Ace In The Hole wc-6 Read online

  And Gregg knew from experience that prejudice was also real, that it was easy for the average person to mouth sympathy but not to act on it.

  The joker prejudice was real. The black prejudice was real. With or without Puppetman, Jackson would not become president even if he managed to get the nomination.

  Not this year. Not yet.

  It was something Gregg dared not say in public, but he also knew that Jackson was well aware of the fact, no matter what the man might say. So Gregg had let Jackson go his own way. In a way, it had made for a more interesting primary campaign.

  Now, with Puppetman wailing inside and far too unreliable to let loose again, Gregg was forced to admit that it might have been a mistake. It would have made things much easier now.

  The Reverend Jackson sat across the room from Gregg in a voluminous leather armchair, his legs crossed over impeccably pressed black pants, his expensive silk tie knotted tightly around his throat. Around the Jackson campaign suite, his aides pretended not to watch. Two of Jackson's sons flanked the reverend on wooden chairs.

  "Barnett is making a mockery of the joker's Rights plank," Gregg was saying. "He's diluting the impact by dragging in every special interest group he can think of. The trouble is that alone, I can't stop him."

  Jackson pursed his lips, tapped them with a forefinger. "You come asking for my help now, Senator, but once the platform fight is over, it will be business as usual. As much as I disagree with the Reverend Barnett on basic issues, I understand the political reality. The Joker's Rights plank is your child, Senator. Without that plank's passage, you'll hardly appear to be a very effective leader for the country. After all, it's your own fundamental issue and you can't even make your own party listen."

  Jackson looked almost pleased at the prospect.

  I can take care of that. Just let me out… Puppetman was angry, irritated. The power pushed at its restraints, wanting to lash out at the self-confident Jackson.

  Leave me alone. Just for a few minutes. Let me get through this.

  Gregg shoved the power back down, leaning back in his seat to cover the momentary inner conflict. Jackson was watching him, very carefully, very intently. The man had a predator's eyes, mesmerizing and dangerous. Gregg could feel sweat starting on his brow, and he knew Jackson noticed it as well.

  " I'm not concerned with the nomination at the moment," Gregg said, ignoring Puppetman. "I'm concerned with helping the jokers, who have experienced the same prejudice as your own people."

  Jackson nodded. An aide brought a tray over to the coffee table between them. "Iced tea? No? Very well." Jackson took a sip from his own glass and set it down again. Gregg could see the man thinking, gauging, wondering.

  And with me you could truly know. You could control those feelings…

  Be quiet.

  You need me, Greggie. You do.

  Intent on keeping Puppetman down, he missed the next few words. "… rumor is that you've been pushing your people very hard, Senator. You have even angered some of them. I've heard tales about instability, about a repeat of '76." Gregg flushed, started to retort heatedly, and then realized he was being goaded. This was exactly the reaction Jackson was trying to provoke. He forced himself to smile. "We're all used to a certain amount of mudslinging, Reverend. And yes, I've been pushing hard. I always push when I believe in something strongly."

  "And the accusation makes you angry." Jackson smiled and waved a hand. "Oh, I know the feeling, Senator. In fact, I have the very same reaction when people question my work for civil rights. I'd expect it." He steepled his hands under his chin and leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Just what is it you want, Senator?"

  "A Joker's Rights plank. Nothing more."

  "And how do you propose to buy my support?"

  "I had hoped you would agree purely for the sake of the jokers. On humanitarian grounds."

  "I feel deeply for the jokers, believe me, Senator. But I also know that a plank in a platform is just so many words. A platform commits no one to anything. I will fight for the rights of all oppressed people, with or without planks. I did not promise my people planks. I promised them I would do my best to win at this convention, and I am doing just that. I do not need a plank; you do."

  Jackson reached for the glass again. He sipped, waiting and watching.

  "All right," Gregg said at last. "I've talked with deVaughn and Logan on this. If you keep your delegates in line, we'll release our Alabama delegates after the first vote with the strong recommendation they go to you."

  "Alabama isn't important to you. You took, what, 10% of the delegates there?"

