uptown could be finished.
In Hubbard's apartment there were two rooms ready for guests, and the bag lady was put into one of these.
_"Put a lock on the door," Black said. "And call the Astronomer."
"Lord Amun has already been called," Hubbard said, and tapped his head.
Black returned to his car and started driving back to Jokertown again. "We'll get your unit," Black said. "Then we'll get you to the cop shop for your report."
Carroll looked at him. "Who was that guy, Lieutenant?"
"A specialist in mental cases and jokers."
"That lady might do him some harm."
"He'll be safer than either of us."
Black pulled up behind Carroll's cruiser. He got out and opened the trunk, taking out Carroll's coat and hat. He gave them to the young officer. Then he took out a flute--NYPD for an innocent-looking soda bottle filled with liquor-which he'd been planning on using to keep himself warm during the plant tomorrow. He offered the flute to Carroll. The patrolman took the bottle gratefully. Black reached for Carroll's gunbelt.
"It was lucky you were around, Lou."
"Yeah. It sure was."
Black shot Carroll four times in the chest with his own gun, then, after the officer was on the ground, shot him twice more in the head. He wiped his prints off the gun and tossed it to the ground, then took the Coke bottle and got back in his car. Maybe, with the spilled rum, it would look as if Carroll had stopped to hassle a wino and the drunk had gotten the drop on him.
The car smelled like cheeseburgers. Black was reminded he hadn't had supper.
The bag lady had ignored the bed and gone to sleep in a corner of the room. Her bags were piled in front and atop her like a bulwark. Hubbard sat on a stool, watching her intently.
His crooked smile had frozen into an unpleasant parody of itself. Pain throbbed in his brain. The effort of reading her, mind was costing him.
No turning back, he thought. He had to see this through. His failure with Captain McPherson had cost him in the Order and in Amun's esteem; and when Black had shown up with the bag lady, Hubbard realized this was the chance to win back his place. Hubbard had lied to Black when he told the detective he had alerted Amun.
There was power here. Perhaps enough to power the Shakti device. And if the Shakti device were powered by the bag thing, then Amun was no longer necessary.
The bag thing could eat people, Hubbard knew. Perhaps it could eat even Amun. Hubbard thought of the fire at the old temple, Amun striding through the flames with his disciples at his back, ignoring Hubbard's screams.
Yes, Hubbard thought. This would be worth the risk. Detective Second Grade Harry Matthias, known in the Order as Judas, sat on the bed, his chin in his hands. He shrugged.
"She's not an ace. Neither is whatever she's got in the bag."
Hubbard spoke to him mentally. I sense two minds. One is hers-it is disordered. I can't touch it. The other is in the bag-it's in touch with her, somehow .. there's an empathic binding. The other mind also seems to be damaged. 16 as if it's adapted to her.
Judas stood. He was flushed with anger. "Why in God's name don't we just take the damn bag?" He went for the bag lady with his hands clawed.
Hubbard felt an electric snap of awareness in his mind. The bag lady was awake. Through his mental link with Judas he felt the man hesitate at the sudden malevolence in the old woman's eyes. Judas reached for the bag.
The bag reached for Judas.
A blackness faster than thought rose into the room. Judas vanished into it. Hubbard stared at the empty space. In his mind, the woman's honed madness danced.
Judas shivered and his lips were blue. Christmas tinsel hung in his hair. A piece of sticky cardboard was stuck to the bottom of one shoe. His gun had been twisted into a sine wave. He shivered and his lips were blue. He'd been transported to a dumpster on Christopher Street and had ceased to exist for about twenty minutes. He'd taken a cab back.
Power, Hubbard thought. Incredible power. The bag thing warps space-time somehow.
"Why garbage?" Judas said. "Why shitpiles? And look at my gun . . . " He became aware of the cardboard, and tried to pull it off his shoe. It came free with a sticky noise.
"She's fixated on garbage, I guess," Hubbard said. "And it