Ace In The Hole

4:00 P.M.

It was like being on Mercury: The air-conditioning of the Marriott beat on his back as he stepped through the doors. The Atlanta heat started the sweat rolling down his face. The sidewalk was crowded with Jackson supporters waving brightred JESSE! signs. Just beyond them was the limo. Jackson clasped Tachyon's hand and lifted them up over their heads. Tachyon squirmed, dancing on his toes. The reverend was so much taller.

A ragged cheer went up, and they headed for the limo, smiling and shaking hands as the spectators crowded in around them. Jackson pressed the flesh with practiced ease. Tachyon looked at him enviously.

Ackroyd was waiting at the door of the car. "What now?"

"Jesse wants us to talk to the jokers outside the Omni," Tachyon explained. "He and I together. His positions on wild card issues are just as strong as Hartmann's, if they will only listen…" He gave a long, deep sigh. "Jay, if you have other leads to follow up, there's really no need for you to come along."

Jay shrugged. "Might as well," he said, "can't dance." At least the limo was air-conditioned, Tachyon thought gratefully as they drove off.

Jackson's bodyguard, the ace called Straight Arrow, stared implacably across at him. Tach began to realize how hopeless, how stupid this was. They were not going to listen. Jesse would have a better chance without him. Tension made his voice jump as he blurted, "This is not going to work."

"Faith, Doctor," said Jackson.

He was wedged firmly between Jay Ackroyd and the reverend. He looked desperately from Jay to Jesse. "They hate me now."

The limo pulled up, and Jackson studied the ranks of silent jokers. "Only some. It's not as if you switched your support to Barnett. I'm not that unacceptable, am I?"

"Not to me." Tach gave the tall human's arm a squeeze. "And you will convince them. I know it."

"Well, help me a little."

"I will do my uttermost best."

Straight Arrow swung open the door of the black limousine, and Jackson and Tachyon stepped back out into the heat. The police had driven a wedge into the jokers. At the end of that long aisle was a flatbed truck equipped with a sound system. The heat was unbelievable, bouncing in waves off the pavement. As he watched, Tach saw Arachne's eight legs fold beneath her and she went down with a sigh. There was a flurry of movement as her nat daughter dropped down at her mother's side, and began fanning the unconscious woman with a folded newspaper.

"How can they hate them so?" Tachyon asked. The lilac eyes were wide with misery. "They are pitiful, and so brave. So very brave."

The crowd had noticed them. Uncertainty ran like a shiver through them, then large numbers began pushing forward against the lines of police as Jackson walked into their midst. Setting his jaw, Tachyon threw back his head, and followed. His eyes met Gills'. The joker's thick neck worked, the membranes over the gills fluttering. He hacked, and a gob' of thick white mucus hit Tachyon in the face. The alien recoiled, then lunged forward, hand outstretched, pleading for understanding. But Gills had already turned his back on Tachyon.

He mopped away the spittle, and they moved deeper into the crowd. Up ahead Tach could hear the ring of Jesse's voice, but the words eluded him. He was too busy scanning the crowd, evaluating the faces of his friends and people. Disinterest, outright hatred, sympathy. A shadow fell across him. Turtle. But Tommy flew on.

A huge, pallid figure snapped the linked arms of two policemen. A brick wall wasn't going to stop six-hundred pounds of Doughboy. He rolled to a stop before the tiny alien. "Doctor."

"Yes, dear." He couldn't bring himself to call the joker "Doughboy."

"They thaid Mith Thara's a twaitor, and now they thay you are too. I don't underthand. "

"It's very confusing, child."

"Don't you love the thenator anymore?"

Tach covered his eyes with a hand. "I love all of you better. "

"Funny way of showing it," howled a voice from the crowd.

"Traitor. Traitor! TRAITOR!"

The sound battered at him, and Tach dropped his face into his hands. Suddenly Jackson was there, an arm tight about his shoulders.

"Come on. You can do it. We walk through this crowd. We get up on that truck, and we speak. It's going to be all right. "

"No, Reverend, I am afraid that some things can never be repaired."

