Ace in the Hole Read online

  Brinkley affected curmudgeonly surprise. “Are you telling me, Ted. That in this day and age. A man can get. To be front-runner. By a consistent public articulation. Of principle?”

  Koppel grinned. “Did I say that, David? I didn’t mean to suggest that Hartmann’s campaign wasn’t media-wise—just that it’s been consistent in the image it’s presented to the voter, just as the campaigns of Leo Barnett and Jesse Jackson, the other two candidates nearest the prize, have been equally consistent. But, like I said, any strategy has its risks. The campaign of Walter Mondale in ’84 stands as an example to any politician who dares to be too consistent and articulate.”

  “But let us suppose. That Hartmann loses the fight. How can he possibly. Regain momentum?”

  “He may not, David.” Koppel was obviously excited. “If Gregg Hartmann can’t win by at least a small margin in the fight over Rule 9(c), he may lose everything. The big challenge over California may just prove an anticlimax—he could lose the whole shooting match right here in the fight over 9(c).”

  Drama, Jack thought. Everything had to be dramatized. Each vote had to be the vote, the significant vote, the critical vote, or else the voracious media gods were unhappy and had nothing to fill the air with but their own meanderings.

  Jack tossed his half-eaten pizza slice back into the box. He crossed the room and met Amy Sorenson coming out of her meeting. There was despair in her dark eyes. Hartmann was on the phone, she said, trying to round up last-minute votes.

  Hopeless, Jack thought. He picked up his briefcase, left HQ, and headed down the hall to Logan’s room. The parliamentarian was passed out on the bed, clutching a whiskey bottle as if it were a woman.

  Alone in the corner, the television rattled on. Cronkite and Rather were analyzing Hartmann’s strategy and concluding that he may have overreached this time. They reminded Jack of a pair of television movie critics chewing up a new film.

  What if there wasn’t any drama? Jack thought. What if the vote came and nothing happened, it was just some little procedural thing? Wouldn’t everyone be surprised if someone came along and took the drama away? What if someone, some media god or something, went and canceled Leo Barnett’s showdown?

  Jack realized he was staring at his briefcase.

  He opened the case, picked up the phone, told the little computer memory to get him Hiram Worchester.

  “Worchester?” he said. “This is Jack Braun. I’m speaking for Danny Logan.”

  “Has Logan come up with any numbers yet? From what I can see, we’re in real trouble.”

  Jack reached to the bedside table and swallowed the remains of his drink. “I know,” he said. “That’s why, when the fight over 9(c) comes up, I want you to give half your votes to Barnett.”

  “You better not be selling us out, Braun.”

  “I’m not.”

  “That would be your classic Judas ace style, wouldn’t it? A quick stab in the back, then a new job in the media courtesy of Leo Barnett.”

  Jack closed his fist. The glass in his hand exploded in a flash of gold light.

  “Are you going to do this or not?” Jack demanded. He watched as crushed glass drained like sand from his fist.

  “I want to discuss this with Gregg.”

  “Call him if you like, but he’s busy. Just get ready to cut your delegate count in half.”

  “Would you mind explaining to me what’s going on?”

  “We’re canceling the showdown. If Barnett wins by too large a margin, it’s not going to prove anything. All it’ll mean is that we didn’t fight. In the pictures, you can’t have a gunfight with just one man in the street. The audience’ll walk out.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then: “Let me talk to Logan.”

  “He’s on another line.”

  “Why do you expect me to trust you?” The fat man’s furious anger beat at Jack’s ear.

  “I don’t have time to argue this. Do it or not, I don’t care. Just be ready to answer for your decision later.”

  “If you cost Gregg the election…”

  Jack gave a laugh. “Have you seen ABC? They’ve already got our man conceding.”

  Jack cut the connection, then phoned his own assistant Emil Rodriguez. He told Rodriguez that he wouldn’t be on the floor tonight, that the delegation was his to command; but cut his vote in half on 9(c), and then stand like a rock against the California challenge.

