Ace in the Hole Read online

  The reporter went to the far end of the busy bathroom and took the last stall. Spector walked calmly over to the one that adjoined it and closed the door. He felt sort of bad about this. But the guy had shot off his mouth about how tight security was going to be at the hotel, and how he’d greased a lot of palms to get his room there. These were things Spector hadn’t taken into account. He hadn’t had time to make any plans. He usually played things by ear anyway.

  Spector heard the pages of a magazine being turned in the next stall, but no sounds of progress. He leaned down to make sure no one was close enough to see what he was up to. All the pairs of feet were facing toward the mirrors or moving toward the exit. He took a deep breath and slid off the toilet onto his back. He could feel the cold, damp tiles through his suit. Spector grabbed the metal wall between the stalls and hauled himself under.

  The reporter folded up his magazine and looked down. He managed to blink a few times before Spector locked in. His death experience rushed unchallenged into the reporter’s mind. The man dropped the magazine and keeled over to one side, saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth. The man’s pants were crumpled around his ankles. Spector fished into the pockets and pulled out his wallet, then slid back into his own stall, and up onto the toilet seat. He waited several moments for some sound indicating he’d been seen. There was only the incessant noise of shoes on tile and running water, punctuated by an occasional flush.

  Spector flipped open the wallet. Everything he figured he’d need was there—driver’s license, a non-photo press card, Social Security card. The lack of ID would make it hard for the cops to identify the corpse. They’d probably figure that some opportunist lifted the wallet before calling them in. Things were going better than usual. He stood and flushed the toilet, then opened the door and walked to the mirror. He lifted his chin and turned his head side to side. Sharp and cool, he thought. He winked at the mirror and smiled crookedly. If everything worked out, he’d be on a plane back to Jersey tomorrow. And the Democrats would have one less hat in the ring.

  It was as if New York’s Jokertown had been turned upside down and dumped on the Atlanta streets.

  Every large city has its small version of a jokertown, but Atlanta had never witnessed this kind of display. A blinding sun burned from cloudless blue onto a sea of signs, masks, and strangely distorted bodies. The crowd—estimated by the authorities at 15,000—had marched from Piedmont Park and besieged the Coliseum. Ranks of police and National Guardsmen watched, waiting.

  Mid-morning, when it was apparent that the majority report was not going to be quickly adopted, a bonfire had been started just down from the Omni. Before the encouraging cameras, shouting and chanting jokers burned their masks in the flames. A Flying Ace Glider sailed from the crowd a little too close to the flames. The styrofoam melted, the wings turned brown, shrunken and deformed. A joker picked up the smouldering mess. “Hey, a Fucking Flying Joker!” he shouted. The rest of the jokers picked up the bitter humor. Gliders all over the area sailed into the bonfire or were altered by holding them over Bic lighters.

  The Atlanta police unwisely chose that moment to clear the area. A double line of helmeted officers hit the ranks of demonstrators. The jokers predictably shoved back: rocks were thrown, someone’s minor ace sent a few police sprawling, and suddenly it was a full-fledged melee. Jokers, reporters, and bystanders were clubbed indiscriminately.

  The Turtle appeared late in the fray and bellowed for order. His telekinetic power forcibly pushed apart the remaining jokers and police. Some sixty people were arrested, and though the injuries were largely minor, the shots of bloodied heads were spectacular.

  The mood of the demonstrators, already fragile, turned ugly.

  A few blocks from the convention site, the jokers reformed. Fire hydrants were opened by the jokers to abate the day’s heat; each time, the police moved in to shut them off again but avoided direct confrontations. Taunts were exchanged across the lines.

  A counterdemonstration by the KKK arrived downtown in the late morning, producing scattered skirmishes between clansmen and jokers in the streets. If anything, the Klan was more brutal than the police: shots were reported, and jokers were treated for gunshot wounds at the local hospitals. Wildfire rumors spread through the crowd that two jokers had died, that the police were not arresting KKK members and had, in fact, let them through the barricades.

  At noon, word arrived that Leo Barnett was calling for a return to the Exotic Laws. Barnett was crucified in effigy in front of the Omni. The Turtle’s shell hovered overhead as if herding the demonstrators, keeping a clear space between jokers and police.

