Jokers Wild Page 0,42

stared.

It was Gruber. His pale, soft face was frozen into a rictus of intense horror. His pale, soft hands were clutched tightly to his stomach, but they hadn't prevented his blood from running out and collecting around him in a sticky, shallow pool.

Jennifer hung over a low counter that was filled with cheap jewelry and cheaper guns and lost her breakfast. She leaned shakily against the glass counter after vomiting up everything in her stomach, letting it take her weight.

After a moment or two of utter blankness she wiped her lips and forced herself to look back at what was left of Gruber. It was the first body she'd ever seen. She stared in fascinated horror, thinking she ought to do something, but not knowing what.

"It'sss her."

A hissing, sibilant voice sounded behind her, starting her heart jumping like that of an aerobic instructor on speed. She whirled around in a half-crouch and stared at the three men who had silently entered the shop through the back entrance. Two were norms, or looked to be. The third was a joker, a tall, slim man who looked like a lizard walking on two legs. He was the one who had spoken. Jennifer stared at him and his long, forked tongue rolled out of his mouth again and flickered at her.

"Ssshe'sss the one," he hissed. "Get her."

"Christ," one of the others muttered. "She killed him." The two norms looked at each other uneasily and Jennifer's brain finally began to work again.

She recognized the reptilian joker. He had been in Kien's condo, he had shown up when the joker in the jar started screaming. How'd he trace her here? She glanced at Gruber's corpse. Gruber was a possibility, but she'd never be able to ask him if he'd turned her in. But how would he have known she'd stolen the stuff from Kien?

This was no time to worry about it. The men with the reptiloid had just about convinced themselves to tackle her. They approached her slowly, pistols out, while the joker stood by watching.

Jennifer ghosted.

She stepped out of her clothes, conserving only the bikini that she normally wore and the small bag that had the books in it. She glanced back over her shoulder as she stepped through a shelf crammed with hocked junk. The two norms stared at her with open mouths, the joker cursed with a hissing sibilance.

She kept going through the shelves, the wall, and the alley between the pawnshop and the next building, leaving the men far behind. She caught her breath, metaphorically, and then solidified. She was in the clothing store.

She grabbed a pair of jeans, a blouse, and sneakers, threw them on, stopped to take two twenties from her bag and put them into the cash register, and then fled through the front door.

Kien's men were nowhere in sight. They were, she suspected, baffled by her disappearance, but she couldn't count on their bewilderment to last for very long.

She looked down the street. To the right was Ebbets Field, still filling with baseball fans. To the left was Prospect Park with an inviting offer of greenery and isolation. Somehow, though, she felt like being around other people. She'd be safe around people. No one could try to kill her. She'd have time to think things out.

She ran down the street and joined the end of the line filing into the stadium just as Kien's men came around the far end of the block, shaking their heads in exasperated anger.

They crowded into Hiram's office, all of them. The cleaning crew, the dishwashers, the kitchen staff, even the electrician who'd come up to fix the faulty wiring in one of the chandeliers. They sat in the chairs, on the floor, on the desk and cabinets. Many stood. No one said a word. Even Paul LeBarre was silent. All eyes were on the television. Geraldo Rivera was interviewing one of the Howler's sisters. Hiram hadn't known the Howler had a sister. It turned out he had four of them.

It was like the day Kennedy had been shot, he thought, or the Day of the Wild Card, the first one, forty years ago, when Jetboy had died and the world had changed forever.

The newscast cut to a police press conference. Hiram listened, and felt sick.

"Jesus." That was Peter Chou, the slim quiet man who was in charge of Aces High security, Peter who collected depression glass and black belts in assorted martial arts, and who never raised his voice or used