Dead Man s Hand Page 0,56

sun was a shiny coin flung high in the sky, obscured by a haze of pollution and a sheath of angry clouds that were motionless in the thick air. The heat and humidity made it hard to breathe as Brennan and Jennifer waited patiently in the queue that was shuffling forward into Our Lady Of Perpetual Misery. Jokertown always took care of its own and Chrysalis was going to have a fine send-off.

People walked, crawled, hopped, and slithered into the church past a couple of bored cops who were stationed at the entrance. At least the city had enough sense to assign Kant, their tame joker cop, to this duty, but Brennan wondered what the police were supposed to detect in a gathering where masks were common. They barely glanced at Brennan, who was wearing a full-face mask, reserving most of their attention for Jennifer, who looked a lot better in black than Brennan.

The church was packed. The pews already full, Brennan and Jennifer found standing room in the back next to the droning fans that were trying to move the stifling air. Chrysalis's casket sat near the altar, covered with a carpet of flowers. There was a vast, hurried mumbling as the Living Rosary Society told their beads as they said their prayers for the repose of Chrysalis's soul.

The procession began after the final paternoster. A joker altar boy led the way, bearing a bronze helix hung with Joker Jesus. He was followed by two others-an altar boy with no visible mouth and an altar girl with too many--swinging censers that sent clouds of sickly-sweet incense billowing into the already redolent air. Other servitors followed, including priests who would assist at the funerary Mass. Father Squid brought up the rear, wearing his finest surplice. It was embroidered with a scene depicting a nat Madonna turning her back on joker Jesus while a pair of jokers and a small, delicate, red-haired man wearing a white lab coat took Him from the helix and wrapped Him in funerary cerements.

They passed the front pew where the principal mourners sat. Tachyon, wearing a brilliant scarlet and gold waistcoat, sat next to a tanned, uncomfortable-looking man in a black suit. Next to them was a man with a death's-head face. This last, Brennan realized, was Charles Dutton, Chrysalis's silent partner in the Palace. Various Palace employees sat in the pew behind them, but neither Elmo nor Sascha were present.

Father Squid reached the altar, set his missal in place, then turned to the crowd and raised his arms wide and said in his sad, soft voice, "Let us pray."

The Mass began. It was similar to the infrequent Catholic masses Brennan had attended as a child, but with some unfamiliar twists of symbolism and ritual. Everyone took off their masks with the first prayer. Brennan looked around apprehensively for the cops, but either they'd never entered the church or were off in another part of the congregation. He and Jennifer removed their masks and no one gave them a second glance.

During the Mass there were only a few references, veiled in strange symbolism, to the Mother, reflecting the ambiguous role she played in the Church of Jesus Christ, joker, theology. Praise for the Father was effusive and tainted with an air of placation, as if He were the vengeful God of the Old Testament, the God who saved with one hand and damned with the other.

During Communion the altar boys and girls went out into the congregation bearing small hampers that had been blessed by Father Squid. The hampers contained loaves of bread that the servers passed out to the people sitting at the heads of the pews, who broke off bits for themselves before sending them on.

After Communion Father Squid summoned Tachyon to the altar to deliver the eulogy. As Tachyon approached the rail Brennan suddenly realized that the church's father, the small, delicately featured man with red hair, looked exactly like Tachyon. That, he thought, would make any man feel strange, but the alien's vast ego was probably capable of dealing with it.

The only somber element about Tachyon's clothing was a black ribbon tied around his upper right arm. His scarlet coat, hung with gold braid and piping like tinsel on a Christmas tree, looked out of place at a funeral. But, Brennan reminded himself, Tachyon was heir to an alien culture that had all kinds of odd sensibilities.

Tachyon took his place behind the lectern and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe at his