of money. She was buying a hit. I knew it. She knew I knew. We both pretended otherwise. That was the way she liked to do things." He looked up at Jay. "He must have hit her first, that's all I can figure."
Chrysalis had never been a model citizen, Jay knew. She made her own rules. Murder, though ... that didn't sound like the woman he'd known. "Who did she want dead?"
"In the envelope with the money was a folded-up piece of paper with a name on it," Elmo told him. "I never saw it, but when the guy in the bear mask read it, he made a crack."
"He said, 'Shit. Never ask for anything small.' Then I knew. The money in the envelope was way more than the going price for a hit, and that was only part of the payment. And that airline ticket? Round-trip to Atlanta."
"Atlanta?" Jay said. For a moment he wondered who the hell Chrysalis could possibly know in Atlanta. Then he got it, and a cold sick feeling spread over him. "Oh shit," he said.
"She was never interested in politics until last year," Elmo confided. "Then she got real interested. I figured, I don't know, maybe some of the stuff she'd seen on the tour."
"She wasn't like old Des or some of those other joker politicos, but she was a joker."
"Leo Barnett?" Jay said. Elmo nodded. "Gotta be."
"Great," Jay said. "Just fucking greatl" For a moment he couldn't think. "Tell me about the hit man," he said.
"Tall, skinny. Wore gloves. Cheap suit, didn't fit too well. On the ticket, the name was George Kerby, but that was just something Chrysalis made up."
"George Kerby," Jay repeated. The name sounded vaguely familiar. "When was this flight?"
"Today," Elmo said.
"Shit," Jay said. "Shit shit shit." He glanced at his watch. His time was almost up. "Maseryk will be here in a minute to chase me out, we need to hurry. Tell me about Yeoman."
"Yeoman? He's history," Elmo said bluntly. "He's been gone for, what, a year now? Nobody knew where, not even Chrysalis. She tried like hell to find him. I think she was afraid the Fists had iced him. There was bad blood between Yeoman and the Fists. But it couldn't have been him. He was only a nat."
"The Oddity?" Jay asked.
Elmo shrugged. "If they had dealings, it wasn't anything she told me about."
"Who else?" Jay asked. "Enemies, rejected lovers, greedy heirs, anyone who had a reason to want her dead?"
"She had a silent partner," Elmo told him. "A joker named Charles Dutton. He helped her buy the Palace, way back when she started. I guess the joint is his now"
"I'll talk to him," Jay promised. "Anything else?" Elmo hesitated.
"C'mon," Jay urged. "Spill it."
"I don't know what it means," Elmo said, "but last year, in the spring, I had to get rid of a body."
"A body?" Jay said.
Elmo nodded. "A woman. Young, dark-skinned, might have been pretty once, before, but not when I saw her. She'd been butchered, cut all to hell. Her breasts cut off, her face sliced to ribbons, one arm flayed, it made me sick. I'd never seen Chrysalis so scared as she was that night. It was my night Off, but she found me, called me back. When I got there, Digger Downs was dry-heaving in the men's room, and Chrysalis was in her office, just sitting there smoking and staring at that body. Her hand was trembling, but she couldn't seem to look away until I covered it up with a sheet. She told me to clean it all up. So I did. I didn't ask no questions and she didn't tell me nothing. After, she never spoke about it."
"What did you do with the body?" Jay asked.
"Put it in a garbage bag and left it in the basement. The next morning it was gone. The neighbors-"
They both heard the footsteps at the same time. "The neighbors?" Jay prompted.
"Next door," Elmo started to say as a key turned in the lock. "Any bodies we left for them. They were good at stuff like that." He shut up and looked sullenly at the floor.
The cell door swung open. Next to Maseryk was Captain Ellis herself, puffing on a cigarette and bouncing from heel to heel. "Get the hell out of there."
"I was just leaving," Jay said. He gave Elmo a reassuring pat on the arm as he walked past. The dwarf didn't even look up.
"I want you to know that Maseryk made this