Ace in the Hole Read online

  Hiram seemed to wilt before Jack’s smile. Then his color drained away, and to Jack’s surprise the big man seemed to stagger back and fall. Springs burst in the chair as Hiram collapsed into it. He tugged at his collar as if he were choking, revealing a painful sore on his neck.

  Jack stared in amazement. The granite mountain had melted into a marshmallow.

  And suddenly Jack was very weary. A faint hangover residue throbbed in his temples. He didn’t want to watch Hiram anymore.

  He headed for the exit.

  He paused by the door. “I’m here for Gregg’s sake,” he said. “I guess it’s the same for you. So let’s tell Gregg we’re the best of friends and do what we have to do. Okay?”

  Hiram, still dragging at his collar, nodded.

  Jack stepped into the corridor and closed the door of the suite behind him. He felt like the school bully picking on the class fat kid.

  From down the corridor came the raucous cry of conventioneers on their first day in town. Jack headed toward it.

  10:00 A.M.

  Gregg was tired of talking to the delegates Jack had gotten laid the night before. He was tired of sounding enthusiastic.

  Alex James had been a puppet since the beginning of the campaign. Most of the extra Secret Service people assigned to Gregg had been uninteresting to Puppetman, too dutiful and without the hidden flaws on which he fed. But Alex … he had slipped through the battery of psychological examinations and background checks. Like that of Billy Ray, Alex’s soul was marbled with a delicious streak of sadism, tinted with the jade-green urge to flaunt and abuse his power. Left alone, he might have been only a little overzealous in his duties, a touch harsh when he moved people away, preferring to confront a situation rather than defusing it. No one would have noticed.

  But Puppetman knew. Puppetman saw all the cracks in the veneer of a soul and he knew best how to make them gape wide open.

  Gregg sat in the living room of his suite. The Zenith bolted to the wall cabinet was on, set to CBS and Dan Rather’s coverage of the convention’s opening. Cautiously, Gregg let down the bars that held Puppetman. The power surged out, searching for Alex’s presence. Gregg had just seen the man in the hall outside, knew that Ray had just sent him to check the stairwells. There were often people on the stairs: lobbyists looking for a way to the candidate’s floors, reporters, groupies, or just the curious. The chances were good that Alex would find someone. Puppetman reached out and curled into the familiar recesses of the guard’s mind. This time, the power sighed. This time.

  Be careful, Gregg warned him. Remember what’s been happening lately. Go slowly.

  Puppetman snarled in reply. Shut up! It’s all right now. Everything’s turning our way again. Chrysalis is finally taken care of. Oddity is going to find the jacket and we’ve sent Mackie after Downs. The convention’s started well. I need this one. Can’t you feel the hunger? Remember, if I go, you go down with me. I’ll make damn sure of it.

  With the threat, the power turned away, suddenly rapacious. Through Puppetman, Gregg could feel a surge of anticipation in Alex. He knew what that must mean—the guard had found someone. Gregg could imagine the scene: some nat kid, probably, dressed in stonewashed jeans, a T-shirt studded with oversized “Hartmann in ’88” buttons, and a cheap J-town mask over his all-too-normal face. Alex would be staring, his hands a shade too close to the bulge under his sports jacket, barking orders.

  Puppetman lanced into Alex’s emotional matrix, thrusting aside the heavy blue layers of duty and the leather-brown binding of morality until he uncovered that orange-red core of psychotic brutality. Puppetman nurtured it, fanned it into flame. It flared easily into heat. Now …

  (Alex would be shouting by this time, his neck corded, and his cheeks red with blood. He’d reach out, grab a fistful of the T-shirt, as campaign buttons rattled like tin pie plates, and shake the kid like a disobedient puppy. The mask would fall to the floor and crumple under Alex’s Florsheims.)

  … yes. Puppetman could taste it, and Gregg tasted with him. There was raw fury there, a waiting feast. Puppetman leaned toward it hungrily, tweaking the emotions again, turning the settings just a little higher …

  (Alex’s hand would come back, and the open palm would slash across the kid’s cheek, snapping the head to one side. Blood would be drooling from a cut on the lip and the kid would be crying in fear and pain, suddenly terrified.)