  “I don’t like it, Senator,” Billy Ray told Gregg as they stepped from the limo near the barricades; other Secret Service men in three-piece suits flanked them. The joker crowd bristled with shouts and curses. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  Gregg grimaced, irritated. He gestured harshly at the ace. “And I’m getting tired of people telling me what I should do.” Ray’s mouth tightened into a hard line with the rebuke. Before Ray could answer, a shadow fell over them and a voice boomed from loudspeakers. “Senator! Hey, you come out to help?”

  The noise brought the cameras around. Gregg waved up at the Turtle’s shell—the Turtle had a squadron of Turtle-shaped Flying Ace Glider frisbees hovering around him like electrons around a nucleus; a few melted Fucking Flying Jokers were mixed in with the group. “I was hoping we might keep things calm, at least. I know you’re doing what you can.”

  “Yeah. Frisbee tricks. Latest in crowd control.” The frisbees began whirling faster, looping in intricate patterns.

  “Think you can get me into the crowd?”

  “No problem.” Frisbees rained on the pavement. The shell dipped gracefully, banking behind the barricades and swiveling so that it faced into the crowd. The loudspeakers hissed as the volume was nudged higher. “OKAY, MOVE THE BARRICADES ASIDE. MAKE A PATH FOR THE SENATOR OR I’LL HAVE TO MAKE IT FOR HIM. C’MON, PEOPLE!”

  Hovering at head height, the Turtle eased through the barricades and into the jokers like a plow. Gregg stepped forward in his wake. Carnifex, the Secret Service people, and several of the police followed. Reporters and cameramen jostled for position.

  Gregg was recognized immediately. The chant began to rise on either side of the Turtle and his entourage. “Hartmann! Hartmann!” Gregg smiled, reaching out to brush the hands that stretched toward him from the front ranks. “Hartmann! Hartmann!” He was beaming, his jacket off and his tie loosened, a patch of sweat darkening his spine: The Candidate At Work. He knew the scene would be featured in all the evening reports.

  Inside, he was not so complacent.

  The crowd was charged with emotional energy. The current was nearly visible to him, pulsing and surging, and it drew Puppetman like a lure. He could feel the power strengthening, rising, growing. Let me out, it told him. Let me taste.

  There’s Gimli, he reminded Puppetman. Remember ’76.

  As if Gregg had spoken an invocation, Gimli’s faint voice echoed. I remember ’76, Hartmann. I remember it very well. And I also remember what happened yesterday with Ellen. Tell me, how did you like being the fucking puppet? Go on, let your friend out. I might not stop you this time. Of course, if I did, he might get mad. Maybe Puppetman would walk you around again. The news services would all love that.

  Puppetman snarled at Gimli, but Gregg shivered behind his smile. Puppetman shook the bars of his cage as the jokers’ energy shimmered around them. Gregg held the doors shut with an effort.

  “Hartmann! Hartmann!”

  He smiled. He nodded. He touched. The temptation to let Puppetman out and ride with him was maddening. In that, Gimli was right—Gregg wanted it too. He wanted it as much as he wanted anything.

  The Turtle came to a halt in the middle of International Boulevard near the effigy of Barnett. “Get on, Senator,” he said. The shell swayed lower until it was only a foot above the pavement. Gregg stepped up; Billy
Ray and the others circled the Turtle.

  An enormous shout went up as he climbed the shell. Sensitive despite his burying of Puppetman, he was nearly staggered by the emotional impact of their massed adulation. Gregg slipped and nearly fell; he felt the Turtle lift him with an almost tender push. “Jeez, Senator, I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking—”

  Gregg stood on top of the shell. Joker faces peered at him, pressing against the Turtle’s telekinetic barrier. The sound of their cheering echoed from the Omni and the WCC, deafening. He shook his head, smiling in the modest, half-shy way that had become the Hartmann trademark during the long campaign. Gregg let the chant go on, feeling the insistent beat hammer at him.

