Ace in the Hole Page 0,65

gliders zoomed ceilingward. Jack picked up his podium and threw it about a hundred feet into the air, a tumbling star-spangled sign of triumph, then reached out and carefully caught it before it could brain somebody.

The celebrations in Jack's suite went on for hours. He was stumbling off to bed before he realized that he really should have called Bobbie. Even if she turned out to be the starlet with the cellulite obsession, Jack figured he could have given her enough healthful exercise to make her happy.

10:00 P.M.

--Peachtree, tiled and echoic. They walked arm in arm. Sara had drunk two glasses of wine. It was the first alcohol she had had for over a year. She had never drunk much liquorexcept for the weeks after the tour.

Ricky was regaling her with the latest candidate jokes going the rounds. "How about this one: if Dukakis, Hartmann, and Brother Leo went boating together on Lake Lanier, and the boat's engine blew up and it sank, who'd be saved?"

"The nation," Sara said. "Last time I heard it, it was Reagan, Carter, and Anderson. But then, you're too young to remember."

"What goes around comes around, Rosie. But I was old enough to vote in '80, if barely."

"You probably think I'm a wicked old lady robbing the cradle." She frowned; where was that coming from? Steady, she told herself.

Ricky patted her hand. "I certainly hope so, Rosie." He laughed then, to show it was a joke. She felt the tension come into her, just the same.

A thin current of sound was running down the corridor, between the rocks of their laughter. "What's that song?" she asked.

He raised a brow at her. "Don't you know it?" She did, but she'd needed something to say. "It's `Mack the Knife.' Standby of every low-rent lounge singer in the northern hemisphere."

"The Muzak's broken in here, see, so they hired this white dude to walk around and whistle."

She laughed and squeezed his arm briefly. Damn. What am I doing? She looked around, almost as if seeking some external cause for her behavior.

Movement behind. Her tongue pushed out between suddenly dry lips; she made her face turn to the side, as if she was admiring the brash fashions draped on the headless silver-and-black-and-olive-green mannequins posing in a boutique window.

"Somebody's following us. No, don't look!"

"Give me some credit, Rosie. I'm a journalist, remember? I didn't sleep through your seminar."

He glanced to the side, then faced forward. "Just some kid in a leather jacket." A frown spoiled the smooth perfection of his forehead. "Looked like he had a hunchback. Poor son of a bitch. "

She looked back again. "Now, quit that, or you're going to turn into a pillar of salt. You were the one who wanted subtlety."

"I don't like the way he looks," she said. "He-feelswrong, somehow."

"The instincts of a seasoned ace reporter. Well-seasoned."

"is that a crack about my age?"

"The wine you drank." He patted her hand. "That's the spirit. Whistling past a graveyard, like. Walk on. Keep your head up. Never let them see you're afraid. It unleashes all those primitive Nordic predatory instincts."

She fought her neck muscles, which were trying to rotate her head toward the leather boy. "You think he could be one of Barnett's little helpers?"

"Been known to happen during this convention, Rosie. Wouldn't that be an irony, to get jumped on suspicion of being Hartmann fans?"

This time she did look back. He was sauntering along, hands in pockets, first the white shoe, then the black. Ricky was right, one shoulder definitely rode higher than the other.

There was something a little too elaborate about the way he wasn't paying attention to them.

At least he's small. But then, Ricky wasn't exactly Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Once around a curve, Ricky grabbed her hand and they took off running, Sara wobbling on her ingenue heels, Ricky's Guccis slapping the rubber runner. The passageway wound round and around. She kept looking back, saw no sign of pursuit.

They slowed, Sara puffing for breath, Ricky gracious enough to pretend to be winded. "One more turn and we're back in the Hyatt," Ricky said. "Another potentially ugly confrontation avoided. That's how we eighties types handle things."

They turned the bend and there he was. Leaning with his back and his cheek against cool tile, sizing them up. He started to whistle: "Mack the Knife."

Sara grabbed Ricky's wrist and hauled him back around out of sight. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Rosie," he said. "We should just bluff our way past. "

"Don't you see?" The terror was