  … and it happened again. In Gregg’s mind, the interference seemed like a cold, obsidian wall, cutting between himself and Alex and sending Puppetman reeling backward. The power inside Gregg wailed in frustration and rage, hurling itself at the wall again and again and always being slammed back down. Gregg could hear the laughter behind the wall, and that faint voice.

  Only this time, this time, he could hear the words.

  You’re a fucking son of a bitch, Hartmann, but I finally got the way to take you down, don’t I? I found your goddamn weakness, Greggie old friend. I found the fucking playmate inside you, the ace you used on me and Misha and Morgenstern and everyone else. Only now I can play with your ace the way you played with us. I can keep him away from the puppets; I can make him fucking starve, and then what happens to you, Senator? What happens to you when the power turns against you? The words faded, leaving behind a mocking chuckle.

  And Gregg, with a rising horror, knew that he recognized that voice. He knew who was behind the wall, and the realization left him cold and shaking.

  Gimli. It was Gimli.

  You’re dead, he shouted after the voice. You’re dead—your stuffed skin is sitting in the Dime Museum; I saw it. Typhoid Croyd killed you.

  Dead? The laughter came again. Do I sound dead to you, Hartmann? Ask the friend you keep locked up inside you if I’m real or not. No, not dead. Just changed. It took me a long time to get back …

  The voice faded and was gone. The wall vanished. Puppetman screamed wordlessly at the place where it had been.

  Let me out again, the power demanded. It’s not too late, Alex …

  No! Gregg looked at his hands; they were trembling on his lap. He could feel sweat running down the back of his shirt. Adrenaline pounded in his chest. He wanted to run, to scream himself. The ordinariness of the hotel room and the droning voice of Rather seemed to mock him.

  He was very, very scared.

  You have to let me out. There’s no choice.

  No!

  No choice, do you understand? The power leaped at him, spearing deep into Gregg’s own will. Gregg gasped in surprise, and felt his own presence falling away. His hands clenched; he started to push himself off the couch. Like an automaton, Puppetman walked him stiff legged across the room. The muscles of Gregg’s face were locked in a painful grimace, spasms rippled down his legs as he struggled to regain control. He watched, helpless, as his hand reached for the doorknob to the bedroom, twisted, and pushed.

  God, no …

  “Gregg?” Ellen was reading on the bed, the book propped up against her swelling stomach. “Put your hand here; the baby’s been giving me flutterings all morning.” She turned to look at him, and her aristocratic, fine New England features went quizzical. “Gregg? Are you all right?”

  He could feel his whole body quivering, balanced between Puppetman’s will and his own. Each tugged on the strings of the body, trying to yank them from the grasp of the other. Even as Gregg made that visualization, Puppetman scoffed. We’re both the same person, you know. I’m just your ace, your power. I’m doing what we need to do to survive. Ellen’s here. Use her.

  No! Not that way.

  She’s just another damn puppet. More pliable than most, in fact. Her pain is as good as anyone else’s.

  It’s too risky. Not here, not now.

  If not here and now, you stand to lose everything anyway. Do it!

  Gregg felt his body take another stumbling step forward. His fist clenched and raised. There was definite fear in Ellen’s eyes now. She closed the book, tried to struggle up from the bed. “Gre
gg, please, you’re frightening me…”

  Gregg let go all his holds on the body, as if he were exhausted by the battle. Puppetman shouted in victory. Then, as his arm lifted for the first blow and Puppetman relaxed in anticipation, Gregg grappled with the power again. Surprised by the renewed onslaught, Puppetman was stripped of control. Ignoring its struggling and cursing, Gregg wrestled it deep, deeper than it had been in years, slamming and locking the mental cage, and then burying it far back in his mind. When he could no longer hear it, he stopped and came back to himself.

  He was gasping alongside the bed. The hand was still upraised; Ellen cowering beneath. Gregg unclenched the fist, and brought it slowly down to her face as he sat next to her. He felt her draw back, then slowly relax as he began to stroke her hair.

