Ace in the Hole

  It had been weird running into Tony, even weirder finding out that he was a honcho for Hartmann. Tony was a good guy and Spector liked him, but he’d always been something of a bleeding heart.

  The actor was in deep shit now, headed for the guillotine. He didn’t seem particularly upset about it. Spector would have gone kicking and screaming. He knew what it was like to die.

  He could use Tony to get at Hartmann, if there was no other way. Spector had always prided himself on the fact that he never fucked over his friends. He’d never had many, so it wasn’t that hard to do. But the job came first.

  The actor had just sent a little blonde number up to the big blade with a kiss and now it was his turn. “It’s a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before. It’s a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.” The actor stood before the guillotine, noble, unafraid. Naturally, the camera pans up so nobody can see his head flop into the basket.

  “What a fucking sap,” Spector said, as he zapped the TV off. He downed another slug of whiskey and turned off the lights.

  Chapter Three

  Wednesday July 20, 1988

  7:00 A.M.

  THE HEAVY THRUM OF the engines ran through every nerve. Tachyon stared gloomily out the plane’s window, until returned to the present by a dig in the ribs from his seat companion. The stewardess indicated the covered tray with her eyes, and raised her eyebrows.

  “Thank you, no. But I would like a drink. A screwdriver. Put that orange juice to good use.” He smiled at her. She didn’t respond. In fact, she gave him a look that clearly said you lush.

  He returned to his moody contemplation of the boiling thunderheads two thousand feet below. The stewardess returned with his drink, and Tach dug into his pocket for money. He came up with an inch-thick pile of pink message slips. Tachyon, call me, goddamn it! Hiram. He got the woman paid, and stared again at Hiram’s insulting and uncommunicative message.

  What the fuck did Worchester want, and what the fuck had Davidson meant? Did he mean to imply that Tachyon was a shepherd, and the jokers “silly sheep”? Or was the reference to a king meant for him? Or had it held a more personal meaning? Davidson had looked odd. Or was it just an irritating affectation on the part of a professional actor who couldn’t carry on a conversation without a scriptwriter?

  “Silly sheep. Goddamn him.” Tach pulled out a handkerchief, and gave his nose a quick blow.

  I’m going home to bury one of my lost sheep. Oh, Chrysalis.

  He propped his head on his hand.

  9:00 A.M.

  He’d had to wait almost forty-five minutes to get seated. The atrium coffee shop was a blur of activity. Waitpersons bounced around from table to table like pinballs. Spector sat by himself in a small booth, ignoring the babble of everyone around him. He looked slowly around the room. There were lots of red-rimmed eyes and pained expressions. Spector figured most of them had gotten fucked-up or fucked or both last night. He hadn’t managed much sleep himself until the early morning hours.

  A waitress stopped at his table and made a face that might have been a smile the first thousand or so times she’d done it. She pulled out her pad and pencil and raised her eyebrows expectantly. “What can I get for you this morning, sir?” The words came out in swift, staccato fashion. So much for Southern hospitality.

  “Just coffee for now.” Spector smiled slowly. He wanted food, too, but figured he was going to get his money’s worth out of this bitch. The waitress gave him a dirty look and shot away from the table.

  Spector leaned back in his chair and forced his surroundings to go out of focus. He had to come up with a plan to get at Hartmann. The pain was chewing at him big-time this morning, making it hard to think. Maybe he could get some inside dope from Tony. Find out where and when the senator would be most exposed. It would have to be crowded enough that nobody would realize exactly what had happened. At least, not for a while.

  The waitress swept back over and set his coffee down hard, slopping it over into the saucer. “Sorry,” she said, clearly not meaning it. “Will there be anything else?”

  Spector waited a long moment before replying. “I’ll need just a few more minutes.”

  The waitress rolled her eyes and walked away.

  Spector picked up his cup and took a large swallow. The coffee burned his mouth and throat going down. No problem; it would heal before he decided what to order. He’d never have blisters on his tongue again.

  Spector glanced over at the line of people waiting to be seated. A trim, bearded, older man walked past the crowd and looked slowly around the room. The man saw Spector and began walking purposefully over to his table. Spector tensed his legs, ready to bolt up if necessary. The man looked familiar, somehow. He stopped at the other side of the table and smiled.

