“I know that voice,” J.B. said.
Ryan nodded. “I do, too.”
“Remember Handsome Wyatt?” the Armorer asked.
Below, clowns with green-and-red wigs hopped out of the circus wag and began to open crates on the sides of the vehicle. Inside the crates were metal cages containing live muties. The side Ryan could see held five of the creatures. One of them was She-She, the two-headed woman. The second head lay behind the first, not really a head at all, but some kind of spongy growth that possessed eyes and a mouth, and the same blond hair the mutie woman had on her real head. She was old and nearly naked, with running sores all over her body. She sat placid and docile, spittle running down both sides of her mouth as she ignored all the activity going on around her.
“Yeah, I remember Handsome Wyatt.” Ryan stopped looking at the muties. They were there to draw attention away from the circus wag. He already spotted movement through the thick armaglass. “I cut off his left thumb for stealing gas from War Wag One.”
Handsome Wyatt had ridden with the Trader for a while before Ryan and J.B. had signed on. The man hadn’t lasted long after Ryan came aboard and discovered the man had been siphoning gas from the Trader’s wags for personal profit. The Trader had been lenient the day Wyatt had been caught, and Ryan had only taken a thumb from the man instead of his life.
“Well,” the Armorer said, “this looks like something Handsome Wyatt would come up with.”
Stories had traveled with and to War Wag One in those days. The Trader was known to pay for stories that he considered investments. Some of those stories had always been about members who had drifted onto the crew of War Wag One, then drifted out. Trader’s family had spread out, and people were always eager for news.
“You figure he brought his act back closer to home?” Ryan asked.
“That’s his voice,” J.B. said, “and that’s an ace on the line.”
“If he finds out you and I are here,” Ryan said, “he’ll chill us as soon as he can put a gun sight on us.”
“Yeah.” J.B. turned to Ryan and cleaned his glasses on his shirt. He smiled coldly. “Could be this party is going to be even bigger than we thought.”
“He’s got at least five other wags waiting out in the brush,” Ryan observed.
“Play our cards right,” J.B. said. “We wait, see what happens, and mebbe he won’t miss one during the confusion. He doesn’t know how this hotel is about to come apart.”
“Or mebbe you aren’t interested in what ol’ Uncle Joe has for you because you’ve got your own act going on,” the voice thundered from the PA system. “I see a man in a glass cage out in the middle of the street in this ville, and that’s something you don’t see every day, either.”
The clowns continued unveiling cages, stripping canvas from some that held hideously malformed animals. The sec force working Hazard started to spread out, getting into position.
“If either one of those sides get overly ready, it’s going to make things more difficult for us,” Ryan said.
J.B. nodded.
Ryan lifted the Steyr. “So let’s open the ball for them. I’ve got the clowns.”
“Leaves me the Hazard sec teams.” J.B. took up the Uzi and leaned out over the rooftop.
“Now!” Ryan said. He squeezed the trigger.
The bullet caught a clown full in his greasepaint-coated face, turning it from white to red in a heartbeat. As the body arced backward, thrown by the force of the round, Ryan settled the crosshairs on another target. He fired again, catching the second man in the shoulder as he turned.
The rest of the clowns pulled blasters and took cover around the circus wag. The top of the wag popped up, and a man flipped an M-60 machine gun out on a tripod.
“They come carrying heavy,” J.B. commented.
Ryan nodded. He glanced at the line of sec men the Armorer had blasted. Four of them were down in the streets, and only one of those was still alive.