Ace In The Hole wc-6 Read online

"Late night. We had that challenge to Rule 9(c) governing the apportioning of delegates formerly committed-"

  "Jack, spare me the tedious details. Did we win or not?"

  "Yes, thanks to me, which set us up to win the California challenge." Jack took a sip of coffee, and lit a cigarette. "Do you have any idea how we're going to play this scene?"

  "No."

  "Great," came the sour reply.

  The edges of Tachyon's mouth quirked. "I suppose I could just come around the table, and give you a great big kiss."

  "I'd kill you."

  Tach shaded his eyes with a hand, and scanned the crowd, noting the presence of Brokaw and Donaldson. Peregrine, who always knew how to time an entrance, came flying down from the tenth floor. The beating of her great wings fluttered menus and ruined blow-dried hairdos. Cameras swiveled up to document her landing.

  Tachyon reached out to her with his telepathy. Good morning, sweet one, ready to shill for us?

  All ready, Tachy, dearest.

  "Mr. Braun, Doctor, aren't you rather unusual breakfast companions?" sang out Peri.

  "In what way?" asked Tach blandly.

  Sam Donaldson picked up the ball, rapping out his question in his sharp staccato manner. "Your antipathy for one another is well-documented. In a 1972 interview with Time magazine, Doctor, you said that Jack Braun was the greatest betrayer in American history."

  Jack stiffened, and ground out his Camel. Tachyon felt a momentary regret at what he was going to be put through. "Mr. Donaldson, you might note that that interview is sixteen years old. People change. They learn to forgive."

  "So you've forgiven Mr. Braun for 1950?"

  "Yes. "

  "And you, Mr. Braun?" sung out Buckley of The New York Times.

  "I have nothing to forgive. What I have are regrets. What happened in the 1950s was a travesty. I see it happening again, and I'm here to sound the warning. Dr. Tachyon and I share more than just a past. We were drawn together because of our admiration for Gregg Hartmann."

  "Then the senator arranged for your reconciliation?"

  "Only by example," said Tach. "He was one of the driving forces behind last year's World Health Organization tour to investigate the treatment of wild cards worldwide. The senator spoke movingly of reconciliation and the healing of old wounds." Tach glanced at Jack. "I think perhaps both of us took that lesson to heart."

  "We also have another bond," said Jack. "I'm a wild card. One of the first. Tachyon's spent forty-two years working among the victims of that virus."

  It was a pleasant overstatement, but Tach didn't correct him. It would have brought up the fact that for thirteen years, from 1950 until 1963, Tachyon had been a useless alcoholic derelict, roaming the streets and gutters of Europe and Jokertown. And the reason for his disintegration and deportation had been those fateful hearings before HUAC, and Jack's betrayal.

  "… and we don't like what's been happening in this country. The hate is back, and we fear it."

  Tachyon fought free of the memories.

  "Then you accuse the Reverend Barnett of fanning the flames of hatred and intolerance?" asked a serious-faced young man from CBS.

  "I believe Leo Barnett is acting from principle-as he sees it. But so was the Nur al-Allah in Syria, and in that sad country I saw innocent jokers stoned to death in the streets. Is that anguish something that we wish to see translated to our country?" Tach shook his head. "I think not. Gregg Hartmann-"

  Is a secret ace, and a killer, came a thin, tight voice from the crowd.

  People drew back, repelled by the madness in Sara's narrow face. Tachyon came half out of his chair.

  "Shit!" muttered Jack.

  "What are you going to do, Dr. Tachyon? He's one of yours. One of the devil's stepchildren, and only you can stop him." Tears blurred Sara's words.

  "Do something. Mind-control her. Something," whispered Jack.

  And make a bad situation worse? he shot back in a bitter telepathic message to the ace.

  The crowd of reporters had turned on the woman like a pack scenting blood. She blanched and shrank back.

  "Miss Morgenstern! On what… Do you… evidence… does the Post…"

  The clamoring voices rose in intensity. To Tachyon's overstretched nerves the sound seemed to take on a physical manifestation, a wave about to break over that fragile form.

  Sara whirled and vanished into the crowd of interested onlookers. Tachyon stared at the eager hungry faces of the press, and bowed his head. They had to be fed.