  “You don’t have anything to be afraid of, darling,” he said. He tried to laugh and heard pain instead. “Hey, I wouldn’t hurt you, you know that. Not the mother of my child. I’d never hurt you.”

  “You looked so angry, so violent. For a second—”

  “I’m not feeling well. It’s nothing; stomach cramps. Nerves—I’ve been thinking about the convention. I took some Maalox. It’ll pass.”

  “You scared me.”

  “I’m sorry, Ellen,” he said, soothingly. “Please…”

  With Puppetman, it would have been easy; he could have made her believe him without effort. But that power wasn’t safe, not now. Ellen stared at him, and he thought she was going to say more, then she slowly nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, Gregg.”

  She snuggled against him. Gregg leaned back against the headboard. Through the faint tendrils of his ace ability, he could feel her relaxing, forgetting. Since she’d become pregnant, she’d become more inward focused; things outside were not as important. It was less threatening to accept his excuse, so she did. The realization eased his mind very little.

  My god, what am I going to do?

  He could hear Gimli’s laughter. It pounded in his head.

  The phone by the bed rang. Gregg picked it up, thinking it might drive the dwarf away. “Hartmann.”

  “Senator?” The voice on the other end was breathless, agitated. “Amy. Bad news. The word is that we’re in for a big fight tonight over the California delegation’s credentials…”

  He barely heard her over Gimli’s roaring amusement.

  Jack’s hangover finally muted itself after two shots of vodka. He had spent the last hour in his suite, talking on his bank of telephones with Emil Rodriguez, his second-in-command, and trying to round up all his delegates and have them briefed for the platform fight that would come tomorrow.

  There was a knock. Jack told Rodriguez he’d call him back and opened the door. Amy Sorenson stood outside, carrying a pile of briefing papers in an envelope. Her chestnut hair was pinned up atop her head.

  “Hi, Amy.” Jack kissed her warmly, then drew her inside and tried to kiss her again. She turned her head away.

  “Not this time, Jack. This isn’t like Buenos Aires. My husband’s here.”

  Jack sighed. “You’re on business, then.”

  Amy stepped out of his arms and straightened her fetching blue suit. “Brace yourself,” she said. “I’ve got bad news.”

  “I’m braced. I’ve been braced for months.”

  Amy’s nose wrinkled at the appalling stench of tobacco, liquor, and the residue of perfume. She perched on the edge of a chair, then carefully pushed a cigar-filled ashtray as far away as she could. Jack pulled up a chair and sat on it backward, gazing at Amy over the chairback.

  “What’s up?”

  “You’re not going to like this at all. There’s going to be a big credentials fight tonight over the California delegation.”

  Jack stared at her.

  “The Jackson people are gonna spring it on us. They’re claiming that a winner-take-all primary is inherently discriminatory against minorities.”

  “Crap.” Jack’s reply was immediate. “The California primary’s been a winner-take-all for as long as I can remember.”

  “The challenge gives everyone a chance to dismember our largest bloc of delegates, and do it in a righteous cause.”

  “We followed all the rules. We won the primary fair and square.”

  Amy looked exasperated. “The rules, Jack, are what the convention says they are. If they strip our delegates, they open the convention to a series of parliamentary and procedural battles that could unhinge everything. That’s what Jackson, Gore, and Barnett want—if things get chaotic, it improves their chances of getting the nomination. If they can fuck us over and hand us a procedural defeat before the first ballot, they can hope to acquire defectors from our camp during the second ballot.”

  “Great. Just great.” Funny how he just couldn’t get used to women who used words like fuck. Hell, Jack couldn’t get used to the way men used the word these days.

  Some days more than others he felt like a relic.

  “The showdown’s all going to be about the rule books and who can manipulate them best. Who’s the parliamentarian for your delegation?”

  Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I guess I am.”

  “Do you know anything about parliamentary procedure?”

  Jack thought about it. “I’ve sat on a lot of corporate boards. You’d be surprised at some of the tricks they pull.”

  Amy sighed. “Do you know Danny Logan? He’s our campaign parliamentarian. I want you to take your instructions from him.”

  “When I last saw Logan, he was lying under a bar stool at LAX.”

