Ace In The Hole

10:00 P.M.

"-instabilities are well-documented," the small man with the long red hair was saying from the midst of the television screen. In the background the letters JAC and SON winged out either side of the grinning giant black man beside him. "I fear that the tragic events of this morning have overwhelmed Senator Gregg Hartmann."

"You fucker, you fucker!" Mackie Messer screamed, spewing fried pork-rind crumbs at the screen. His skinny, twisted little body was practically levitating above the taut hotel bedspread, like a speck of superconductor caught in a magnetic field.

The pork rinds tasted mostly of salt and grease. Failure tasted like shit.

Der Mann hadn't sent him away. He had permitted him to stay, in a room as stolen as the pork rinds-funny how you could always find an empty room no matter how jammed a hotel was. At least if you could walk through walls.

It had been close. Mackie could tell. He could always tell when rejection was near. He had a lot of experience with it. Tachyon looked directly into molten-silver glare. It seemed to push his eyes back deep in dark pits.

"I am no longer convinced of Senator Hartmann's abilities adequately to represent the Democratic Party, either as a presidential nominee or as president. Therefore I have decided to support the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has demonstrated his commitment to jokers… "

For a nigger! The alien bastard was throwing over the Man for a jungle savage! And Mackie, who could at least have killed the blonde cunt who was trouble for the Man, had fucked up.

He was worthless. He deserved the Man's rejection. Just as he deserved to be abandoned by his mother. With a sob he tore a pillow from the candy-wrapper embrace of the bedspread and stuffed it over his face as if that could keep the tears in him.