Ace In The Hole wc-6

by George R. R. Martin

  The door to the press booth opened. Fleur emerged. The stairway suddenly became unbearably claustrophobic. They were going to meet face to face. It was unavoidable. Tachyon steeled himself. Suddenly Fleur's high heel slipped from beneath her, and she pitched headlong down the stairs. Calf muscles burning with strain, Tach vaulted up the steps, and caught her just before her dark head connected with the concrete. Her chignon had jerked loose, and strands of sable hair hung about her face. He righted her, and a few more hairpins fell pattering to the floor.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, yes." She pressed a hand to her forehead, looking about in confusion. "I could have been killed." His arms were still around her. She glanced down, raised hesitant eyes to his face. "You're still holding me."

  "My apologies." He began to withdraw. She laid her hand on his shoulder holding him in place. Tachyon felt her thigh, firm beneath the silk skirt, weld itself to his. His cock stirred.

  "You could have let me fall. It would have been natural after… after the way I've treated you."

  "I would never let you.. fall."

  Fingers, as soft as butterflies, explored his face, traced across his lips. "You saved my life."

  "You exaggerate."

  Fleur pressed her body to his. Tach groaned softly as his penis stiffened to rigid and aching attention. Suddenly she cupped his face between her hands and kissed him. All vestiges of control vanished. Tongue probing deep into her mouth, he gripped her buttocks. Their panting breaths set an odd counterpoint to the roll call droning up from the floor. Tach's hands played frenziedly across her body.

  Fleur broke away. Struggled to rebutton her blouse. Tachyon gripped her trembling fingers.

  "Here, let me."

  "Take me to your room."

  He looked up, fingers frozen on a button. She lifted his hand, bit down hard on a forefinger.

  Help me.

  A cry from his soul? Or a random thought from Fleur? He ignored the plaintive voice.

  "We can't be seen leaving together," whispered Fleur. He handed her his room key. "I'll follow… soon."

  Jack's phone bleeped again. It had been ringing all through his lunch at the Bello Mondo and the other patrons were beginning to get annoyed. The Speaker of the U. S.

  House of Representatives, in fact, was scowling at him from the next table. Jack offered Jim Wright of Texas an apologetic look, opened his case, and took out the handset.

  "This is Tachyon. I am calling from the press room. I must leave, and I require someone here with your kind of charisma."

  "What for, exactly?"

  "I will inform you when you arrive. Please hurry."

  "Hey. Don't give me this Takisian-royalty-in-a-hurry crap." But Tachyon had hung up.

  Jack contemplated grinding the telephone to dust. Instead he finished his last bite of dessert, overpaid, and fed the maitre d' his C-note.

  The distance from the Marriott to the Convention Center was precisely one unfiltered Camel in length. Jack's neck prickled. He and Fleur van Renssaeler jostled in a door leading to the Convention Center. Psychos-his third wife had been a real nut case made him nervous. Despite the way Fleur spooked him, Jack gave her a jaunty wave and grin, received a close-lipped smile in return. He saw a Marriott room key in her hand and figured she was heading to the hotel to give some reporter a blow job straight from God, maybe convert him to Barnett's cause.

  Tachyon was waiting just beneath the ABC skybox, wearing his cavalier coat with the slashes and turnbacks, the riding breeches and boots. The alien's face was strained. When he saw Jack, the violet eyes flashed.

  "What took you so long?"

  "Hi, to you, too."

  "It's imperative that you speak to the press immediately." Waving his plumed hat under Jack's nose.

  "Fine." Jack tipped another cigarette out of the pack. "What am I supposed to be talking to them about?"

  "This 'Anyone-but-Hartmann business. If the media keeps harping on this, it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. "

  "Okay." Jack grinned as he lit the Camel. "Is Connie Chung in there? And if she's married, is her husband here?"

  "This is no time for-" Tachyon began waving the hat again, then abruptly swallowed his words. Color blossomed on his cheeks. At the sight, a cold, despairing certainty settled into Jack's mind.

  "It's Fleur, right? That was your hotel key she waved at me."

