, so that'll be another dead end. Too bad about the kid though. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The detective noticed Tachyon's continued silence and glanced down.
"I don't want dead ends, Maseryk, I want these men."
"We're working on it."
"Perhaps it is time I took a hand."
"No, for Christ's sake, the last thing we need are civilians getting in the way. Just stay out of this."
"Nobody kills my people in my town!"
"Huh? The mayors going to be mighty surprised to hear he lost and you won the last election," he yelled after Tachyon's retreating back.
"Cognac," spat Tachyon to Sascha, the Crystal Palace's blind bartender. He threw his blue velvet hat, sewn with pearls and sequins, onto the bar and tossed back the drink. He extended the snifter. "Another."
A whiff of exotic frangipani perfume, and Chrysalis slid onto the stool next to him. The blue eyes floating within their hollows of bone stared impassively down at him.
"You're supposed to savor good brandy, not throw it down like a wino after a cheap drunk. Unless that's what you're after."
"You sound like a recruiter for AA."
Reaching out, Chrysalis wrapped one short red curl around her forefinger. "So what's the matter, Tachy?"
"This senseless gang war. Today an innocent caught in the crossfire. A joker child. I think he lives on this block. I remember seeing him on Wild Card Day last September."
"Oh." She continued playing with his short-cropped hair. "Stop that! And is that all you have to say?"
"What should I say?"
"How about a little outrage?"
"I deal in information, not outrage."
"God, you can be a cold bitch."
"Circumstances have rather guaranteed that, Tachyon. I don't ask for pity, and I don't give any. I do what I have to do to survive with what I am. What I've become."
He reared back at the bitterness in her voice. For she was one of his bastard children-born of his failure and his pain.
"Chrysalis, we have to do something."
"Like what?"
"Prevent Jokertown from becoming a battlefield."
"It is already."
"Then make it too dangerous for them to fight here. Will you help me?"
"No. I take sides, and I've lost my neutrality."
"Willing to sell weapons to all sides, eh?"
"If that's what it takes."
"What is it you're after, Chrysalis?"
"Safety."
He slid off the stool. "There is none this side of the grave."
"Go be a fire-breather, Tachyon. And when you come up with something a little more concrete than an amorphous desire to protect Jokertown, let me know."
"Why? So you can sell me out to the highest bidder?" And now it was her turn to rear back, the blood washing like a dark tide through the shadowy muscles of her face.
"Okay, let's come to order now," called Des, delicately tapping a spoon against the side of a brandy snifter.