  Puppetman rode with it. Though Gregg held him in, he could not keep the power from rising to the surface of his mind. He looked out at the jokers and saw familiar faces among them: Peanut, Flicker, Fartface, Marigold, and the one called Gravemold, who had finally brought down Typhoid Croyd. Puppetman saw them too, and the power slammed hard against the mindbars, growling and tearing.

  Gregg trembled with the effort of controlling the ravenous personality, and knew he could not stay out here long. His hold was crumbling under the assault of their emotions.

  (Brilliant, undiluted primary colors, swirling all about him. Puppetman could almost touch them and see them sway like tinted smoke…)

  Gregg raised his hands for silence. “Please!” he shouted, and heard his amplified voice rebound from the buildings around them. “Listen to me. I understand your frustrations. I know four decades of ill treatment and misunderstanding are aching to be released. But this isn’t the way. This isn’t the time.”

  It wasn’t what they wanted to hear. He felt their distaste and hurried. “Inside that building, we’re fighting for jokers’ rights.” (… shouts of encouragement: aching green and knife-edged yellow…) “What I’m asking is that you help me in that fight. You have a right to demonstrate. But I tell you that violence in the streets will be used as a tool against you. My opponents will point and they will say: ‘You see, jokers are dangerous. We can’t trust them. We can’t let them live anywhere near us.’ Now’s the time for all jokers to finally cast off their masks, but you must show the world that the face underneath is the face of a friend.”

  (… the shaded currents turning muddy brown with confusion and uncertainty. The brightness dimmed…)

  With me, you could do it. Easily. Puppetman mocked him. Look out there. Together, we could turn this around. We could end the demonstration. You’d walk away a hero. Just let me out.

  Gregg was losing them. Even without Puppetman’s direct link, he knew that. Gregg Hartmann was suddenly saying the same words they’d heard all along from everyone else. There was no magic anymore. No Puppetman.

  (… shifting to a dark, somber violet: a dangerous hue, a feeding color. Puppetman screamed…)

  Gregg had to leave. The emotions, like a storm-tossed tide battering the shore, eroded the tenuous hold on his power. Puppetman would leap out.

  He had to end it. Had to get away from the feast spread before his power.

  “I’m asking—begging—you to help those who are down there on the floor. Please. Don’t let anger ruin it all.”

  It was a horrible, abrupt ending; Gregg knew it. The crowd stared at him, silent. A few tried to begin the chant again, but it died quickly. “Get me down,” Gregg whispered. The Turtle lifted him slightly and lowered him to the concrete. “Let’s get out of here,” Gregg said. “I’ve done all I can do.”

  Puppetman clawed at Gregg in desperation, lashing out in his mind like a mad animal. The Turtle backed slowly through the crowd toward the waiting limo. Gregg followed, frowning.

  He saw and heard nothing of what was in front of him. It took all of his concentration simply to hold Puppetman in.

  1:00 P.M.

  He’d been in the cab for more than an hour. Traffic was snarled almost as soon as they left the airport. Cars were jammed bumper to bumper, horns blaring, all the way into downtown. Pedestrians, mostly jokers, were massed in the streets. Some wore masks. Some carried signs. All were in a dangerously surly mood. More than once they had rocked the cab as it cruised slowly through them. Spector had given the driver an extra C-note to get him within a block of the hotel. Judging by the grumbling from the front seat, the cabbie was having second thoughts in spite of the money.

  The driver’s license had been easy. He’d doctored them before. After removing the lamination, he’d carefully razored out the reporter’s photo and replaced it with one of his own. Then he’d used a laminating machine at the airport to finish the job. The reporter, his name had been Herbert Baird, was close to the same height, weight, and age as Spector. Right now, though, getting caught with fake ID was the least of his worries. Spector just wanted to get to the Marriott in one piece.

  A joker with huge folds of wrinkled, pink skin jumped onto the hood and waved a sign that said NATS ARE RATS on one side and WHAT ABOUT US? on the other. There was chanting up ahead. Spector couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  “Far as we go, mister,” said the cabbie. “I ain’t playing joker-bait for a hundred dollars or a hundred thousand.”

  “How far to the hotel?” Spector had his luggage in the back seat with him. He’d figured it would be a mess downtown, and he didn’t want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary picking through a crowd of pissed-off jokers.