  "She did not wave-" The alien swallowed his words again. Tachyon drew himself up to his full princely heightwith the heels, about eight inches below Jack's-and glared with furious violet eyes. "I will not have my personal life questioned. This is no affair of yours."

  "Darn right it's no affair of mine. I turned her down a few days ago."

  Tachyon showed his teeth. "How dare you! Do you know who you're speaking to?"

  Jack took a measured breath of smoke. "I'm talking to someone who's being led around by his dick, which is pretty funny, considering how long it's been since you last got it up."

  Tachyon flushed red with anger. Cold fear touched Jack's spine at the thought that he'd gone too far, that this was someone who had been raised to kill at the slightest insult, who had in fact once sworn to murder Jack and might decide that he'd ignored the vow for too long. .

  But instead Tachyon just brushed past him, heading out of the Convention Center. Jack followed, his long legs keeping pace easily with the aliens quick step.

  "Tach, okay, that wasn't fair," he said. "The point is, Fleur did make a pass at me the other day."

  "I don't believe you." Tachyon spoke through clenched teeth, his boot heels tapping rapidly on the concrete.

  "She's trying to embarrass the campaign. You know how much the whole Sara Morgenstern business cost us. There might be half-a-dozen network cameramen behind a two-way mirror watching you when you screw."

  "In… mg… bedroom?" Tachyon's measured answer came out as a half shriek.

  "It's still a setup. Will you listen?" He grabbed Tachyon's arm. "It's a fucking-"

  "Leave me alone!" Wrenching his arm free.

  "She's a psycho. She's not her mother. Understand? She's not Blythe."

  Tachyon stopped walking and spun to face Jack. His face was drained of color. "Do not," he said, "let that name past your lips ever again. You have not earned that right."

  Jack stared at him, his annoyance turning to boiling anger. "This is for your own good," he said. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth and picked Tachyon up and put him under his arm.

  He started walking for the Omni Hotel while the alien kicked and struggled.

  "Blood and bone! Let me down!"

  "I'm going to find a cold shower and put you in it," Jack said. "Consider it your penance for throwing that bomb at me in Paris. If you want to get laid after that, I know a Miss Peachtree who will be glad-"

  Jack stopped moving. He put Tachyon down. He marched up the ramp to the stair leading to the skybox. He dropped the cigarette to the concrete floor, ground it under his heel, and stepped in.

  Then he blinked, took a long breath, and tried not to collapse. Tachyon had just shredded his mind like a newspaper torn by a high wind.

  Reporters waited, scattered around tables and looking bored. Some were staring at him. Summoning nerve from someplace he didn't know he had, Jack gave them a smile and wave, and stepped forward to say his piece.

  4:00 P.M.

  "Would you like a drink?"

  "No." Her arms were folded protectively across her breasts.

  He hefted the bottle. Alcohol was sometimes an inhibitor. He quickly replaced the bottle. Hugged his elbows. Stared at the floor. They were separated by feet. It might have been light years. Never had he felt so gauche.

  The hiss of silk brought his head up. Fleur's skirt puddled on the floor about her feet. She studied the far wall with frowning abstraction as she swiftly unbuttoned her blouse, unsnapped her bra. The heavy breasts swung free. She was larger bosomed than her mother had been. Tachyon couldn't decide if he liked it. His mou
th was dry from nerves. He watched her buttocks dimple as she climbed into the bed. "Wait," he forced out.

  "Let's do this." As a come-on line it lacked something. He jammed his hands into his pockets. Took a quick turn about the room. He noted his erection was back.

  "I'm scared."

  Propping her elbows on her knees, hands hanging loosely between her legs in front of her dark snatch, Fleur said dryly, "That's my line."

  "Help me a little."

  "How?"

  "Undress me. Be loving with me."

  She swung off the bed, and took hold of the lace cravat at his throat. Unbuttoned his shirt, and pushed it off his shoulders. Tach, standing with closed eyes, could feel her hair brushing at his skin. The scent of vanilla and spice washed across him-Shalimar. Blythe's scent. It brought it all back so strongly. That hot summer day in '48, the crackle of petticoats as he embraced Blythe, the smell and taste of Shalimar as his lips explored her neck.

