Ace In The Hole wc-6

by George R. R. Martin

  Fleur met him at the door to the Omni Hotel. His nerves did a little dance at the sight of her, but he managed to repress his urge to flee, and instead smiled and shook her hand. " I have an elevator waiting," she said.

  "Fine." They stepped across the polished lobby floor.

  "I apologize for any difficulty Consuela gave you. She's used to fielding calls from cranks."

  "No problem."

  "She's a refugee from the anti-Ladino persecutions in Guatemala, a poor young widow with three children. The reverend made it possible for her to stay in this country."

  Jack turned to Fleur and smiled. "That's remarkable, that a man as busy as the Reverend Barnett would take the time to help someone like that."

  Fleur looked into his deep black shades. "The reverend's like that. He cares."

  "Not just the reverend, I'm sure. You've been possessed by the spirit of charity yourself, I'm sure."

  Fleur tried to look modest. "Well, I-"

  "I mean, sacrificing your chastity just to cure old Tach of his problem."

  She stared at him, goggle-eyed.

  "By the way, just between us," Jack grinned, "did he ever manage to get it up?"

  Jack, smiling, followed a white-lipped Fleur out of an elevator whose temperature seemed to have dropped about fifty degrees. Secret Service people, Lady Black among them, prowled the long corridor leading to Barnett's suite. Jack hoped she didn't recognize him.

  He passed by a busy suite filled with tables and campaign workers. Most of them seemed to be women, many of them young and attractive.

  They came to a door, and Fleur knocked. Leo Barnett, looking younger than his thirty-eight years, opened the door and stuck out his hand.

  "Welcome, Mr. Braun," he said.

  Jack stared at the hand, wondering if Barnett could take his mind by touching him; and then, summoning nerve from somewhere, he reached out and took the hand.

  He was shaking again. Tachyon paused, the glass almost to his lips, and considered. How many drinks did this make for the morning? Two? Three? He set the glass aside with overly broad gestures. Patted it firmly as if to keep it in place, to keep it from flying back to his hand, crossed to the ravaged room service breakfast tray, and took a bite of cold toast.

  His stomach revolted. Gasping, cold sweat breaking at his hairline, the alien staggered into the bathroom, and sluiced water over his face. From the bedroom he could hear Blaise and Ackroyd talking, laughing.

  Crossing to the bedroom Tachyon opened the door. The conversation broke off. Jay looking up inquiringly, Blaise with a brooding light in those strange purple/black eyes.

  "Mr. Ackroyd, come in here, please. I need to talk to you."

  Jay shrugged, tried to pull down the pants that hiked up above his ankles. Followed Tachyon into the sitting room. "What did Hartmann want?" he asked as he poked at the room service tray.

  "Mr. Ackroyd, I require a favor of you."

  "Sure, name it."

  Tachyon lifted a hand. "Do not be so quick to commit yourself. Having me in your debt may not be enough to outweigh what I will ask of you."

  "Jesus Christ, get to the point, Tachyon. All this flowery Takisian bullshit." Jay sank his teeth into an orange slice, and tore away the meat.

  "Hartmann is blackmailing me. I have refused to meet his demands, but I require time. A day, two at the most, and it will be over. Hartmann will have lost the nomination." Tach's voice ran down, and he stared blankly into an eternity of blasted hopes. Gave himself a shake and resumed. "You can give me that time."

  "The point? The point?"

  "You must remove a man from Atlanta. The more conventional means are closed to us."

  Suspicion bloomed in the detective's eyes. "Why? Who is this guy?"

  The abandoned drink came easily to his hand, the beaded glass cool against his palm. Tach drained the brandy in a long swallow. "Long ago I was saved from death by a man who has alternately been a devil and an angel to me."

  Ackroyd threw his hands into the air. "Shit."

  "This is difficult for me," Tachyon flared. He rolled the glass between his hands; then burst out, "In 1957 I was recruited by the KGB." He smiled sadly at Ackroyd's expression. "It wasn't all that difficult. I would have done anything for a drink. At any rate, years passed. I proved to be less useful than originally hoped. They cut me loose, and I thought I was free. Then last year the man who ran me those many long years ago re-entered my life and called the debt. He's here. In Atlanta."

