Ace In The Hole

7:00 P.M.

The convention had broken up for di

Billy Ray, chest puffed out as he stood guard in the hallway in his white Carnifex suit, passed the deliveryman, but with a martial artist's quickness, stepped in front of Jack as he tried to follow.

"Did the senator send for you, Braun?"

Jack looked at him. "Don't push. It's been a hard day." Ray's face, which had quite literally been rearranged in a fight, gave Jack a leer. "Your plight touches my heart. Let's see what's in the case."

Jack bit back his a

"Let's see vour ID."

Jack dug the laminated card out of his pocket. "You're really a prat, Ray."

"Prat? What the fuck kinda word is that?" Ray's twisted face leered at Jack's ID. "That's not the word the strongest ace in the world would use. That's the kinda word some insignificant shivering weenie might use." He licked his lips as if savoring the idea. "Golden Weenie. Yeah. That's you."

Jack looked at Ray and folded his arms. Billy Ray had been riding him for over a year, ever since they'd met on the Stacked Deck. "Get out of my way, Billy."

Ray stuck out his jaw. "What are you go

"Right now, my job's getting the senator elected, and fighting with his bodyguard isn't going to do that. But after Gregg's in the White House, I promise I'll kick a field goal with you, okay?"

"I'm holding you to that, weenie."

"Any time after November eighth."

"See you at one minute after midnight on the ninth, weenie."

Ray stepped aside and Jack entered the headquarters suite. Open pizza boxes were surrounded by gorging campaign workers. TV monitors babbled network analyses to media-deaf ears. Jack found out which room Da

The campaign parliamentarian was a white-haired, paunchy former congressman from Queens who had lost his seat when his Irish constituency was replaced by Puerto Ricans. Now he advised Democratic candidates on how to collect Irish-American votes.

Jack saw him spread-eagled alone on his bed, surrounded by empty bottles and crumpled yellow legal-sized sheets, covered with numbers. "Better eat something," Jack said, and dropped the pizza box onto Logan's wide stomach.

"It's not going to make a bit of difference," Logan said. His voice was thick. "We don't have the numbers. We're going to lose 9(c}-the test case."

Jack rubbed his eyes. "Refresh my memory."

"9(c) is a formula for apportioning delegates formerly committed to candidates who have dropped out of the race. According to 9(c), the ex-candidates' delegates are divided among the remaining candidates in proportion to the number of votes the survivors won in those states. In other words, after Gephardt dropped out, his delegates from Illinois, say, were divided between Jackson, Dukakis, and us according to the percentage of the vote."

"Right."

"Barnett and a few of the party elders are challenging 9(c). They want to free the delegates to vote for whoever they want. Barnett figures he can pick up a few votes; the party elders want to start a movement for Cuomo or Bradley among the uncommitted." Logan ran a hand through his thi

"And we're losing on 9(c)?" Jack reached for a bottle and drank from the neck.

"Gregg's making some phone calls. But since Dukakis came out against 9(c), we're fighting a losing fight." He slammed his fist into the bed. "Everyone keeps asking about those stories about the senator and that reporter lady. That we're going to have another Hart fiasco. That's where the resistance lies. Everybody's smelling Gregg's blood."

"What can you do?" Jack said.

"Just try to delay." Logan belched massively. "Lots of ways to delay in this game."

"And then?"

"And then Gregg starts working on his concession speech."

Anger crackled in Jack like a burst of lightning. He waved a big fist. "We won the big primaries! We've got more votes than anybody."

"That's why we're a target. Aw, shit." Tears were rolling from the corners of Logan's eyes. He swiped at them with the back of one red paw. "Gregg stuck by me when I lost my seat. There isn't a more decent man alive. He deserves to be president." His face crumpled. "But we don't have the numbers!"

Jack watched as Logan began to weep, the pizza box jogging up and down on his broad stomach. Jack left his drink on the bedside table and wandered out of the room. Hopelessness sang in him like a keening wind.

All that work, he thought. All the renewed hope that had got him into public life again. All for nothing.

In the main HQ, campaigners were still clustered around pizza boxes. Jack asked where Hartma

"It'll be a close vote." Ted Koppel's voice rang in Jack's ear, speaking from the nearly empty floor of the convention to a cynical-looking David Brinkley in the sky booth. "The Hartma

"Isn't. That. A risky. Strategy?" Brinkley's curt ma

Koppel gri

"But let us suppose. That Hartma

"He may not, David." Koppel was obviously excited. "If Gregg Hartma