Jokers Wild Page 0,135

of growing confusion from beyond the cubicle. "Stay here!" ordered Queen, and twitched aside the curtain.

Tachyon tugged his bangs down over the half-opened gash, the needle still thrust through the white skin, and slid off the gurney. Roulette put out a hand.

"Where are you going?"

"To help."

"You're hurt, you're a patient."

"It's still my hospital."

She was too tired, and too obsessed with the images passing behind her eyes to argue. She followed him into the emergency room of the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic.

Every available chair and sofa was taken. Jokers of every description huddled, and hacked, and moaned, and mewed, and followed the overworked doctors with pleading eyes.

A three-legged joker was waddling after Dr. Queen. "I've been waitin' here for three fucking hours!"

"Tough!"

"Cunt!"

"You've got a broken wrist. There are others here with worse problems. We'll take you when we can. And I have no sympathy. Personally, I think Elmo should have broken your fucking neck."

Tachyon was examining a comatose old man on one of the gurneys, seemingly oblivious to the shouting match behind him. But when the joker took a swing at the woman doctor, the haymaker continued so he hit himself in the face, and then collapsed snoring on the floor.

"Nice work, Doc," called a huge scaly joker in a security guard's uniform. "Hey, you look like shit."

"Thank you, Troll."

"What do you want me to do with him?" He nudged the sleeping troublemaker with a toe.

"Have Delia set his wrist while he's sleeping." A quick smile. "Saves on anesthetic."

Another wailing ambulance disgorged its load. A gurney squeaked past, carrying a nightmare figure. Seven feet tall, head blunt like the head of a hammer. One ferocious red eye, and one bright blue eye glaring from beneath a heavy ridge of bone. Boils dotted his scalp in place of hair. Some had broken open and were oozing pus. The man looked as if someone had danced on his face with a jackhammer.

Roulette wrapped her arms about her stomach, trying to shut out the pain, the smells, the sounds. Queen discovered Tachyon administering a shot to a snuffling five-year-old, and chivied him back into the cubicle. When they reemerged, she was leading the tiny doctor by the wrist like an outraged school mistress with a recalcitrant student.

"Take him home." A sharp shove between the shoulder blades. "Give him these. Make him sleep."

"I'm all right. I'll stay."

"You're never here on Wild Card Day. Usually because you're face down in a puddle of cognac. Why break with tradition?"

Queen didn't seem to notice, or perhaps she didn't care, that Tachyon had been well and truly hurt by the remark. Roulette took his arm, and led him out the side door of the old brick building.

"I'm going after Fortunato," he abruptly announced. "And do what?"

"Help him search for the Astronomer." His lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Tachyon, he must know after attacking the restaurant that every ace in Manhattan is after him. He'd be a fool to stay in New York."

"He's a madman. He won't care."

He shrugged off her hand, and closed his eyes. A great struggle seemed to be taking place, though it showed itself only through the increasingly haggard expression on his nar row face, the sweat that matted in the whorls of his sideburns, and the bright white points studding each knuckle. Suddenly he whirled, and slammed his fists against the wall of the hospital.

"He's blocking me!"

"Who?"

"Fortunato. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him." Head thrown back, he screamed to the sky. "You've held me in contempt for years, you arrogant son of a bitch. Faggots from space. Well, fine! Handle it yourself, then, and be damned to you."

"Why worry? Maybe the Astronomer will come after you, and then you can handle it."

But he was already walking, head hunched forward, hands thrust deep into his pockets, and so missed the bitter irony in her words.

Chapter Nineteen

12:00 Midnight

"Damn," Brennan muttered as he cradled the phone. "Who were you trying to call?" Jennifer asked. "Chrysalis."

"Still?"

"Yes. And she's still out."

"Who's Chrysalis, anyway."

"She runs a bar called the Crystal Palace," Brennan said, looking out the window. "She's the information broker who put me on your trail. She knows just about everything worth know ing, so she'd probably know where Latham s apartment is. But she isn't available, and Elmo's getting annoyed by my constant calling. Damn," he repeated, hitting his left palm with his clenched right fist.

"There isn't much more we can do," Jennifer said, "than cruise around the better parts of town, like we've been doing,