But he had been reminded of his duty, so with a smile firmly in place Tach began moving down the line of people. Some of the most unbelievable things were held out to him-claws, tentacles, misshapen lumps covered with foulsmelling discharge. The sight of a normal human hand was such a relief that Tachyon almost ran to grip it.

A young man, dressed in a leather jacket despite the heat, raised heavy lids to regard him. Eyes as blank as a shark's.

Jokers clogged the street, silent and horrible. The heat and the light seemed to suffocate you, to wrap around your chest like a python, tightening by degrees. It reminded Mackie of Hamburg in summertime. He hated anything that reminded him of home. He hated the heat and the humidity, and wasn't too crazy about the light of day. Most of all he hated jokers.

Nonetheless he was happy. Redemption sang in his veins like a hit of good speed.

Der Mann was giving him another chance. He was Macheath again, slipping through the mob with his song bubbling mantric down in his throat.

In this mass of monsters, nothing was remarkable. Particularly Mackie. His lack of size let him avoid most contact. The awful heat sent sweat tentacles crawling down his ribs inside his jacket and aging T-shirt, but his personal stink was lost in the crowd.

Glancing impact, then, "Hey, there, motherfucker!" The hand on his arm was feathered. "Watch who you're shoving! Who the fuck you think you are?"

"I'm Mack the Knife, you filthy creature!" Anger swelled like his cock. He started to bring a buzz.

No! Remember your job! He snarled something wordless and phased out, leaving the monstrosity standing there holding air. The stupid look on what passed for its face made him laugh.

Insubstantial, he walked through a maggot clump of horrors pretending to be people, found an eddy big enough to phase his skinny body back in. The jokers paid him no mind.

A chant had started, low and hostile. The words blurred in his mind. He didn't try to understand. Jokers had nothing to say. The beasts didn't even know he was walking through them! He was Mackie Messer, he was stone mystery and death. He was invincible.

Looming alongside his quarry was the tall nigger running for president-and wasn't that capitalist decadence, to let such people hold political office? Karl Marx said the black man was a slave, and der alte Karl knew what he was talking about. The man hanging tight on Tach's other side struck Mackie somehow familiar. Probably one of the alien's toadies from Jokertown.

Tachyon was moving down a line, shaking hands or whatever. The thought of all that joker touch made Mackie's skin creep. He circled, like the shark in his song, who wears his teeth in his face.

You must be extremely careful, the Man had said. Tachyon is a mind reader. You must not let him sense your intention.

Good enough. He was Mack the Knife. He knew how to do these things.

It would be simple to phase through the crowd, approach from behind, buzz his hand and jam it right through Doctor precious Tachyon's alien fucking heart. It would be too simple.

He'd never done an alien before. Nor had he done anybody really big, really famous like Tachyon was.

He wanted to feel Tachyon's eyes in his. He wanted the little bastard to know who was killing him.

The jokers surged forward, carrying him right where he needed to go.

The world contracted to Tachyon and the touch.

The afternoon came to Jack in little coherent bursts interspersed with noise and pointless movement, like a film cut into pieces and spliced together at random. Delegates surged back and forth, vote totals changed by the half hour.

The only two constants were that Hartmann was losing votes and Barnett was gaining. Despite denials from Hartmann and Devaughn, everyone assumed that Jack's accusation of Barnett had been a last, desperate attempt by Hartmann's camp to regain its lost momentum. "Hey," Devaughn finally scowled as reporters pressed him. "Give the guy a break. Yesterday somebody stopped his heart-who knows how many brain cells he lost?"

Thanks, Charles, Jack thought. Compassionate as always. The only conceivable remedy was another swig of overproof.

Jim Wright, calling for vote after vote, looked as if his liver had just failed. Fistfights swirled on the floor. The band played whatever came into its collective head, anything from Stephen Foster to Jagger-Richards. A Starshine glider crashed in front of Jack and he stepped on it by mistake while trying to pick it up. He tried to throw the crumpled thing anyway, and it came apart as it left his hand.

Fucking flying joker, he thought.

As Jack finished the bottle, a kind of lucidity returned, an intense consciousness of the horror of it all. Aw, shit, Jack thought. I've drunk myself sober.

