Brennan nodded, as if he bought the explanation, then sat down without being invited. Annoyed, Kien opened his mouth to say something, then suddenly closed it. Cunningham apparently tolerated such behavior.
"Back in town for a visit?" Kien asked in as casual a voice as possible.
Brennan nodded. "Someone hit my house this morning." Kien put a shocked look on his face. "Any idea who?"
"I would guess Kien," Brennan said steadily, "if he wasn't dead."
Kien nodded. "Good guess, but he's dead. I saw his body myself."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
"I've heard," Brennan said, "that there was something a bit odd about the corpse. Something that usually doesn't happen to heart-attack victims."
Kien shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Ah, the severed head, you mean," he guessed.
Brennan nodded silently.
"Well," Kien said, suddenly inspired to mix truth and lies in equal proportions, "there was a lot of information locked up in his brain."
"Deadhead?" Brennan asked.
Kien tried to look defensive. "There was a lot I needed to know"
Brennan let out a deep breath. "I guess I can believe that."
Deadhead was an insane ace with the capability of accessing people's memories by eating their brains. When Kien had set the trap to catch the disloyal Philip Cunningham, he used his own corpse as bait, having been jumped into the body of Leslie Christian. He then had his head removed from his own body so Cunningham couldn't feed the brain to Deadhead and uncover his plot.
"If Kien didn't send the killers, then who did?" Brennan asked, half to himself.
"Well, Captain, you've made a few enemies along the way." Kien paused as if deep in thought. "And I can't pretend to have total control over the Shadow Fists, particularly the Egrets. Maybe elements loyal to Kien's memory finally tracked you down and tried to eliminate you."
"Maybe," Brennan said tightly.
"And you know," said Kien, as if struck by sudden inspiration, "maybe these same elements will be going after Tachyon as well. Maybe someone should warn him."
"Maybe," Brennan said thoughtfully. "I'll mention it to Tachyon when I go back to the clinic to check on Jennifer."
"So you've seen Tachyon already?" Kien asked. Brennan nodded abstractedly. "I took Jennifer to the clinic. She was wounded during the hit."
"Not too seriously, I hope," Kien said as he stifled his glee.
Brennan stood. "No, not too seriously."
Kien rose to walk him to the door. "I'm sure she'll pull through. And if you need anything, just call."
Brennan slipped the hood back on and stared at him with his hard unblinking gaze. "All right," he said, and left the office, going by Rick and Mick who were arguing because Rick couldn't concentrate on his comic book while Mick had the television on.
Kien watched him go, a smile of sudden unexpected glee on his face. He had managed to maneuver all of his targets into the same basket. Now he could strike once and get rid of them all.
4.
"What's up, boss?" Brutus asked when Brennan returned to the van.
Brennan glanced down at the homunculus, who was huddled against the cold in one of Brennan's old work shirts that he'd dragged up from the back. "I don't know," Brennan said. "But I don't believe that things are as they seem. As is usual in this town."
He started the van and pulled away from the curb. "Where're we headed?" Brutus asked.
Brennan glanced at him as he drove into an alley that bordered Kien's apartment building. "I'm going back to the clinic," Brennan said, "but you're staying behind to keep an eye on things here."
Brutus stretched, peering over the edge of the dashboard. "It looks cold out there," he said.
"All the more reason to find a way inside as soon as you can."
"Right."
Brennan pulled up next to a pile of overflowing garbage cans and opened the van's passenger door.
"So what am I supposed to be watching?" Brutus asked. "Cunningham."
"Why?"
Brennan shook his head. "I'm not sure. Cunningham seemed… odd. Not normal. I can't really put my finger on it, but things aren't right. He called me `Captain.' He's never called me that before. There's no way he could even know I'd been a captain in the army… unless…" Brennan shook his head again.
Brutus grunted and jumped down from the van. The sun had risen, but the sky was dark with clouds and the promise of snow. A cold wind cut through the alley as Brutus scurried behind a pile of garbage, mumbling to himself. Brennan leaned out of the van's passenger door as Brutus disappeared in the trash.
"And Brutus."
The manikin poked his head from around a greasestained brown-paper bag. "Yeah?"
"Be careful."
The homunculus smiled. "You too, boss," he said, then vanished into the garbage.
Brennan pulled the door shut and drove off, telling himself not to worry. Brutus had been one of the Chrysalis's best spies. He knew how to take care of himself.
Chrysalis. His thoughts turned to her for the first time in quite a while. They were linked inextricably with the events that had occurred the last time he'd seen Tachyon, when he confronted the doctor, Jay Ackroyd, the EL, and Hiram Worchester, Chrysalis's murderer.
Ackroyd had been incensed with Brennan. For a man neck-deep in a sordid and violent business, he had a more than somewhat unrealistic view about violence. But Brennan didn't hold that against him. He never held a man's ideals against him.
But Tachyon. Tachyon had missed an important point with his speech about slavish obedience to the letter of the law. Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.
The only thing a man can do is decide for himself what is right or wrong and what must be done to combat the wrong. And then he must face the consequences of his decision, no matter what they are.
Brennan pulled up before the Jokertown Clinic, killed the engine, and got out of the van. He walked through the sliding glass doors that led into the receiving area and entered chaos.
A half-hysterical woman was shouting to a harried-looking nurse that no, dammit, her baby was always that sort of suffocated purplish color, but still, her gills just weren't working right, while another white-uniformed nurse was explaining to an excessively furry man that Blue Cross usually didn't consider electrolysis a necessary medical procedure, no matter how badly he wanted a career in the food-service industry. Another joker-female and quite attractive if you discounted the mottled, flaking condition of her skin was sitting reading an eight-month-old copy of National Geographic while her toddlers slithered after each other in and out of the chairs, circling around a gaunt, hollow-eyed old joker who was coughing continually and spitting up unhealthy-looking gobs of something into a styrofoam cup clutched firmly in his chelate forepaws.
Someone behind Brennan muttered, "Excuse me," in a harried voice, and swept by. It was Tachyon. He was accompanied by a woman who was attractive in a gaunt, hard-edged sort of way, despite the eye patch and the jagged scar that ran down her right cheek. She moved in a graceful economical manner that suggested she knew how to handle herself in almost any situation. That was rather a necessity for anyone who spent a lot of time around the doctor.
"Tachyon."
He turned with a put-upon sigh that caught in his throat as he recognized Brennan and he frowned at the expression on Brennan's face. "What is it? Is Jennifer-"
"We have to talk," Brennan said, glancing at the woman. "Somewhere in private."
She looked curiously from Tachyon to Brennan and back again to the alien. Tachyon gestured at her vaguely with his small delicate-looking hands. "Daniel, this is Cody Havero, Dr. Cody Havero. Cody, this is, uh, a friend of mine…"