Ace In The Hole

2:00 P.M.

"Listen, Sara," Charles Devaughn said. "Whatever happened between you and Gregg on that world tour is history. It's over. Accept that." Hartmann's campaign manager had the sort of brusque preppie good looks people felt the senator had; nobody envisioned Hartmann as the round-shouldered ordinary he was.

Sara felt her cheeks begin to glow like a spoon in a microwave. "Damnit, Charles, that's not the point. I need to talk to you about the way the senator's been acting-"

He turned a shoulder to her, immaculately tailored and midnight blue. "I have no further comments for you, Ms. Morgenstern. I would like to ask that you refrain from harassing the senator's campaign staffers any further. The press has certain responsibilities you'd be wise not to overlook."

He walked. "Charles, wait! This is important " Her words bounced off his wedge of back and chased each other like arboreal animals up the Marriott's soaring organiformatrium, which she'd overheard a reporter from some fringe journal describe as Antoni Gaudi's trachea. Delegates bumping elbows in the lobby outside the function rooms turned to stare, their faces pale blank moons hanging over gardens of gaudy ribbons and campaign buttons, and in the middle of each a little square shine of plaque, like an exhibit at a botanical garden, identifying which subspecies of small-time political hustler or wanna-be this specimen belonged to.

She struck herself twice on the thighs with the heels of her hands in frustration. You're losing it, Sara.

On cue, the projector inside her mind brought up an image of Andrea, her elder sister, fine and beautiful as an ice sculpture. A laughing, taunting crystal voice, eyes like snowmelt: perfection tiny, mousy Sara could never hope to attain. Andrea, who had been dead for thirty years.

Andrea, murdered by the man who would be president. Who had the power to twist others to his will. As he had twisted her.

There was no proof, of course. Lord knew it had taken her years to acknowledge first the suspicion and then the awful certainty that there had been more to her sister's brutal death than the random urges of a retarded adolescent. It had taken her long enough to realize that that was why she went into journalism in the first place, why she was drawn to Jokertown: deep down, she knew there was more. And over the years, as she was establishing a rep as the reporter on joker affairs, she had come to be aware of a presence in the joker slum, covert, manipulative.. evil.

She'd tried to track it down. Even a star investigative reporter-even an obsessed investigator-didn't find it easy to trace the invisible strings of a demented puppet master. She persevered.

She was convinced it was Hartmann even before she boarded the Stacked Deck. She was certain she would discover the final evidence to convict him on the W.H.O. tour.

She had. She felt cool sweat start at the roots of her hair as she remembered how her suspicions had begun to erode, then whirl away beyond her reach, like driftwood from a drowning woman's fingers. She had actually come to think she loved him-and all the time a minute internal voice cried, no, no, what's happening to me?

She recalled sweaty skin friction, and him thrusting inside her, and she wanted to douche and never stop.

He had controlled her, as he had controlled poor Roger Pellman that Cincinnati afternoon when her sister died. Had used her because he perceived her as she perceived herself as a poor imitation of her beautiful lost sister. At least they shared that obsession with what was lost.

She had her proof, all right; she could still feel the points in her psyche where the puppeteer's strings had been attached. And sometimes when they coupled she heard the word Andrea grunted among the endearments, and something within her chilled even as her body and mind responded with eager need.

But it was no proof at all to anyone who could not read her thoughts.

She found herself drifting, realized she was being drawn by some journalist tropism toward Cluster 3, the function rooms clumped beyond the circular escalator well. In her growing frenzy to nail down some evidence that might convince an outsider, make him look beyond the sober statesman's mask, the air of compassion for all those touched by the wild card, that hid the puppet master from view, she had paid little attention to the phenomenon of the convention itself. The guilt stung her: You're supposed to be dealing with wild card affairs.

Self-anger flared: What could be more important to jokers-to anybody-than that a psychopathic ace may become the next president of the United States? She thought of the puppet master's finger poised above the famed red button and wanted to vomit.

Delegates and reporters were streaming from the big corner Sidney Room, flushed and noisy as schoolkids. "What's going on?" she asked one, mainly because he was little taller than she was.

"It's Barnett's crazies," he told her. "They came up with something juicy on Hartmann." He was vibrating with gratified malice. He wore glasses and a big Dukakis button.

Could this be it? she wondered, starting to feel cheated that it wasn't her hand that had driven the stake through the monster's heart.

