Wild Cards VI--Ace in the Hole

by George R. R. Martin

  There was a morbid glee to it all. The circus atmosphere had been plunged into something halfway between horror and fascination.

  The auditorium was almost unnaturally quiet. “Senator, if you’re ready…” Amy said. Her eyes were red and puffy; she’d been crying off and on since she’d arrived at the hospital. Puppetman had made certain of it. She looked at Gregg and tears brimmed again. He hugged her silently as Puppetman lapped at the sorrow.

  It was easy. It was all so easy with Puppetman.

  Amy held the curtains open for him and he walked out into the familiar glare of lights. The floor was a solid mass of people: reporters in front; behind them, Hartmann supporters from the convention intermingled with jokers and hospital staff. Amy and John had argued for restricting admission strictly to the press, but Gregg had overruled them. A large contingent of jokers had besieged the hospital, and Gregg insisted that they be allowed to attend as well. Security blocked the doors after capacity was reached; behind the windows, Gregg could see that the corridors were also wall-to-wall.

  Let them in, Gregg had told Ray. The jokers are our people. We all know why they’re concerned. If they’re clean, give ’em passes until we’re out of room. I trust you, Billy. I know nothing will happen.

  Ray had been almost pitifully grateful at that. That had tasted good, too.

  Gregg walked slowly to the podium and bowed his head, gripping either side of the lectern. He took a deep breath and heard it echo against the hard tile walls. Puppetman could feel the sympathy beating against him. He reveled in it. Gregg could see the puppets interspersed with them: Peanut, File, Mothmouth, Glowbug, a dozen others just in the first few ranks. Gregg knew from long experience that a crowd was an easily swayed beast. Control enough of them and the rest would follow along.

  This would be easy. This would be cake.

  He hated it.

  Gregg raised his head, solemn. “I … I really don’t know what—” He stopped deliberately and closed his eyes: Hartmann Composing Himself. Out in the audience, he heard a subdued sob. He tugged gently at the dozens of mental strings and felt the puppets move. He let his voice tremble just slightly when he resumed.

  “… don’t know what to say to you all. The doctors have given you their report. Umm, I’d like to say Ellen is doing fine, but that’s not really the truth. Let’s just say that she’s doing as well as can be expected at the moment. Her physical injuries will heal; the rest, well—” Again a pause; he ducked his head for a moment. “The rest is going to take a lot of time. I’ve heard that there’s already a roomful of flowers and cards that some of you have sent, and she asked me to thank you. She’ll need all the support and prayers and love you can give her.”

  He gestured at Amy. “I was going to let Ms. Sorenson—my aide—read you my statement. I’d already drafted it, telling all of you that I was withdrawing my name from nomination due to … to the unfortunate accident today. I even read it to Ellen. Afterward, she asked me to give the paper to her, and I did. This is what she gave me back.”

  They waited, obedient. Puppetman tightened his fingers around the strings.

  Gregg reached into his pocket. His hand came out fisted; he turned his hand over and opened his fingers. Scraps of paper fluttered to the wooden floor.

  “She told me that she’d already lost a son,” he said quietly. “She said she wasn’t about to lose the rest.”

  Puppetman pulled the strings tight, opening the minds of the puppets among them. The murmurs of the audience rose, peaked, broke. From the back of the gymnasium where the jokers watched, the applause began, swelling and moving through the audience until most of them were on their feet, clapping hands together, laughing and crying at the same time. The room was suddenly noisy and wild like a camp revival meeting, everyone swaying and shouting and weeping, grieving and celebrating at once. He could see Peanut, his lone arm waving back and forth, his mouth a black wound in the scaly, hard face as he jumped up and down. The excitement triggered Glowbug’s joker: his pulsing radiance rivaled the electronic flashes.

  The cameras swiveled about, panning the odd celebration. Reporters whispered urgently into microphones. Gregg stood there, posed, his empty hand out over the torn-up paper. He let his hand drop to his side and lifted his head as if hearing the acclimation for the first time. He shook his head in feigned bemusement.

