Wild Cards [06] Ace in the Hole Read Online Free PDF Page B

room, Jack gave a start and reflexively began to rise from his chair before deciding not to. He settled back into the chair with his coffee and cigarette. He and Hiram had been on the Stacked Deck together; even if they hadn't been friends, there was no need for formality.
    Hiram looked as if he hadn't slept. He headed wordlessly for the buffet, took a plate, began to fill it.
    Jack felt perspiration speckling his scalp. His heart seemed to change rhythms every few seconds. Why the hell, he demanded of himself, was he so nervous? He took a long drag on his Camel.
    Hiram kept filling his plate. Jack began to wonder if his wild card had suddenly run to invisibility.
    Hiram turned, chewing a cruller as if he wasn't really tasting it, and took a seat opposite Jack. On the Stacked Deck he had used his control of gravity to remove a lot of his weight, something that made him oddly agile. He didn't seem to be doing that now. He looked at Jack out of dull, marble eyes. "Braun," he said. "This meeting wasn't my idea."
    "Mine either."
    "You were a hero of mine, you know. When I was young." We all have to grow up sometime, Jack thought, but decided against saying it. Let the man have his moment. "I've never made any claims to heroism myself," Hiram spoke on. Jack had the feeling it was a speech he'd been working on for some time. "I'm a fat man who runs a restaurant. I've never been on the cover of Life or starred in a feature film. But whatever else, I'm loyal to my friends." Good for you, chum. This time Jack almost said it. But he thought of Earl Sanderson fluttering to the floor of the Marriott and instead said nothing.
    He blinked sweat out of his eyes. Why am I doing this to myself? he thought.
    Hiram spoke on, robot-like. "Gregg tells me you did good work in California. He says we might have lost without all the celebrity support and money that ou organized. I'm grateful for that, but gratitude is one thing' and trust is another."
    "I wouldn't trust anybody in politics, Worchester," Jack said. And then wondered if that piece of fashionable cynicism was true, because he did trust Gregg Hartmann, knew him for a genuinely good man, and he wanted the man to win more than he had wanted anything in thirty years.
    "It's important that Gregg Hartmann win this election, Braun. Leo Barnett is the Nur-al-Allah in American dress. Remember Syria? Remember jokers stoned to death in the streets?" There was a weird gleam in Hiram's eyes. He raised a fist and clenched it, forgetting it contained half a cruller. "That's what's at stake here, Braun. They'll do anything to stop us. They'll bribe, smear, seduce us, resort to violence. And where will you be, Braun?" Loudly. "Where will you be when they really start turning the screws?"
    Suddenly Jack's nervousness was gone. A cold anger hummed through him. He'd had quite enough.
    "You ... weren't ... there," Jack said.
    Hiram paused, then became aware of pastry dough ballooning out between the fingers of his upraised hand. "You ... weren't ... fucking ... there." The words grated slowly from a place inside Jack that seemed like a twilight graveyard, a place without warmth, an endless plain of autumn grass marked with gray stones that noted the passing of Earl, of Blythe, of Archibald Holmes, of all the young men he knew in the 5th Division, all those who died at the Rapido crossing, little stick figures scattered like so many handfuls of dust beneath the pounding guns of Cassino ...
    Jack stood up and threw the cigarette away. "For someone who doesn't claim to be a hero, Worchester, you sure make a great speech. Maybe you should consider a career in politics."
    With quick, vicious movements of the napkin, Hiram swabbed dough from his hand. "I told Gregg you can't be trusted. He told me you've changed."
    "Could be he's right," Jack said. "Could be he's wrong. The question is, what can you do about it?"
    Hiram threw the napkin away and rose massively to his feet, a pale mountain lumbering to battle. "I