Ace In The Hole

8:00 P.M.

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.

The memory of offing the natty nigger made his lips smile. It had felt good, his hand on bone. But the rush had faded. He was hungry. He hadn't spotted Sara till midmorning, over in the joker park. He hadn't even had a chance to phase into some restaurant's kitchen and rip off a bite to eat. Hunger was feeding the frustrated anger that had been building in him all day.

The bitch. I have to kill her. I can't let the Man down. He was going to have to do something soon, something violent, to let out all that feeling.

And now she and her new boyfriend headed for the elevators, arm in arm. Going upstairs to fuck; women were all alike.

He followed, weaving among delegates who didn't deign to notice a twisted boy, got to the elevator stand in time to see them go into one and the doors close. He laughed out loud: "Yeah. Baby, baby."

All he had to do now was see what floor they got off on. Then he'd find them.

He licked his lips. I hope they're doing it when I catch them. He thought of the man's big cock going into Sara, and his hard hand going into him, and almost creamed his jeans.

Drinks, exhaustion, and a heavy meal had done their work on Sara. Her knees had gone rubbery, and she leaned on Jack as they shot upward in the glass elevator. Jack closed his eyes against a surge of vertigo. Then he thought of the bottle of Valiums in his luggage and gave an inward smile.

Sara was clearly on her last legs. She'd be out like a light within hours, and some time toward morning Jack was going to creep out of bed, find the Valiums, crumble a couple of them in a glass of room-service orange juice, and feed them to her with breakfast.

That, he thought, should keep the loose cannon from rolling around for most, if not all, of Friday.

Jack led Sara along the curving atrium balcony, then down a short hallway to his suite. "Piano Man" echoed up from the floor of the atrium. Sara stepped through the door and stood there, her heavy shoulder bag pulling her off balance. Jack put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, closed and locked it, and put his arms around Sara from behind. Despite the alcohol her body was taut as a watchspring. He brushed the disordered hair from her neck and began to kiss her nape. For a while Sara didn't react, then she gave a sigh and turned toward him. He kissed her on the lips. She took her time about responding, finally put her arms around his neck, opened her mouth, let his tongue flicker against hers.

"There," Jack said, grinning. "It's better when you help." Which was the line that Bacall gave Bogart in To Have and Have Not.

Sara didn't smile. "I've got to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back, okay?"

Jack watched her walk unsteadily toward the toilet. A sinking feeling was beginning to envelope him. This was playing too much like his second marriage.

He took off his jacket and poured himself a whiskey. He could hear water running in the bathroom, then silence. Maybe she was fixing her hair or makeup. Maybe she was sitting on the commode, reliving the death of her friend.

Jack lit a cigarette and thought about the first time he'd seen violent death, when his company was caught in a German counterattack down Highway 90 between Avellino and Benevento, and he remembered that the experience hadn't made him feel very sexy, either.

Damn, he thought. This had the potential to be a very depressing night.

The bathroom door opened and Sara gave him a brave smile as she came into the room. She'd fixed her hair and makeup and looked quite different from the scarecrow who'd sat opposite him at dinner.

Jack stubbed out the cigarette and walked toward her. He was about to take her in his arms when a young hunchback in a leather jacket walked right through the wall behind her, grinned, and lunged forward with a hand thrust out like a spear.

Without thought, Jack picked Sara up, made a half turn, and tossed her gently onto the sofa behind him. The air burned with Jack's golden light. There was the shrieking sound of a buzz saw hitting a spike buried in a tree, a sound that brought Jack's hackles erect and sent a surge of adrenaline pouring through his body. Jack turned back to the intruder and saw a look of shock on his young, pale face. Jack flipped a fist at the little man, a gentle backhand strike, and in a flare of yellow light the leather boy was flung against the bathroom wall with a bone-breaking crash. The boy dropped to the floor like a rag doll.

Sara screamed as she turned and saw the assassin. Jack jumped involuntarily.

"I got him, Sara," Jack said. She'kept on screaming. He heard the sounds of her struggling to her feet.

Jack stepped forward toward the leather boy and leaned over him. The boy's eyes snapped open and his hands sliced out, flashing as if they were knives, and when they connected with Jack there was a flare of golden light, the screaming buzz saw noise, and bits of Jack's clothing flying like the fur of a fighting cat.

Jack didn't even feel the blows.

He picked up the boy by his leather jacket and held him at arm's length. The hunchback, as if he couldn't believe what was happening, kept hacking at Jack's arm, cutting the paleblue Givenchy shirt to ribbons.

Apparently, the little guy hadn't ever come up against an invincible opponent before.

"Kill him!" Sara's voice. "Jack, kill him now!"

Jack thought not. He wanted to knock this character out and find out who he was working for. He aimed a slow open-hand slap at the boy's head, one that would maybe put him out for a few hours.