  “About two blocks straight ahead.” The driver looked around nervously as one of the taillights was kicked in. “I’d move it if I were you.”

  “Right.” Spector opened the car door carefully and stepped out onto the crowded sidewalk. Some of the jokers made faces at him or raised their fists, but most didn’t give him any trouble. He moved forward slowly, unhappily aware that his new suit and luggage would make him conspicuous, and a likely target.

  After about ten minutes of pushing and shoving, the hotel was just across the street. Spector was covered in sweat and starting to smell like the freaks around him. A joker with needlelike fingernails stepped in front of him and took a swipe at his suitcase, shredding one side. Spector caught his eye and fed him just enough death-pain to make the joker collapse. He didn’t want to risk stirring up this mob with a killing. Hot as it was, these bimbos wouldn’t think twice about someone passing out.

  The crowd was beginning to break up, doubtless to re-form somewhere else, as he stepped into the hotel lobby. It was open all the way to the roof. The building’s curves reminded him of the inside of something dead. Spector took a breath of cool air and walked over to the security area. Herbert Baird, you’re Herbert Baird, Herbert Baird, he thought.

  There were several uniformed cops and suited men with earpieces waiting for him. “Identification, please,” said one of the cops.

  Spector pulled out his wallet, trying consciously to relax, and handed over the driver’s license. The cop took it and passed it over to a man sitting at a computer terminal. The man typed for an instant, his fingers blurring on the keys, then paused, and finally nodded.

  “Can I have your luggage, Mr. Baird?” The officer looked at the claw marks on the side. “A bit rough out there, eh?”

  “Plenty more than what I’m used to.” Spector smiled. They were bored and not paying much attention to him. He was going to get in.

  The officer set the suitcase onto the X-ray machine and pointed to a metal detector. “If you’ll please walk through, sir.”

  As he stepped under, the metal detector’s alarm beeped. Spector stopped dead and reached slowly into his pocket. He could feel at least twenty people staring at him. He pulled out a fistful of change and handed it to the cop. He’d needed it for the laminating machine. “Mind if I try again?”

  The cop motioned him forward with a slow sweep of his hand. Spector stepped through noiselessly and sighed. The officer reached around and handed him his change. Spector pocketed it and smiled again.

  “Your bag’s right there.” The cop pointed and then
turned back to the hotel entrance.

  Spector picked up his suitcase; it was heavy and almost slipped out of his sweaty palm. He walked slowly across the lobby to the registration desk. There weren’t many suits that didn’t have bulges under them. Getting his room took longer than it should have. The clerk was a fat officious prick who gave him the fish-eye when he said he’d be paying in cash. The little creep was trying to impress the Secret Service boys or something equally stupid. It was probably his once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a big cheese. Spector would come back some day and drop the guy. He snatched the key when the clerk finally offered it, and headed quickly for the elevators.

  He was almost there when he heard someone call out. “James. James Spector. Hey, Specs.” The voice sounded familiar, but that wasn’t necessarily good. He turned around slowly. The man walked up to him smiling and held out a hand. He wore an ash-gray suit and had carefully styled hair. He was a couple of inches shorter than Spector, but much more muscular.

  “Tony C.” He let out a breath and relaxed his shoulders. “No way this is happening.” He and Calderone had grown up together in Teaneck, but Spector had lost track of him years ago.

  Tony reached down, grabbed Spector’s hand, and gave it a firm shake. “My main man. The pick-and-roll prince. What are you doing here?”

  “Uh, lobbying.” Spector coughed. “What about you?”

  “I work for Hartmann,” Tony replied. Spector opened his mouth; shut it quickly. “Hard to believe, I know. But I’m his top speech consultant.” He rubbed his palms together. “I always did have a good line.”

  “Especially for the girls.” Spector shuffled uncomfortably. Apparently, none of the cops who’d checked his ID card had heard Tony, but he still felt exposed. “Look, it’s great to see you, but I’d like to get settled in. It’s a real zoo outside, I tell you.”

  “If you think it’s a zoo out there, you should see what’s going on inside.” Tony slapped Spector on the shoulder. There was real warmth in the gesture, the kind Spector hadn’t been exposed to in years. “What’s your room number?”