Ace In The Hole

9:00 A.M.

"Sara," Ricky Barnes said, "you've got to get off this Hartmann thing. It's making you crazy. You're acting obsessive/compulsive."

They sat at a round table covered in green-checked oilcloth near Le Peep's front window. Outside, a clot of farm-state delegates in loud ties floated down the tiled rectilinear intestine of Peachtree Center, headed for the Hyatt lobby. More delegates vied with ferns for elbow room around them, trying to fortify themselves on lightweight New Egg Cuisine. It was that, fast food, or hotel restaurants, which had waiting lists past the turn of the century.

"Rolling Stone says that's the disease of the Eighties," Sara Morgenstern said, dissecting her omelet with her fork. Her winter-pale hair was swept from the left side of her head to the right today. She wore a simple pink dress that came to the tops of her crossed knees. Her stockings were sheer black, her shoes wedge-soled and white.

Barnes took a bite of his own tofu and spinach omelet. The coat of his severe black two-piece was draped over his hooped chairback. With his suspenders and white shirt he might have passed for an Inherit the Wind epoch Southern Methodist minister, except for his gold-wire yuppie granny glasses. "It's getting a lot of competition from AIDS," he said. "But seriously, you're a long way off your usual Jokertown beat; your Washington desk is handling everything that comes out of Atlanta this week, and they won't be as indulgent of your little foibles as the New York bureau is. Senator Gregg's the Post's special pet. It's as if Katie Graham invented him. They're not going to be happy with you throwing rocks at him."

"We're journalists, Ricky," she said, leaning forward, reaching as if to touch the hand resting beside his plate. The white fingers stopped millimeters short of the milk-chocolate ones. Ricky didn't react. He was an old friend, who'd taken a journalism seminar from her at Columbia a few years back, and knew her reticence had nothing to do with his race. "We have to report the truth."

Ricky shook his long and neatly groomed head. "Sara, Sara. You're not that naive. We report what the owners want or what our peers want. If the truth happens to fall inconveniently in between, it doesn't have much constituency. Besides, what is truth, as the man who washed his hands asked?"

"The truth is that Gregg Hartmann is a murderer and a monster. And I'm going to expose him."

When Hiram Worchester shambled into the room, Jack gave a start and reflexively began to rise from his chair before deciding not to. He settled back into the chair with his coffee and cigarette. He and Hiram had been on the Stacked Deck together; even if they hadn't been friends, there was no need for formality.

Hiram looked as if he hadn't slept. He headed wordlessly for the buffet, took a plate, began to fill it.

Jack felt perspiration speckling his scalp. His heart seemed to change rhythms every few seconds. Why the hell, he demanded of himself, was he so nervous? He took a long drag on his Camel.

Hiram kept filling his plate. Jack began to wonder if his wild card had suddenly run to invisibility.

Hiram turned, chewing a cruller as if he wasn't really tasting it, and took a seat opposite Jack. On the Stacked Deck he had used his control of gravity to remove a lot of his weight, something that made him oddly agile. He didn't seem to be doing that now. He looked at Jack out of dull, marble eyes. "Braun," he said. "This meeting wasn't my idea."

"Mine either."

"You were a hero of mine, you know. When I was young." We all have to grow up sometime, Jack thought, but decided against saying it. Let the man have his moment. "I've never made any claims to heroism myself," Hiram spoke on. Jack had the feeling it was a speech he'd been working on for some time. "I'm a fat man who runs a restaurant. I've never been on the cover of Life or starred in a feature film. But whatever else, I'm loyal to my friends." Good for you, chum. This time Jack almost said it. But he thought of Earl Sanderson fluttering to the floor of the Marriott and instead said nothing.

He blinked sweat out of his eyes. Why am I doing this to myself? he thought.

Hiram spoke on, robot-like. "Gregg tells me you did good work in California. He says we might have lost without all the celebrity support and money that ou organized. I'm grateful for that, but gratitude is one thing' and trust is another."

"I wouldn't trust anybody in politics, Worchester," Jack said. And then wondered if that piece of fashionable cynicism was true, because he did trust Gregg Hartmann, knew him for a genuinely good man, and he wanted the man to win more than he had wanted anything in thirty years.

"It's important that Gregg Hartmann win this election, Braun. Leo Barnett is the Nur-al-Allah in American dress. Remember Syria? Remember jokers stoned to death in the streets?" There was a weird gleam in Hiram's eyes. He raised a fist and clenched it, forgetting it contained half a cruller. "That's what's at stake here, Braun. They'll do anything to stop us. They'll bribe, smear, seduce us, resort to violence. And where will you be, Braun?" Loudly. "Where will you be when they really start turning the screws?"

Suddenly Jack's nervousness was gone. A cold anger hummed through him. He'd had quite enough.

"You… weren't… there," Jack said.

Hiram paused, then became aware of pastry dough ballooning out between the fingers of his upraised hand. "You… weren't… fucking

… there." The words grated slowly from a place inside Jack that seemed like a twilight graveyard, a place without warmth, an endless plain of autumn grass marked with gray stones that noted the passing of Earl, of Blythe, of Archibald Holmes, of all the young men he knew in the 5th Division, all those who died at the Rapido crossing, little stick figures scattered like so many handfuls of dust beneath the pounding guns of Cassino…

Jack stood up and threw the cigarette away. "For someone who doesn't claim to be a hero, Worchester, you sure make a great speech. Maybe you should consider a career in politics."

With quick, vicious movements of the napkin, Hiram swabbed dough from his hand. "I told Gregg you can't be trusted. He told me you've changed."

"Could be he's right," Jack said. "Could be he's wrong. The question is, what can you do about it?"

Hiram threw the napkin away and rose massively to his feet, a pale mountain lumbering to battle. "I can do what I have to do!" he said sharply. "It's that important!"

Jack's lips skinned back from his teeth in a wolverine smile. "You don't know that. You haven't been tested. You haven't been there." He gave a stage laugh, Basil Rathbone standing on the parapet and mocking the peasants. "Everyone knows about me, Worchester, but nobody's put the screws to you vet. Nobody's asked you to betray your friends. You haven't been there, and you don't know what you're going to do till it happens." He smiled again. "Take my word for it."

Hiram seemed to wilt before Jack's smile. Then his color drained away, and to Jack's surprise the big man seemed to stagger back and fall. Springs burst in the chair as Hiram collapsed into it. He tugged at his collar as if he were choking, revealing a painful sore on his neck.

Jack stared in amazement. The granite mountain had melted into a marshmallow.

And suddenly Jack was very weary. A faint hangover residue throbbed in his temples. He didn't want to watch Hiram any more.

He headed for the exit.

He paused by the door. "I'm here for Gregg's sake," he said. "I guess it's the same for you. So let's tell Gregg we're the best of friends and do what we have to do. Okay?"

Hiram, still dragging at his collar, nodded.

Jack stepped into the corridor and closed the door of the suite behind him. He felt like the school bully picking on the class fat kid.

From down the corridor came the raucous cry of conventioneers on their first day in town. Jack headed toward it.