Ace in the Hole

  The icebox was like a fifties Detroit car, big and bulging, and banded with chrome from which even phony luster was long since gone. All it lacked was fins. He yanked the door open. Inside were a bunch of white cardboard fast-food containers; half a deli sandwich, entombed in Saran Wrap, the meat gone the color of a morning-after bruise; a carton of eggs with the top ripped off, and two eggshells punctured, as if by a drunken thumb while some of their comrades were on their way to a morning-after omelet; two six-packs of Little King and one of no-name creme soda; and plastic margarine tubs filled with this and that, mostly mold. There were a few little gray plastic cylinders that obviously held film. These Mackie opened and unspooled, gleefully bathing them in the dubious radiance of the one bare bulb protruding like a hemorrhoid from the ceiling.

  He closed the door, buzzed a hand, and slashed across. The thick-gauge metal parted with a shower of sparks and a satisfactory vibration up his arm and down his dick. Only skin was more fun to cut than good metal. He grabbed the refrigerator, pulled, got it rocking with a strength that was surprising in his skinny, twisted little body, and pulled the thing over with a satisfying bang on the cracked linoleum. Then he turned his attention to the cupboards that crowded around a sink filled with caked and crusty dishes, which gave off a fruity fecal wino smell, something you could dip a spoon into.

  The cupboards were layered, like a televangelist’s wife, with enamel. Though they hadn’t been refinished in living memory they gave off an odor of paint, overlaid with eons of cigarette smoke that had permeated the cabinets to their presumed bedrock of wood, that actually competed with the organic decay in the sink. Inside he found sixteen bags of Doritos, two cans of beans, one of them opened, replaced, and forgotten during binge munchies, and a box of Frosted Flakes. Tony the Tiger looked ill. The beans smelled like a dead cat.

  “This is Randy St. Clair, and I’ll be coming back at you with more sounds of your city from WBLS-FM, 107.5 at the end of your dial,” the radio was saying when he came back in the living room. “But first, on Newsbreak, Sandy will tell us how the delegates are preparing for a long, hot summer week in Atlanta, and update us on continuing reports of genocide in Guatemala, and she’ll have the latest on a grisly celebrity murder in Jokertown. Sandy?”

  He frowned. It was too bad about Chrysalis. The Man had promised he could do her himself one day. Now he’d never find out what it would be like to put his hand in that glass-clear meat.

  That was a brand-new bitch, and it made him mad all over again. He went from room to room of the cramped apartment breaking what he found, alternating between exhilarated and clinical: Will this make me feel better? It was vandalism as designer drugs.

  The bed was propped up with textbooks under one corner: French, darkroom technique, a police text on interrogation. There was no spread. The sheet was tie-dyed with bodily fluids of the kind you were supposed to encase yourself in Latex rather than come in contact with. He shredded things.

  When he emerged he was starting to feel cranked at Downs again. Der Mann wasn’t going to like this, not for one little minute.

  Well, Downs just wasn’t here. The Man could hardly blame him for that; it wasn’t his fault. Fuck it. He phased through the outer wall, into the corridor.

  As he did, a door across and down one opened.

  “I tell you it’s those Chinese people,” a woman was saying in that nosy whine that made these New York people sound to Mackie like big, fleshy insects. “They’re all drug dealers, you know. I saw all about them on the 60 Minutes. This Mr. Downs, he’s, like, a crusading investigative reporter. I figure he got too close to them, the tong sent somebody over to mess his place up. There must be a dozen of them, the noise they were making. With sledgehammers and chain saws.”

  She pushed out into the hallway like an East River tug in housecoat and fluorescent-pink, fuzzy slippers, with a hankie tied over curlers, and a super in tow. The super was a black man not much taller than Mackie, with a mustache and gray-stippled hair bushing out in back from beneath a Montreal Expos baseball cap. He had on paint-smeared, gray coveralls. He nodded distractedly at the woman while grumbling to himself, and tossing his big steel ring of keys for the master to Digger’s apartment. He didn’t notice Mackie.

