George Martin - Ace In The Hole

Get out. That's what he really wanted to say. I'm tired and ragged and my mind's splitting in half. Leave me alone. Metzenbaum smiled politely; Glenn, with the old astronaut's exaggerated calm, simply nodded, if anything more stonefaced than usual. The two were looking at Ellen pointedly. Gregg didn't need to say anything; Ellen was wellexperienced at picking up such cues.

"Well, I'll leave you folks to your politics," she said. "I've a meeting of my own with the NOW delegates. You are backing the ERA, aren't you?" She smiled again and took her leave. Gregg walked her to the door. On impulse, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her deeply. "Listen, Ellen, I just want you to know how much I appreciate all your help today, without you… well, that incident this morning. Please don't think any more of it. I'm just tired, that's all. The stress…"

He couldn't seem to stop talking. The words just kept tumbling out and he felt closer to her than he had in months. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt you.."

Glenn and Metzenbaum were staring. Ellen stopped his words with a quick kiss. "You have guests, dear," she said, looking at him strangely.

Gregg smiled apologetically; it felt more like a death'shead grin. "Yes, I supppose… I'll see you in a bit for dinner: Bello Mondo, right?"

"Six-thirty. Amy said she'd call to remind you." Ellen hugged Gregg wordlessly. "I love you." She gave him another long look, and stepped out.

Down below, Puppetman howled for attention. Gregg felt sweat beading on his brow. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and turned back into the room.

"Ohio's been very good to me, gentlemen," he said. "You two are largely responsible. I suppose you're both aware that we're looking for support on 9(c) and the California-" They weren't listening. Gregg stopped in mid-sentence. "What?" he asked.

"We have a bigger problem, Gregg," Glenn said. "Bad news, I'm afraid. There's a nasty story going around about you and Morgenstern on the aces junket…"

Gregg was no longer listening. Sara Morgenstern. His career seemed to be inexorably linked to hers. Puppetman's first victim had been thirteen-year-old Andrea Whitman, Sara's sister. Gregg had only been eleven at the time. It was only bizarre coincidence that had caused Sara to suspect, many years later, that Gregg had been involved in Andrea's death. To nullify Sara, and to satisfy Puppetman's own needs, he had taken Sara as a puppet the year before. On the wild cards junket, as discreetly as possible, they'd become lovers.

Gregg could see it all unraveling-the nomination, the presidency, his career. What had happened to Gary Hart could, after all, just as easily happen to him.

Inside, hardly muffled at all, Puppetman screamed.

For a while she simply wandered.

When she got back to her room in the Hilton the message light on the phone was glowing like a telltale on the console of a reactor on overload. When she called the desk, there were about twelve-thousand messages from Braden Dulles in D.C. waiting for her. Another call came in as she was getting the word, and the harried-sounding hotel operator patched it through.

"Is this true?" he asked.

She felt her breath congeal in her throat. It had been like this the one time she tried cocaine, back when she was still married to upwardly mobile lawyer David Morgenstern: the muscles of her chest just refused to work.

"Yes. "

At the door, the first knock came.

Amy Sorenson met Gregg and Ellen behind the podium screen. On the other side of heavy velvet curtains, Gregg could hear the loud conversations of the reporters; the glare of video lights washed under the red folds. "They're all primed," Amy said. "I have your guests next door; I'll get them after you go in." She touched the wireless receiver in her ear and listened for a second. "Okay, Billy Ray says everything's fine. Are you ready?"

Gregg nodded. It had been a long, hard afternoontrying to get news from New York, working with Jack and a mostly soused Danny Logan (Logan was definitely one puppet he'd driven too far) on the strategy for the California fight later tonight, putting out brushfire rumors about his affair, arranging things with the justice Department, setting up this press conference. He'd worried that the stress would bring Puppetman back to conciousness, but the power was still silent and buried. He could sense only the barest rustle of its struggling.

But Gimli-if it was Gimli… That presence was still very much with him. Gregg could hear the dwarf's evil chuckling, and he wondered, as he'd wondered much of the afternoon, if he weren't approaching some kind of breakdown. With the thought, the Gimli-voice surged forward.

You are, Greggie, he said. I'm going to fucking make sure of it.

Gregg took a deep breath and pretended he'd not heard the voice. He took Ellen's hand, squeezed it, then patted the swell of her belly. "We're ready. Let's get on with the circus, Amy."

Gregg fixed a smile on his face as Amy held the curtains aside. He took the three steps up to the stage at a bound, Ellen following slowly. Cameras clicked like a plague of mechanical insects; electronic flashes stuttered their brief lightning. At the podium, Gregg waited until the reporters had quieted in their seats, looking down at the outline of Tony Calderone's speech in his hand. Then he raised his head.

"As usual, I don't have much in the way of a formal statement," he said, waving the single page of handwriting. That received the small laugh he'd expected-Gregg had a reputation as an off-the-cuff speaker who regularly strayed from Tony's prepared text, and most of the reporters in the audience had been with him on the campaign trail for months. "There's a good reason for that, too. I really don't have much to say at this press conference. I feel that the less one responds to vicious and unfounded rumors, the better. And I know what you 'll all say to that: `Don't blame us. The press has its responsibility.' I hope you all feel better for having that out of the way."

There was more chuckling at that, mostly from those he knew were in his camp. The rest waited, solemn.

He paused, glancing again at the notes Tony, Braun, Tachyon, and he had made. At the same time, like a person constantly probing at a broken tooth, he felt for Puppetman and sensed nothing. He relaxed slightly. "We all know why you're here. I'm going to say my piece, answer a few question if you want, and go on to other things. I've already seen fellow candidate ruined by what was essentially innuendo an circumstance. Whether Gary Hart actually did anything was immaterial. He was injured by rumors and might have to credibility even if he'd actually done nothing at all."

"Well, I'm not Gary Hart; he's better looking. Even Ellen says so."

They grinned at that, almost universally, and Gregg himself smiled with them. He placed his notes carefully an visibly to one side, and leaned on his elbows toward them. "I think I can point out a few other differences. The Stacked Dee wasn't the Monkey Business. We went to Berlin, not Bimini And Ellen was along on the entire trip."

Gregg glanced over to Ellen and nodded. On cue, s returned his smile.

"Senator?" Gregg squinted into the glare oflights and sa Bill Johnson of The Los Angeles Times waving his notebook Gregg gestured for him to go ahead. "Then you're denying that you and Sara Morgenstern have had an affair?" Johnson asked "I certainly know Ms. Morgenstern, as does Ellen, an she's been a family friend. She has her own problems, and have no knowledge of precisely what she's said or hasn't sat recently. But I don't go sneaking around behind my wife i back."

Ellen leaned in close to Gregg with a mischievous look "Bill, I did catch Gregg eyeing Peregrine from time to time but he was hardly the only one doing that."