"Wildcards - 07 - Dead Mans Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

and a half ago when they'd faced off in the darkened taproom of the Palace. She
was always a master of understatement. "I remember," he said.
"Why, there hasn't been a new bow-and-arrow killing in more than a year," Mo
said. "You really think he's the one?"
"I hope not," Jay said. Yeoman had entered the taproom silent as smoke, and
before anyone even noticed him, he'd had a hunting arrow notched and ready. But
Hiram Worchester had stepped in the way in righteous indignation, and Jay had
gotten the drop on the guy. Suddenly Yeoman was gone in a pop of in-rushing air.
Jay Ackroyd was a projecting teleport. When his right hand made a gun, he could
pop his targets anyplace he knew well enough to visualize.
Only he'd sent that fucker Yeoman to the wrong damn place. "I had the
sonofabitch dead to rights, Joe," he said. "I could have popped him right into
the Tombs. Instead I sent him to the middle of the Holland Tunnel, God knows
why." Something about his tone when he'd replied to Chrysalis, maybe, or the
loathing in his eyes when he glanced toward Wyrm, or maybe the fact that he'd
had the decency to hesitate when Hiram stepped forward and blocked his shot. Or
it could have been the girl he had with him, the masked blonde in the string
bikini who seemed so fresh and innocent.
It hadn't been what you call a deliberate, conscious decision; a lot of the time
Jay just went on gut instinct. But if he'd been wrong that night, then Chrysalis
had paid for it with her life. "I really need to see that file," he said.
Joe Mo made a sad little clucking sound. "Why, that file's up on the captain's
desk; Jay. She sent down for it right away, soon as the squeal came in. Of
course, I made a xerox before I sent it up. It always pays to make a xerox.
Sometimes things get misplaced, and you don't want to lose any valuable
documents." He blinked slowly, looked around. "Now where did I put that? It's a
wonder I ever find anything, with my eyes."
The copies were on top of the xerox machine. Jay riffled through the folder,
rolled up the papers and slid them under his blazer, replaced them with two
twenties. "I'm sure you'll sniff them out," he said.
"If not," Joe said, with a wide pink smile, "I can always wait till the captain
returns the originals, and xerox another set." He busied himself with some
filing, but when Jay opened the door to leave, he called out quietly,
"Popinjay." Jay looked back. "What?"
"Find the bastard," Joe Mo said. He took off his tinted specs, and his pale pink
eyes implored. "All of us will help," he promised, and Jay knew he wasn't
talking about the police.
As he drove down Route 17, alone, Brennan was already missing Jennifer. He
couldn't blame her for not accompanying him on a quest to find Chrysalis's
murderer. And it didn't help any that she'd been right. They had a quiet,
beautiful life. Why was he so ready to return to the death waiting him in the
city?
It wasn't, Brennan knew, because he enjoyed the killing and the violence. He'd
rather build a garden than dodge bullets in a stinking, garbage-choked alley. It
all came down to what Jennifer had said about letting things go. He just
couldn't get Chrysalis out of his mind. He didn't think of her often. He was too
satisfied with his life with Jennifer to dwell morbidly on what might have been
with another woman.
But sometimes at night he'd lie awake with Jennifer asleep beside him and
remember the crystal lady. He'd remember her invisible flesh flushed to a