  Amy’s eyes flashed. She tossed her chestnut hair out of her eyes. “He’ll be sober tonight, I promise you.”

  Jack thought for a moment. “Do we have the votes?”

  “Can’t tell. Dukakis is hedging, like always. The people who can save us are the superdelegates. Most of them are congressmen and senators who would do anything to prevent a bloodbath. They may vote for us just to keep things sane. And of course they know Gregg a lot better than they know the Duke and Jackson, let alone Barnett.”

  “This is all crazy.”

  “The Democrats haven’t had a convention that’s gone past the first ballot since 1932. Everybody’s making it up as we go along.”

  Jack rested his chin on his big hands. “I remember that convention. My family listened to it on our radio. We were Roosevelt all the way. I remember my dad breaking out the bootleg hootch when Texas Jack Garner defected from Smith and gave Roosevelt the nomination.”

  Amy smiled at him. “I keep thinking of you as my younger … indiscretion. I just can’t picture you as old enough to live through those times.”

  “Till Gregg came along, the only presidential candidate I voted for was Roosevelt in ’44, when I was overseas. Before that I was too young to vote. In ’48 I couldn’t make up my mind between Truman and Wallace, so I never cast a ballot at all.”

  “You almost voted for George Wallace?” Amy seemed a little shocked. “That seems unlike you.”

  Jack felt terribly old. “Henry Wallace, Amy. Henry Wallace.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Just to make it absolutely clear, the Roosevelt I mentioned was Franklin, not Teddy.”

  “That I knew.” Grinning. “How’d your meeting with Hiram go? Or should I ask?”

  Jack shook his head. “It was weird. I really don’t know what to make of it.” He looked at her. “Is Worchester okay? I wondered if he was ill. He didn’t look healthy.”

  “Mmm.”

  “He’s got this big sore on his neck. I read somewhere that sores like that could be a symptom of AIDS.”

  Amy blinked in astonishment. “Hiram?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know the man, Amy. The only impression I had was that he really wasn’t interested in me.”

  “Well.” She ventured a brief smile. “I guess that means you got along all right.”

  “He didn’t hand me any more dimes, anyway.”

  “That’s encouraging.” Sh
e cocked her head and looked at him. “I met a celebrity this morning. Josh Davidson. You ever met him?”

  “The actor? What’s he doing here?”

  “His daughter’s one of our delegates. He’s here as an observer. I thought you might know each other, being actors and all.”

  “There are a few actors I haven’t met. Honest.”

  “He’s charming as anything. Real smooth.”

  Jack grinned at her. “Sounds like you’re considering an older, uh, indiscretion.”

  Amy laughed. “Well. Maybe if he’d shave off the beard.”

  “I doubt it. That beard’s one of his trademarks.”

  One of Jack’s phones rang. He looked at the row of telephones on his desk and tried to decide which one wanted him. Amy stood.

  “Gotta go, Jack. That’s probably Danny Logan anyway.”

  “Yeah.” Parliamentary tactics, Jack thought. Oh, great.

  Another phone began to ring. Jack crossed the suite and picked up a receiver. He heard only a dial tone.

  It was setting out to be that kind of day.

  11:00 A.M.

  With a nasal squeal of fury Mackie ripped the calendar off the petechiate wallpaper. It displayed an open-lipped pussy presented for his approval—which wasn’t coming—framed in dark hair and olive-thigh flesh, the tentative smile of a Puerto Rican girl hovering off above it in the middle distance.

  Mackie put a buzz on his fingers and ran them across the photo. Bits of woman went everywhere, a flurry of colored-paper snow. That made him feel better.

  It was almost as good as the real thing.

  But while it could be assuaged, nothing was changing the thing that was pissing him off in the first place: the man he had come to kill wasn’t here. Mackie didn’t take disappointment well.

  Maybe if he hung out a while Digger Downs would return home. He kicked over a low table of blond, wood-like veneer, purchased from some rental store, and went to the kitchen, while tabloids, racing forms, and issues of Photo District News fluttered around the floor like wounded birds. The SounDesign stereo on the cinder-block-and-board bookcase spritzed robopop at the fading seams on the back of his leather jacket.