Gregg had already decided to give this up if he heard nothing by the weekend. But Dutton's next words caused Gregg to lean forward in the shell.
"How are our friends?" Dutton asked. "Holding up well, I hope."
"As well as can be expected. I think they're all going a little stir crazy. Father Squid's about ready to go back, at least. That's a small house, after all, and Father Squid says he's getting tired of the sirens at all hours...."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Hannah, you've got to get over this. Hartmann was a goddamn jerk. He betrayed you. Betrayed all of us. He always was a fuck-up, and he didn't deserve what you gave him."
The words hurt. Gregg felt a shiver run through him in the darkness.
He was hanging upside down, an overgrown caterpillar hunched under the eaves of the tiny four-room house across the street from the Jokertown district fire station. It had taken him several days to find the place, checking smaller homes located near the Jokertown Clinic, St. Elizabeth Hospital, Fort Freak - the Jokertown police precinct, and - finally - the fire house. The Oddity was in the room with Hannah; the voice carrying through the screened window was John's, bitter and eternally angry. Gregg couldn't see much, but he could smell Hannah's perfume.
"John, I don't need to hear this again. Please." The familiar voice, touched with a tired huskiness and so close to the screen, almost caused Gregg to lose his grip on the slick painted wood of the eaves.
"You do need to hear it, Hannah. I'm sorry, but you don't realize how much of an effect you have on our fight. Without you, we're just a bunch of pitiful freaks howling about how oppressed we are. You're our voice, and it's been too damn silent since Hartmann sold us out, since he - " The Oddity's voice broke off.
"Since he was murdered," Hannah finished for him. "And without Gregg, my voice is being portrayed as that of a paranoid, silly woman, and things are getting worse every day. Death and violence are the only things I seem to be good at bringing out. I'm not effective, I'm not ..." Gregg heard her exhale in disgust. He could imagine her arm swinging wide in frustration, her hair swirling with the motion. "Damn it. Damn it!"
"Hannah ..."
Gregg heard the rustling of cloth as Oddity moved. The voice had changed timbre - John had given way to Patti. Even the scent of the triad joker had changed. "Hannah, I'm so sorry. John ... John just says things. Sometimes he doesn't think about other people's feelings. I wish I could help you - I can see how much it hurts."
Hannah's voice was muffled through Oddity's cloak. "I fell in love with him, Patti. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. And Gregg returned my love - I know that. I'm sure of it. I just want to understand what happened. There had to be a reason, had to be something. He wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't see me - all of a sudden. Then that damn press conference, and the next night..."
Hannah was silent for a long time. Gregg wondered whether they'd left the room. He relaxed the fingers on his front two hands until the sucking pads released and let his head swing down a few inches. He could see the bulk of Oddity and the back of Hannah's head as she hugged the joker.
"Something happened to him," Hannah's voice said at last. "I can't ... I don't believe Gregg would just turn like that. Not against us. Not against me." More quiet, then: "God, I hate it when I cry like this."
"It's okay, Hannah. It's okay...."
This was perfect. Better than he'd hoped. Gregg's initial plan had been, well, fuzzy. When he'd called Brandon back to tell him he'd located Hannah, they had set up a tentative rendezvous and a time. Brandon had been insistent that only Gregg and Hannah were to meet him there. Somehow, Gregg needed to get Hannah alone and convince her to follow him.
He'd thought to sneak into Hannah's room and present himself as Battle. He'd tell her that since he'd become a joker himself, he'd had a change of heart. Somehow, he'd convince her that it was in her best interests to follow him - alone - and he'd lead her to the rendezvous.
The problem was that he knew Hannah wasn't that gullible. She'd suspect Battle would be leading her into exactly the kind of trap Gregg had set, and he no longer had the Gift to help persuade her. He figured he had at best a fifty-fifty chance of his plan actually working, but it had been the only ruse available to him.
But Hannah had unwittingly given him the edge he needed. Now he knew how to get to her.
All he had to do was tell her the truth.
He was Hartmann. He'd been jumped. It hadn't been him who betrayed them, but someone else - probably Battle himself. It had been someone else - probably not Battle, Gregg suspected, but some other poor dupe whose body Battle now inhabited - who had been killed. Only you can help me, Hannah....
She'd be skeptical, but he could convince her. She wanted to believe, after all. She loved him.
It was all there for him.
Except ...
He couldn't do it.
The sickness and self-disgust he'd been feeling since he talked with Brandon welled up in him at the thought, and Gregg knew that he'd never find peace again if he went through with this. He didn't need his inner voice to tell him that. He was whole - and there was suddenly no place to shovel the mental shit, no false personality construct to blame for his actions.
There was only himself in his head.
Gregg Hartmann, you've gone soft, he told himself wonderingly.
Glancing back once into the room, where Hannah clung to the comforting Oddity, Gregg let himself drop to the ground. He padded away, the sound of his passage no louder than the wind.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Brandon?"
Gregg's piccolo voice awakened a few echoes in the warehouse near the East River. The rear doors had been open, just like Brandon had promised. Gregg could smell rat droppings, the papery scent of old packing cartons, the smeared oil on the concrete floor, the gritty residue of ancient machine tool shavings, all overlaid with the strong salty brine of the East River. But he couldn't see anything; all the details were lost in darkness and myopic blur.
"Brandon, it's Gregg Hartmann." Gregg sniffed again. Yes, there was someone here. He could smell perspiration, and a man's cologne....
The rustle above warned him too late. The weighted net draped over him with a soft thunk. His body went into overdrive, but all that did was tangle him more tightly in the coarse strands. He threw up on the netting, but it didn't dissolve - he could melt metal, but it looked like other materials were impervious.
Gregg heard people shouting, saw the lights come on, and when he managed to bring himself back into normal time again, someone he didn't recognize - young, strawberry blond, blue-eyed - was leaning over him, looking down at him with a strange mixture of curiosity and revulsion. Four other burly types were stationed around the net. One of them was familiar: General MacArthur Johnson.
"What's going on?" Gregg asked Johnson. "Where's Brandon?"
Johnson just grinned at him, the smile bright in the dark face. It was Mr. Aryan who answered. "He's not here," the man said. "You see, someone who sounded just like you called him about an hour ago and told him that the deal was off. Really, Gregg my old friend, when you kill someone, you should make sure that it's really the person you're after."
Something in the inflection, in the way the words were phrased, set off alarms in Gregg's mind. "Pan - " he breathed, and the man smiled.
"So you've guessed. You always were a clever man, Gregg. Where's the Davis woman?" Rudo was dressed in an expensive double-breasted silk suit - rather old-fashioned for his new body. Gregg wondered how joker vomit would look on the lapels - it wouldn't hurt Rudo, but it sure as hell wouldn't smell good.