The slap went through the hunchback's head without connecting. His other hand, holding the boy's jacket bunched up under his chin, was suddenly holding nothing at all. A dazed, triumphant grin passed across the boy's face as he drifted-drifted slowly, not dropped-toward the floor.

"Jack!" Sara wailed. "Jack, oh JesusJesusJesus."

An edge of fear grated across Jack's nerves. He flicked out punches, one-two, and both passed through the boy without touching him.

The boy's feet touched the floor. His grin twisted and he dove forward, his body passing right through Jack, heading for Sara.

Jack spun and went after him. Sara was stumbling backward toward the door, holding her shoulder bag out protectively. The boy's hands sliced forward, hacking the bag in half with a ripping noise, like heavy cardboard torn by a buck knife.

Jack grabbed the hunchback's leather collar and jerked back with all his strength. The boy went insubstantial before his feet quite left the floor, but Jack had managed to impart a certain momentum and the boy sailed upward and back. Jack saw the pale face redden with fury as it disappeared through the ceiling. The lower part of his body remained visible as it shot back, then down.

"JesusJesus!" Sara was clawing at the hall door, trying to unlock it. "Oh, fuck!"

Jack had worked it out. The boy had to become substantial in order to use his buzzsaw hands. He was most vulnerable when he tried to kill.

It had been so much easier when all he had to do was grab cars full of fugitive Nazis and turn them upside down.

Sara got the door open and disappeared screaming into the hall. The leather boy soared back, his head appearing now, and Jack swiped at him a few times just in case he tried to turn himself solid again.

The hunchback kept sailing, went through the wall into Jack's back bedroom. "Hell," Jack said. He contemplated going through the wall after him and decided against it-he might get hung up partway through. He ran for the bedroom door and smashed through it in a bright flash of light. He saw the leather boy solid and on his feet, racing for the wall that led to the corridor outside. The assassin went insubstantial and dove through the wall head-first.

"Hell," Jack said again, reversed himself, ran for the hallway door.

The boy was just ahead of him. Sara wasn't visible, had probably run out onto the atrium balcony by now.

"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" soared up from the ground floor.

Jack accelerated, swung a fist, missed the back of the boy's neck by inches. The momentum of the punch threw Jack off course and caromed him off the wall, and the boy drew ahead.

He must have heard Jack behind him, because as he reached the atrium balcony he turned, grinning his crazed grin. One buzz saw hand, just for demonstration purposes, sliced a chunk of concrete out of the balcony wall.

Jack was still moving forward with considerable momentum. He planted his feet in front of the kid and used his forward motion to torque his upper body forward, his right hand punching out toward the hunchback's chest with every ounce of strength he possessed.

The assassin went insubstantial.

The power of Jack's punch carried him over the balcony rail in a blaze of golden light.

She ran out the door and down the hallway because the stairwell had been closing in around her, about to grow an arm that would slice her in two. The terror was a solid lump in her throat.

She had no idea where she was going. A distant part of her mind observed that just now panic was her friend. Because she had no place to go, logically, and panic was better than despair.

I should just go back and offer my throat, she thought wildly. But her legs kept pumping.

And the wall did sprout a hand, and it did fasten about her wrist.

She screamed. It was as if her heart was exploding and the sound came out her mouth. She slumped in terror.

"Get up," a voice said, soft but peremptory. Accented. She looked up into the face of the old man who had accosted her after she bolted Tachyon's breakfast. Instead of his Mickey Mouse shirt he wore a lime-green leisure suit.

"Get up," he said again. "You know now what I told you is true."

She let him haul her to her feet, nodded. There were no words in her. She had lost her shoes.

"Then come with me. I'll take you to a place of safety." She came.

As the Marriott atrium yawned out below, Jack had all the time in the world to think of how stupid he'd just been.

He tumbled, arms and legs flailing. Balconies spun past. Vertigo and terror tugged at his belly.

He gave a yell, just to give people below a chance to clear out.

"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" floated upward toward him.

It occurred to him to do something to stop the tumbling. Jack stuck out his arms and legs like a skydiver and tried to stabilize and slow his fall. His stomach lurched again as his body took a wild swing, but then the technique took effect. His vertigo lessened. The ruins of his Givenchy shirt fluttered out behind him like a flag, the remains of the sleeve snapping out little sonic booms close to one ear. His punch had carried him clear out into the atrium, there didn't seem to be a chance of guiding his fall so that he'd hit a balcony rather than fall all the way to the floor.

He tried real hard to think.

There were guy wires strung up here and there, carrying bits of colored cloth that were supposed to provide little abstract flags of brightness against the intimidating saurian rib-cage structure of the atrium. Jack tried to angle his fall toward one of these. Possibly it would break his fall.

