Ace In The Hole

He'd always been easy with Mackie, placating the kid, feeding his ego. Even with Puppetman controlling the hunchback's emotions, he'd been afraid of Mackie; using him was like juggling nitroglycerine: it looked easy, but he was aware that he would only get one mistake. Gregg thought he might have made it now. Mackie's face had gone grim and cold. The lust did a quicksilver change to something simpler and more dangerous. Mackie's right hand was begi

"No," Mackie said, shaking his head. "You don't know. You're the Man. I love-"

Gregg cut him off. If there was going to be an explosion, it might as well be a big one. "I told you to take out two people who are a danger to us. They're both walking around now while you're telling me how good you are and how much I mean to you."

Mackie blinked. Twitched. "You're not listening-"

"No, I'm not. And I won't listen until all the loose ends are taken care of. You understand that?"

Mackie took a halting step toward Gregg, his hand up. The fingers were a dangerous blur.

Gregg stared him down. It was absolutely the hardest thing he'd ever done. Puppetman was a berserk thing behind his eyes, gibbering and frothing with the closeness of Mackie and the emotional backwash spilling around him. Gregg knew that he had only seconds before Puppetman surfaced entirely, before the mental bonds reversed and he would be the one underneath. Yet while he held Puppetman, there were no controls on Mackie and no way to dampen the madness. If the ace took another step, if he swiped at Gregg with that hand…

Gregg shuddered with effort.

"Come to me afterward, Mackie," he whispered. "After it's all done, not before."

Mackie lowered his hand, his eyes. The red violence around him faded slightly.

"All right," he said softly. "You're the Man. Yes." He reached out with his hand, safely quiet now, and Gregg fought the impulse to back away and run. He concentrated on holding Puppetman for just a moment longer.

Mackie's dry fingertips traced Gregg's cheek with a strange tenderness, dragging across stubble.

Gregg closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Mackie was already gone.

Drawing his fingers down the strings, Tachyon pulled a sigh of music from the violin. The Secret Service agent swung his head in that heavy slow way of a bull confronting an irritant. Tach nodded politely to him. The man brightened considerably, cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, and quickstepped to where the alien was sitting cross-legged on the floor outside Fleur's room. Sounds of revelry drifted down the hall from a nearby room party.

"Hi."

"Hello."

"My daughter's crazy about you, and she'll kill me if she finds out I met you and hadn't gotten your autograph. Would you mind?"

"No, I'd be delighted." Tach pulled a notebook from his pocket. "Her name?"

"Trina. "

For Trina with love. He signed his name with a flourish. "Uh, excuse me, but what are you doing out here?"

"I'm going to play the violin for the lady in that room."

"Oh, a little romance, huh?"

"I hope. I won't make any trouble, sir. May I stay?" The agent shrugged. "Yeah, what the hell. But if people complain-"

"Not to worry."

Tach lifted his bow, tucked the violin beneath his chin. A few years ago he had arranged Chopin's Etude in A flat for solo violin. The notes fell from the strings like crystal beads, like water chuckling over stones. But beneath the joy was a strain of sadness.

The faces of women. Blythe, Angelface, Roulette, Fleur, Chrysalis. Farewell, old friend. The door to the hotel room was flung violently open. Tach stared up into her smoldering brown eyes. Hello, my love?

"What are you doing? Why won't you leave me alone? Please, please, just leave me alone!" Her hair flew about her face.

"I can't."

She was on her knees before him, hands gripping his shoulders. "Why not?"

"It makes no sense to me. How shall I explain it to you?"

"You've twisted and corrupted everything you've ever touched. Now you're trying to do it to me."

He didn't deny it. Couldn't deny it. "I think we could make each other well. Wash away the guilt."

"Only God has that power."

He tentatively touched a strand of hair with the tip of a finger. "You have her face. Can it be that you don't have her soul?"

"You damn fool! You've made her into something that never existed."

She jerked her head away. His fingers trailed across her cheek, and he felt moisture. The violent withdrawal carried her a few steps to his left. Fleur leaned her forehead against the wall, every line of her bodv etched in agony. Tach laid the bow across the strings. Played.

12:00 MIDNIGHT

In the latex clown's head mask, Gregg was simply another of the jokers trying to stay cool in the sticky Atlanta humidity. The temperature was stuck permanently in the low nineties; the breeze felt like a moving sauna. The mask was an oven, but he didn't dare take it off.

It had taken time to arrange his escape from the hotel. Ellen had finally gone to sleep, but there was no telling when she might wake. He hated taking the risk, but he had to do something about Puppetman.

The power had gained the strength of desperation. Gregg was afraid that its struggles were already too visible to outsiders.

Discarded Flying Ace Gliders transformed into Fucking Flying jokers crumpled underfoot as Gregg stepped over the gutter and into Piedmont Park. Shapes moved through the trees and around the grassy hillocks. Police swept the perimeter with regularity, trying to keep the jokers in and anyone else out, but it was easy enough for Gregg to slide past them in the darkness and enter the surreal world of the park.

Once inside, the city at his back was forgotten. A tent village had sprung up on one of the hillsides, spreading shouting laughter and light. A bonfire flickered close by; he could hear singing. The jokers passing in front of the fire threw long, shifting shadows across the grass. Deeper in the park behind the peaked tents, Gregg saw erratic phosphorescent brilliance there were enough jokers whose skin glowed, flashed, or radiated that it had become a nightly custom for them to gather on a hilltop at full dark like human fireflies: a UPI photographer's shot of them had become one of the more memorable images of the convention-outside-the-convention.

Gregg navigated through the park under Puppetman's guidance, following the tug of mental strings from the puppets within the crowd. There were many of them in the park, mostly longtime J-Town residents whose neuroses and foibles were familiar and much-traveled territory for Puppetman. Often he'd ignore them for the thrill that came from twisting some new puppet to his will, but not tonight. Tonight he was after sustenance, and an easing of the power's needs, and he'd take the quick, easy path.

One of the threads led to Peanut.

Peanut: a puppet since the mid-seventies, one of those he'd used during the tragedy of the '76 convention. The joker was a sad, simpleminded man whose skin had been turned brittle, hard, and painful. He'd been Gimli's associate within the defunct JJS, and his right arm had been hewn off by Mackie Messer just over a year ago-Peanut had come between Mackie and the Nur al-Allah's sister, Kahina. Arrested with others in the organization after Gimli's death, Peanut had been quickly released after Gregg's office interceded on his behalf.

Peanut had always been troubled by his friend Gimli's deep hatred of Gregg. Peanut had admired the Hartma

Peanut was like an old lover. Gregg knew all the buttons to push.