  Puppetman exulted. Gregg channeled a portion of the stolen response into himself. He gasped at the pure, undiluted strength of it. He raised his hands for quiet as Puppetman loosened the strings slightly—it took long seconds before he could be heard at all over them.

  His voice was choked. “Thank you. Thank you all. I think maybe Ellen deserves to be your nominee; she’s worked as hard or harder at this, even when she was tired from the pregnancy or a little sick in the mornings. If the convention doesn’t want me, maybe we’ll place her name in nomination instead.”

  That brought more applause and outright cheering, sprinkled with sobbing laughter. All the while, Gregg gave them a wan, strained smile that had nothing of Puppetman in it. Part of him seemed to be simply, scornfully, observing.

  “I just wanted all of you to know that we’re still in this fight despite everything. I know Ellen is watching this from her room and she wants me to thank you for your sympathy and your continued support. Now, I’d like to get back to her myself. Ms. Sorenson will answer any other questions you might have. Once again, thank you all. Amy—”

  Gregg raised his hands in salute; Puppetman yanked hard. They cheered him, tears streaming down their faces.

  He had it all back.

  It was his, now. He knew it.

  Most of him rejoiced.

  2:00 P.M.

  The sound of a soap filtered through the cardboard and cottage-cheese stucco walls of the cheap motel room. On the screen of the room television a pretty young joker woman with bright-blue skin was trying to guess the password from Henry Winkler’s clues. Wrapped in a cheap, stiff housecoat her mysterious benefactor had bought on sale at Kmart, Sara sat on the end of the bed and stared at the screen as if the images on it mattered.

  She was still trying to pull together the broken glass pieces the news flash had left in her belly. The wife of Senator Gregg Hartmann has miscarried in the wake of her tragic fall.… The senator was bravely containing his grief as he fought for political survival on the convention floor. Just the sort of persevering spirit America needed to carry her into the nineties, or so the commentator’s tone seemed to say. Or had that just been the blood in Sara’s ears?

  Bastard. Monster. He sacrificed his wife, his unborn child, to save his political hide.

  An image of Ellen Hartmann’s face surfaced through the shrouds she laid over her memories of the W.H.O. tour. A wan, brave smile, knowing, forbearing … infinitely tragic. Now she lay broken and near death, the child she had so desired lost.

  Sara was never the strident kind of feminist who saw every human interaction in terms of grand collectives, political synecdoche wherein a man was Men and a woman, Women. Yet this struck her deeply, offended her on some primal level. Angered her: for herself, for Ellen, for all of Hartmann’s victims, yes, but especially the women.

  For Andrea.

  There was a thing the man who had hurried her from the hotel last night, as the police cars wailed their red-and-blue way to the latest battle scene, had suggested when they talked in the early hours of this morning. She had promised to consider it before he left about whatever errands he had to tend to—not even reporter’s curiosity made her really want to know. Because his suggestion was natural enough, she supposed, for a self-confessed Soviet spymaster. But it shocked a Midwestern girl, transplanted into the neurasthenic garden of the New York intellectual set, even one who prided herself on her case-hardening in the streets and back rooms of Jokertown.

  But still, but still.… Gregg Hartmann had to be stopped. Gregg Hartmann had to pay.

  But Sara Morgenstern didn’t want to die. To follow Andi oh-so-ungent
ly into that night she could not believe was good. That was the covert caveat of George Steele’s suggestion, neither hidden nor overtly stated.

  But what, what chance do I have with that—thing—after me? The laughing, twisted leather boy, who hummed to himself and walked through walls. She could not hide forever. And when he found her.…

  —She shook her head, whipstinging her cheeks with the ends of her hair, blinded by hot sudden tears.

  Onscreen the blue woman cleaned up in the End Game. Sara hoped it made her happy.

  3:00 P.M.

  “Stop it.” The steady angry flipping of the magazine’s pages ceased.

  “Why?” Blaise’s tone was challenging.

  Tach reined in his temper. Poured another brandy. “I am trying to think, and it is irritating me.”

  “You always stop using contractions when you’re pissed.”

  “Blaise, please.”

  Propping the phone beneath his chin, Tach called Sara’s room. The distant ringing echoed mournfully over and over again.