  He began to call every other delegation head, in order of number of votes. By the time he made his last call, to the man who controlled Hartmann’s two votes from the Virgin Islands, the convention had reconvened.

  Danny Logan, unconscious on the bed, began to snore.

  Jack turned on the television and sat in the corner with Logan’s whiskey bottle. The atmosphere on the convention floor was intense. Delegates were scurrying into place around their floor leaders. The orchestra was playing—good lord—“Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”

  A knot of fear began to tighten in Jack’s stomach.

  Jim Wright, speaker of the House and the chairman the convention had elected that afternoon, gaveled the convention to order. A senator from Wyoming stood up to move the repeal of 9(c). All the troops were already in line and there was no debate.

  Jack took a long, long drink, and the roll call began.

  For the next ten minutes, Peter Jennings, seconded by his people on the floor, spoke in serious tones about Gregg Hartmann’s stunning defeat. Jack could hear people outside the room marching up and down. Twice someone knocked, and twice he ignored them.

  Then David Brinkley, his sardonic grin firmly in place, began to wonder aloud if he smelled a rat. He and Koppel and Jennings tossed this notion around while the lopsided numbers added up, then unanimously concluded that the whole showdown had been a sucker play, and that Barnett, Gore, et al had fallen for it.

  There was more pounding on the hotel door. “Logan?” Devaughn’s voice. “Are you in there?”

  Jack said nothing.

  After the reporters’ analysis leaked back to the convention, bedlam broke out on the floor. Mobs of delegates lurched back and forth like wood chips caught in a flood. Jack reached for his phone and called Emil Rodriguez. “Move the California question. Now.”

  Hartmann’s opponents were in total disarray. Their entire strategy had come unhinged.

  Hartmann won the California challenge in a walk. A roar of celebration began to come through the hotel room door.

  Jack opened Logan’s door, put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside, and stepped out into the hallway.

  “Jack!” Amy Sorenson, her chestnut hair flying, ran toward him through a crowd dizzy with celebration. “Were you in there? Did you and Logan come up with this?”

  Jack kissed her, not caring in the least if her husband was present. “Got any pizza left?” he asked. “I’m getting hungry.”

  8:00 P.M.

  A knot of people at the main entrance to the Marriott reared back in alarm as the Turtle settled onto the sidewalk. Blaise drummed on the side of the shell with his heels as he slid off. Tachyon gave the shell a fond pat before he climbed down. “Thank you, Turtle, for a lovely afternoon. It’s an elegant city when seen from above.”

  “Any time, Tachy.” The shell floated away.

  “Dr. Tachyon.”

  The alien turned at that smooth, well-modulated voice with its strong Southern accent. “Reverend Barnett.”

  They had never met, yet recognition was instantaneous. They stood on the steps of the Marriott, devouring one another’s faces, searching for the key to the character of the other man. Leo Barnett was a young man of medium height, blond hair, blue eyes, a dimpled chin. It was a nice face, and for an instant the Takisian struggled to reconcile the hated image of his dreams with this soft-spoken man. Then he recalled the exquisite faces of his kith and kin—all of them murdering thugs—and the moment of dislocation passed.

  “Doctor, didn’t anyone ever tell you that there are some
things we don’t do in the streets because it alarms the children and frightens the horses?”

  Humor laced the words and Tachyon, who had tensed for an attack, relaxed. “Reverend, I’ve been on Earth longer than you’ve been alive, and I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that expression.”

  A woman stepped out of the crowd surrounding Barnett. “It generally refers to sex, and you know all about that.”

  Shoulder-length sable hair, cascading onto her breast, long sooty lashes fluttering on alabaster cheeks, lashes lifting to reveal eyes of a profound midnight blue …

  No, brown!

  Reality shifted like a cable car being wrenched off its track. Tach’s breath seemed to be clogged somewhere between diaphragm and throat. He tottered, groping for Blaise’s shoulder, and Leo Barnett leaped forward to support him on the other side.

  “Doctor, are you all right?”

  “I’ve seen a ghost,” Tach murmured thickly. The faintness was passing, and he lifted his eyes to hers.