  Mothers of my mother, forgive me, he prayed, and threw Sara to the wolves.

  "That unfortunate girl does not deal well with stress," he called in a clear, penetrating voice. "Yesterday's revelations concerning her and Senator Hartmann-"

  "Then there was an affair?" snapped Donaldson.

  "No. The child was in love with the senator, and could not accept his continued refusal. I think she is torn between love for him, and a desire for revenge. Remember, hell hath no fury…" His voice trailed away.

  "Yeah," put in Jack. "I tried to interest the young lady in my charms during the tour, but she was obsessed with the senator. Sad," concluded Tachyon. But not as sad as what I've just done to her.

  "Who the hell are you?" Sara demanded shrilly. The man who had hold of her arm ignored her. Or maybe the tumult of questions and rage breaking over them like a tsunami drowned out her words.

  Something in his manner said he was ignoring her.

  The discrete security goons had come out of it first, of course, advancing in their dark three-pieces, muttering into throat mikes as they converged on her. She was standing there erect and alone, challenging in her tea-green skirt and long-sleeved white blouse, chin elevated above a ruff considerably more modest than Tachyon's. She let the noise roll off her. She had spilled the truth out on the carpet like a turd shining and stinking in the hot TV lights, where it could not be overlooked or covered up. Now she would accept the consequences.

  A hand caught her wrist. She turned, ready to aim a kick for a gaberdine crotch. Instead of a husky young jock, it was a small, gray, balding man with a round belly hanging in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. The watchdogs weren't even close.

  Now the gray man was towing her out a side door with the modest but irresistible authority of an East River tug. The security toughs got caught up in the back eddies of delegates and reporters shouting questions at each other. Her last view of the function room was Jack Braun staring after her with his face rumpled up into a look of Sonny Tufts's bemusement, Tachyon beside him gazing about with neurasthenic dismay, like an underfed Regency buck whose man's man just farted in the wardrobe.

  Her rescuer-or whatever the hell he was-dragged her down a corridor past incurious idlers, into a side service passageway. He used the momentum he'd imported to spin her around, back to a wall. A pack of reporters charged by, down the corridor, baying on the wrong trail.

  "Is not the way to go about it," he said. He had the kind of gruff avuncular face only TV character actors have. His accent was… Russian?

  Sara lost it. This was simply too strange. She yanked her hand away, panicked more by the fact of contact than any ramification.

  He pressed in on her. "No! You must listen. You are in very great danger-"

  You're telling me, buster. She squirmed past him and raced away, throwing a high heel in the process, toppling into the wall, scraping along, supporting herself with her hands while she kicked frantically to free herself of the other.

  "Little fool!" the man yelled after her. "The truth you have can kill!"

  The shoe finally came away, cartwheeling into the far wall. She ran.

  10:00 A.M.

  Gregg didn't remember sleeping at all during the night. At six, Amy called to give him the early morning schedule and remind him of a seven o'clock breakfast meeting with Andrew Young at Pompano's. By seven-forty-five he was in conference with Tachyon, Braun, and other key lobbyists and delegates about the joker's Rights plank and the party platform. A
t eight-ten, it was minor difficulties with the Ohio delegation, which seemed to consider Gregg a favorite-son candidate since he'd been born in their state, and felt they deserved privileged access to him; eight-thirty was a discussion with Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter concerning tomorrow's nomination speeches. Amy and John Werthen huddled with him to confirm the rest of the morning's schedule, then Gregg spoke briefly with Tony Calderone about the progress of his acceptance speech.

  Around nine-thirty, Tachyon came storming up complaining that Sara Morgenstern had finally gone too far. He informed Gregg of her outburst downstairs. "She's entirely insane," the alien raged. "Paranoid, delusions of persecution. We have to do something about her."

  Gregg agreed with that more than Tachyon could know. She'd become unpredictable and dangerous, and he didn't dare use Puppetman to neutralize her. There was too much danger of Gimli's interference. With the problems he'd had with Puppetman in the last few weeks, he couldn't afford the chance. A public scene would ruin everything.