  Tach drummed his fingers on the table, touched the disconnect button and phoned the desk. Blaise’s magazine flew across the room like a terrified bird. “This is boring sitting here watching you be stupid! I want to go out.”

  “You have forfeited that right.”

  “I don’t want to be here when the CIA comes to get you.” The boy’s grin was ugly.

  “Goddamn you.”

  Fist upraised, Tachyon charged across the room. The knock at the door arrested him before he could strike the child.

  Hiram and Jay Ackroyd were in the hall. Hiram looked like death. Ackroyd’s face was puffy and swollen, and a lot of colors that a face shouldn’t be. Tachyon’s stomach formed into a small, tight ball, and tried to retreat into his spinal cord. He stepped reluctantly back to let them enter.

  Hiram waddled to the window. For the first time in all the years he had known him, Tachyon realized that the ace was not using his gravity power to reduce his own weight. Worchester’s footfalls were ponderous in the suite. Ackroyd seated himself on the sofa, and laid a garment bag across his knees. The silence stretched like cobwebs between the three men and the boy.

  Ackroyd jerked his head toward the door. “Lose the kid.”

  “Hey!” Blaise burst out.

  “Blaise, go.”

  He gave his grandfather a smirk. “I thought I’d forfeited the right.”

  “GO, damn you!”

  “Shit, just when things were getting interesting.” Blaise held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, no problem. I’m gone.”

  The door closed behind him, and the silence resumed. Nerves fraying, Tachyon flung out a hand. “Hiram, what the devil is this?” There was no reply from the ace.

  Ackroyd said, “You gotta run a blood test, Doc. Right now.”

  Tachyon smirked and indicated the room. “What? Here?”

  The detective grimaced. “Don’t be dense, and don’t be cute. I’m too fucking tired and I hurt too much to deal with it.” The man’s fingers trembled slightly as he unzipped the bag. “This is Senator Hartmann’s jacket from Syria.”

  Tachyon stared in blind terror at the black stain on the cloth.

  This was it. He could no longer postpone the discovery by reason of convoluted Takisian honor. Sara’s accusations would be proved or disproved in old blood.

  “How did you come to possess this?”

  “That’s a long story,” Ackroyd said wearily, “and none of us have the time. Let’s just say I got it … from Chrysalis. It was … well … sort of a legacy.”

  Tachyon cleared an obstruction from his throat, and asked cautiously, “And just what do you think I am going to find?”

  “The presence of Xenovirus Takis-A.”

  Moving like an automaton, Tachyon crossed to the dresser, poured a drink, threw it back. “I see a jacket. Anyone could buy a jacket, doctor it with virus-positive blood—”

  “That’s what I thought.” Hiram’s voice was a rusty grinding sound. “But he’s”—a jerk of the head toward Ackroyd—“been through too much. The link from Syria to this hotel room is clear. It’s the sen—it’s Hartmann’s jacket.”

  Tachyon pivoted slowly to face Worchester. “Do you want me to do this thing?”

  “Do we have any choice?”

  “No. I don’t suppose we have.”

  All the way to the Marriott, Puppetman nudged at the gnawing guilt inside Billy Ray. It was a delicious snack, soured and spiced with frustration. Gregg could feel Ray reliving the moment of Ellen’s fall again and again, and he knew that every time Billy felt his fingers graze Ellen’s hand. Ray sat in the front seat of the limo and watched the traffic far too carefully, blinking too often behind his mirrored sunglasses. Gregg could feel Carnifex aching to strike out at something, someone.

  So simple, Puppetman chortled. He’d do anything if he thought it might make up for his mistake.

  Remember that, Gregg told him. Tonight, maybe.

  Now that it was over, Gregg was beginning to feel more normal. The numbness and feeling of being split in half was receding. Part of him still hated what he’d done, but after all what choice had he had?

  None. None at all.

  There was nothing else we could do, right?

  Absolutely. Nothing else.

  Puppetman was smug.

  When Billy opened the door of the campaign staff room for Gregg, a cardboard Peregrine floated out. Someone had whited-out her costume and penned in pubic hair and enormous nipples on the bare breasts. “Flying Fuck” was stenciled on the side.