  "Why?"

  "Hartmann. He suspected the existence of the monster. Now Hartmann has found out about him, and our connection."

  "Connection?"

  "He is Blaise's tutor."

  "Oh hell." Ackroyd dropped into a chair.

  "This is the bludgeon with which Hartmann seeks to cow me. I'm probably going to jail, Mr. Ackroyd. But I'll see him stopped before I go."

  "You want me to pop this guy away."

  "Yes. Already the FBI and the Secret Service have been alerted. They are combing Atlanta for George."

  "Are you still a commie?"

  Tachyon laid fastidious fingers against the lace at his throat. One slender copper eyebrow arched arrogantly. "I? Consider, Mr. Ackroyd."

  The detective eyed the slim peacock figure dressed in green, orange, and gold. "Yeah, I get your drift." He slapped his hands onto his thighs, and pushed up from the chair. "Well, hey, it's all ancient history to me. Let's go pop this commie somewhere."

  Tachyon opened the door to the bedroom. "Blaise.-"

  "You're taking him? I mean, he knows?"

  "Of course. Come child, I want you to have a chance to say farewell to George."

  Here Jack had come in his power suit, hoping to impress the well-dressed conservative preacher he'd seen on the tapes; and instead Leo Barnett looked about as formal as Jimmy Carter slopping around the house in Plains. Barnett was dressed in worn jeans, a checked shirt, and black Keds. His razor-cut blond hair was slightly disordered. He shambled back into his room and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  "Would you like breakfast? I believe there's plenty left on the buffet."

  Jack looked around the room where Barnett had spent his prayer vigil. It was an ordinary hotel suite, with a little kitchenette, a wet bar, a big TV, even a hooded fireplace with some rolled-newspaper logs. All the light was artificial: the curtains were drawn, as per Secret Service instructions. A picture of Barnett's fiancee stood on one table, a Macintosh Il sat on a table, and there was a silver steam table on wheels near the door, presumably with breakfast under its covers.

  "I've eaten, thanks," Jack said. "Coffee, then?"

  Jack considered the state of his nerves and his hangover. What the hell, maybe he'd already blown it in the elevator. "I don't suppose a Bloody Mary would be possible..?"

  Barnett didn't seem in the least surprised. "I expect we can find one somewhere," he said. He turned to Fleur. "Could you try and oblige Mr. Braun? Perhaps the press room downstairs would be the place to start."

  "Certainly, Leo." Her tones were set at about three degrees Kelvin.

  Barnett smiled at her warmly. "Thank you so much, Fleur."

  Jack's gaze bounced from Barnett to Fleur to Barnett again. Slut for the Lord? he thought again; and then, I wonder if his fiancee knows?

  "Have a seat, Mr. Braun."

  Jack picked an armchair and settled into it. He reached into his pocket for a Camel. Barnett drew another armchair close to Jack's right side and sat in it, hunched forward slightly, his attitude expectant.

  "How can I help you, Mr. Braun?"

  "Well." Jack took a deep breath and summoned what nerve he could. He tried to remember the acting lessons he'd taken forty years before. "See, Reverend," he said, "I've almost died twice in the last couple days. I went off a balcony, and that was maybe enough to kill me if Hiram Worchester hadn't made me lighter than air, and last night this ace called Demise actually seemed to have stopped my heart for a while

  …" His voice trailed o
ff. "The thing is," he said insistently "I wonder if somebody's trying to tell me something."

  Barnett gave a little wry smile, then nodded. "You haven't had much occasion to give thought to the eternal, have you?"

  "No. I guess not."

  "Life has always been right here on Earth for you. You've had eternal youth. An indestructible body. I assume you don't have to worry about money." He gave Jack a frankly admiring glance. "I remember Tarzan very fondly, by the way. I don t think I ever missed an episode. I remember swinging from a rope down by the swimming hole back home, trying to give that yell you used to do."

  "I never did the yell, actually," Jack said. "It was dubbed in, a lot of different voices kind of strung together electronically."

  Barnett seemed a bit disappointed. "Well. I guess you don't think about that when you're ten years old." He grinned again. "Whatever happened to the chimp, by the way?"

