George Martin - Ace In The Hole

"Okay. Well, after things get settled you give me a call. In the meantime, look after yourself."

"So long." Spector set the phone lightly in its cradle. He couldn't let this sentimental crap take away his edge. He was going to need it.

Spector put the whiskey bottle in his coat pocket, he gave the room a slow look before leaving. He knew he wouldn't be coming back.

Jack hadn't found Blaise on any of his intermittent searches, and he decided it was time to head for the hospital and tell Tachyon that Blaise was gone.

Hell. The kid would probably be right by his grandad's bedside.

Hartmann supporters were wandering about the Marriott lobby in various attitudes of inebriation or exhaustion. Yellow warning tape fluttered around the hole that Jack had driven into the floor. Jack saw the pert waitress he'd noticed before and gave her a wink. She grinned at him. He was sufficiently preoccupied with notions concerning the waitress that he didn't see Hiram until he almost tripped over the huge suitcase-almost a trunk-that the man had set next to him.

Hiram seemed as surprised as Jack. The big man's eyes were wide in alarm. Maybe the suitcase contained something valuable.

Hiram had a man with him, a thin joker with a little mustache and webs of skin over hollow eye sockets.

"Oh. Sorry." Jack stepped around the suitcase. He looked up at Hiram.

"Won't you be staying for the acceptance speech?"

"Ah. No. I've-uh-stayed longer in Atlanta than I meant to, anyway." Hiram's eyes gazed at Jack out of bruised sockets. He was a mess: his hair awry, his collar open to reveal the sore on his neck. Maybe he'd slept in his suit. He took Jack's arm and led him away, out of earshot of the thin joker. "Actually, I've been wanting to speak to you."

"I'd been hoping to see you, too." Jack ventured a smile. "I wanted to thank you for the other day. You maybe saved me from getting hurt, making me light that way."

"I'm glad I was able to be of assistance." Hiram glanced over his shoulder at the joker and gave a nervous smile. He turned back to Jack. "I wanted to tell you something," he said.

His tone sent a little warning signal down Jack's spine. Whatever was coming, Jack knew he didn't really want to hear it.

"Sure," he said.

"I wanted to say that I understand now," Hiram said. His voice was leaden. "That you were right when you said that you didn't know till you've been tested."

"Oh," said Jack. He didn't want to hear this confession. Whatever Jack was, whatever he'd done, he didn't want anyone else's sins rattling around in his own head. He had trouble enough coping with his own.

"When I was attacking you the other day," Hiram went on, "I was really attacking myself. I was trying to deny my own betrayals."

"Yeah." Jack just wanted Hiram and his soap opera to leave. What kind of betrayal could someone like Hiram pull olf, anyway? Buy second-rate cuts of veal for his restaurant?

Hiram looked at him, eyes bright, as if he was expecting some kind of wisdom from Jack, some way to handle this burden of self-knowledge. Jack didn't have much to give.

" You can't change the past, Hiram," Jack said. "You can maybe make the future a little better. We've done that, I think, with what we've done in the last week."

"Hiram." The joker was looking at them with his blank eye sockets. Jack had the uneasy feeling he was being scrutinized. "It's time to go."

"Yes. Of course." Hiram was panting for breath, as if the conversation had somehow exhausted him.

"See you around, maybe," Jack said.

Hiram turned without a word and headed back to pick up the suitcase. Either it held nothing, or Hiram had made it light.

A giddy wave of paranoia struck Jack at the sight of Hiram hefting the huge suitcase and heading for the big revolving doors. Suppose Blaise…

But no. The suitcase was big, Jack realized, but not big enough to hold a teenage boy.

The events of the last few days had made him jumpy.

Even with the medication, Puppetman could feel Tony Calderone's pain. It tasted spicy. He tweaked it, just for the pleasure. Tony grimaced and jumped slightly in his bed, joggling the laptop on his food tray. His face went visibly pale. "You okay?" Gregg asked, ignoring Puppetman's interior laughter.

"Just a twinge, Senator. No big deal." His denial was belied by the sweat on his forehead. Puppetman giggled. Now leave him alone. We have to work.

No problem, Greggie. It just feels so good to be free again. We've put it all together. It's all ours now.

"I've been thinking about the speech, Senator," Tony was saying. "I think I've come up with the catch phrase we've been looking for. I was looking through all the old speeches. You remember what you said in Roosevelt Park when you declared that you were running?"

That brought back memories-it hadn't been long after that speech that he'd had Kahina killed in front of Chrysalis and Downs to guarantee their silence about his ace. That certainly worked well, Gregg thought ironically.

But it did, Puppetman insisted. It kept things quiet through the campaign. Tachyon found out too late. It's all taken care of now.

I suppose… "What phrase where you thinking of, Tony?" Gregg asked the speechwriter.

Tony punched a key and read the words on the LCD screen. "`There are other masks than those Jokertown has made famous.' Your own line, too, if I recall, and a good one. `Behind that mask is an infection that's all too human… I want to rip the mask off and expose the true ugliness behind, the ugliness of hatred."' Tony tapped the screen. "That's a powerful image. I think it's time we built on it."

"Sounds fine to me. What have you got in mind?"

"I've been working along those lines since last night. And I've had another thought." Tony grinned, and Gregg felt an upwelling of pulsing yellow-Tony was proud of this one. He pushed the laptop aside and sat up straighter in the bed. His fingertips drummed on his thigh in excitement.

"What if we had everyone wearing masks: you, Jesse, everyone on stage and all our delegates out in the audience? Jokers, aces, and nats, every last one masked so you can't tell the difference. Then, when you hit the right line-" Tony closed his eyes, thinking. "I don't know, something along the lines of, `It's time for all of us to remove our masks, the masks of prejudice, of hatred, of intolerance' but stronger, much stronger, and with a lot of buildup. And just as you say it, boom, everyone rips off their mask and tosses it in the air." Gregg chuckled. He turned the scene over in his mind. " I like it. I think I like it a lot."

"It's hot. It's a guaranteed spot on every channel. Can you see it, all those masks in the air? Man, you talk about an image. It rivets the wild card issue in every voter's mind, and Bush is going to have a hell of a time getting drama like that at the Republican Convention."

Gregg slapped the bed sheets and stood up. "We'll run with it. You start working on the speech; I'll get together with Amy, John, and Devaughn and get this coordinated with our people. Tony, this is good. When you have a full draft, send it up to Ellen's room. I've got the modem on the Compaq set up."

"You got it, Senator," Tony grinned.

"The public's never going to forget what happens tonight, Tony. Get cracking; we don't have much time."

Gregg was grinning as he left the room. Tachyon was out of the picture, the nomination was wrapped up, and now the perfect image for the coming campaign. He was so pleased he didn't even listen to Puppetman's whining for just one last taste of Tony's pain.

"Although there was a small portion of the carpus remaining, I chose to amputate a few inches farther back on the radius."