  Fleur slithered down the length of him like a worshiper at some ancient altar. Her lips were pressed to his belly as she opened his pants, and pulled them down over his hips. His erection throbbed in time to his beating heart. In a frenzy he kicked off his shoes, and struggled to free himself from the confining material of his pants. Fleur laughed, husky and low, as he lost his balance and sprawled on the floor. Kissing, clutching, panting, punctuating the desperate flow of endearments with deep groans, they lurched toward the bed. A single bead of sperm squeezed from the head of his cock. Terrified that he would lose it Tachyon spread her legs, murmuring Takisian obscenities like a pagan litany. The lips of her labia closed about him.

  The touch of her mind. Roulette. Poison, death, terror, madness.

  He began to lose it. The iron leaching from his penis. Suddenly other hands tangled in his long hair. A sweet husky voice encouraging him.

  The muted click of the beaded curtains blowing gently in a hot breeze. The scratchy recording of "La Traviata" throwing sound, like shards of light, throughout the apartment. Blythe in his arms.

  He drove deep within her. Gave a shrill cry of triumph. Blythe. Blythe. Blythe.‹/I

  6:00›P. M.

  Night was coming. She was sure of it. Sitting beneath a potted plant's notched ear in the Marriott lobby she could feel it slouching rough-beast-like toward downtown Atlanta.

  When it came, it would thin the crowd. Remove, one by one, the forest of walking, talking trees in which she hid. Until there was no cover. It was simple mathematics: if safety was numbers, subtraction equaled death.

  Night was the natural environment of Hartmann's hunchbacked puppet. She knew that. As she knew night would soon or late be born.

  She had to find an indivisible one to protect her. Or the creature that clung to the fur of night's black belly would have her.

  Tachyon had failed her. So had Ricky-though his failure had been of the noble variety, and had bought her twenty-four hours of air time. She had to find someone with the strength to shield her, someone who would accept the only coin she had to pay with. Before day's placenta burst.

  She knew just the man.

  The band was playing "Stars Fell on Alabama," which Jack hoped to hell wasn't some kind of political signal. After eleven futile ballots, almost anything could be taken for an omen by weary and desperate delegates. Jack hoped the song was only a crowd soother after the day's seventh fistfight on the floor, this last between a Jackson delegate defecting to Hartmann and a floor manager who was trying to change his mind. There was a motion on the floor to give up and go home for the day, something that was perfectly in tune with the delegates' premature weariness. Jack moved through his crowd to find Rodriguez.

  "Listen, ese. We've stayed solid for Hartmann so far. "Right.

  "Everybody's going to come after us tonight. One crack in the facade of solid California and people are going to figure it's open season."

  Sweat was pouring down Jack's face. There were sopping stains under the arms of his tailored shirt. At some point that afternoon the air-conditioners had given up.

  "Call a meeting after dinner. Nine o'clock. Everyone attends. "

  Rodriguez looked at him. "What's the meeting about?" "Who gives a damn? We'll figure out something. We just need to count heads, make sure none of the other guys' people are talking to ours. If we keep our delegates busy, we can keep them out of other people's camp."

  Rodriguez gave a grin. "What you gonna do after that, man? Bed checks?"

  "Something like that." Rodriguez's grin faded. Jack spoke quickly. "We're all blocked together at the Marriott. I want you to put someone you trust on each floor, check people in and out, make a list, get IDs. We can't stop the wrong people from visiting ours, but we can make sure they're seen when they do. "

  Rodriguez looked dubious. "You've seen all the hookers outside. We're supposed to get their names?"

  "Just do it," Jack snapped.

  Damn. His temper was unraveling along with everyone else's.

  "Barnett's people are trying to compromise us," he said, lowering his voice. "One of their bimbos for Christ is fucking Tachyon even as we speak."

  Rodriguez looked horrified. "Okay," he said. "I'll see to it."

  Jim Wright looked relieved as he gaveled the convention to an early close, leaving the networks frantically trying to schedule hours of prime-time reruns.

