"Sorry, Sheila," the man in glasses said. "Your old man's the nicest guy I've ever met, and I'm sorry to disappoint him, but if I don't switch to Jesse on this vote I can kiss my standing in the neighborhood goodbye."
Some kind of rally was going on right outside the auditorium. There was a flatbed truck covered with Jackson banners and a limo trying to get through the crowd toward it, the horn bleating. Swarming around everything were more jokers than Jack had ever seen in one place.
He tried moving through the crowd, but it was too dense. The people in the limo must have decided the same thing, because its doors opened and the passengers got out-Straight Arrow in his gray uniform, some little white guy Jack didn't recognize, Jesse Jackson, and Tachyon.
Great. Just the people Jack wanted to see.
The crowd roared. Media people jostled jokers to find camera setups. Police and Secret Service were trying to wedge their way to the truck without knocking anyone off their feet.
Tachyon and the candidate were shaking hands as they progressed. Someone spit in Tach's face. Straight Arrow looked appalled, probably not at the saliva but at the fact it could as easily have been a bullet.
A shadow passed overhead and Jack looked up. The Turtle moved past in silence. Someone had painted HARTMANN! across his shell in big silver letters.
Jack looked down and saw, through a split-second gap in the crowd, the freak gliding through the. crowd. The kid with buzz saw hands, just fifteen feet away.
Adrenaline crashed into Jack with the force of a hurricane. "No!" he yelled, and began to swim through the crowd with great sweeps of his arms, driving his way heedless of yells of protest.
The leather boy had disappeared. Jack craned to find him. Then there he was, leaning forward under the arm of a policeman, his hand outstretched. Tachyon saw him and smiled.
"No!" Jack yelled again, but no one could hear him. Tachyon took the hand.
Tachyon took his hand with something like relief. He clamped down hard.
"I'm Mackie Messer," he said, and laid on maximum buzz.
There was a shower of blood and bone and the buzzsaw sound that Jack remembered all too well. Tachyon screamed. So did a hundred other people. So, maybe, did Jack.
Jack charged forward, but the crowd was surging back, and he stumbled, almost fell, as people went down around him. A silver-eyed joker child was clutching his leg. Jack tried to shake the boy off, yelling in fury.
Tachyon staggered back, blood pulsing from his torn wrist. Straight Arrow had been watching the crowd around Jackson and was only now turning his head to comprehend the situation. The policeman under whose arm the leather boy had reached was the only one near enough to react. Half the cop's face was dripping with Tachyon's blood, and his actions were slowed by shock. He tried to grab the boy's leather jacket. If he'd had time to think, he'd have done almost anything but that.
The leather boy turned to face the cop and Jack's heart jumped into his throat. All the kid had to do was glance past the policeman and see Jack heading for him. But the freak didn't notice Jack-he was too busy smiling up at the cop, his tongue enjoying the taste of Takisian blood on his lower lip. He sliced off the cop's right arm at the shoulder.
The kid turned back to Tachyon, away from Jack. Jack shook off the joker kid and ran, his arm cocking back, his hand making a fist. If the kid was going to finish off Tach, he'd have to remain material, and Jack could hit him with all the force of a cannon.
The leather boy reached toward Tachyon. His hand movement was gentle, almost a caress. One more step and Jack was going to knock the hunchback's head about twenty blocks.
Jack let the punch go, and the freak disappeared with a pop! The punch spun him around as Jack screamed in rage. Tachyon's blood slipped under his feet but somehow he managed to stay upright.
"Who did that!" he shrieked.
Straight Arrow was standing there, a flaming arrow raised high in one hand, like a statue of Zeus throwing a thunderbolt. The Secret Service had knocked Jackson down and had piled on him. A lot of guns were out.
"Ackroyd," Straight Arrow said. The flame disappeared from his fingertips.
The crowd moaned as if in pain. Men with television cameras circled the police cordon, trying to get a better look. The eyes of the nation were sopping it all up.
Tachyon's eyes fluttered and he fell to the pavement. The cop was screaming. Jack could see that his wound was too high to tourniquet. Jack stepped up to him, drew back his fist, hit him gently on the temple. The policeman's head bounced like a punching bag and he went unconscious.
Straight Arrow stepped next to Jack. His shocked face was pale. He reached out a hand to the policeman's wounded shoulder. Flame pulsed hotly. Blood hissed, boiling away, as he cauterized the wound. The smell of burning flesh eddied up, and from Jack's layered memories came the screams of a man burning to death in a flaming tank somewhere under Cassino.
Maybe the cop's life could be saved if the man didn't die of shock in the next five minutes. Jack followed, feeling helpless, as Straight Arrow moved to Tachyon's side and picked up the wounded arm. Tachyon's face and rules were covered with blood. There were things grinding under Jack's feet that he didn't want to think about.
Straight Arrow cauterized Tach's wound with the same efficient pulse of flame he'd used on the cop. Jack turned away, not wanting to have to listen to the hiss of blood, smell the burning meat. He reached for his cigarettes. Rage danced through his nerves. He'd had the kid, would have crushed his murderous little head like an eggshell.
Jesse Jackson was getting to his feet. From his bewildered expression it was clear he hadn't seen a thing. Secret Service were trying to call for ambulances on their radios.
"Ackroyd." Straight Arrow rose from his crouch. "Where did you send him?"
Ackroyd was the nondescript-looking man Jack had seen leave the limousine with Tach and Jackson. He seemed as much in shock as anyone else.
"Yeah," he said. "Oh, Jesus." His hands wandered over his own body as if he had an itch he couldn't locate.
"You!" Jack roared. "Who the hell are you?" Ackroyd looked at him uncomprehendingly.
"Jay Ackroyd," Straight Arrow said. "Private cop. They call him Popinjay."
"I had the bastard!" Jack shook his fist in rage, crushing his pack of cigarettes. "I could have turned him into JELL-0! Aw, fuck!" He threw down the pack of cigarettes and kicked it into the crowd.
"Where'd you send him, Ackroyd?"
"Popped him," Ackroyd said.
Straight Arrow grabbed him by the lapels and shook him. "Where'd you send the assassin?"
"Oh." Ackroyd licked his lips. "New York. The tombs." Straight Arrow took his hands off the detective and straightened in satisfaction. "Good," he said.
Jack wanted to knock Ackroyd into the next country. "He walks through walls!" he yelled. "He's out by now!" Straight Arrow's face fell.
Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance. Jack looked around the scene, the two wounded men, Jackson kneeling by Tachyon, the Secret Service with their guns out, the crowd wailing and moaning in shock, TV cameras taking it all in… He'd lost again, Jack realized. Another tragedy he couldn't stop. Everything was slipping through his fingers.
And no one was going to profit from any of this besides Leo Barnett.
He was in a room surrounded by big niggers and bars. For a moment Mackie thought he was dreaming. Then he became aware of the hot gobbets of alien meat clinging like melted plastic to his face and the front of his jacket.