  The place was a happy chaos. Gregg could see Jack Braun in one of the bedrooms with Charles Devaughn and Logan. Half the Ohio delegation seemed to be in the living room of the suite, dipping into the booze stashed behind the wet bar and waiting for their own meeting with Devaughn. Junior staffers were riding the phone lines while volunteers bustled in and out. Room service trays littered the floor near the door, the carpet was sticky with spilled soda. The place smelled like a week-old pizza.

  Gregg watched the mood shift as soon as he entered. Puppetman felt the hysterical jubilation darken as the noise level dropped to nothing. Everyone turned to look at Gregg. Devaughn broke away from Jack and Logan. His well-groomed figure cut a wedge through the crowded room. “Senator,” he purred. “We’re all very sorry. How’s Ellen?”

  Puppetman could feel very little actual sorrow or concern inside his campaign manager—Devaughn felt nothing unless it directly impacted him, and then everything was a crisis—but Gregg nodded. “She’s doing a good job of pretending that she’s a lot better than she is. This has been a blow to all of us, but especially to her. I’m not going to stay here too long, Charles. I need to get back to the hospital soon. I just wanted to touch bases. I know I haven’t been much help to you people…”

  “You’re mistaken there, Senator. That press conference at the hospital—” Devaughn shook his head. The yuppie-cut hair stayed perfectly in place. “John’s meeting with Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi right now; it looks like we might be able to swing a lot of the Southern Gore delegates away from Barnett. They’re heavily into the strength of the family unit and that type of thing; we’ve got a lot of sympathy pull to use there.” Devaughn didn’t even notice the callousness of the remark, though aides around them audibly gasped. “Christ, man…” one of them exclaimed.

  Devaughn simply plowed on. “I’ve been talking with Jack and the West looks solid, too.” Devaughn couldn’t keep the grin from his face. “We’ve got it, Senator,” he said eagerly. “We’re within 150–200 votes of the majority, and the swing our way is getting deeper. Two more ballots, three at the most. Barnett’s drifting and going nowhere, and we’re picking up everyone’s defectors. It’s all over but the VP decision. You’d better start making your final decision on that.”

  Some of the workers around them gave a cheer at the declaration. Gregg allowed himself a small half-smile. Jack had followed Devaughn over and was standing beside him
. He grimaced at the display and Puppetman felt a faint spill of distaste.

  “I’m sorry, Gregg,” he said, giving Devaughn a hard glare. “Really. No one would have blamed you for dropping out. I think I would have given it up in the same situation. I know there’s nothing anyone can say to make it hurt less.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” Gregg clasped the ace on the shoulder. He heaved a great sigh and shrugged self-conciously. “Whether you believe it or not, hearing that does mean something. Listen, you’re one of the main reasons I dropped back here. Ellen’s asking to see both you and Tachyon. I think she wants to make certain I’ve got good people around me for protection.”

  Gregg felt a twinge from Billy Ray at that: more guilt. Just for the pleasure it would give Puppetman and because for the first time in weeks he could do such things without worry, he tweaked the guilt and let Puppetman savor it. Ray’s intake of breath was audible.

  “Tachy’s over at the Omni, I think,” Jack said.

  “Then could I ask a favor? Would you find him and drag him back to the Marriott? We’ll go over together, if it’s all right with you two.”

  It had been easy enough to arrange. Ellen was a longtime puppet and extremely pliable. It would add to the favorable press the accident had given him. He could see the photo now: Senator Hartmann, Golden Boy, and Dr. Tachyon at Mrs. Hartmann’s bedside. From the slight twist to Braun’s mouth, it was obvious the ace had come to much the same conclusion, but he shrugged.

  “I guess. Let me go see if I can round up Tachy.”

  “Good,” Gregg said. “I’ll wait for you in my room.”

  4:00 P.M.

  Jack hadn’t found Tachyon at the Omni, and decided to go on to the hospital without him. Jack didn’t have the heart to tell the candidate that Tachyon was probably back at the Marriott screwing Fleur van Renssaeler.