George Martin - Ace In The Hole

He started walking for the Omni Hotel while the alien kicked and struggled.

"Blood and bone! Let me down!"

"I'm going to find a cold shower and put you in it," Jack said. "Consider it your penance for throwing that bomb at me in Paris. If you want to get laid after that, I know a Miss Peachtree who will be glad-"

Jack stopped moving. He put Tachyon down. He marched up the ramp to the stair leading to the skybox. He dropped the cigarette to the concrete floor, ground it under his heel, and stepped in.

Then he blinked, took a long breath, and tried not to collapse. Tachyon had just shredded his mind like a newspaper torn by a high wind.

Reporters waited, scattered around tables and looking bored. Some were staring at him. Summoning nerve from someplace he didn't know he had, Jack gave them a smile and wave, and stepped forward to say his piece.

"Would you like a drink?"

"No." Her arms were folded protectively across her breasts.

He hefted the bottle. Alcohol was sometimes an inhibitor. He quickly replaced the bottle. Hugged his elbows. Stared at the floor. They were separated by feet. It might have been light years. Never had he felt so gauche.

The hiss of silk brought his head up. Fleur's skirt puddled on the floor about her feet. She studied the far wall with frowning abstraction as she swiftly unbuttoned her blouse, unsnapped her bra. The heavy breasts swung free. She was larger bosomed than her mother had been. Tachyon couldn't decide if he liked it. His mouth was dry from nerves. He watched her buttocks dimple as she climbed into the bed. "Wait," he forced out.

"Let's do this." As a come-on line it lacked something. He jammed his hands into his pockets. Took a quick turn about the room. He noted his erection was back.

"I'm scared."

Propping her elbows on her knees, hands hanging loosely between her legs in front of her dark snatch, Fleur said dryly, "That's my line."

"Help me a little."

"How?"

"Undress me. Be loving with me."

She swung off the bed, and took hold of the lace cravat at his throat. Unbuttoned his shirt, and pushed it off his shoulders. Tach, standing with closed eyes, could feel her hair brushing at his skin. The scent of vanilla and spice washed across him-Shalimar. Blythe's scent. It brought it all back so strongly. That hot summer day in '48, the crackle of petticoats as he embraced Blythe, the smell and taste of Shalimar as his lips explored her neck.

Fleur slithered down the length of him like a worshiper at some ancient altar. Her lips were pressed to his belly as she opened his pants, and pulled them down over his hips. His erection throbbed in time to his beating heart. In a frenzy he kicked off his shoes, and struggled to free himself from the confining material of his pants. Fleur laughed, husky and low, as he lost his balance and sprawled on the floor. Kissing, clutching, panting, punctuating the desperate flow of endearments with deep groans, they lurched toward the bed. A single bead of sperm squeezed from the head of his cock. Terrified that he would lose it Tachyon spread her legs, murmuring Takisian obscenities like a pagan litany. The lips of her labia closed about him.

The touch of her mind. Roulette. Poison, death, terror, madness.

He began to lose it. The iron leaching from his penis. Suddenly other hands tangled in his long hair. A sweet husky voice encouraging him.

The muted click of the beaded curtains blowing gently in a hot breeze. The scratchy recording of "La Traviata" throwing sound, like shards of light, throughout the apartment. Blythe in his arms.

He drove deep within her. Gave a shrill cry of triumph. Blythe. Blythe. Blythe.‹/I

Night was coming. She was sure of it. Sitting beneath a potted plant's notched ear in the Marriott lobby she could feel it slouching rough-beast-like toward downtown Atlanta.

When it came, it would thin the crowd. Remove, one by one, the forest of walking, talking trees in which she hid. Until there was no cover. It was simple mathematics: if safety was numbers, subtraction equaled death.

Night was the natural environment of Hartmann's hunchbacked puppet. She knew that. As she knew night would soon or late be born.

She had to find an indivisible one to protect her. Or the creature that clung to the fur of night's black belly would have her.

Tachyon had failed her. So had Ricky-though his failure had been of the noble variety, and had bought her twenty-four hours of air time. She had to find someone with the strength to shield her, someone who would accept the only coin she had to pay with. Before day's placenta burst.

She knew just the man.

The band was playing "Stars Fell on Alabama," which Jack hoped to hell wasn't some kind of political signal. After eleven futile ballots, almost anything could be taken for an omen by weary and desperate delegates. Jack hoped the song was only a crowd soother after the day's seventh fistfight on the floor, this last between a Jackson delegate defecting to Hartmann and a floor manager who was trying to change his mind. There was a motion on the floor to give up and go home for the day, something that was perfectly in tune with the delegates' premature weariness. Jack moved through his crowd to find Rodriguez.

"Listen, ese. We've stayed solid for Hartmann so far. "Right.

"Everybody's going to come after us tonight. One crack in the facade of solid California and people are going to figure it's open season."

Sweat was pouring down Jack's face. There were sopping stains under the arms of his tailored shirt. At some point that afternoon the air-conditioners had given up.

"Call a meeting after dinner. Nine o'clock. Everyone attends. "

Rodriguez looked at him. "What's the meeting about?" "Who gives a damn? We'll figure out something. We just need to count heads, make sure none of the other guys' people are talking to ours. If we keep our delegates busy, we can keep them out of other people's camp."

Rodriguez gave a grin. "What you gonna do after that, man? Bed checks?"

"Something like that." Rodriguez's grin faded. Jack spoke quickly. "We're all blocked together at the Marriott. I want you to put someone you trust on each floor, check people in and out, make a list, get IDs. We can't stop the wrong people from visiting ours, but we can make sure they're seen when they do. "

Rodriguez looked dubious. "You've seen all the hookers outside. We're supposed to get their names?"

"Just do it," Jack snapped.

Damn. His temper was unraveling along with everyone else's.

"Barnett's people are trying to compromise us," he said, lowering his voice. "One of their bimbos for Christ is fucking Tachyon even as we speak."

Rodriguez looked horrified. "Okay," he said. "I'll see to it."

Jim Wright looked relieved as he gaveled the convention to an early close, leaving the networks frantically trying to schedule hours of prime-time reruns.

Jack's temper growled in his mind as he crowded out the door. The whole thing had gone on too long, two days of balloting following two days of procedural fights, and all in the middle of a sweltering Georgia summer. Fleur van Renssaeler was off fucking Tachyon, hoping to accomplish god-knew-what, and Tach had left Jack to face the media unprepared.

Not only that, Connie Chung was clearly prepared to stay faithful to her husband.

At least he had his table waiting at the Bello Mondo, and a whole night before him. It had been a week since he'd last got laid. He had nothing better to do tonight than rectify that oversight.

There was another message from Bobbie waiting for him at the desk, but there was no answer when he returned her call. He showered, changed, endured the horrors of the glass elevator as he descended from his room to the Bello Mondo. The waiter, recognizing him, brought his double whiskey without being asked. And then Sara Morgenstern, looking like someone had recently connected her to a car battery, sat opposite him. She was clutching a shoulder bag to her chest as if it were all she owned.