  A little after ten, he was finally able to retreat to his room for a few minutes. Ellen was away handshaking with delegates and campaigning outside; their rooms were blessedly deserted. A headache was pounding against his temples, and it had Gimli's voice.

  Why worry about Morgenstern? Sure, she's a fucking loose cannon, but she's not the problem I am, is she? You could handle her if you dared let Puppetman out. Can you feel him yet, Greggie? Can you hear him howling for his fix? I can. You will too, any time now.

  "Shut up, damn you!" He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until he heard the faint echo of his voice.

  Gimli laughed. Sure. I'll be quiet for a little while. After all, I've already got you talking to yourself. Just remember that I'm still here, still waiting. But then, I doubt you'll forget that, will you? You can't.

  The voice went away, leaving Gregg moaning and holding his head. One problem at a time, he told himself. Sara first. He composed himself, reaching for the phone and dialing. There was the slight hiss of a long-distance connection, and then the phone at the other end rang. "Hartmann in '88," a voice said with a strong Harlem accent. "New York office, Matt Wilhelm speaking."

  "Furs, how are things up north?"

  There was a laugh from the other end of the line. Wilhelm-also known in Jokertown as Furs-preferred his joker name, as Gregg knew. "Senator, it's good to hear from you. I should have known it was you coming in on this line. Everything's going smoothly, if a little slow. We're waiting for the official announcement that you're our nominee, then we'll move into overdrive. How's Atlanta?"

  "Hot and steamy, and awfully warm down on the floor, from what I understand."

  "Lots of resistance to the plank," Furs said. Gregg could imagine the joker's leonine features set in a scowl. "I expected as much."

  "I'm afraid so. But we're going to keep hammering away at it."

  "You do that, Senator. In the meantime, what can Furs do for you?"

  "I'd like you to make a few phone calls. I could do it myself but I've a meeting in a few minutes and Amy and John are tied up with this platform business. You or someone on our staff got the time to give me a hand?"

  "Absolutely. Go ahead."

  "Good. First, check with Cuomo's office-be sure to relay thanks for his help yesterday with File and Shroud and find out exactly when he's expected to arrive in Atlanta tomorrow. I want to know what arrangements have been made, and be sure one of our people picks him up at the airport. Then call our headquarters in Albany and have someone there confirm my reservation for the first week in August; Amy says she's never heard back from them. I also need you to call and make certain the New York apartment's ready for Ellen on Monday time into Tomlin, by the way, but John will be calling you with those details."

  "Got it, Senator. Anything else?"

  Gregg closed his eyes, sinking back into the padded embrace of the couch. "One more thing. There's another call." He recited the number he'd memorized before leaving New York. "You won't get anything but an answering machine there," he told Furs. "Don't worry about it. All you need to do is leave a short message on the machine. Just say to book a flight to Atlanta soonest. They'll know what that means."

  "Book a flight ASAP. No problem. That all?"

  "That's all. Thanks, Furs. I'll be seeing you soon."

  "Just get us jokers a platform we can stand on. "

  "We'll do our damndest. Take care. Give my regards to your staff. We couldn't do anything without their help." Gregg placed the receiver carefully in its cradle.

  It was done. Mackie would be coming. Gregg hadn't wanted the volatile ace in Atlanta, but he had to do something. Mackie should have disposed of Downs already; now he could take care of Sara.

  Very faintly, a sardonic voice answered him from beneath. But what about me? What about me?

  "A KGB man hanging out at the Democratic Convention?" Ricky Barnes shook his long trim head. "Evervbodv already thinks you're in cahoots with Barnett, but maybe you should think about going to work for Robertson. Sounds like something his people would come up with, along with raising the dead and knowing where the hostages from Flight 737 were being kept in Calcutta."

  "That isn't funny, Ricky." She sat on the edge of his tautly made bed, methodically tearing a Kleenex into shreds. She spoke without heat. Ricky was maybe the first person she'd met in her life who could tease her without causing real pain. "Well, I mean, first you pitch your little scene in the midst of the Tach'n'Jack love feast. Then you say you're hauled out of the pot you set boiling by some old dude in a Mickey Mouse shirt. Who ever heard of a KGB man in a Mickey Mouse shirt?"

  "What do KGB men wear, Ricky?"