  The woman did notice Mackie. She screamed.

  He smiled. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to him all day.

  The super looked up at him, his mouth a shout of pink in his dark face. Mackie felt his hands begin to vibrate as of their own accord. This wasn’t going to be a total loss after all.

  Jack saw the weird red pyramids, looking like some strange form of acoustic tile, that crowned the Omni Center, and headed in their direction. He’d got lost in Peachtree Center looking for cigarettes, and taken the wrong route to the convention.

  Ted Turner’s Omni Center was built of a new type of steel that was designed to rust. The theory was that the rust would protect the steel underneath, and from what Jack had seen—and Jack had built a lot of buildings over the last thirty years—the theory was perfectly correct.

  Still, the damn thing was so ugly.

  He was approaching one of the convention’s back entrances. A uniformed guard stood outside the closed door. Jack nodded into the man’s shades, then tried to step past him to the door.

  “Wait a minute.” The guard’s voice was sharp. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Into the convention.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  Jack looked at him. Connally, the man’s name badge said. He had a broken nose and a little silver Christian cross pinned to his collar.

  Great, Jack thought. Probably a Barnett supporter. He unclipped his ID and floor pass from his pocket and waved them in the guard’s face.

  “I’m a delegate. It’s okay.”

  “No one gets through this door. Ever. Those are my instructions.”

  “I’m a delegate.”

  Connally appeared to reconsider. “Okay. Let’s see that ID.”

  Jack handed it over. Connally squinted as he looked at it. When he looked up, there was an evil grin on his face. “You don’t look sixty-four to me,” he said.

  “I’m well-preserved.”

  The guard reached for his walkie-talkie. “This is Connally. Situation Three.”

  Jack waved his arms. “What the hell is that?”

  “You’re under arrest, asshole. Impersonating a delegate.”

  “I am a delegate.”

  “The Secret Service are on their way. You can talk to them.”

  Jack stared at the guard in rising despair.

  This, he realized, was only Monday.

  12:00 NOON

  “Devils and ancestors. What are you doing here?”

  Jack Braun eyed Tachyon sourly. “I’m headed for that bar.” His long arm speared the underside of the raised piano bar. “For a drink … or two … or three, and if anybody tries to get in my way—”

  “You should be on the convention floor.”

  “I was trying to get to the goddamn convention floor when this lard-assed security guard accused me of impersonating a delegate, and had me arrested. It took Charles Devaughn to cut me loose. So I’ve had a rather trying morning, Tachyon, and I’m going to get a drink.”

  “The Barnett forces are desperately politicking for delegates. You need to be there to keep California solid.”

  “Tachyon, in case you’ve forgotten; I’m the head of the California delegation. I think I can handle it!” Braun roared, and several ever vigilant reporters craned to see the fight. “Jesus, you’ve been an American citizen what, five, six months, and already you’re an authority on American politics?”

  “Anything I do, I do well,” replied Tachyon primly, but he was working to subdue a smile. Braun spotted it and suddenly grinned.

  “Relax, Tachyon. Gregg’s not going to lose California.”

  “Jesse Jackson wants to talk to me,” said Tach with one of his bewilderingly abrupt changes of topic.

&
nbsp; “Are you going to?”

  “I don’t know. I might learn something.”

  “I doubt it. Jesse’s one smart operator. And besides, you’re not working for the Hartmann campaign. Objectivity of the press and all that.”

  Tachyon frowned. “What do you think he could want?”

  “At a guess I’d say your support.”

  “I have no delegates, no influence.”

  “Balony. Tachyon, these conventions are like a big shambling dinosaur. A prod in the ass can sometimes start the whole beast off in a new direction. If you were to switch your support, many of the jokers would follow. People might decide that you knew something. It could tilt things toward Jackson, and that’s what he’s after.”

  “Then I won’t see him. This convention is too close already.”

  “Drink?”

  “No, thank you. I think I’ll head over to the convention center.”

