Dead Man s Hand Page 0,44

last time, to make my farewells. And what do I find? Some nat fantasy lying in a coffin, and a roomful of people forbidden to speak her name."

"Her name was Debra-Jo Jory, and she was my daughter!" A vein in Jory's neck had begun to throb.

"Her name," the joker replied coldly, "was Chrysalis." Father Squid moved close to him. "Charles, he's from Oklahoma, he knows no better. We must respect his grief."

"Then let him respect ours."

"He does not mean to give offense," the priest said. "That makes this charade no less offensive." The joker's eyes, deep-set in his skull face, had never left Jory.

Waldo Cosgrove hurried forward nervously. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please don't quarrel. This is not the time or the place, is it? Our dearly beloved Chrysalis, oh, ah, Debra-Jo, that is, well, surely she would not have wanted-"

"What I want," Jory said suddenly, "is for you to throw out this ugly sonofabitch, Cosgrove. You hear that? Either you call what passes for the law hereabouts, or I will, but either way this asshole is going out onto the street." Waldo looked helplessly around the room, searching for some way out of this mess. Jay felt sorry for him. Finally, meekly, the funeral director turned to the joker and said, "Charles, please, it's customary in these matters to honor the family's wishes."

"Yes," Charles said. He made a gesture that took in all the jokers in the room. "And we are her family, Waldo. Not him. He doesn't even know what her name was." He turned his back on Jory and walked to where Cosmo sat on his chair. Cosmo looked up and adjusted his round, wire-rim spectacles. There was fungus growing on the back of his hand and a gray five o'clock shadow beneath his jaw. He said nothing. "I want to see her, Cosmo," Charles told him. "Show her to me. Show her to me the way she really was."

"No!" Jory shouted. "I forbid it!" He stormed forward, jammed a finger at Cosmo. "You hear me, boy?"

Cosmo looked at him, said nothing, looked back at Charles.

Someone gasped. All eyes went to the casket.

The color had begun to bleach from Debra-Jo's soft skin. "Goddamn you," Jory swore at Cosmo. He spun around to face Waldo. "You there! Call the police! Now!"

Waldo's chin trembled as his mouth worked silently.

In the casket, the smooth pink flesh and hints of rose had faded. Her skin was bone white, as smooth and pale as milk. Here and there, it began to turn waxy and translucent.

"I'll do it myself then," Jory said. He started for the phone.

There was a sound like a stack of two-by-fours might make if you broke them all at once. Everything stopped. Jory looked up, and up, and up. Into red eyes that stared down from beneath a huge, swollen brow ridge. From his nine-foot vantage, Troll gazed down at Jory, cracked his knuckles once more, then closed his huge green hand into a fist the size of a country ham. "I don't think that would be such a good idea," Troll said, in a voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of the world's deepest gravel pit.

All around the room, the mourners mumbled agreement. Her skin had gone all the color of wax paper, and you could see the tracery of veins now, and dark shadows of bones and organs beneath the fading flesh.

Jory whirled back to the casket and slammed the lid down hard. "Get out of here!" he screamed, distraught beyond words. "All of you, out of here." He looked around at all the joker faces with loathing. "You people," he said. "You all stick together, don't you. Damn you. You did this to her, you rotten-"

Jay took his hand out of his pocket, pointed. Jory vanished. When the mourners realized what had happened, the tension drained from the room with a rush. Father Squid shook his head, facial tentacles bouncing from side to side with the motion. "Where did you send him, my son?" he asked. "Aces High," Jay said. "A good meal, a few drinks, maybe he'll feel better. It was getting too damn ugly."

The joker called Charles stepped up to the casket and opened the lid. Chrysalis lay there now. Skin as clear as the finest glass, perfectly transparent, ghostly pale wisps of muscle and tendon beneath, and under that bones and organs and the blue and red spiderweb of blood vessels.

It was as much an illusion as the other had been, but