George Martin - Ace In The Hole

The faces of women. Blythe, Angelface, Roulette, Fleur, Chrysalis. Farewell, old friend. The door to the hotel room was flung violently open. Tach stared up into her smoldering brown eyes. Hello, my love?

"What are you doing? Why won't you leave me alone? Please, please, just leave me alone!" Her hair flew about her face.

"I can't."

She was on her knees before him, hands gripping his shoulders. "Why not?"

"It makes no sense to me. How shall I explain it to you?"

"You've twisted and corrupted everything you've ever touched. Now you're trying to do it to me."

He didn't deny it. Couldn't deny it. "I think we could make each other well. Wash away the guilt."

"Only God has that power."

He tentatively touched a strand of hair with the tip of a finger. "You have her face. Can it be that you don't have her soul?"

"You damn fool! You've made her into something that never existed."

She jerked her head away. His fingers trailed across her cheek, and he felt moisture. The violent withdrawal carried her a few steps to his left. Fleur leaned her forehead against the wall, every line of her bodv etched in agony. Tach laid the bow across the strings. Played.

In the latex clown's head mask, Gregg was simply another of the jokers trying to stay cool in the sticky Atlanta humidity. The temperature was stuck permanently in the low nineties; the breeze felt like a moving sauna. The mask was an oven, but he didn't dare take it off.

It had taken time to arrange his escape from the hotel. Ellen had finally gone to sleep, but there was no telling when she might wake. He hated taking the risk, but he had to do something about Puppetman.

The power had gained the strength of desperation. Gregg was afraid that its struggles were already too visible to outsiders.

Discarded Flying Ace Gliders transformed into Fucking Flying jokers crumpled underfoot as Gregg stepped over the gutter and into Piedmont Park. Shapes moved through the trees and around the grassy hillocks. Police swept the perimeter with regularity, trying to keep the jokers in and anyone else out, but it was easy enough for Gregg to slide past them in the darkness and enter the surreal world of the park.

Once inside, the city at his back was forgotten. A tent village had sprung up on one of the hillsides, spreading shouting laughter and light. A bonfire flickered close by; he could hear singing. The jokers passing in front of the fire threw long, shifting shadows across the grass. Deeper in the park behind the peaked tents, Gregg saw erratic phosphorescent brilliance there were enough jokers whose skin glowed, flashed, or radiated that it had become a nightly custom for them to gather on a hilltop at full dark like human fireflies: a UPI photographer's shot of them had become one of the more memorable images of the convention-outside-the-convention.

Gregg navigated through the park under Puppetman's guidance, following the tug of mental strings from the puppets within the crowd. There were many of them in the park, mostly longtime J-Town residents whose neuroses and foibles were familiar and much-traveled territory for Puppetman. Often he'd ignore them for the thrill that came from twisting some new puppet to his will, but not tonight. Tonight he was after sustenance, and an easing of the power's needs, and he'd take the quick, easy path.

One of the threads led to Peanut.

Peanut: a puppet since the mid-seventies, one of those he'd used during the tragedy of the '76 convention. The joker was a sad, simpleminded man whose skin had been turned brittle, hard, and painful. He'd been Gimli's associate within the defunct JJS, and his right arm had been hewn off by Mackie Messer just over a year ago-Peanut had come between Mackie and the Nur al-Allah's sister, Kahina. Arrested with others in the organization after Gimli's death, Peanut had been quickly released after Gregg's office interceded on his behalf.

Peanut had always been troubled by his friend Gimli's deep hatred of Gregg. Peanut had admired the Hartmann he knew. After his release, he'd even worked as a volunteer for the NYC campaign staff, canvasing the Jokertown district during the primary.

Peanut was like an old lover. Gregg knew all the buttons to push.

No one paid much attention to Gregg. Most of the jokers went bare faced, flaunting their jokerhood, but enough of them still wore the masks that Gregg was not overly conspicuous. He lingered at the edge of the tents, on the fringes of the crowd around the bonfire. He sat against a tree bearing a wind-tattered "Free Snotman" poster.

Sweat rained from his face onto the headlands of his Black Dog T-shirt.

He could see Peanut off to his right. Gregg dropped the bars around Puppetman-the restraints faded far too fast, emphasizing just how feeble was his hold on the power.

Puppetman lanced out toward Peanut, examining the colors of the joker's dim mind and looking for something… tasty. The hues of Peanut's mind were simple and plain. It was easy to separate the strands and find the ones Puppetman could use. With Peanut, as with so many of the jokers he'd taken, those strands were linked to sex. Puppetman knew that-no matter how they might deny it-most jokers loathed their appearance. They hated the thing they saw in the mirror. Many found other jokers just as repulsive. Fortunato had been one of dozens who profited from that truth: there was a vigorous, thriving market in Jokertown for nat prostitutes willing to entertain joker customers.

Peanut suffered as much as anyone from the stigma. His body tissues were unpliable and ridged. His face looked as if he'd slathered mud over it and then baked it in the sun. At the joints of his limbs, the skin often cracked and split, leaving pus-filled, slow-healing sores and scabs. Peanut was ugly, and Peanut was just smart enough to realize how slow witted he was. For a nat, that was an unhappy combination. In jokertown, especially, it was far worse.

For Peanut (Gregg knew) sex was a rare mingling of pain and pleasure. His erections hurt and the leathery skin there cracked and bled from the friction of sexual contact. For days afterward he'd suffer.

Yet the wild card hadn't dampened the urges or stopped him from craving the release the act brought; if anything, his drive was stronger than normal. Peanut was a regular customer of the cheapest J-town whores; when he couldn't afford even their business-like ministrations, he'd masturbate in his flop, quickly and guiltily.

Puppetman knew that, knew it well. There were many times that Puppetman thought the wild card had been designed strictly for his benefit.

Caressing Peanut's mind, he saw the pulsing yellow of lust and knew that it had been days for him. The urge was there, already strong. Puppetman reached out, slowly brightening the color and saturating it, until there was room for little else. Gregg, watching, saw Peanut grimace. The joker rose and walked away from the fire. Gregg waited, then followed behind.

There were tints and shades within the golden primary: an orange wash of muted sadism; the azure desire for nats; a coral-green preference for oral stimulation. Puppetman had seen such facets in every puppet. Desire was always complicated and sometime contradictory. Normally such things remained subdued or even denied-stuff of fantasies and masturbatory visions, minor whorls in the flood. But Puppetman could make the tendencies flare, make them dominant passions. He could force someone to become a violent rapist or a humiliated slave; he could make them seduce a child or a friend's spouse.

It was a favorite trick.

Do whatever you want. Just make it quick. Remember Gimli…

Puppetman snarled at the reminder. He prodded brutally at Peanut's mind and waited to see what would happen. Peanut wandered to the edge of the encampment where a stand of trees held darkness. He seemed agitated, his whole body turning as he glanced from side to side. Gregg watched from the cover of one of the tents as Peanut seemed to come to a decision and headed into the trees.