  “My campaign manager, Fleur van Renssaeler,” said Barnett with a nervous glance to the woman.

  “I know,” said Tachyon.

  “You’re very quick, Doctor.” Her opening words had been aggressive, now bitter sarcasm laced each syllable.

  “You bear your mother’s face…” He quailed slightly under blazing anger in those brown eyes. “But her eyes were blue.”

  “What an extraordinary memory you have.”

  “There is not a detail of your mother’s face that I have forgotten.”

  “Am I supposed to be pleased by that?”

  “I hope so. I am inordinately pleased to see you. Every week for almost two years we played.” He laughed gently. “I recall you were dreadfully fond of that horrid sticky candy corn. My pockets would be gummy for days afterward.”

  “You never came to our house. My father wouldn’t permit it.”

  Tach felt his jaw sag. “But I mind-controlled the servants. Your mother wanted to see you so desperately—”

  “My mother was a damn slut. She abandoned my father and her children for you.”

  “No, that’s not true. Your father threw her out of the house.”

  “Because she was whoring with you!” Fleur’s hand lashed out, snapping his head around with the force of the blow.

  Tentatively he touched his burning cheek, started to advance on her. “No—”

  Barnett laid a hand on Tachyon’s shoulder. “Doctor, this conversation is obviously upsetting both you and Miss van Renssaeler. I think we should move along.”

  The minister held out his hand to Fleur. Her lips seemed slack, and somehow heavier. An aura of sex surrounded her. Barnett handed her into the taxi as if he were eager to release her.

  “Perhaps sometime we can talk again, Doctor. I confess I’m very curious about the religious beliefs of your world.” Leo paused with a hand on the taxi door. “Are you a Christian, Doctor?”

  “No.”

  “We should talk.”

  The entourage was whisked away, Tach staring blankly after the taxi containing Fleur.

  “What, by the Ideal, was that all about?” The Takisian phrase spoken in Blaise’s heavily accented English added to Tachyon’s sense of disorientation.

  Tach pressed steepled fingers to his lips. “Oh, ancestors.” He wrapped his arm tightly about Blaise’s shoulders. “1947.”

  “No kidding? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Watch your language.”

  They started into the hotel and Blaise asked, “K’ijdad, who is the old femme?”

  “She’s not old … a little older than her mother when I lost her. And you’ve got to stop using French and Takisian in the same sentence. It drives me mad.”

  “Tell me this story,” the boy demanded.

  Tachyon’s eyes flickered from the elevators to the bar. “I need a drink.”

  The pianist was on duty tinkling out a jazzed-up version of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

  “Brandy,” the alien snapped to a waitress as he passed.

  “Beer.” Blaise drooped under a gimlet stare from his grandsire. “Coke,” he amended in a subdued tone.

  They sat in silence until the drinks were delivered, and Tachyon had a long swallow. “It was only a few months after the release of the virus. Blythe had contracted the wild card, and was brought to the hospital where I was working. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I think I loved her from the first moment I saw her.” Blaise rolled his eyes. “Well, I did,” said Tachyon defensively.

  “So what happened?”

  “Blythe’s power enabled her to absorb minds. Archibald Holmes recruited her for an antifascist organization called the Four Aces. Jack was a member, and Earl Sanderson, and David Harstein. Blythe became the repository for the minds of Einstein, Oppenheimer, and many many others, mine included. Meanwhile, Jack and Earl and David were flitting around the word overthrowing dictatorships, capturing Nazis and the like.

  “Then in ’48 they tried to resolve the China problem. David was the key to the negotiations because he possessed a powerful pheromone power. When you were with him he could get you to agree to anything. He had Mao and the Kuomintang kissing and swearing eternal friendship. Then he and the others left China, and naturally the whole thing collapsed.”

  Tach raised a finger for another brandy. “There was growing suspicion toward the wild cards during this period. A lot like today. China gave them the excuse they needed. They went after the Four Aces, accusing them of being communists. But it was just an excuse. Their real sin was that they were different—more than human. We were all called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. They wanted the names of all the aces I had treated. I refused, but then—” Tachyon took a long swallow of brandy. Somehow this story never got any easier.