  "That 10% could be yours. You were second to Barnett in Alabama. More importantly, it might indicate that momentum in the South was moving away from Barnett, which would benefit you."

  "And you, as well," Jackson pointed out. He shrugged. "I was also second in Mississippi."

  Son of a bitch. "I'll have to confirm this, but I can probably release my delegates there as well."

  Jackson paused. He looked over at his sons, then back to Gregg. "I need to think about this," he said.

  You're letting it slip away, damn it! He's only going to ask for more. I could have made him agree without any concessions. You're a fool, Greggie.

  "We don't have time," Gregg said sharply. He regretted the words instantly. Jackson's eyes narrowed, and Gregg hurried to smooth over the gaffe. "I'm sorry, Reverend. It's just… it's just that to the jokers out there, the platform isn't words. The plank will be a symbol for them, a symbol that their voices have been heard. We all stand to gain, all of us who support them."

  "Senator, you have a fine humanitarian record. But…"

  Let me have him…! "Reverend, sometimes my passion gets out of hand. Again, I apologize."

  Jackson still frowned, but the anger was gone from his eyes.

  You almost blew it.

  Shut up. It was your interference. Let me handle it. You have to let me out. Soon.

  Soon. I promise. Just be quiet.

  "All right," the Reverend was saying. "I think I can arrange things with my people. Senator, you have my support."

  Jackson held out his hand. Gregg could feel his fingers trembling as he took it. Mine! Mine! The power shuddered inside, screaming and clawing and throwing itself at the bars.

  It took all Gregg's effort to hold Puppetman back as he shook hands with Jackson, and he broke the contact quickly. "Senator, are you all right?"

  Gregg smiled wanly at Jackson. "I'm fine," he said. "Thank you, Reverend. Just a little bit hungry, that's all."

  6:00 P.M.

  "Where I was raised, a person does not seat themselves uninvited at another person's table."

  Tachyon shuffled through the seven pink message slipsall from Hiram-and thrust them into a pocket. "Where you were raised, a person also does not fail to acknowledge and thank another person for a gift. I know, I was there when you first learned to lisp out tank-oo when I would bring you candy."

  The fury flaming in Fleur's brown eyes was so intense that Tachyon flinched, and half raised a hand in defense.

  "Leave me alone!" "I cannot."

  "Why?" She wrung her hands, the fingers twisting desperately through one another. "Why are you torturing me? Wasn't killing my mother enough?"

  "In all fairness, I think your father and I must share the blame. I broke her mind, but he allowed her to be tortured in that sanatorium. If he had left her with me, I might have found a way to repair the broken shards."

  "If that was the choice, then I'm glad she died. Better that than being your whore."

  "Your mother was never a whore. You dishonor her and yourself by that remark. You can't really feel that way."

  "Well, I do, and why should I feel any differently? I never knew her. You saw to that."

  "I didn't throw her out of the house."

  "She could have gone to her parents."

  "She loved me."

  "I can't imagine why."

  "Give me a chance, I coul
d show you."

  And as soon as the glib, flirtatious comment passed his lips Tachyon knew he had done a very stupid thing. As if to hold back the words, he pressed his fingers to his lips, but it was too late. Far, far too late.

  Forty years too late?

  Fleur rose from her chair like a wrathful goddess, and dealt him a ringing slap. Her nail caught on his lower lip, splitting it, and he tasted the sharp, coppery taste of blood. All conversation ceased in Pompano's. The silence made his skin crawl, and Tachyon chewed down the humiliation that filled his mouth like a foul taste. The tick of her high heels, as she stormed from the restaurant, beat into his ringing head.

  Carefully, he held up two fingers before his face. Counted them. Dabbed at the cup with her discarded napkin. It smelled faintly of her perfume. His jaw tightened into a stubborn line.

  8:00 P.M.

  "Muscular dystrophy. Is it up or down on MS, Charles?"

  "Christ!" Devaughn s voice, roaring through Jack's cellular phone, seemed more surly than ever. "I guess we can't be against Jerry's Kids, can we?"

  The convention band staggered into the last bars of "Mame." Louis Armstrong could have played it better in his sleep. Jack was on the convention floor, standing on a scarred, gray folding chair, surrounded by his throng of Californians.

