Dead Mans Hand

9:00 A.M.

Brennan entered the church and watched Quasiman for a few minutes as he washed the stained-glass window that depicted the passion of Jesus Christ, Joker.

"Hello." The joker greeted Brennan cordially as Brennan approached, setting the butt of his long-handled squeegee on the floor and leaning on it as if it were a spear.

"I have to see Father Squid," Brennan said.

Quasiman dropped the squeegee as the hand holding it suddenly vanished. He calmly looked down to where it had been, as if this were something he was used to. After a moment Brennan felt a blast of cold air and caught a whiff of an unbearable stench and Quasiman's hand was back. He leaned over and picked up the squeegee.

"He's meditating in the chancellery," Quasiman said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

Brennan nodded. "I know the way." He moved to go by, but the joker laid a hand on his forearm. It was still as cold as ice, but Quasiman either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Do you know who did it yet?" he asked. Brennan shook his head.

"Then you still may need me?"

"Quite possibly."

Quasiman let go of Brennan's arm. "I'll be ready," he said, then added, "I hope."

I hope so, too, Brennan thought, but only nodded and went past.

In the chancellery Father Squid was in his favorite meditative posture.

"Hello, Sergeant."

The priest started. His eyes snapped open and he looked up at Brennan. He smiled slightly, quivering the tendrils that hung down over his mouth.

"I could never have snuck up on you like that in the old days," Brennan said, sitting down across the desk from the priest.

Father Squid nodded from the comfortable chair where he'd been dozing. "I'm older than I was in the old days. I also sleep a lot better."

Brennan smiled, though there was little humor in his expression. "I did, too, for a while."

"Why don't you give it up and try to find the peace I have?"

"I tried," Brennan said. "I even joined a monastery for a while. A Zen monastery" He smiled at the look of astonishment on the priest's face. "But I was never one of the better students. Violence follows me like an unwelcome shadow. I rarely seek it out, Father, but it finds me wherever I hide."

"So we're back to `Father,' are we?"

Brennan shrugged. "Whatever you prefer. How many times did you make sergeant, anyway?"

Father Squid smiled. "Four times."

"And you were busted back to private each time."

"Well, I wasn't one for following the rules back then."

"Sometimes you had cause not to," Brennan said. "The Joker Brigade was just an excuse to kill off as many of you as possible."

"Maybe. But there were some good soldiers in it." Father Squid smiled at Brennan. "And some of the units we served with weren't so bad. You never cared if a man had feathers, fur, or hair, or whether he had tentacles on his face and rows of suckers on his hands."

"We were brothers-in-arms," Brennan said softly. "That was all that mattered."

They looked at each other for a long moment, reliving memories of fifteen years gone by.

"What did you do after the war?" Brennan finally asked. "Not much that I'm proud of. I sold my services for a while. But everywhere I went, as bad as it was in the joker Brigade, as bad as Jokertown was back home, I found that jokers were generally treated worse outside America." He shrugged massive shoulders. "I tried to do something about it for a while, but I fear I actually did more harm than good."

"I heard once," Brennan said, "that a man called Squidface ran with the Black Dog. I wondered if it was you."

"It was," the priest said heavily. "And much do I regret those days. Never will I be able to do enough penance to cleanse my soul of the horror of the things I did in the name of my people."

"Everyone makes mistakes," Brennan said quietly. "The bad forget them. The good try to make up for them."

"Well," the priest said, his nictitating membranes working quickly, "I'm the one who should be offering spiritual comfort, my son."

Brennan smiled. "Unlike you, I'm afraid that I may be beyond redemption. I could use your help with something else, though."

"The murder."

Brennan nodded. "I've hit a dead end. I've run out of clues and have no one to turn to. I realized last night that you were Chrysalis's confidant, maybe even her confessor. I remembered the bequest she'd left you, and some whispers I'd heard about her secret files."

Father Squid shook his head. "Her bequest was merely a suitcase full of money that she'd stashed away if she ever had to flee the city on short notice. It will do much to aid the poor of my parish, but little, I fear, to help track down her killer."

Brennan grimaced. "Then she never told you anything that might have a bearing on her death?"

"If she did, it was in the sanctity of Confession and is an unshakable confidence that can never be broken."

"Even if her murderer goes free?"

The priest sighed heavily. "Even if her murderer goes free."

Brennan stood, looked steadily at the priest. "You have changed," he said. "Sergeant Squidface knew when justice and honor took precedence over a rigid system of rules."

"Sometimes, Captain, I despair of my soul. Sometimes I fear I am as poor a priest as you claim to have been a student of Zen."

Brennan suddenly smiled. "Sometimes, Bob, I think we're both guilty of slinging our share of bullshit."

The priest's tentacles shook with laughter. "You are correct," he said. "Well-Chrysalis did tell me things in the sanctity of the confessional that I cannot reveal to you. But I can tell you that you are overlooking a source of information." He paused dramatically. "Her neighbors, Daniel," Father Squid said. "Her downstairs neighbors."

Brennan's expression was puzzled as Father Squid rose ponderously to his feet.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to prepare for the ten o'clock Mass."