No choice, he decided, but to get another bottle. He lurched from his seat and headed across the pandemonium toward the nearest exit. As he left the auditorium, he saw a young woman with Hartmann buttons talking earnestly to a tall black man in hornrims.

"Sorry, Sheila," the man in glasses said. "Your old man's the nicest guy I've ever met, and I'm sorry to disappoint him, but if I don't switch to Jesse on this vote I can kiss my standing in the neighborhood goodbye."

Some kind of rally was going on right outside the auditorium. There was a flatbed truck covered with Jackson banners and a limo trying to get through the crowd toward it, the horn bleating. Swarming around everything were more jokers than Jack had ever seen in one place.

He tried moving through the crowd, but it was too dense. The people in the limo must have decided the same thing, because its doors opened and the passengers got out-Straight Arrow in his gray uniform, some little white guy Jack didn't recognize, Jesse Jackson, and Tachyon.

Great. Just the people Jack wanted to see.

The crowd roared. Media people jostled jokers to find camera setups. Police and Secret Service were trying to wedge their way to the truck without knocking anyone off their feet.

Tachyon and the candidate were shaking hands as they progressed. Someone spit in Tach's face. Straight Arrow looked appalled, probably not at the saliva but at the fact it could as easily have been a bullet.

A shadow passed overhead and Jack looked up. The Turtle moved past in silence. Someone had painted HARTMANN! across his shell in big silver letters.

Jack looked down and saw, through a split-second gap in the crowd, the freak gliding through the. crowd. The kid with buzz saw hands, just fifteen feet away.

Adrenaline crashed into Jack with the force of a hurricane. "No!" he yelled, and began to swim through the crowd with great sweeps of his arms, driving his way heedless of yells of protest.

The leather boy had disappeared. Jack craned to find him. Then there he was, leaning forward under the arm of a policeman, his hand outstretched. Tachyon saw him and smiled.

"No!" Jack yelled again, but no one could hear him. Tachyon took the hand.

Tachyon took his hand with something like relief. He clamped down hard.

"I'm Mackie Messer," he said, and laid on maximum buzz.

There was a shower of blood and bone and the buzzsaw sound that Jack remembered all too well. Tachyon screamed. So did a hundred other people. So, maybe, did Jack.

Jack charged forward, but the crowd was surging back, and he stumbled, almost fell, as people went down around him. A silver-eyed joker child was clutching his leg. Jack tried to shake the boy off, yelling in fury.

Tachyon staggered back, blood pulsing from his torn wrist. Straight Arrow had been watching the crowd around Jackson and was only now turning his head to comprehend the situation. The policeman under whose arm the leather boy had reached was the only one near enough to react. Half the cop's face was dripping with Tachyon's blood, and his actions were slowed by shock. He tried to grab the boy's leather jacket. If he'd had time to think, he'd have done almost anything but that.

The leather boy turned to face the cop and Jack's heart jumped into his throat. All the kid had to do was glance past the policeman and see Jack heading for him. But the freak didn't notice Jack-he was too busy smiling up at the cop, his tongue enjoying the taste of Takisian blood on his lower lip. He sliced off the cop's right arm at the shoulder.

The kid turned back to Tachyon, away from Jack. Jack shook off the joker kid and ran, his arm cocking back, his hand making a fist. If the kid was going to finish off Tach, he'd have to remain material, and Jack could hit him with all the force of a cannon.

The leather boy reached toward Tachyon. His hand movement was gentle, almost a caress. One more step and Jack was going to knock the hunchback's head about twenty blocks.

Jack let the punch go, and the freak disappeared with a pop! The punch spun him around as Jack screamed in rage. Tachyon's blood slipped under his feet but somehow he managed to stay upright.

"Who did that!" he shrieked.

Straight Arrow was standing there, a flaming arrow raised high in one hand, like a statue of Zeus throwing a thunderbolt. The Secret Service had knocked Jackson down and had piled on him. A lot of guns were out.

"Ackroyd," Straight Arrow said. The flame disappeared from his fingertips.