  “Go on,” pushed Blaise, his dark eyes bright with excitement.

  In a voice drained of all emotion, Tachyon resumed. “Jack had become a so-called ‘friendly witness.’ He told the committee that Blythe had absorbed my mind, my memories. They put her on the stand and began to grill her. Because of the stress of juggling so many minds Blythe was … fragile. She was about to reveal the other aces. I could not allow that to happen. I controlled her, and so broke her mind. She became hopelessly insane, and her husband had her committed. She died in a sanatorium in 1954.”

  “Who was the husband?”

  “A congressman from New York. There were also three children. Henry Jr., Brandon, and Fleur. I lost track of them during the years I was roaming Europe.”

  “Which is when you met George.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is so confusing.”

  “You should have tried living it.”

  “So this is the ancient history you won’t discuss whenever I ask you why you and Jack fight so much.”

  “Yes. For years I blamed Jack for Blythe’s destruction. Then I realized that I was the one who destroyed her. Jack was just one of a long line of contributing factors: my family for developing the virus in the first place, Archibald Holmes for recruiting her, her husband for rejecting her, Jack for being weak, and humans for being venal.”

  Blaise sucked noisily through his straw, dragging up the last of the Coke. “Boy, this is really heavy, you know?”

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Fleur?” A shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I have to see her, Blaise. Explain, set the past straight. Have her forgive me.”

  “Why should you care?”

  “Burning Sky, look at the time! I was supposed to meet the Texas delegation five minutes ago. Go buy some dinner, put it on the room, and stay out of trouble! I’ve got to change.”

  The phone was ringing as he entered the room. Snatching it up, Tachyon heard the hiss of long distance. An operator’s cool, bored tone asked, “Will you accept a collect call from Mr. Thomas Downs?”

  For an instant, disbelief at the journalist’s brass held him silent,
and Tach could hear faint and far away Digger babbling frantically. “Tachy, you gotta listen—”

  “Sir, this call has not yet been accepted.” Admonishment from the frigid operator.

  “Tachy, listen! Something terr—”

  “Sir!”

  “… help me…”

  “Sir, will you accept the charges?”

  “… in big trouble!” Digger’s voice soared into the soprano range.

  “No!” Tachyon slammed down the phone so hard that it gave a ring of protest. He was halfway out of his shirt when it rang again.

  “Collect call—”

  “NO!”

  It rang seven more times. After the third time Tach stopped answering. The shrill ringing was a drill biting into his head. He dressed quickly in his usual elaborate finery. Pale rose and lavender with silver lace. The phone was still ringing as he stepped into the hall. For a moment he hesitated. Help me. Help him how? Tach gave his head an emphatic shake, and pulled the door shut. Too often Digger had embroiled him in the sleazy journalist’s sleazy little problems. Not this time.

  I have enough problems of my own.

  Spector hadn’t been to the store for a year and a half, not since the Wild Card Day when the Astronomer went out in a blaze of glory. With a little help from him, of course. The suit he’d bought then didn’t last out the day, but then a lot of things hadn’t made it through that day. The old guy who ran the place had seemed okay to him. What the hell, might as well throw him some more business. He couldn’t stay at a swank hotel and not have some decent clothes. He’d stand out like a joker at a fashion show.

  He knew it was a mistake as soon as he stepped in. Before, the store had been old, dim, and dusty—like the old man who ran it. Now the place had been repainted and new, brighter lighting had been put in. The room even smelled new.

  As Spector turned to leave, a voice called out to him, “Hey, come on in, sir. If you’re looking for fine clothing at great prices, you’ve come to the right place. Just tell me—I’m Bob—name’s on the sign outside—what you want and I’ll fix you up in no time.”

  Spector looked Bob over. He was dressed well enough, although the clothes didn’t disguise the fact that he was creeping into middle age, but he had a hustler’s eyes and smile. Spector just wanted to buy some clothes and get out. “I’ll need two suits, one dark gray and one light gray. Thirty-eight long. Not too expensive.”