"I didn't know waxworks could move," Jay said.

"We've been moving away from wax on the animated exhibits," Dutton said. "Sayyid is three-quarters plastic."

"Doesn't he crush those other figures?"

"He never hits the ground," Dutton said. "The children love it. They all squeeze their little fists, pretending to be aces."

"Hiram will be so thrilled," Jay said dryly. "Come, let me give you the tour," Dutton said.

"Only if we skip the Monstrous Joker Babies," Jay said. "I got enough problems without running into them again." Dutton laughed, and escorted him through a maze of dim-lit corridors where heroes and villains of years gone by watched from the shadows. They passed Jetboy, the Four Aces, the Lizard King. Hardhat and the Radical stood locked in eternal combat, while a squad from the joker Brigade stood off Charlie in some hellforsaken part of Nam. In the Hall of Infamy, the Astronomer hung from a wall, embedded in the brick with only his face and hands visible. The mortar had turned red with his blood. Nearby Gary Gilmore stood surrounded by pillars of salt, and Gimli exhorted a maddened crowd with upraised fist. The dwarfs glass eyes seemed to follow them.

"Great waxwork," Jay said. "Looks real."

"It is," Dutton said. "Gimli's empty skin was found in an alley not far from here. There was no family, so we, ah, acquired the remains."

Jay gave him a look. "You stuffed him." He'd heard that story on the streets somewhere, but somehow he'd forgotten. Dutton cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. He has been quite a popular attraction."

"I think I've seen enough," Jay told him.

"Fine." Dutton took him across a cavernous hall where the Turtle's old shells hung suspended from the ceiling. The adjoining gallery was still under construction. Dutton guided Jay through the tangle of ladders, tarps, and sawhorses to a snack-room square in the center of the building. He turned on the lights and stood in front of a bank of vending machines. "Would you prefer coffee or a soft drink?" he asked.

It was chilly in here, Jay realized suddenly. They must use the air-conditioning even at night on account of the waxworks. "Coffee would be real good," he admitted.

Dutton fed quarters into the coffee machine and came to the table with two cardboard cups. He gave one to Jay. They sat. "So what do you think of my little museum now?"

"Museums are like graveyards," Jay said. "Full of dead things. Dead things depress me."

"The Famous Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum jokertown institution."

Jay blew on his coffee. "The Palace is an institution, too."

"Yes," Dutton said. "Of a different sort."

"And now you own it, too."

"Under the terms of our partnership agreement, the surviving partner assumes full ownership of the Crystal Palace, yes."

"That why you had her killed?" Jay suggested casually.

Dreams came again, but this time they were vague, formless things that chased Brennan through a cloying mist as he tried to find his way back to a home that didn't exist. The landscape was silent but for the unknowable twitterings of the things chasing him; then he heard someone softly, but insistently, calling his name. It was a woman's voice. It was Jennifer.

He felt her cool hands on his face, and she was kneeling before him. She was dressed in a bathing suit this time, and she was softly saying his name over and over again. He tried to reach out to her, but he was still tied to his chair. She reached out and touched his bonds, and they dissolved. He tumbled forward. She broke his fall and they both landed on the floor, Brennan on top.

She was beautiful. He kissed her for a long, long moment, but then she squirmed away.

"We have to get away, Daniel, we have to get out of here before they come back."

Brennan nodded. "We will," he said, "we will," and tried to kiss her again.

She pushed him away. He fell off her to the floor and looked at her with hurt in his eyes. "Just like my other dream," he said, and had an overwhelming urge to cry.

"This isn't a dream," Jennifer said firmly, but lowly. "This is real."

She grabbed Brennan's hand and held it. Her hands were warm and solid. Brennan reached out and touched her face.

"You are real," Brennan said wonderingly.

"I am." She stood, and pulled on Brennan's arm.

He tried to stand too, and immediately was struck by an intense attack of vertigo. He leaned on Jennifer, who staggered, but started him shuffling toward the door.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Rescuing you. No time to talk now."

Brennan's bow and quiver was by the door, as were assorted knives and other items Quincey had taken from him. They stopped to pick up the bow and quiver, but there was no time for anything else.

It was dark outside. Brennan wondered foggily how long he'd been unconscious. They just managed to stumble behind a tall, thick hedge when they saw Fadeout enter the front door accompanied by a brace of Werewolves. Brennan took a deep breath. The night air seemed to help revive him, or perhaps the drugs had simply worked through his system. He followed Jennifer under his own power through the garden. They were past the lawn and into the trees before they heard an alarm raised back at the house.

"My car's this way," Brennan said. "I know. I'm parked next to it."

"How did you find me?" Brennan asked.

Jennifer glanced at him as they made their way through the trees, their path lit by the light of a nearly full moon. "It took some doing. I spent a good part of yesterday and most of today looking through your old haunts, and finally tracked you down to the hotel. But you were gone, of course, and I'd never have found you if it hadn't been for the phone call."

"Phone call?"

"Yes. She said you were here, that you'd been captured." They broke out of the trees to the roadside. Brennan's keys were gone, so they piled into Jennifer's car and roared off down the road with Jennifer behind the wheel.

Brennan ran through a breathing exercise, trying to clear his head. Jennifer kept her eyes on the road, occasionally glancing at him.

"The funny thing," she said, "about the phone call." She fell silent and glanced at Brennan again. "Yes?" he prompted.

"I could swear that it was Chrysalis on the other end of the line."

Brennan slumped back in the car seat. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to Jennifer, but he couldn't speak. His head whirled with her revelations and the aftereffects of the drugs Quincey had pumped into his system. Something was wrong here, very wrong, and there was perhaps only one person who could set them straight, only one person who would know for certain if it was Chrysalis's shattered body that'd been found in her office.

The man who had discovered it.

Dutton sipped from his cardboard cup very calmly. "Would you prefer that I spill my coffee in shock or just quietly turn pale with guilt?"

"Either one, just so you confess," Jay said, "I'm not fussy."

"Assuming that I was guilty, isn't it a bit naive to expect that I'd own up the moment I'm accused?"

"Hey, it always works for Perry Mason," Jay said. "You can't blame a guy for trying."

Dutton put down the coffee, took off his cloak, and draped it over the back of a chair. Beneath the banks of fluorescent light, his skin was a ghastly shade of yellow, here and there mottled with dry, dead patches of brown. "I happen to look like the popular image of the grim reaper," the joker said. "Sometimes that causes people to make unfortunate assumptions about me. I did not kill Chrysalis."

"Not personally," Jay said, "but you had the bucks to hire it done. And you had the motive."

"Did I?" Dutton seemed amused. "The land on which the Palace stands is worth quite a bit, agreed. The saloon itself is a good tax loss. I may keep it open and I may not, but I'd hardly kill for it."