George Martin - Ace In The Hole

Tony tossed his napkin on the table and signalled the waiter to bring the bill. "You got time to take a little ride with me?"

"Sure," Spector said, downing his wine. "What have you got in mind?"

"Just going to visit some friends of mine. Good friends. I'd like you to meet them." Tony smiled again. Spector couldn't say no.

"Maybe after we're done, you can introduce me to your boss. I'd like to meet him." Spector was uncomfortable, and it wasn't entirelv due to his bloated stomach.

"We might just be able to do that," Tony said. "But first things first."

Right, Spector thought, first things first.

All his old skills had returned. His aspect was truly upon him. Tachyon grinned down at his penis thrusting aggressively from the copper hairs of his brush. Laughing, he dove between her legs, nipping at her thighs, licking, teasing. Only one thing remained. To join completely with her. To join with her mind. He would do it when they climaxed, he decided. That would forever put the terror of Roulette behind him. Wriggling up her body, he sucked in one dusky nipple. Penetrated her.

Her thoughts were sharp, as jagged as glass. "You look just like your mother, and she was a slut… slut… SLUT."

A hateful voice. He hadn't heard it in thirty-eight years. Even filtered through the layers of Fleur's memories, Henry van Renssaeler still had the power to disgust.

"You better prove how much you love me."

"I love you, Daddy. I love you."

The soft cadences of Leo Barnett.

"Open your heart to Jesus, and all your sins will be forgiven you."

The rest followed in swift, hurtful images. Fleur's realization of how he was using his power on the uncommitted delegates. The faked fall. The pretended passion. The disgust and dislocation as she tried to come to grips with the fact that she was in bed with her mother's lover. Even as she clutched at his sweat-slick body, she was pretending that he was Leo Barnett.

Fury took him, and Tachyon was closer to striking a woman than he had ever been in his life. He took his revenge by finishing the act, with her, slaking his body's desires with hired meat. When it was over, he rolled out of the bed, and gathering up her clothes, tossed them on top of her. She stared at him, alarm shadowing the brown eyes.

"Get out."

"You read my mind-"

"Yes. "

"You violated me."

"Yes."

She was scrabbling into her clothes, wadding up her hose, and cramming them into her purse, smoothing the tangled hair. Pausing at the door, she flung at him," I accomplished what I set out to do. I kept you away from the convention."

"And you deserve something for your trouble." Tachyon dug out a pair of twenties, and slapped them into her hand. "Jack was right. You're not your mother. You are a slut."

She slammed the door behind her.

The air-conditioning was icy on his bare skin. Tach poured himself a drink, and took several deep breaths trying to slow his racing heart. Then as he lifted the glass to his lips, the door hit the wall with a report like a firing pistol.

Brandy sloshed across his chest and belly. "Oh, Ideal!"

"Expecting someone?" remarked Polyakov dryly as he eyed Tachyon's erection.

But there was a narrowness to the eyes, a tension to the jaw that made Tachyon think that the Russian's mind was anywhere but on Tachyon's sex life.

"If you could return your brains from your secondary head to your primary head, may we discuss a very serious problem?"

"Very funny." Tach padded to the dresser, and poured a fresh drink. Blaise settled cross-legged on the bed, and stared down at his hands. George stood solid and lumpish in the center of the room. "So what is this great and serious problem?"

"We were arrested."

"WHAT!" Tach turned like a slow-coiling snake on Blaise. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," he whined.

"Oh, no, just played master puppeteer with a joker, a Klansman, a neo-Nazi and a policeman," snapped Polyakov. Tach shook his head like a baffled pony. George continued grimly on, "You would think when he has a subtle and invisible power he would have the brains not to advertise when he is using it."

Something flickered between man and boy. Suspicious, Tach lanced out with his telepathy, but all he caught was the brittle edges of the passing thoughts. The flavor of conspiracy.

"They were all standing out there waving their dicks at each other. I was just giving them the opportunity to prove how tough they were. That stupid, ugly joker was trying to wimp out-"

"SHUT UP!" Even Tachyon jumped at the fury and command in the Russian's voice. Polyakov turned his back on the red-faced boy. "The preambulations of an adolescent, superpowered Caligula are not the problem. The problem is Henry Chaiken."

"Fascinating. And who by the Ideal is Henry Chaiken?"

"An AP reporter who used to be stationed overseas. He recognized me as Victor Demyenov, reporter for Tass."

"Blood and Ancestors." Tach's knees felt weak, and he felt for the edge of the bed, sat down hard.

"Naturally the police-"

Frustrated with the slow unraveling of the story, Tachyon snatched the memory from his grandson's mind.

The street flanking Piedmont Park. Glancing down to see the dusty footprints left by his tennis shoes on the hood of the car. The circle of sweating faces surrounding the little tableau. Mouths stretched with excitement, eyes glistening. Shrugging off George's clutching hands.

"Come on. Come on! Put your money down. Not on an ugly joker he's going to get creamed."

The cop giving a convulsive jerk as Blaise twitched the cord binding the human to the quarter-Takisian child.

"He's not going to help the joker. He hates them too. I know. I'm in his head."

"Soon after an army of police arrived, and Blaise discovered the limit to his power," continued Polyakov, not realizing that Tachyon had read it all.

A chill, like an icy finger, traced down his back as Tach considered that at the end Blaise had been controlling nine people. Tachyon's limit was three for full control, and that took a tremendous toll on mind and body. Nine. And he was only thirteen. And I've been training him. His eyes met the flat implacable gaze of the sullen boy.

"Chaiken was an interested spectator to all of this, and he found it interesting that my current identification did not match his memory of me. I gave them a story about changing my name as I changed my life, but if they are not complete fools they will check."

"Your papers?"

"Are very good, but a question to the wrong place. A photo shown to the wrong man…" Polyakov shrugged expressively.

"You have to get out of here. Out of the country. If you need money I'll give it to you-"

"No. I came here to do a thing. I will not leave."

"What about me!"

"You don't matter any more than I do. What I do I do out of a perhaps pathetic belief in an ideal. A familiar concept to you, Tachyon. You curse with it, believe in it. We're not so very different. We both have our honor. Unfortunately, it is always purchased with blood."

There was again that fleeting glance between the Russian and Blaise. Tachyon slipped beneath the teenager's imperfect shields.

"You may not use Blaise. I forbid it!"

An infinitesimal arch of the eyebrows. Polyakov's mouth twisted in a slight, bitter smile.

"I'll do whatever Uncle George wants," shrilled Blaise. "I will kill you first," said Tachyon, eyes locking with the Russian's.

"I'm not your enemy, Dancer. He is." A pudgy forefinger thrust at the ceiling, and the Hartmann suite seven floors above.

Standing with the fronds of a fern falling across his face like bangs, Mackie Messer watched Sara and the big fuck leave the restaurant.

She'd been keeping him at bay all day, keeping to the crowds, never letting him have a shot at her alone. He'd thought surely she'd go to the room she shared with the nigger to take a shower; women were crazy about keeping clean. He'd never seen Psycho, so he didn't realize that was the last thing a woman of Sara's generation would do in circumstances like these.