Jack gave a yell again as his effort to guide his fall resulted in his pitching over headfirst. He flailed and stabilized, and then he wished he could think of something brave and inspiring to say. Not that anyone would hear it against the sound of the piano anyway.

He missed his intended guy wire by twenty feet. He began concentrating on trying to land where there weren't any people. He gave another shout.

Flying ace gliders danced and swooped below him, bright mocking spots of color.

People below must have heard, since they were trying to get out of the way. There was a patch of white down there that seemed to make a good aiming point. He tried to angle his fall toward it.

He could see individual people now. A blonde-haired black hooker, trying to run, but wearing such high heels that she could only hop like a sparrow. A man in a white tuxedo was staring upward as if he didn't believe his eyes. Hiram Worchester was jumping up and down and waving a fist. Earl Sanderson floated past him, wings spread, heading for the light. Jack felt a sudden wash of sadness.

Too late, he thought, and then wondered what he meant by that.

Suddenly the sound of the wind in Jack's ears seemed to diminish. He felt a lurch in his belly, like when an elevator begins to move. The ground wasn't coming up any faster.

He was lighter, he realized. Hiram had just made him lighter, but hadn't been able to stop his fall entirely.

The patch of white, he saw, was the grand piano. He was about to plunge into it.

At least, he thought, he wouldn't have to listen to that stupid Argentina song again.

Spector could tell they were headed into Atlanta's jokertown. The Jokertown was in New York, but most other major cities had a ghetto for their freaks, too. The buildings were crumbling, burned-out, or otherwise beat to pieces. Most of the cars on the street were stripped or immobile junkers. There were slogans spray-painted on walls, "KILL THE FREAKS" or "MONSTER MASH." Obviously not put there by the neighborhood jokers. Atlanta's jokertown wasn't big enough to keep crazy nats from making a quick trip in to tear things up or kick some joker ass.

Spector heard a rumble that wasn't thunder and looked behind. There was a pink-and-white '57 Chevy tailing them. The muffler was shot and the car was making a lot of noise. Spector couldn't see well enough to know for sure, but figured there were some cracker punks inside.

"Don't worry about it," said Tony, pulling up against the curb beyond a dead Rambler.

"Who's worried?" Spector wasn't just talking. He'd killed more street punks than he could count. He opened the car door and looked over at Tony.

"Follow me." Tony walked around the car and trotted up a set of concrete stairs to a well-lit doorway. He pressed the doorbell and waited.

Spector walked up slowly behind him, keeping an eye on the street. The Chevy had cruised past them and turned the corner. He could still hear it over on the next street.

The door opened. A joker woman in a plain blue dress smiled at them. She was covered with something that looked like yellow rubber hair. "Tony!" She grabbed Calderone and gave him a hug. "We didn't expect to see you this trip, busy as you are."

"Never miss a chance for a visit, Shelly, you know that." The woman took a step back and tugged Tony in by his shirtsleeve. Spector followed.

"Shelly, this is Jim Spector, an old friend of mine from Jersey." Shelly looked puzzled for a moment and Spector was afraid she'd placed his name. But an instant later she held out her hand. Spector took it. Her rubbery hair felt creepy, and her flesh gave too much as he squeezed it.

"Nice to meet you, Jim," she said, pulling away. She turned back to Tony. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? And bringing company, too. I'd have cleaned up the place."

Tony shook his head. "Shelly, my place never looks this good."

Spector looked around. The room was surprisingly clean. The furniture was inexpensive, but was dusted and polished. A black man was sitting on the couch watching a movie. This family, like almost all joker families, had nothing to do with blood relations. Their deformities were what brought them together.

"This is Armand." Armand turned around when Tony said his name. His jaws were hinged wrong, making his mouth a vertical pink slit. He had no lips or nostrils that Spector could see. Armand shook Tony's hand and then reached out to Spector.

"Nice to meet you," Spector said, taking the man's hand. It felt normal, at least.

"Kids in the den?" Tony asked, taking a step toward the next room.

"Yes. Playing cards, I think. Would either of you like some coffee?" She looked at Tony and then at Spector.

Tony looked over at Spector, who shook his head. "No thanks, Shelly, we just had a big meal." Tony gave her a pat on the shoulder and went into the next room. Spector smiled weakly and followed.

They were sitting at a card table. The little girl, older by a few years, was pretty except for her arms. Up and down them were rows of what looked like rose thorns. The boy sat across from her, holding his cards in his prehensile feet. He had no arms, but his head was several times larger than normal. It was supported by a metal brace attached to the back of the wheelchair.

"Hi, Uncle Tony," they said together. Both seemed more interested in their cards.

"Hey, squirts." He sat down at the table with them. "I want you to meet a friend of mine. His name is Jim."