  "Up or down, Charles?" Jack demanded.

  "Up. Shit. Up." Jack could clearly hear deVaughn's fist banging on a desktop. "Shit-shit-shit. Shit-fuck-cunt. That bitch. That fucking WASP slut."

  "I want to wring Fleur van Renssaeler's neck."

  "You'll have to stand in line behind me, buddy."

  "They're calling the vote." Emil Rodriguez tugged on Jack's sleeve. Jack hung up his portable phone and gave the thumbs-up sign to his horde of delegates. He tried to picture thousands of Americans in wheelchairs and leg braces cheering and reshuffling their political alignment, but his imagination failed.

  Rodriguez, a short, bull-chested man, looked up at Jack with fury in his eyes.

  "This sucks, man," he spat.

  Jack got down from the chair and lit up a smoke. "You said it, ese."

  Jim Wright gaveled for order. Jack looked at the dissolving huddles of delegates and considered the chaos that had descended on Atlanta today. The violent demonstrations, the platform fight, Sara Moregenstern's bizarre interruption of the press conference that morning.

  Secret ace? he thought.

  And then he thought, Which one?

  For hours the convention had been tearing itself to bits over the joker's Rights plank. The platform committee had passed it with a strong dissent from Barnett's crowd: Barnett had moved the issue onto the floor while no one was looking, and then the sweaty brawl started in earnest. Barnett's people stood united against the plank, Hartmann for, and Jackson made a principled stand with Hartmann. The others had just tried to delay things till they could work out how much mileage they could get out of declaring one way or another. The thing might have breezed through if it hadn't been for the violence surrounding the joker camp that afternoon; the middle-of-the-road candidates hung on for as long as possible, wondering if there was going to be an anti-joker backlash, but eventually the delegates began sideling toward the Hartmann point of view.

  It was then that the Barnett campaign made their master stroke. Since they realized they couldn't stop the plank from passing, they began their attempts to dilute it.

  Why should the party be only in favor of joker's Rights, they asked. Shouldn't the party declare in favor of the rights of people with other handicaps?

  Soon there was an up-or-down vote on whether victims of multiple sclerosis should be included in the civil rights plank. While Hartmann's managers, knowing perfectly well they were being sandbagged, cursed and threw furniture, the motion passed unanimously: no Democrat was going to be caught dead opposing people with an incurable illness.

  Other diseases followed: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, guillain-barre syndrome, spina bifida, post-polio syndrome the vote on that one was close, mainly because no one had ever heard of it-and now Jerry's Kids. Barnett was succeeding in making the whole joker's Rights issue look ridiculous. Barnett's delegate head from Texas, a blue-haired woman in a white cowboy hat, red lacquered boots, and a matching red skirt and vest with a swaying white Buffalo Bob fringe, was on her feet making another motion. Jack told his phone to dial HQ and climbed on his chair again.

  "Jesus Christ," said Rodriguez. "It's AIDS."

  A panicked yelp went up from the convention. Barnett had made his master stroke. The eyes of every viewer panicked by retrovirus homophobic hysteria would be glued to the set, ready to see if the Democrats would endorse the pollution of their bodily fluids by lurking sodomites and junkies drooling contamination from every orifice. Furthermore, Barnett had convincingly linked AIDS with xenovirus Takis-A.

  "Up or down, Charles?" Jack asked wearily.

  "Fuck the queers!" Devaughn raged. "The hell with this!" Jack grinned and gave his people the thumbs-down. The retrovirus lost in a landslide. The convention had had enough of Barnett's tactics. The distractions had provided amusement for a while, and had succeeded in their principle duty of making Hartmann's convictions look silly, but now they were getting tiresome.

  The Texas lady received instructions from on high and called for no more votes. Hartmann's people quietly moved that all other persons suffering from diseases were to be included in the civil rights plank. The motion passed unanimously.

  The platform was moved and passed. Jim Wright gaveled the long day to a weary end. Hats and signs and flying ace gliders soared into the air from thankful delegates.

  Jack told his delegates to be ready bright and early the next morning. By the end of Wednesday there were going to be at least two ballots, and they would say a lot about where the convention was headed.