  Jack started up the stairs. Tachyon stared at that broad back and powerful shoulders and wondered if he could shift some of his burdens onto those shoulders.

  “Jack.”

  Something of his confusion and fear must have penetrated, for Braun paused partway up the stairs, and walked slowly back down. Laying his hands on Tachyon’s shoulders, he frowned down at the smaller man. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Do you think … do you think it’s possible for one of the candidates to be an ace?”

  “What, here?”

  “Yes, of course here! No, the candidate for dog catcher in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Don’t be an imbecile!”

  “I’m not, you just took me off guard, that’s all. Why? You got something?”

  “No,” he said airily, and suspicion flared in the big ace’s blue eyes.

  “It’s hooey … bunk. Nobody could keep a thing like that hidden from the press. Remember Hart.”

  “He was careless.”

  “Look, if you’re worried check it out. You could do it easily enough.”

  “Yes, but information received telepathically is not admissible evidence. Also, given the current climate in this country, what would they do if they discovered I had been using alien mind powers on potential presidential candidates?”

  “Hang your skinny alien ass out to dry.”

  “Precisely.” Tach shrugged. “Well, never mind. I just thought I’d mention it … get your opinion…” His voice trailed away into silence.

  “Forget it, Tachy.” Jack gave him a shake. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now I’m going to get that drink.”

  “Don’t be too long,” Tach yelled after him.

  “Oh, go to hell.”

  “American whiskey. Straight up. A double. Two doubles.”

  “Hard day, sir?”

  “Hard liquor for a hard day,” Jack said. He lowered his briefcase to the ground and noticed for the first time—what was wrong with him anyway?—that the petite blond waitress here in the atrium lounge was really quite attractive. He gave her the Hollywood smile that he’d practiced in countless mirrors throughout the late forties. “They’ve probably got you working overtime, too,” he said. “Call me Jack, by the way.”

  “Overtime sucks, Jack,” she said, and waggled away with a swing to her hips that hadn’t been in evidence for any of her other customers. Jack began to feel slightly better.

  After the Secret Service had testified to his bona fides and let him go, Jack spent most of the morning telling his delegates they were about to have their votes taken away if they didn’t look out. Then Tachyon had harassed him for not doing his job, handed him the jive about a secret ace; and the campaign parliamentarian Logan, who was supposed to meet him here in the Marriott lounge, was already late.

  The cheerful waggle of a waitress’s butt, he thought, is enough to give a man heart for the struggle. Flying Ace Gliders swooped overhead in dancing accompaniment to his thoughts.

  The waitress brought his drinks. He chatted with her—her name was Jolynn—and tossed down the first drink. Logan still hadn’t showed. Jolynn had to leave to see to another customer, and Jack tipped her ten dollars, reflecting that all in all he enjoyed being rich, even at the cost of having to pretend intelligent conversation with a chimpanzee on TV for four years. He watched as a young man in a white dinner jacket crossed the atrium lounge to the white piano, then sat down and banged out the opening chords to “Piano Man.” Jack felt his head try to retreat, like that of a turtle, between his shoulders.

  Moss Hart, Jack thought desperately. Kurt Weill. George and Ira Gershwin. Richard Rodgers—Jack could still remember the opening night of South Pacific.

  Maybe he could just tip the guy a hundred bucks and tell him not to play anything.

  “Honky Tonk Women” was next, followed by “New York, New York.” Where, Jack thought, was Morrie Ryskind when you needed him?

  Logan still hadn’t showed up. Jack sipped his second drink and stared fixedly at Jolynn’s heart-shaped ass as it perambulated about the other end of the lounge.

  Then another female form drew his attention. Sluts on the right, he thought, an expression he’d acquired decades ago in Camp Shenango.

  The woman was walking right for him.

  Then he saw she was wearing a Barnett button. A slut for the Lord, he concluded.

  Then he recognized her. She was Leo Barnett’s campaign manager—that was bad enough—but there was an old score between them that made everything far worse.

  Oh, god.

