Ace in the Hole Page 0,14

. With Puppetman, it would have been easy; he could have made her believe him without effort. But that power wasn't safe, not now. Ellen stared at him, and he thought she was going to say more, then she slowly nodded. "Okay," she said. "Okay, Gregg."

She snuggled against him. Gregg leaned back against the headboard. Through the faint tendrils of his ace ability, he could feel her relaxing, forgetting. Since she'd become pregnant, she'd become more inward focused; things outside were not as important. It was less threatening to accept his excuse, so she did. The realization eased his mind very little.

My god, what am I going to do?

He could hear Gimli's laughter. It pounded in his head. The phone by the bed rang. Gregg picked it up, thinking it might drive the dwarf away. "Hartmann."

"Senator?" The voice on the other end was breathless, agitated. "Amy. Bad news. The word is that we're in for a big fight tonight over the California delegation's credentials ..." ,He barely heard her over Gimli's roaring amusement.

Jack's hangover finally muted itself after two shots of vodka. He had spent the last hour in his suite, talking on his bank of telephones with Emil Rodriguez, his second-in-command, and trying to round up all his delegates and have them briefed for the platform fight that would come tomorrow. There was a knock. Jack told Rodriguez he'd call him back and opened the door. Amy Sorenson stood outside, carrying a pile of briefing papers in an envelope. Her chestnut hair was pinned up atop her head.

"Hi, Amy* " Jack kissed her warmly, then drew her inside and tried to kiss her again. She turned her head away.

"Not this time, Jack. This isn't like Buenos Aires. My husband's here."

Jack sighed. "You're on business, then."

Any stepped out of his arms and straightened her fetching blue suit. "Brace yourself," she said. "I've got bad news."

"I'm braced. I've been braced for months."

Amy's nose wrinkled at the appalling stench of tobacco, liquor, and the residue of perfume. She perched on the edge of a chair, then carefully pushed a cigar-filled ashtray as far away as she could. Jack pulled up a chair and sat on it backward, gazing at Amy over the chairback.

"What's up?"

"You're not going to like this at all. There's going to be a big credentials fight tonight over the California delegation." Jack stared at her.

"The Jackson people are gonna spring it on us. They're claiming that a winner-take-all primary is inherently discriminatory against minorities."

"Crap." Jack's reply was immediate. "The California primary's been a winner-take-all for as long as I can remember."

"The challenge gives everyone a chance to dismember our largest bloc of delegates, and do it in a righteous cause."

"We followed all the rules. We won the primary fair and square."

Amy looked exasperated. "The rules, Jack, are what the convention says they are. If they strip our delegates, they open the convention to a series of parliamentary and procedural battles that could unhinge everything. That's what Jackson, Gore, and Barnett want-if things get chaotic, it improves their chances of getting the nomination. If they can fuck us over and hand us a procedural defeat before the first ballot, they can hope to acquire defectors from our camp during the second ballot."

"Great. Just great." Funny how he just couldn't get used to women who used words like fuck. Hell, Jack couldn't get used to the way men used the word these days.

Some days more than others he felt like a relic.

"The showdown's all going to be about the rule books and who can manipulate them best. Who's the parliamentarian for your delegation?"

Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair. " I guess I am."

"Do you know anything about parliamentary procedure?" Jack thought about it. "I've sat on a lot of corporate boards. You'd be surprised at some of the tricks they pull." Amy sighed. "Do you know Danny Logan? He's our campaign parliamentarian. I want you to take your instructions from him."

"When I last saw Logan, he was lying under a bar stool at LAX. "

Amy's eves flashed. She tossed her chestnut hair out of her eyes. "He'll be sober tonight, I promise you."

Jack thought for a moment. "Do we have the votes?"

"Can't tell. Dukakis is hedging, like always. The people who can save us are the superdelegates. Most of them are congressmen and senators who would do anything to prevent a bloodbath. They may vote for us just to keep things sane. And of course they know Gregg a lot better