  "He's in the San Diego Zoo." Which was the answer Jack always gave to that question, though it was completely untrue. Chester the Chimp, shortly after entering adolescence, had been shot dead after trying to tear off his trainer's arm. Most people, Jack had learned, preferred the chimp to have a happy ending-an attitude Jack had no sympathy with, having himself always disliked the surly little scene-stealing beast. Barnett seemed to recollect himself. "I'm sorry, Mr. Braun," he said. "I'm afraid I've let myself distract you."

  "That's okay. I'm not sure what I was going to say, anyway. "

  "Many people don't have the terms for talking about the eternal." Barnett gave a quick, self-deprecating grin. "Fortunately, we preachers are more or less equipped for the job."

  "Yeah. Well. That's why I'm here."

  Jack was having a hard time reconciling this laid-back Barnett with the ferocious preacher he'd seen in the video tapes, the blond panther stalking his own congregation, the predator Jack was certain was a secret, murderous ace. Could this be the same man?

  Jack cleared his throat. "You ever seen Picture of Dorian Gray? A great old Albert Lewin picture from the forties. George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Angela Lansbury." He cleared his throat again. The endotrachial tube had left it irritated, and his smoking wasn't helping it. "Donna Reed, I think," he said, trying to remember. "Yeah, Donna Reed. Anyway, it's about this young man who has his portrait painted, and his soul goes into the portrait. He starts living a real, I dunno, wicked life, whatever you want to call it, but he never has to face any of the consequences. He just stays young, and the portrait gets old and… dissipated? Is that the word?"

  Barnett nodded.

  "Anyway, at the end, the picture gets destroyed, and Dorian Gray gets all old and evil all at once and drops dead." He grinned. "Special effects, you know? Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about that. I've been thinking, you know, I've stayed young for forty years, and I haven't led a precisely unstained life, and what if it wears off? What if I get old all of a sudden, like Dorian Gray. Or what if some crazy ace kills me?"

  Jack realized he was shouting. His heart lurched at the further realization that he wasn't acting any more, that all this trauma was genuine. He cleared his throat again and settled into his seat.

  Barnett leaned toward Jack, put a hand on his arm. "You'd be surprised how many visits I've had from people in our situation, Mr. Braun. Perhaps their presentiments were not as… spectacular as yours, but I've seen a lot of people resembling you. Successful, outwardly contented men and women who gave no thought to the eternal until thev were touched by it. Perhaps a warning heart attack, perhaps a loved one killed in an accident or a parent suffering a fatal illness…" He smiled. "I don't believe any of these warnings are accidental, Mr. Braun."

  "Jack." He stubbed out his cigarette. He'd almost lost it there, he thought.

  "Jack, yes. I believe there is purpose to these warnings, Jack. I believe the Almighty has ways of reminding us of His existence. I believe that in these narrow escapes you've had, there is a revelation of God's purpose."

  Jack looked through his dark shades into Barnett's twinkling blue eyes. "Yeah?" he said.

  There was a burning intensity in Barnett's china-blue eyes. "The Lord says, `Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ends of the Earth: For I am God, and there is none else."'

  Look unto me, Jack thought: did Barnett mean God or himself? The preacher spoke on.

  "Your wild card gave you a false belief in your own immortality, and the Lord has seen a way to warn you of its falsity, remind you whence true immortality lies, and spare you to do His work."

  There was a knock on the door. As the sound pulled him out of his track, Barnett seemed to jolt slightly. He looked at the door.

  "Come in."

  Fleur entered with a Bloody Mary in a one frigid hand. "Mr. Braun's drink."

  Jack smiled at her. "Call me Jack. Please."

  She glared at him while Jack took the drink from her hand and looked into it under the rims of his shades to see if perhaps she'd spit in it.

  "Thank-you so much, Fleur." Barnett didn't smile quite as warmly this time. His words were a dismissal, and Fleur obeyed.

  Jack sipped his drink. It was excellent: apparently someone in the press room knew how to keep the journalists happy. "Is it good?" Barnett seemed genuinely curious.

  "It's fine." Jack took a bigger swallow.

  "I've never…" Barnett waved a hand. "Well, that doesn't matter." Surprise rang through Jack at Barnett's wistful tone, precisely that of a small boy whose mother. won't let him outside to play in the rain.