  He lit another Camel and watched the thousands of delegates funneling out the exits. The band serenaded their retreat with "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."

  For once Jack didn't react to the hated song. He was thinking about a secret ace.

  9:00 P.M.

  Billy Ray called Gregg from the Marriott's lobby. "Senator, you still interested in meeting with Barnett? Lady Black just told me he's on his way back to the hotel from a meeting."

  It had been a horrible day. The afternoon and evening were worse than the morning. Amy, John, and finally deVaughn had tried vainly to arrange a conference with Barnett. They'd gotten as far as Fleur, who told them flatly that Barnett wasn't interested in speaking with Gregg. The struggle on the floor had reflected that uncooperative attitude.

  Either Barnett or Fleur van Renssaeler had turned out to be a savvy political strategist. It had taken all of Gregg's influence to keep any kind of joker's Rights plank in the platform at all, and without the support of Jackson, it would have been impossible. The plank finally adopted was a toothless, emasculated version of the original, fettered with conditions and clouded language. The kindest thing that could be said of it was that it was a joker's Rights plank, the first. The networks might call it a "minor triumph" for Hartmann and the jokers; the angry crowds out in the streets knew it meant nothing.

  With the platform set, the reasons for meeting Barnett were gone. All but one. The interior voice was emphatic. Do it.

  " Senator? If we just happen to be in the hall or something when he-"

  Worst of all, he'd had to deal with Puppetman's increasing desperation since the incident outside. He'd tried, but had never managed to submerge the power again. Puppetman was there, alongside him.

  People were noticing. Jackson certainly had. Ellen was staring at him when she thought he wasn't looking; Amy, Braun, deVaughn all were handling him with obvious kid gloves. If he wanted this nomination, he had to do something about Puppetman. He couldn't afford to have his attention divided so strongly.

  "Thanks, Billy. It sounds good. We have a few minutes? I'd like to freshen up."

  "Sure. I'll be up to get you."

  Gregg hung up and w
ent into the bathroom. He stared at the mirror. "You're out of control," he whispered. Gimli's cold amusement answered him.

  The dav's efforts had cost him-the image that gazed back at him looked exhausted. Barnett's for me, Puppetman insisted again, and Gregg almost expected to see his lips move with the words. Once we take him as a puppet, we can maneuver him the way we did Gephardt and Babbit. Just a nudge here and there..

  We were going to try that before, at one of the debates, Gregg reminded him. He always stayed away from us, never let us shake his hand or touch him at all. This is crazy.

  Puppetman scoffed. This time he will. You have to trust me. You can't win without my help.

  But Gimli-

  We must try. If you stop fighting me, we can do it. All right. All right.

  Billy Ray insisted on talking for the few minutes it took to go down to Barnett's floor. Gregg let the monologue run unabated; he heard nothing of it. When the elevator doors opened, Ray stepped out, flashing his ID, to speak with the guards posted there. Gregg went to the edge of the balcony and stared down at the glittering lobby. A glider had landed on the carpet beside him: Mistral. He picked the toy up and gave it a gentle toss. It looped and then settled into a steady descent. Someone a few floors down saw it and gave a boozy cheer.

  Five minutes later, an elevator chimed. Gregg turned to see Lady Black step out, followed by Fleur and Leo Barnett. Gregg put on a smile and strode forward. "Reverend Barnett, you're very well protected by your staff."

  Lady Black had stepped aside, but Fleur remained between Gregg and Barnett, scowling and giving Gregg no choice but to stop or run into her. He moved to one side and held out his hand to Barnett.

  Puppetman hunched, ready to leap.

  Barnett was bluffly handsome, a fair-haired vision of the Southern preacher. A faint smile lurked in his full lips, and the soft twang of his origins inhabited his resonant voice. "Senator Hartmann, I'm sorry. Sometimes my staff seems to think I need their protection as well as the Lord's. You understand." He looked at the proffered hand, and that faint smile crossed his mouth again. "And I'd gladly shake your hand, Senator, but unfortunately mine's rather sore at the moment. A little mishap downstairs in the lobby."