  “Pardon me, it’s rather crowded in here this morning. Do you mind if I join you? My name is Josh Davidson.”

  Spector was about to tell him to fuck off when he remembered that Davidson was one of his favorite actors. All the tension went out of him when Davidson smiled again.

  “No, please, sit down, Mr. Davidson.” Spector handed the actor his menu and looked for the waitress. He was damned if Josh Davidson was going to have to wait for service if he could do anything about it.

  “Thank you so much,” Davidson said, carefully seating himself. He pulled a folded newspaper out from under his arm and opened it up.

  Spector spotted the waitress and was about to signal her when a large man emerged from the crowd. Hiram Worchester smoothed the creases in his lapels and looked from table to table.

  “Mind if I read a section?” Spector reached for the front page, which Davidson had set aside.

  “Be my guest.”

  Spector grabbed the paper and opened it quickly. He peeped up over the top. Fatman was still looking about. If he’s looking for Davidson, I’m sunk, he thought. As satisfying as it might be to croak the blimpy bastard, he couldn’t jeopardize the job. A waiter walked over to Worchester and nodded deferentially.

  “I have to leave, Mr. Davidson,” Spector said. “Not really feeling too well. Mind if I keep your front page?”

  “Not at all. It’s the least I can do.”

  Spector stood and walked slowly toward the door, keeping the newspaper raised in front of him. It looked stupid, but was better than having Worchester recognize him.

  The waitress walked past him as he left. “Good riddance,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear. Spector was too preoccupied to even care.

  11:00 A.M.

  Tachyon leaned against the side of the pew, and licked sweat from his upper lip. He was afraid he was going to faint from the stifling heat, and the four enormous fans in the back of Our Lady of Perpetual Misery did little to stir the heavy, moist air. He considered removing his velvet coat, but that would reveal the sweat-darkened circles beneath his armpits, and what an offensive state in which to say farewell to Chrysalis. He was supposed to verbalize that farewell. Sum up in brilliant, poignant words what Chrysalis had meant to Jokertown. And he had no idea what he was going to say. He hadn’t really known Chrysalis, and on some level he hadn’t really liked her. But one could scarcely say that in a eulogy.

  Staring at her flower-draped casket, Tach wondered if Chrysalis’s ghost was hovering nearby, listening to the hurried mumbling as the Living Rosary Society told their beads and offered prayers for the repose of her soul.

  The procession began, led by a joker altar boy with a bronze helix hung with the joker Jesus. He was followed by two others swinging censers that sent clouds of incense into the already highly redolent air. Tach coughed, and covered his mouth with his handkerchief.

  “I hate all this Catholic mumbo jumbo. She was raised a Baptist and she should’a died a Baptist.”

  Tach turned his head slowly and regarded the man seated next to him in the pew. He was a big man with a weathered face that was florid beneath his tan. The black suit coat strained across his belly, and tendrils o
f sweat left shiny lines on his jowls. There didn’t seem to be anything to say so Tach didn’t.

  “I’m Joe Jory, Debra Jo’s daddy.”

  “How do you do,” Tach mumbled, as Father Squid, resplendent in his finest surplice, walked past with ponderous dignity.

  The priest reached the altar, set his missal in place, then turned to the crowd and raised his arms wide saying in his sad, soft voice,

  “Let us pray.”

  Throughout the mass, Jory and Tachyon struggled along, always a beat behind the standing, kneeling, sitting worshipers. Last year it had been the same situation at Des’s funeral—and in that moment Tachyon knew what he was going to say in the eulogy. He stopped trying to make sense of the alien ceremony, and simply sat with head bowed, tears slipping slowly from beneath closed lids as he composed his thoughts.

  The little joker altar boy nudged his shoulder, and Tach returned from his reverie. A hamper containing tiny loaves of bread. The Takisian broke off a bite, and passed on the hamper. The bread seemed to swell in his dry mouth, and he choked trying to get it down. With a quick surreptitious glance to either side he unlimbered his flask, and gulped down a sip of brandy.