"Hi, kids," Spector said. He felt completely out of place and would have been more comfortable with a broom handle up his ass.

"I'm Tina," said the little girl, turning over a card. "Jeffrey." The boy didn't turn to look at him. It looked like it wouldn't be easy to do, anyway. He flipped over his card and laughed. His jack took her eight. He put both cards on the bottom of the deck. Jeffrey's stack was a bit bigger than Tina's.

"Playing war?" Spector asked. "Joker war," corrected Tina.

Tony looked up. "It's the same, except that jokers beat everything. And a black queen kills the other person's card." Tony smiled. Spector couldn't imagine why the fuck his friend was so happy.

Jeffrey took another trick. " I think he's got your number, Tina," Spector said.

Tina wrinkled her nose and gave him her best killing look. Spector took a step backward, pretending to be scared. Jeffrey didn't seem as miserable as he obviously should be. Spector wanted to kill him and save the kid a lifetime of hell, but that wasn't, as they say, in the cards.

"Mommy says we can watch a movie later," Tina said. She turned her cards over and let Jeffrey collect them. "The Manchurian Candidate is going to be on."

Tony sighed. "Politics, mind-control, and assassination. Not the kind of thing kids should be watching. I'll talk to Shelly and… "

"Don't do that Uncle Tony," Tina pleaded. She looked over at Spector. "Mister, don't let him do it. Mommy promised."

Spector shrugged. "Don't want to have to get rough with you, old friend."

Tony threw up his hands. "Democracy at work," he said, walking back toward the living room.

"Yay," said Tina.

"My queen kills your last ace." Jeffrey fanned the cards with his toes. " I win."

"Congratulations, kids," Spector said. "Sometimes that's what it takes. Just remember that."

After the crash, after he'd landed right in the middle of the piano and then driven through the floor to the function space on the lower level, the thing that surprised jack was that he started to float upward again through the hole he'd just made.

Hiram had made him lighter than air. Crap.

Before he could float out into space again, jack grabbed some of the twisted rebar that had been supporting the atrium floor. He hung upside down. Flashbulbs dazzled him. A TV floodlight drilled between his eyes. The pianist was lurching about like a drunk. From out of the burning light he could see Hiram peering at him out of his doughy face.

"There's an assassin loose!" he yelled. "Little guy in a leather jacket! He's a wild card!"

"Where?" Hiram goggled at him. "The senator's floor!"

Hiram turned dead-white. He spun and ran, arms and legs pumping. The crowd dissolved into pandemonium. "Hiram!" Jack yelled. "Worchester, goddamn it!"

He was still lighter-than-air. And he was the only one who knew what the assassin looked like, and how to stop him. The pianist danced before him in his white tuxedo. He pointed at Jack. "He tried to kill me! He threatened me earlier!"

"Shut the hell up," said jack.

The pianist turned white as his tux and faded away. Hiram's shot of antigravity diminished in a few minutes, and jack tried to run for an elevator. He was still very light and he bobbled like an astronaut on the moon. He kept jumping across the atrium without going near the elevators. Security people were in the process of barring all the doors, which wasn't going to do very much to stop someone who could walk through walls. Some stranger finally led jack to the elevator by the hand.

As jack shot upward, he tried not to think of the skinny hunchback sitting up on top, slicing the cables with buzz saw hands. The security was concentrating on the hallway leading to Hartmann's apartment and HQ. Billy Ray was prominent in his white suit, flexing his muscles in front of a battery of gray-suited Secret Service. Some of them were carrying their Uzis in plain sight.

Shaking pulverized concrete dust out of his ruined clothes, Jack walked up to Ray and gave him a description of the assassin, including the fact he could make himself insubstantial. Ray took his job seriously for once and didn't give Jack a single sneer. He passed on the information with his radio and asked Jack to step into another room for a debriefing. Jack asked if he could change first-his clothes were ribbons. Ray nodded.

Jack headed back to his room. As he stepped through the open door, he realized that he hadn't bothered to tell anyone that this was where the fight had taken place.

He headed for his bedroom and his foot hit something lying on the carpet. He looked down and saw part of Sara's shoulder bag. He bent down and shook it open. One-third of a laptop computer slid out, along with scraps of paper that fluttered to the floor.

Jack reached down and picked up the papers. There were several sheets stapled together and cut neatly off near the top, a press handout giving Leo Barnett's appearances for the days leading up to the campaign.

Another was the top of a yellow legal sheet written in scrawled blue ballpoint. "Secret Ace," it said, underlined several times.

Below were just doodles, a row of crosses, a tombstone. The next sheet was a photocopy on old-fashioned slick photocopy paper. It was obviously some official document.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, it said. DOD#864-558-2048(b)