  Maybe, Jack thought, Barnett really hadn't had any choice in his life.: Maybe they'd all been made for him. Maybe the only time he ever did anything he wasn't supposed to was when he ran away to the Marine Corps.

  Hell, he thought savagely. Nobody makes you run for president.

  Barnett leaned back in his armchair, steepling his fingertips under his chin. His attention had returned fully to Jack. Jack looked at the preacher carefully from behind his big shades.

  "I'd like to tell you about a dream of mine, Jack," Barnett said. His voice was soft, gentle. "The Lord put it into my mind some years ago. In this dream, I found myself in a giant orchard. Everywhere I looked there were fruit trees, all rich with God's abundance. There were all sorts of fruit in the orchard, Jack, cherries and oranges and apples and persimmons and plums-every conceivable variety all filling God's vast cornucopia. The orchard was so beautiful that my heart just swelled up with joy and gladness. And then-" Barnett looked up to the ceiling, as if he was seeing something there. Jack found his eyes following the preacher's, then caught himself. Stage craft, he thought. He took a healthy swallow of his Bloody Mary.

  "And then a cloud came over the sun," Barnett continued, and a dark rain began to fall from the cloud. The rain fell here and there in the orchard, and wherever it touched, the fruit was blighted. I could see all the oranges and lemons turning black and falling from the tree; I could see leaves withering and dying. And more than that, I could see the blight growing even after the rain passed, I could see the darkness reaching out to try to taint the healthy trees. And then I heard a voice.

  The preacher's voice changed, deepened, became stern. A chill surged up Jack's spine at the completeness of the transformation. "'I give this orchard into thy keeping. Unto thee I give the task of destroying this blight."'

  Barnett's voice and manner changed again. He was fervent, exultant. His powerful voice rang in the small room. "I knew the fruits of the orchard were God's children, made in His image. I knew the rain cloud was Satan. I knew the blight was the wild card. And I threw myself down on my face. `Lord!' I prayed. `Lord, I am not strong enough. I am not worthy for this task.' And the Lord said, `I will give thee strength!"' Barnett was screaming now. "`I will make thy heart as steel! I will make thy tongue as sharp as a sword, and of thy breath a whirlwind!' And I knew I had to do as the Lord asked of me."

  Barnett jumped out of his chair, paced back and forth as he talked. Like God was jerking his chain, Jack thought.

  "I knew I had
the power to heal the wild card! I knew that the Lord's work had to be done, that His orchard had to be pruned!" He waved a finger at Jack. "Not as my critics would charge!" he said. "I would not prune wickedly, or arbitrarily, or maliciously. My critics say I want to put jokers in concentration camps!" He gave a laugh. "I want to put them in hospitals. I want to cure their affliction, and keep it from spreading to their children. I think it is sinful of the government to keep wild card research at such a low level of funding-I would multiply it tenfold! I would wipe this plague from the Earth!"

  Barnett turned to Jack. To Jack's amazement there were tears in his eyes. "You're old enough to remember when tuberculosis was a plague upon the land," Barnett said. "You remember all the hundreds and thousands of tubercular sanatoriums that sprang up all over Arizona and New Mexico, where victims were kept from infecting others while science worked on a cure. That's what I want to do for the wild card."

  "Jack!" Barnett was pleading. "The Lord has prolonged your life! The Lord has spared you from death! This can only be because He has a place for you in His plan. He wants you to lead the victims of this plague to their salvation. `He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.' Healed, Jack!" Barnett's face was joyful, rapturous. He stood in front of Jack, raised his hands triumphantly. "Won't you help me, Jack! Help me bring the cure to God's afflicted! Pray with me now, Jack! `Verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God-but as many received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name.",

  Jack, to his astonishment, felt as if a giant hand had gripped him by the neck and flung him out of his chair. Suddenly he was on his knees in front of the preacher, his two hands raised and clasped between the hands of the Reverend Leo Barnett. Tears streamed down Barnett's face as he lifted his head and cried out in prayer.

  "`Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things become new. "' The man's power was almost palpable, Jack thought. This couldn't be all good showmanship and razzle-dazzle. Jack knew about showmanship; he'd never seen anything like this.