  Father Squid beckoned, and Tach took his place at the lectern. Pulling out his handkerchief he wiped his face, drew a deep breath, and began.

  “Exactly one year ago on the twentieth day of July, 1987, we gathered in this church to bury Xavier Desmond. I spoke his eulogy, as I shall speak Chrysalis’s. And I am honored to do so, but the melancholy truth is that I am weary of burying my friends. Jokertown is a poorer place because of their passing, and my life—and yours—is diminished by their loss.” Tach paused and stared down at his hands where they gripped the lectern. He forced himself to relax.

  “A eulogy is a speech in praise of a person, but I am finding this one to be very difficult. I called myself Chrysalis’s friend. I saw her frequently. I even traveled around the world with her. But I realize now that I didn’t really know her. I knew she called herself Chrysalis and that she lived in Jokertown, but I didn’t know her natal name or where she’d been born. I knew she played at being British, but I never knew why. I knew she liked to drink amaretto, but I never knew what made her laugh. I knew she liked secrets, liked to be in control, liked to appear cool and untouched, but I never knew what made her that way.

  “I thought about all of this on the plane from Atlanta and decided that if I couldn’t speak in praise of her, at least I could speak in praise of her deeds. A year ago, when war raged in our streets and our children were in danger, Chrysalis offered her place—her palace—as a refuge and fortress. It was dangerous for her, but danger never disturbed Chrysalis.

  “She was a joker who refused to act like a joker. The crystal lady never wore a mask. You took her as you found her, or you could just be damned. In this way, perhaps, she taught some nats tolerance and some jokers courage.” Tears were streaming down his face. In order to speak past the lump in his throat he pushed his voice higher and louder.

  “Because we worship our ancestors, Takisian funerals are even more important than births. We believe our dead stay close by to guide their foolish descendants, a belief that can be terrifying or comforting, depending on the personality of the ancestor. Chrysalis’s presence, I think, will be more terrifying than comforting because she will require much of us.

  “Someone murdered her. This should not go unpunished.

  “Hate rises like a smothering tide in this country. We must resist it.

  “Our neighbors are poor and hungry, frightened and destitute. We must feed and shelter and comfort and aid them.

  “She will expect all of this from us.”

  Tachyon paused and scanned the congregation. His attention was drawn to the bank of votive candles burning near the lectern. Crossing to it, he lifted one of the tiny candles and returned to the lectern. The flame flickered hypnotically before his eyes.

  “In one year Jokertown has lost two of its most important leaders. We are frightened and saddened and confused by the loss. But I say they are still here, still with us. Let us be worthy of them. Win honor in their memories. Never forget.”

  Bending, Tach pulled his knife from its boot sheath. He placed the candle on the lectern and positioned his forefinger directly over the flame. With a quick slash, he cut his finger and extinguished the flame with a drop of his blood.

  “Farewell, Chrysalis.”

  Running into Fatman had rattled him a bit, but a couple swallows of whiskey had helped calm Spector down. He sat hunched over the edge of the bed, staring at the headline. “HARTMANN TO SPEAK IN PARK TODAY.” The senator was going to make a public plea to the jokers to demonstrate in a nonviolent manner. It was risky, what with all the lunatics wandering around. No one was crazier than a politician with his back to the wall, though. And Hartmann was really up against it. Spector turned on the TV and tuned it to a channel that showed the times and places of the day’s events. After a few moments waiting, there it was. A one o’clock speech and nothing about any cancellation.

  Spector chewed his lip and paged through the paper absentmindedly. He needed an angle. He’d need a way to blend into the crowd and still stand out enough to manage to catch Hartmann’s eye.

  A small, corner ad caught his attention. It was Keaton’s Kostumes. MASKS, MAKEUP, COSTUMES, PARTY SUPPLIES, and MORE it promised. A man in a costume held up the list and smiled in a stupid, exaggerated way. He looked like Marcel Marceau. Spector tossed the paper, wiped the ink stains off on his gray pants, and started laughing.

