Behind Peter Jennings, one of Gregg's old publicity photos smiled blandly back at him. "Ex-Senator Hartmann had created an uproar with his press conference only yesterday, in which he denounced the conspiracy he himself had publicized on Peregrine's Perch, the so-called "Card Sharks' group ..."
A short clip of the press conference was shown. In a quick sound bite, Gregg watched "himself" state haltingly that the Card Sharks "... never existed, except in the minds of a small number of deluded people."
The report cut back to Jennings. "Reports that several masked persons were seen going into the Senator's apartment have not been verified. Given that Mr. Hartmann refuted his own part in the Card Shark speculation, it would seem counter-productive for a true Sharks organization to assassinate him. There is speculation that jokers angry with Hartmann's reversal of stance may instead be responsible, but we stress that, right now, nothing is certain beyond the fact that our country has lost one of its more colorful and controversial political figures."
Gregg felt sick. He reeled away from the display, nearly falling off the curb. His body heaved, a rippling spasm. Something sour and huge choked him; Gregg coughed and spat. A hard spheroid of brown, crusty stuff rolled off the curb and into the gutter.
He had no idea what it was.
He had no idea who he was.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Oddity!"
Gregg had caught a glimpse of the figure in the Jokertown alleyway, a darker shadow against the night. Gregg hurried across the street toward Oddity, who had stopped. Gregg could smell the three distinct odors under the ankle-length cloak, but the eyes behind the mesh of the fencing mask were lost in his fuzzy sight. "I have to see Father Squid and Hannah," he said. "They jumped me. I don't know who was in my body when it was killed, but it wasn't me. I'm Gregg. Gregg Hartmann!"
"I know who you are. I also know that the jumpers are dead, Battle," Oddity said. John's voice - that was hardly comforting; John had been Puppetman's favorite, but he was the least pleasant of the trio. "Bloat's dead. Hartmann's dead. Too many damn people are dead. Keep bothering me, and you might be, too. I don't know what kind of shit you're trying to pull with this, but it isn't going to work."
"Please!" Gregg lifted up on his hind legs like a begging dog, clutching at Oddity's cloak with his clumsy fingers. "I can prove who I am if you'll give me a chance. I have to see Hannah!"
"Get off me!" Oddity kicked Gregg away. The joker's powerful muscles tossed Gregg halfway across the alley. He hit the ground hard. He felt the unbidden reflexes kick in once more - a roar in his head as adrenaline flooded the body, as the world seemed to go into slow motion around him. Suddenly he was tearing around at full throttle like the Roadrunner with Wile E. Coyote right behind him: across the street and back, darting between the jokers on the sidewalks, back into the alley at top speed, up the side walls, leaping a dozen feet in the air, caroming off garbage cans and fire escapes. "Jesus, the little sucker can sure move," he heard Oddity say, and then Gregg was streaking off again, back out into the Jokertown streets.
When the buzz wore off and Gregg was able to control the body once more, he was six blocks away. When he finally got back to the alley, Oddity was gone.
Gregg was hungry, too. Considering the cranked-up metabolism this body possessed in stress situations, Gregg wasn't surprised. In fact, something in the alley smelled ... good. Gregg sniffed, unbelieving. Yes, the garbage can there by the wall - not the noisome contents, but the can itself. His joker body was salivating, and an odd pressure was building up somewhere in his gut. Gregg opened his mouth as if to belch - he was surprised when a liquid glob the size of a softball jetted out. The odd stuff clung to the side of the garbage can like transparent jelly.
And the aluminum can melted around it like candlewax. The resulting metallic pabulum smelled delicious, and the ache of hunger surged. Gregg glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and dipped his head to lap the steaming goo tentatively.
Hiram Worchester had never made a better meal.
Great, he thought. I eat my own vomit. And I like it.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
His apartment was a lost cause; Gregg didn't even consider going there. He tried his office and couldn't get into the building. The doors were locked and probably would have been too heavy for him to budge even if they'd been open. He couldn't reach the public telephones to call anyone, not that it mattered since he didn't have a quarter and no one would have recognized his voice anyway. The constant police patrols around J-Town were looking at him strangely.
"Hey, Battle!" one of the cops called once, leaning out of the car. The face under the NYPD visor looked like crumpled parchment paper. "What the hell you doing in J-Town?" Gregg didn't answer, and the cop finally shrugged and gunned the cruiser on past.
Hannah and Father Squid had gone into hiding again in the wake of "his" murder - a priest he didn't recognize answered the door and would tell Gregg only that Father Squid had gone to a "conference" until the weekend. He couldn't find Oddity again or Jube or anyone else who might be of help.
He wanted to shout to whatever god would listen that he was very, very sorry for everything he'd ever done and while this was wonderfully appropriate penance he'd learned his lesson and could he please, please be just a normal person again. He'd never misuse the Gift again. Never ever. No one seemed to be listening. Gregg decided that he had no choice. After all, Hannah, Father Squid, Peregrine - none of them could really help him. He'd been jumped out of his body. His own body was dead, but there was a way to get a new one. He needed a jumper. The Sharks had a jumper. So Gregg needed to go to the Sharks.
Feeding Frenzy
2
Shad's wiretap of Herzenhagen's phone got him precisely nowhere, so he got on the motorbike he'd bought that morning and followed Herzenhagen's Jaguar to his club. He returned to his apartment long enough to pick up another wiretap kit and his phone company uniform. Then he stole a phone company van he found double-parked, drove it to Herzenhagen's club, and tapped the phone. He abandoned the van, changed and went up the building across the street.
Most of what he heard was junk. He had to keep switching from one line to another in order to monitor all the calls. But finally he heard the one he was waiting for.
"Philip von Herzenhagen, please."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"The Quarantine Bill is stuck in conference committee," Senator Flynn said. "President Barnett could resolve the whole thing with a few phone calls, but he's not making them."
Herzenhagen adjusted the receiver to his ear. "What's giving him cold feet?"
Flynn was Gregg Hartmann's successor as chairman of SCARE, the Senate Committee for Ace Resources and Endeavors. It had taken the Sharks years to get him in place. "He's getting information from somewhere else. My guess is that it's the Vice President's office."
"Zappa."
"Yeah, Zappa." The Oklahoma accent dripped with scorn.
Inchoate anger flailed in Herzenhagen's head. He'd made General Frank Zappa, Jr. Recommended him for the job of destroying the Rox, introduced him to the old political hands who promoted his memoirs and built him into a candidate.
Damn it. Zappa's father had died of the wild card. Zappa had fought with the Joker Brigade in Vietnam - he had to have known what a menace they were. And he'd made his reputation fighting jokers on the Rox.