This time, though, he would use the one commodity that might purchase his freedom.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"I need to talk to Brandon van Renssaeler."
"Who is this calling, please?"
"Tell him.... Hell, tell him it's Sirhan Sirhan."
"Sirhan - ? Who - ?"
"Just tell him. Please."
Gregg drummed several of his feet on the telephone stand next to the couch. He kept his eye on the door, ready to bolt for the open window if he heard anything. Luckily for Gregg, it seemed that a whole slew of people in upper floor apartments didn't expect burglars to climb sheer walls.
"This is Brandon van Renssaeler," the phone squawked tinnily on the table. Gregg leaned down toward it. "Who the hell is this?"
"Gregg Hartmann."
The retort came a breath too late. "Gregg Hartmann is dead, and you're a sick person, whoever you are."
"If you really believed that, you'd have already hung up, Brandon. Come on, my friend, we've known each other for years. You want details about you that only I could know? I can give them to you. But I'm sure your Shark friends have already given you my new description. After all, this was Battle's body first."
"Listen, I don't know who you are or what you're talking about, but I can't talk to you right now. If you'd like to come to the office ..."
"Not a chance, Brandon. Remember, I'm wanted for Pan's murder - but it wasn't Pan, was it? The real Pan has a nice shiny new body, just like Durand and Faneuil. Well, I want one too."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Pan Rudo is dead."
"Just shut up and listen. We've both been involved in politics, so we know about compromises. Your little group's on the run, but you've managed a few victories lately; in fact, things are swinging your way again, and the last thing you want is to lose the momentum. The nat public's tired of the violence, and they're willing to make the jokers scapegoats if that means an end to it - I saw in the paper where Barnett has a new anti-joker bill on his desk for signing. Right now the person who's the main thorn in your side is Hannah Davis. The publicity Hannah and her group are getting is the only thing keeping Congress from passing the full-blown Quarantine Regulations. You took me out, but Hannah hasn't eased off the pressure on you, and I know the woman well enough to know that she's not ever going to do that."
Gregg paused, taking a breath and hating himself. Brandon didn't interrupt. Gregg could hear the man's breath, waiting. "She wouldn't, but I would," Gregg said at last.
"What do you mean?"
"You're interested now, aren't you? Look at it from my perspective. The truth is that I was never involved in this because of any moral conviction or idealism. This never was my fight. Right now I'm stuck in a joker's body and, frankly, I don't like it. I want to be normal. How's this for a proposition? Let's play your game once again: you jump me into Hannah's body and Hannah into this one; let her take the rap for Rudo. Maybe she'll even get killed resisting arrest, right? As Hannah, I can finish the job you people started with my old body - confess that poor murdered Gregg Hartmann was right, that the evidence was manufactured and the whole Shark conspiracy was a fraud. Once that's over, you can jump me into a new body of my choice and we'll call it even."
Silence.
"Brandon? Jesus Christ, Brandon, have some compassion. We're friends, remember? I don't care any more about the Sharks or Hannah or any of it. I just don't want to be a goddamn freak." Gregg could hear his voice break with the word, almost a sob. He took a deep breath.
"This ... this isn't a decision I can make on my own."
"I didn't figure it was."
"How can I get in touch with you?"
"You can't." The feeling of hunger was washing over Gregg again. The metal table lamp smelled positively luscious. "Brandon - don't fuck this up. If I want, I can blow the Sharks entirely out of the water with everything I know. I've got absolutely nothing to lose. I'll turn myself in publicly and loudly, and eventually the truth will come out - all of it, Brandon, including stuff you'd rather no one knew. You don't want that - and I don't want to be a joker the rest of my life. Let's work together. I'll call you. Tomorrow at four."
"That's too soon. I ... I need at least two weeks. There's people I need to get in touch with, and they're ... hard to contact."
Gregg sighed. He had to find Hannah, somehow, in any case. That would take time. "Two weeks then," Gregg said. "You'll hear from me."
Gregg hung up before van Renssaeler could reply.
You're vile, Greggie. You're soiled beyond redemption.
Gregg waited for the voice, but the accusation never came. He told himself that he should be happy - he was free, free to do whatever he wanted or needed to do, free for the first time since he'd been infected with the virus. There was no Puppetman to foul him up with its demands, no Jiminy Cricket to nag at him from the other side. Gregg was on his own, he was whole. He could do whatever was needed and nothing, nothing inside him would disagree.
Gregg sat in the dark for an hour wondering why he felt so fucking miserable.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
There was only one problem: finding Hannah.
At one time, Gregg would have known exactly where to start. There had been one person who knew everything that happened in Jokertown, and who would sell that information for the right price: Chrysalis. But Chrysalis was long dead, and the person who had inherited her mantle - Charles Dutton - wasn't someone Gregg felt comfortable approaching. He had no leverage with Dutton.
So there had to be another way to approach it.
Luckily, the sewers went everywhere....
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Evan, so good to see you. It's been quite a while." Dutton's low tones echoed in the still hall of the Museum. From Gregg's refuge in one of the Turtle's old shells, hung high above the main gallery, the voice sounded sepulchral and ghostly - perfect for this place filled with the ghosts and shadows of Jokertown's past
"Patti's been dominant for awhile. I've been ... tired. I don't think I'll last that long, but I thought I'd get back to work on the church fire diorama while I could."
Gregg peered through one of the holes in the shell. In his fuzzy vision, he could see the Oddity's bulk, in its usual floor-length cape. Dutton's skull-like visage was just below.
It had taken more than two weeks. He'd found the main sewer lines into the Dime Museum, wriggling up through the fragrant miasma into the basement of the building. The museum, with its ornate displays and labyrinthian rooms, had afforded as many hiding places as he needed. Each night, as Dutton was busy closing the halls above, Gregg would enter. He'd overheard dozens of Dutton's private phone calls in his office, late at night after the museum had closed, but none of them had revealed anything. He'd looked through the man's papers on the rare occasions that Dutton left the museum; none of them were more than routine. He supposed that he could have melted the locks on the desk or the office safe to see what was inside, but that would have revealed his presence, and the odds seemed against the careful Dutton having anything there, either. The man had visitors - some of the visitors and their concerns quite surprising to Gregg - but the snatches of conversation he'd heard from them had also afforded nothing useful. One night there was a meeting of local jokers headed by someone called Hotair, where there'd been extensive discussion about Jokertown affairs. While Hannah and Father Squid's names came up more than once, no one gave any clue as to where they might be hidden.