  Jack passed through the enormous brass revolving door into the Marriott lobby, saw the swarms of press and Hartmann delegates, and tried not to think of pigs at a trough. The campaign was doing its best to feed its people and get everyone back onto the floor in the short time allowed by the luncheon recess, and the Marriott had obliged with a vast buffet that was serving up pasta salad and rare roast beef by the ton. Jack could see Hiram Worchester perched on a sagging sofa near the lounge piano, a plate piled high with food balanced on either knee. The glass elevators were jammed full of press and delegates taking hookers up to their rooms for a little noon relief. The piano man was playing “Piano Man” once again. Jack had an oppressive feeling he knew precisely what song was going to come next.

  Fortunately Jack didn’t have to cluster around the buffet tables and gobble his lunch with the others while the pianist offered the inevitable salute to Eva Perón—Jack had a permanent reserved table at the Bello Mondo, secured by offering the maître d’ a crisp new hundred-dollar bill every day.

  A good meal and a few double whiskeys would come in about right. It had been a lousy morning anyway. CBS commentators had jabbered right through most of Jimmy Carter’s seconding speech for Hartmann, and the other networks had cut away for commercials. Chairman Jim Wright, who Jack figured wanted Hartmann to win, had cued the band to play “Stars and Stripes Forever” at the end of the speech, which got the audience up for a massive floor demonstration that those watching TV had entirely missed. Jack could have sworn he heard Devaughn’s screams all the way from the Marriott.

  Jack was beginning to believe, in a purely superstitious way, in the existence of a secret ace who was out to get Hartmann. Or maybe just gremlins from the Kremlin.

  “Jack! Mr. Braun!” An avuncular Father Christmas figure rolled toward him, a straw porkpie hat shadowing his long white hair and straggly beard. Louis Manxman, a reporter for the LA Times, who had been aboard Hartmann’s campaign plane from the start. There was a purposeful look in the newsman’s eye.

  “Hi, Louis.” Jack tucked his briefcase under one arm, jammed his hands into the pockets of his Banana Republic photojournalist’s jacket, and tried to skate past. Manxman moved purposefully to block him and grinned up through metal-rimmed bifocals.

  “I want the story on that test vote Monday night.”

  “Ancient history, Louis.”

  “The papers have been praising Danny Logan’s masterful strategy, the
way he put it together at the last minute. Even Devaughn didn’t know what was happening—you shoulda seen his face when he realized. But I know Logan from way back, and it doesn’t seem like his kinda move at all. I’ve talked to every delegate head I could find, and they all say their orders came from you, not Logan.”

  “Logan knew what I was doing.” Jack tried to move left. Manxman moved to block.

  “A source told me the old mick was passed out Monday night.”

  “He was celebrating.” Moving right.

  “Celebrating from breakfast on, from what I hear.” Blocking.

  Jack glared at him. “I’m a busy man, Louis. What the hell do you want, anyway?”

  “Was it you or wasn’t it?”

  “I will not confirm or deny. Okay?”

  “Why deny it? You’re a Hollywood boy—you should relish the publicity. Don’t be such a weenie.”

  Jack stopped for a moment and wondered if “weenie” was going to be the operative word for this convention.

  The inevitable happened, and the man in the white tuxedo pounded out the opening bars of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.” Jack felt his temper fraying.

  “I’m late for lunch, Louis. I won’t confirm or deny. That’s for the record; that’s my statement. Got that?”

  The Santa Claus look was gone. “Forty years too late to take the Fifth, Jack.”

  Anger snarled in Jack. He fixed the reporter in a cold stare and stepped forward as if to walk right through him.

  They were nearing the white piano on its pedestal. The man in the white tuxedo was still ringing through his paean to South American fascism. Anger began to roil in Jack in the wake of fear and humiliation. He said good-bye to Amy, then stepped up to the piano. The man in the white tuxedo gave him an automatic smile.

  There was a big fishbowl on the piano with a green drift of tip money in the bottom. Jack reached for the rim of the glass, exerted just slightly, and cracked off a hand-sized piece. His golden force field fluttered slightly. The piano man stared. Jack pulverized the glass in his hand, then reached forward, opened the front pocket of the man’s jacket, and poured the glass inside.