"They got to someone who was on the W. H. O. tour last year. Turns out Hartmann spent the whole time having himself a fling with some bimbo reporter from The Washington Post."

The parade of delegates and politicians through Gregg's suite seemed endless-Gregg had to admit that Amy had done a tremendous job contacting people on extremely short notice.

But then most delegates were anxious to meet with the front-runner among the candidates, and none of the elected officials wanted to offend the man who might possibly be the next president.

As for Gregg, the afternoon was interminable and taking its toll. He thought he'd locked Puppetman away tightly. He'd even begun to hope that maybe, just maybe, the voice inside his head would stay silent for the rest of the week. But the bars holding Puppetman were beginning to weaken again. He could hear the power, alternately pleading and threatening.

Let me nut! You have to let me out!

He ignored it as well as he could, but his temper was shorter than usual, and his smile was sometimes more a grimace. It was worst with the politicians, most of whom he could have gotten to agree, with a touch of Puppetman's influence, and who now could say no with impunity. That was when Puppetman howled the most.

Ohio Senators Glenn and Metzenbaum showed up on schedule. Ellen greeted them at the door; Gregg was changing his shirt in the bedroom. Gregg could hear Metzenbaum being his usual ingratiating self. "So it is true. Expectant mothers do glow."

Ellen laughed as Gregg walked in. "John, Howard," he said, nodding to them. "Please grab something from the bar if you want, and thanks for coming on such short notice. I'm trying to meet as many influential people as I can on this-you were both at the top of that list."

Get out. That's what he really wanted to say. I'm tired and ragged and my mind's splitting in half. Leave me alone. Metzenbaum smiled politely; Glenn, with the old astronaut's exaggerated calm, simply nodded, if anything more stonefaced than usual. The two were looking at Ellen pointedly. Gregg didn't need to say anything; Ellen was wellexperienced at picking up such cues.

"Well, I'll leave you folks to your politics," she said. "I've a meeting of my own with the NOW delegates. You are backing the ERA, aren't you?" She smiled again and took her leave. Gregg walked her to the door. On impulse, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her deeply. "Listen, Ellen, I just want you to know how much I appreciate all your help today, without you… well, that incident this morning. Please don't think any more of it. I'm just tired, that's all. The stress…"

He couldn't seem to stop talking. The words just kept tumbling out and he felt closer to her than he had in months. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt you.."

Glenn and Metzenbaum were staring. Ellen stopped his words with a quick kiss. "You have guests, dear," she said, looking at him strangely.

Gregg smiled apologetically; it felt more like a death'shead grin. "Yes, I supppose… I'll see you in a bit for dinner: Bello Mondo, right?"

"Six-thirty. Amy said she'd call to remind you." Ellen hugged Gregg wordlessly. "I love you." She gave him another long look, and stepped out.

Down below, Puppetman howled for attention. Gregg felt sweat beading on his brow. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and turned back into the room.

"Ohio's been very good to me, gentlemen," he said. "You two are largely responsible. I suppose you're both aware that we're looking for support on 9(c) and the California-" They weren't listening. Gregg stopped in mid-sentence. "What?" he asked.

"We have a bigger problem, Gregg," Glenn said. "Bad news, I'm afraid. There's a nasty story going around about you and Morgenstern on the aces junket…"

Gregg was no longer listening. Sara Morgenstern. His career seemed to be inexorably linked to hers. Puppetman's first victim had been thirteen-year-old Andrea Whitman, Sara's sister. Gregg had only been eleven at the time. It was only bizarre coincidence that had caused Sara to suspect, many years later, that Gregg had been involved in Andrea's death. To nullify Sara, and to satisfy Puppetman's own needs, he had taken Sara as a puppet the year before. On the wild cards junket, as discreetly as possible, they'd become lovers.

Gregg could see it all unraveling-the nomination, the presidency, his career. What had happened to Gary Hart could, after all, just as easily happen to him.

Inside, hardly muffled at all, Puppetman screamed.

For a while she simply wandered.

When she got back to her room in the Hilton the message light on the phone was glowing like a telltale on the console of a reactor on overload. When she called the desk, there were about twelve-thousand messages from Braden Dulles in D.C. waiting for her. Another call came in as she was getting the word, and the harried-sounding hotel operator patched it through.

"Is this true?" he asked.

She felt her breath congeal in her throat. It had been like this the one time she tried cocaine, back when she was still married to upwardly mobile lawyer David Morgenstern: the muscles of her chest just refused to work.

"Yes. "

At the door, the first knock came.