  The piano struck up the opening bars of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.” Another whole set of memories invaded him, including being spat on the year before in Buenos Aires by a female Peronista.

  Jack rose, his heart sinking like a lead plummet, and prepared his face for more spittle.

  “Jack Braun? You have no idea how long I’ve looked forward to meeting you again.”

  I’ll just bet, Jack thought.

  The voice, he realized, was different. Blythe had had a New York patroon accent of the kind that didn’t exist anymore, that had died with Franklin and Eleanor. And Blythe would have worn red lipstick like all the women did in the forties, a bright crimson contrast to her pale face and dark hair.

  “Fleur van Renssaeler, I presume,” Jack said. “I’m surprised you remember me.”

  Which was the civil thing to say, but perfectly ridiculous. According to some, Jack had murdered her mother, and Fleur must have found that impossible to forget even if she wanted to.

  The heart-shaped face tilted far back to look him in the face. “I was—how little? Three or four?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I remember you playing with me on the floor of my father’s house.”

  Jack gazed at her with a face of stone. She was dragging this out incredibly. Why didn’t she spit on him or claw his face or otherwise get it over with?

  “I’ve always wanted to say how much I admire you,” Fleur said. “You’ve always been one of my heroes.”

  Shock ran like cold fire through Jack’s veins. It wasn’t that he believed in the sincerity of the words … the shock came from the fact that Blythe’s daughter would prove this adept at sadism.

  “I hardly deserve it.” Truthfully.

  She smiled. It was a very warm smile. He realized she was standing very close, and his groin tingled at the thought she might try to bring her knee up between his legs. His wild card would keep him from harm, but old reflexes died hard.

  “Aside from the Reverend Barnett,” Fleur said, “you’re the bravest man I know. You risked everything to bring down the aces and … that alien. I think you’ve been treated shamefully ever since. After all, your whole career was wrecked by those Hollywood liberals.”

  Jack’s thoughts dragged with glacial slowness. She was, he realized dumbly, absolutely sincere. Something cold crept like a stalking insect up his back.

  “I’m … surprised,” he said.

  “Because of my mother?” She was still smiling, still standing close. Jack wante
d to run as fast as his legs would carry him.

  “My mother was willful and obstinate. She deserted my father to whore with … that alien creature. The one who brought us the plague.” She couldn’t say Tachyon’s name, he realized. “I was well-rid of her,” she went on, “and so were you.”

  Jack remembered he was holding his drink in his hand. He took a long swallow, needing the bite of the whiskey to return his staggered senses to reality.

  “Surprised at my language?” Fleur said. “The Bible is explicit about whoredom and its consequences. The adulterer and the adultress shall surely be put to death. Leviticus 20.”

  “The Bible was also clear about who got to throw the first stone.” Jack’s tongue was thick. He was surprised he could talk at all.

  Fleur nodded. “I’m glad you can quote scripture.”

  “I learned a lot of Bible verses when I was a kid. Most of them in German.” He took another drink. “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” rang in his skull.

  “What surprises me,” Fleur said, “is who you’re keeping company with these days.” She took a step closer and touched his wrist. Jack managed barely to keep from jumping out of his skin. “Senator Hartmann is surely the moral heir of the Roosevelt-Holmes clique that almost destroyed our country in the forties. You saved us from those people then, and now you’ve fallen for the liberal humanist line again.”

  “That’s me.” He managed to grin. “Fallen.”

  “I thought I might raise you again.” Her fingers ran up and down his strong wrist.

  Slut for the Lord indeed, thought Jack.

  “I wanted to talk to you in person. That’s why I’m here in the—” She gave a bell-like laugh. “These unhallowed halls.”

  “Everyone needs to go slumming now and again.” He stared at her, sickness rising in his belly. Fleur van Renssaeler, he realized, was the most twisted bitch he’d ever met in his life. His third wife included.

  “I thought perhaps we could get together. Talk about … politics. Talk about Senator Hartmann, Reverend Barnett.”

  “Barnett wants to put me in a concentration camp.”