  Jack's temper growled in his mind as he crowded out the door. The whole thing had gone on too long, two days of balloting following two days of procedural fights, and all in the middle of a sweltering Georgia summer. Fleur van Renssaeler was off fucking Tachyon, hoping to accomplish god-knew-what, and Tach had left Jack to face the media unprepared.

  Not only that, Connie Chung was clearly prepared to stay faithful to her husband.

  At least he had his table waiting at the Bello Mondo, and a whole night before him. It had been a week since he'd last got laid. He had nothing better to do tonight than rectify that oversight.

  There was another message from Bobbie waiting for him at the desk, but there was no answer when he returned her call. He showered, changed, endured the horrors of the glass elevator as he descended from his room to the Bello Mondo. The waiter, recognizing him, brought his double whiskey without being asked. And then Sara Morgenstern, looking like someone had recently connected her to a car battery, sat opposite him. She was clutching a shoulder bag to her chest as if it were all she owned.

  "Mind if I join you?"

  He looked at her. She wore clothes well, even the rumpled blue-and-white prom dress she had on at the moment, but her white-blonde hair was disordered and there was an unsteady look in her sunken eyes.

  "I don't want to hear about it, Sara," Jack said.

  "Can I borrow one of your cigarettes? I'm feeling a little-out of sorts. I saw a murder last night."

  "The one in the mall?"

  Sara's hands trembled as they extracted a Camel. "It was an ace," she said. "A weird twisted teenage kid. He cut Ricky to pieces. Right in front of me."

  Jack decided he didn't want this woman's company for even a second. "Sara," he said.

  She looked up at him. There was too much makeup around her eyes, he noticed, trying to hide the effects of a sleepless night.

  "The point is," she said, trying to smile, "I don't want to be alone tonight."

  Which maybe changes matters, Jack thought. He reached into his jacket for his lighter and lit her cigarette. She inhaled and began coughing uncontrollably. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Jesus," she said. "What are these?"

  "The kind I learned to smoke in the Army."

  "I used to smoke Carltons in college. I really shouldn't start again. Oh, hell." She stubbed the cigarette out as if driving a dagger into her worst enemy.

  "Have a drink. It lasts longer." Jack signalled the waiter. At least, he thought nobly, he'd be taking this loose cannon out of play for a few hours, maybe a whole night. All this and get laid, too.

  He looked at Sara and an idea came to him.

  Maybe he c
ould take her out of play for a lot longer than he first thought.

  The North Expressway was jammed, but Tony jockeyed the black Regal through it effortlessly. Spector was glad they weren't eating at the Marriott. There was considerably less chance of someone recognizing him away from the hotel. Tonv had on a tailored, dark-blue suit and matching tie. Spector was in gray. His suit still smelled like the store.

  "Where are we headed?" Spector asked.

  "LaGrotta." Tony whipped across two lanes of traffic to take the Peachtree exit. "If I get us there alive. You'll love this place. Some of the best Italian food in town. Not New York, of course, but you go with what's available."

  "Yeah, well, thanks for taking time out. I know you're real busy right now."

  "I haven't seen you in ages, man. You get priority." Tony smiled. That smile had been turning women's hearts to goo and winning over men for as long as Spector had known Tony. He was a hard guy not to like.

  "How did you wind up with Hartmann?" Spector wanted to keep Tony talking about himself. That way he wouldn't be asking many questions.

  Tony shrugged. "One improbability leading to another. I got a loan and managed to talk my way into law school. Did some work in local politics. Just happened to be on the winning side a few times. Somebody in Gregg's camp noticed me and, well, I'm ethnic. That doesn't hurt."

  "Plus, you're good. Always were. Good jump shot, good line for the girls." Spector smiled. "Hell, you could talk a good Catholic girl out of her clothes in less time than it took the rest of us to comb our hair."

  "It's a sin to waste a God-given talent." Tony wagged his finger at Spector. "And you know how I avoid sin at all costs."

  "Right." Spector glanced out the window. There were dark clouds gathering above the treetops with patches of gray below where the rain was already falling. "Looks like we might get wet."

  "My friend, for a meal like this you'd swim the Hudson over to Teaneck." Tony made a contented sound. He looked over at Spector and kissed the tips of his fingers. "Trust me."