Lawyers in Hell (12 page)

“We’re going to challenge the overlords; fight for you.  You want to stand up for yourselves?  Join us.”  Guevara told them.  “You want to show Satan and the Romans and the goose-steppers what you really are?  Join us.  You want to
be
something, to be part of something?  Join us.  Then when you die again, you’ll die for something, not for nothing.”

Movement nearby:  someone in the corner of Guevara’s eye; he was too focused on converting these youngsters to care.  But Cobain touched Guevara’s elbow.  Then pulled on it.

“A moment,” he said to the girls.  Then snarled at Cobain: 
“What?”

“Sorry, boss. 
Important
.  Rosa found something – someone.”  Cobain gestured at Rosa Luxembourg, a youngish member of Guevara’s cadre.  She was trailed by a ragged woman with the look of a dockside whore and a broad, gap-toothed smile.

“Mister Guevara, boss?” asked the gap-toothed whore.  “Rosa says you was pissed off by some little guy.  Told me about him:  he’s trying to start his own revolution and fucked with you.”

Walker
, thought Guevara; merely the memory of that humiliation made him angry.  “And?”

“He’s off by himself.  Talking to some guys.  How much you gonna pay me to tell you where?”

Whatever you want
, thought Guevara.

“No need.  He’s in the bar with the Gracchi brothers,” Rosa told him.  “Probably trying to recruit them. 
I
know where –”

A screech of feedback interrupted her.

When it was over, Rosa took the whore by the elbow to hustle her away.

“Madame Rosa, you said you was going to make him pay me!” the whore complained.

“You have the thanks of Che Guevara and the rebellion,” Guevara dismissed the whore.  “Rosa, how far is this place?”

“Mile and a half from here,” said Rosa as the whore shook free of her grasp.

“You guys gonna go shoot somebody?” Tim asked, finally engaged.

“We’re going to go protect the revolution,” said Guevara, “against treachery and usurpation.”

Rosa reached under her long skirt and tossed Cobain a shotgun.

Cobain checked it over.  Then he looked up.  “By shooting somebody,” he put in.

“By doing whatever is necessary to protect the dignity and integrity of our revolution,” said Guevara.  “Are you with us, or not?”

“Oh,
hell
yeah,” said Tim.

“Let’s go,” said the red-haired girl.  “You’re right, tee-shirt man.”

“She said you was gonna pay me,” the whore repeated.

“With a higher currency than mere gold,” Guevara said.  “With the gratitude of the people.”

“This Walker’s not going to hang around there forever,” warned Rosa.  “I’ve got an arms stash in my apartment.  Couple of blocks from here; on the way.”

“Then,” said Guevara, raising his voice and his fist, “follow me!”

*

“And so, Mister Walker,” Tiberius Gracchus was asking, “what makes you think that your revolution and its committee would benefit the people?  Assuming it succeeds.  Assuming it
can
succeed.”

Walker flicked his index finger along the top of the glass of beer he’d ordered a little while ago to pretend he had legitimate business in this bar.  “The leadership committee is comprised of people.  We’re inviting you to join those people,” he repeated.

“And the
other
people, these other revolutionaries?”  Tiberius Gracchus wanted to know.  In the 2
^nd
century BCE, he and his brother Gaius had been the founding fathers of both socialism and populism.

But this wasn’t Rome in the 2
^nd
century BCE; this was a dockside bar in New Hell and the Gracchi brothers were getting tiresome.  He didn’t think Gaius and Tiberius were truly indifferent, or feigning indifference as a negotiating tactic, but they were asking too damned many questions.

“What about them?  They’ll continue as usual, I suppose.  I don’t wish them any particular harm.  I don’t think anyone else on my committee does, either.”

“Hey, Roman,” said one of the locals, a rat-faced man with ugly wounds on his bald scalp, wearing a ripped-up crew shirt and what once had been dress pants.  “Two more beers, now.”

Gaius moved to pour them.  Walker turned, gave the room another of his periodic once-overs.  He was turning back when someone kicked open the door.

Three men – no, five, six – trooped into the bar carrying an assortment of long guns and headed straight for Walker.  The rat-faced little customer fled, and others seemed to melt into the bar’s walls or their seats.