  "Rumpled suits and phony Rolexes. I've met KGB men, Sara. So have you."

  She tossed the ruined Kleenex on the floor. "Well, who was he, then?"

  "Somebody with a hell of a lot more sense than you were showing, sweetheart."

  She pulled her legs up on the bed, crossed them, put her head in her hands. Ricky watched her from the table, where he had his antique Epson Geneva laptop set up. He was wearing a dark-brown pinstripe vest and trousers with a pale-pink shirt and brown bow tie. With his elongated face and bighorsey white teeth he reminded her of poor Ronnie, Gregg's aide, who always disapproved of his boss's liaison with Sara. The Red Army Fraction had executed him when they kidnapped Hartmann in Berlin. She blamed Hartmann for his death.

  But it was only in appearance that he resembled Hartmann's hapless aide. Ricky approved of her. He always did. Sometimes, she suspected, a bit too much.

  "Do you think I'm crazy?" she asked.

  "Hell, yes. Think about what if you're right, Rosie." Rosie was his pet name for her; he claimed she looked like an albino Rosanna Arquette. -Standing right up there in front of God and everybody and announcing that Senator Gregg's a killer ace-can you think of a quicker way to bring him down on your case if he is?"

  "I mean it about Hartmann. Everybody treats me as if I'm a leper because I don't think Gregg's the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln or something."

  Ricky hit his lip and rubbed his chin with his fingertips. He was a pretty fair pianist in his spare time, and he had the hands for it, long and thin and fine.

  "I have to say it strikes me as kind of improbable. All this ace mind control and stuff, how could he have kept it a secret all these years?" She started to cloud up; he held one hand protectively between them, fingers outspread. "But wait, wait now. You're a damn fine reporter, a damn fine person-I think your stories have maybe done more to promote understanding of jokers and their problems than Senator Gregg's posturing and his well-publicized handouts; Brother Malcolm knew all about what it means when the Man extends a helping hand. I know you're not just making this up."

  "But still.. still. I know you still feel the loss of your sister very deeply. Is there any possibility that might be affecting your judgment?"

  She let her face drop between her hands, seeming to hold her head up by her almost-white hair.

  "When I was a c
hild," she said, "whenever I did something cute or clever, I could tell my parents were thinking if only it were Andi. Do you know what I mean? When I was bad or clumsy, it was, Andi wouldn't do that. I mean, they'd never say anything that horrible, not out loud. But I knew. It was as if I had a wild card of my own, a poison psychic gift that let me know what they really thought."

  She was crying, then, the tears rushing out as if someone had punched a big awl through her eyes and hit a giant reservoir of grief. Ricky was beside her on the bed, cradling her against his racquetball-trim chest, stroking her hair with those splendid fingers, while the mascara eroded from her face and stained his Brooks Brothers shirt in big ugly blotches.

  "Sara-Rosie-it's all right now, baby, it's all right, we'll get it straightened out. Everything will be okay. You're fine, sweetheart, everything's going to be fine.."

  She clung to him like a baby opossum, welcoming human contact for one rare moment, letting him murmur his soothing words, letting him hold her.

  I just hope he doesn't press too far, she thought.

  The passengers walking the LaGuardia concourse gave plenty of sea room to the thin young man in the faded black jacket. It wasn't just the stale smell of sweat emanating from his seldom-washed clothes and body. Mackie was so full of excitement at getting The Call that he wasn't able to keep it all in; parts of him kept going off into buzz. The subliminals were unnerving people.

  He looked up at the TV monitors next to the Eastern gate. The gray alphanumerics confirmed once again that his flight was departing on time. He could actually see it there through the polarized glass, fat and white and glistening like snot in the July morning sun. The paper jacket that held his ticket and boarding pass was beginning to wilt in his hand; he didn't want to let go of it, even to slip it into a pocket.

  Chrysalis was dead, Digger vanished, but he got to kill one who was even better. The woman. The Man had told Mackie about her. She had done it with the Man on the tour.

  They broke up and she got crazy and might try to do something to the Man-his Man. He'd wanted to go out and find her as soon as he heard that, put a good buzz on and cut her, and watch the blood well up, but the Man said, no. Wait for my word.