Jokers Wild Page 0,119

the door.

The restaurant was almost empty now. Hiram went back toward his office, and found Cap'n Trips on the floor outside the rest room. He was kneeling over a jumble of broken glass and colored powders, pinching the powder with the fingers of one hand and dropping it into a carefully cupped palm. "This is no time to be doing drugs, damn it," Hiram snapped at him.

Trips looked up at him through pale, watery eyes. "I just wanted to help, man," he burbled. "I was running to get one of my friends, but I tripped, and like, when I fell, everything must have gotten smashed."

"Just go home," Hiram said. Peter Chou appeared at his side. "Peter, help the Captain here find a cab before he cuts himself on that broken glass, will you?" Chou nodded.

Curtis intercepted him en route to his office. "There's a phone call for Fortunato. It's the police. What should I tell them?"

"He left with Peregrine," Hiram said. "I believe she's got a cellular phone in her car. Give them the number."

He pushed by Curtis and entered his office. Water Lily was sitting in his chair, still pale and shaken. Rivulets of water ran down her face as she looked up at him. Jay Ackroyd sat on the edge of Hiram's desk, holding Modular Man's head. "Alas, poor silicon chip, I knew him well," he was saying. Jane gave a small laugh that sounded to Hiram like incipient hysteria. Ackroyd tossed the head lightly from one hand to the other. The skullcap had fallen off; and Mod Man's radar dome was cracked.

"Put that down," Hiram said. He collapsed wearily into a chair, and looked at Water Lily. "I'm very glad you're all right. I don't think I could have endured another death today. Certainly not yours."

"What about him?" Jay said, placing the head on the desk. Mod Man's blind eyes stared out at Hiram.

"I'm sorry about Modular Man, but he wasn't precisely alive and he isn't precisely dead. His creator will probably build another one."

"Ladykiller Mark Four? Another in the Silicon Valley's gift-to-women series?" Jane said. She gave another small ragged laugh. She put one hand over her mouth. He could hear her breathing unsteadily against it.

Hiram said, "Jane, if you have no objections, I'd take it as a favor if you'd stay here for a while. The Astronomer was gone by the time Peregrine returned with you, so with luck he thinks you're dead. Let's not disabuse him. He has a long list, after all." He ran a hand over his scalp. "I'm going to ask Peter and his staff to remain on duty. I know that's not much, but it's better than nothing."

Water Lily nodded and took her hand away from her face. "All right. I couldn't take much more tonight."

Hiram forced a smile he hoped was comforting. "I hadn't intended your first flying lesson to be quite so traumatic." She straightened in the chair, seemingly trying to shake off the aftermath as much as she could, and looked at him in that searching way again. "What about you?" she asked. Hiram Worchester folded his hands neatly atop his stomach. He looked a mess, he realized. He laughed, a short little humorless bark of a laugh. The shock was finally wearing off, but strangely, Hiram was not afraid. Instead he was conscious of a gnawing hunger, and a cold steady rage that was building within him. He thought of Eileen.

"Hiram?" Popinjay asked, breaking his reverie.

"I'd kill him if I could," Hiram said, more to himself than to them. "Perhaps I might have, but then Jane would have died. I'm not sorry I made that choice." He looked at her fondly, then turned to Ackroyd. "Jay, I believe I'll need to engage your services once more."

"Real good," said Ackroyd. "We going' after the old guy?"

"Gladly," said Hiram, "if I only knew where to find him, or even how to begin the search." He made a short, impatient gesture with his right hand. "No, that's futile, and Fortunato made his feelings clear, so we'll leave those heroics for him. Still, there are other scores that require settling tonight. Call me quixotic, but after what happened here this evening, I cannot sit by passively and do nothing." He grimaced. "I feel strangely like righting a wrong."

"Take two aspirin and lie down," Jay said. "The feeling will pass."

"No," said Hiram. "I think not." He stood up, reached in the pocket of his tux. The slip of paper with Loophole's