The crowd moaned as if in pain. Men with television cameras circled the police cordon, trying to get a better look. The eyes of the nation were sopping it all up.

Tachyon's eyes fluttered and he fell to the pavement. The cop was screaming. Jack could see that his wound was too high to tourniquet. Jack stepped up to him, drew back his fist, hit him gently on the temple. The policeman's head bounced like a punching bag and he went unconscious.

Straight Arrow stepped next to Jack. His shocked face was pale. He reached out a hand to the policeman's wounded shoulder. Flame pulsed hotly. Blood hissed, boiling away, as he cauterized the wound. The smell of burning flesh eddied up, and from Jack's layered memories came the screams of a man burning to death in a flaming tank somewhere under Cassino.

Maybe the cop's life could be saved if the man didn't die of shock in the next five minutes. Jack followed, feeling helpless, as Straight Arrow moved to Tachyon's side and picked up the wounded arm. Tachyon's face and rules were covered with blood. There were things grinding under Jack's feet that he didn't want to think about.

Straight Arrow cauterized Tach's wound with the same efficient pulse of flame he'd used on the cop. Jack turned away, not wanting to have to listen to the hiss of blood, smell the burning meat. He reached for his cigarettes. Rage danced through his nerves. He'd had the kid, would have crushed his murderous little head like an eggshell.

Jesse Jackson was getting to his feet. From his bewildered expression it was clear he hadn't seen a thing. Secret Service were trying to call for ambulances on their radios.

"Ackroyd." Straight Arrow rose from his crouch. "Where did you send him?"

Ackroyd was the nondescript-looking man Jack had seen leave the limousine with Tach and Jackson. He seemed as much in shock as anyone else.

"Yeah," he said. "Oh, Jesus." His hands wandered over his own body as if he had an itch he couldn't locate.

"You!" Jack roared. "Who the hell are you?" Ackroyd looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Jay Ackroyd," Straight Arrow said. "Private cop. They call him Popinjay."

"I had the bastard!" Jack shook his fist in rage, crushing his pack of cigarettes. "I could have turned him into JELL-0! Aw, fuck!" He threw down the pack of cigarettes and kicked it into the crowd.

"Where'd you send him, Ackroyd?"

"Popped him," Ackroyd said.

Straight Arrow grabbed him by the lapels and shook him. "Where'd you send the assassin?"

"Oh." Ackroyd licked his lips. "New York. The tombs." Straight Arrow took his hands off the detective and straightened in satisfaction. "Good," he said.

Jack wanted to knock Ackroyd into the next country. "He walks through walls!" he yelled. "He's out by now!" Straight Arrow's face fell.

Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance. Jack looked around the scene, the two wounded men, Jackson kneeling by Tachyon, the Secret Service with their guns out, the crowd wailing and moaning in shock, TV cameras taking it all in… He'd lost again, Jack realized. Another tragedy he couldn't stop. Everything was slipping through his fingers.

And no one was going to profit from any of this besides Leo Barnett.

He was in a room surrounded by big niggers and bars. For a moment Mackie thought he was dreaming. Then he became aware of the hot gobbets of alien meat clinging like melted plastic to his face and the front of his jacket.

His right hand held air. His left was stiffened into a blade, vibrating, ready to take Dr. Tachyon's head off his shoulder. But he was no longer in the brightness of the Atlanta street and there was no Tachyon.

"Nein!" he screamed, slamming the heels of his hands against his forehead. "Nein, nein, nein!"

He had failed again. It wasn't possible. But he had failed. A hand clamped his shoulder. Nausea tsunami crashed from one side of his stomach to the other as he turned to find himself staring up at a gigantic black with a hairless dome of head and a gold ring in his ear.

"Hey, man," the giant said in a mild voice, "how fuck you get in here?"

Mackie screamed again, this time making no attempt at words. He made his hands do things, then, and. then it was other people who were screaming, and when the screaming stopped he ran straight through the bars of the holding cell, down green echoing corridors that reeked of puke and sweat and fear, and downstairs and out into the grimy sunlight of New York.

He had to get back to Atlanta at once. To redeem himself in the eyes of his master, his love.