George Martin - Ace In The Hole

"Hartmann! Hartmann!" A wave, a torrent, it swept them all up. "Hartmann! Hartmann!" Gregg shook his head in feigned modesty, letting it all wash over him and grinning down at them.

"Hartmann! Hartmann!"

And the grin suddenly went frozen on his face. Somehow, Mackie was down there in the front ranks of the crowd, grinning like all the rest, a hunchbacked boy-man dressed all in black and leather. A chill rattled down Gregg's spine.

It's okay, Puppetman murmured inside his head. It's okay. I can control him. But Gregg shivered, and when he leaned toward the microphones again, his voice had lost some of its enthusiasm.

Forging across the floor between delirious delegates in white plastic straw-like hats with HARTMANN emblazoned on them, Mackie felt as if he were made of air. He never felt any different when he went insubstantial-phased out-but if he did this was how he might feel. As if he was just going to diffuse like a cloud at any moment.

He hadn't slept last night, wedged in between a pair of stinking winos on the bus from the New York Port Authority. The business-suit pervo, with a taste for the slightly bizarre, who'd picked him up in Times Square had obviously realized the kind of love he was looking for was expensive to come by in the age of AIDS hysteria; he was carrying quite a roll of cash in his pocket. Even after Mackie had peeled away the bloodstained hundred on the outside there was more than enough for a plane ticket. But he hadn't dared take a plane. They might be watching the airports for him; he'd let himself be seen three times now.

Der Mann would be very disappointed.

He was up there on the podium now. A tropism of love and contrition drew Mackie to him. He was not supposed to approach Hartmann in public. He would not. He just needed the nearness of him.

He pushed out from under the array of press boxes, hanging over the packed court like the Death Star. Eel-like he flowed between shouting men with strained shirt buttons and fat women in pastel dresses, every face shining with sweat and grease and greed for the spoils of the love feast of capitalism.

The spectacle would have disgusted and intimidated him had he any room in his mind for thoughts that weren't of Hartmann. Of love and duty and failure.

The podium rose before him like a blue Rhine castle. He didn't see the Man yet, but the man on stage was talking about him. He looked to the wings, trying to catch sight of Hartmann.

White motion took his eye. Tiers of VIP boxes rose either side of the podium like layers of a wedding cake. A diminutive figure in a white dress was excusing its way past seated dignitaries on the level to the left of and even with the podium. It wore a flamboyant bird mask of white feathers that gleamed like silver under the lights.

He started to think, filthy joker cunt. Then he realized what had drawn his attention.

The way she moved. He could always recognize a person by posture, the way she carried herself, the way her limbs and body acted together. He could always pick his mother, the bitch, out of a mob of Sankt Pauli whores by her walk.

Now he recognized Sara Morgenstern, who had greater claim on him than any woman since his mother died. Joyous fury bubbling within him, he began to force his way through the mob. He would not fail his man again. Or her.

Hartmann was speaking. The crowd, chanting his name, would barely let him get a word in edgewise. Jack wandered around the CBS skybooth and tried to stay out of everyone's way.

The monitors showed a crowd going mad. Jack watched and wondered what he could do.

He could tell people. But he'd had a chance just now, and he couldn't.

He couldn't be the Judas Ace again. He couldn't start a new round of persecutions.

He reached for a cigarette, and then he saw the leather boy on one of the monitors.

He couldn't mistake the slight, hunchbacked figure, not even behind the mask. The puny body and arrogant, jerky walk was an unmistakable combination. "Hey!" Jack said. A surge of adrenaline almost knocked him off his feet. He jumped forward just as the freak walked off camera. "That's the killer!" He jabbed a finger at the monitor. "Right here! Where's that camera pointing?"

The director looked at him with fury in his eyes. "Will you get-"

"Call the Secret Service! That's the chainsaw killer! He's on the convention floor!"

"What-"

"Where's that camera pointed, goddamn it?" "Uh-Camera Eight? That's on the right side of the podium…"

"Damn!" The freak was right under the candidates.

Jack looked around frantically. The commentators, deep into their zen, had yet to hear his panicked shouts. "Camera Eight." This from the director. "Pan left and right. Ready Eight? Cut Eight."

Jack jumped up on the desk in front of Cronkite and lashed out with a foot. The safety glass on the front of the skybooth bulged outward, a network of cracks appearing around Jack's foot. A startled Cronkite wheeled back on his desk chair, barking out oaths sea-dog style, as Jack put his foot through the safety glass, then punched out to widen the hole.

The beams supporting the Omni Center's ceiling were just in front and overhead. Jack jumped, caught an I-beam with both hands. He moved hand-over-hand along the beam toward the podium. This was going to take forever. He swung back, forward, pushed himself o$, flew from one supporting beam to the next.

He'd done this for years on NBC. The old Tarzan reflexes came back without thought.

There was sudden commotion. Hartmann's speech had been interrupted. He was too late.

As Gregg Hartmann strode forward through torrents of applause, Sara deliberately moistened her lips. How confidently he walks. He thinks he's a god.

But there were no gods any more. Just men and women, some with more power than any mortal could safely use. The purse fell open beneath numbed fingers as if of its own accord. She reached a gloved hand inside. The metal and checked rubber of the grip were cool fire, burning her fingers. "Andi," she whispered. She drew the pistol. Letting her purse dangle from her forearm by one strap she raised the weapon both-handed.

Mackie was practically running through the close-packed delegates, using cattle-prod buzzes of his elbows to wellpadded rumps to clear a path, phasing out when he had to.

He'd do Sara fucking Morgenstern on nationwide TV, fuck her right straight through the heart with his good right hand. Der Mann would be so proud.

He felt pressure in the armpits and then his feet paddled air as he was hoisted off the floor by the collar of his leather jacket. "Not so fuckin' fast, joker," a voice grated in his ear.

Squirming, he was turned around into a blast of boozeand-tobacco breath. His captor was a large man in a bonewhite jumpsuit, with black hair hanging into his face. It was a strange sort of face. It looked as if it had been busted into its component parts and hastily super-glued back together. The nose was a mangled mass, the cheekbones mismatched, and the green eyes burned at different angles.

"You better not fuck with me, goddamn you!" Mackie screeched, half-blind with fury. "I'm goddamn not a joker! I'm Mack the Knife!"

The big man winced from the shower of angry spittle. "You look like Jack the Shit to me, junior. Now let's you and me and my good right hand go somewhere for a little talk, nice and private like -"

Mackie lashed out with his own right hand.

His fingertips touched the knobbed right cheekbone with a noise and smell like a dentist's drill going into a tooth. They slashed through cheek and lip and bone, cutting away half the lower jaw at a slant. Nude teeth grinned at him a millisecond before washing out in a rush of blood. The big man dropped him and clapped both hands to the spurting ruin of his face.

Mackie turned back to the podium. A woman with orange-dyed hair stood in his path, her mouth a tunnel right down to her belly. He hacked her out of his way like an explorer taking a machete to an inconvenient branch.