George Martin - Ace In The Hole

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.

"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.

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 went 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..