In the light of one flickering lamp, he made out a face – fiery-eyed and mustached and the only one without a gun in his hands:  Che Guevara.

Oh,
shit
.

There were six of them:  one woman; three trashy-looking kids; Guevara; and a blond man whom Walker recognized as one of the drunks in Guevara’s shack.  They headed to the front of the common room.  The blond man held his shotgun with casual precision, aimed straight at Walker’s chest.  The woman and two kids moved across, to Walker’s other side.  The way they were handling their AKs made Walker flinch.  And then there was that shotgun, and the woman’s Uzi, pointing directly at him.

He said nothing.  This was no time to go for your own gun; this was a time to talk your way out.

Slowly, almost casually, he placed his hands in clear sight, behind him against the bar.

If they kill you, you come back
, he reminded himself.

What was Guevara doing here?  Didn’t the Argentine know that he was a spent force, a closed chapter, a nuisance who’d been pushed out of history’s way?

“William Walker,” Guevara finally said.

“Che Guevara.”  Walker responded as casually as he could:  “I didn’t know you drank here.”

“My
friends
call me Che,” said Guevara.

Walker kept his eyes on Guevara, or tried to.  He and his shotgun-toting henchman were six or seven feet away, too far for a rush.  The other kids were about the same distance on his other side, covering him.

Six to one were beatable odds under some circumstances.  Not these.

Why the
fuck
didn’t I bring some backup with me?  Approaching them alone to impress them?  Damned stupid, in retrospect.

“You’re not a friend.  You and your imposters’ committee have been tried and found guilty of insult, sedition and usurpation.  Of
my
revolution.”

They say you come back.  They say it hurts like hell and they don’t always fix you up quite the same way.

“Very well,” Walker said.  Slowly.  Breathing deeply.  “I can pass that on to the Committee.  I suppose you would like it – prefer it – for us to subordinate ourselves to you – as the revolutionary leader.”

“We gonna waste this guy or not?” one of the kids – the boy – asked.

Ka-chack:
  The blond man cocked his shotgun, a solid sound in the bar.  Walker tried to force himself to take a
(last?)
breath.

“No, Kurt,” said Guevara, pushing the shotgun’s muzzle slightly away.  “We’re going to do it the proper way.”

Walker kept silent.  Kept his eyes on Guevara.  His palms were sweating, slick with grime from the bar counter.  He forced himself to keep his hands still.

“A blindfold,” said Guevara slowly.  “A last cigarette.”

Walker’s wrists itched with the memory of rope chafing them … not so very long ago …

“Your final words.  All very proper.  If you had been a worthy opponent, Mister Walker, we might even have allowed you to give the firing commands yourself.”

Listo.  Objetivo.
 
Fuego.

Oh, yes.  Walker remembered
that
.

“But you’re not a worthy opponent,” Guevara went on.  “You were nothing but a filibustering pirate in life, and a cheap usurper in death.  Even a formal execution is more dignity than you deserve.”

Tense.  Very tense.  Half in memory; this had happened before.  This had happened before, and he was reliving it, and somehow his mouth said:  “Very well.  One more drink, before we go outside?”

“A final drink,” said Guevara slowly, mulling it.  “Yes.  I am a generous man, even to my enemies.  Even to pathetic,
tiny
little enemies like yourself.  Rosa, tie his wrists afterwards.”

The woman with the Uzi produced a length of cord.

Walker carefully reached for his tankard of beer.  It slipped slightly in his sweat-slick fingers – his face, too, was sweating, and his wrists were tingling, and a part of his brain was thinking
this is Trujillo all over again,
the gloom of the bar replacing the blackness of the firing squad –

With his mind going numb, he slowly raised the tankard.

And then Walker whirled, hurling the beer (the kind filled with tiny glass shards) up into the face of the blond man with the shotgun.

Running.  Gunshots.

The shotgun exploded upward as the blond man dropped it, his hands pawing at his eyes.

Then Walker was throwing himself past that blond man, between the blond and Guevara, because – a part of his mind told him – those kids wouldn’t fire at their leader –

Stammering automatic fire,
loud
in the enclosed bar.

Walker wasn’t sure if he’d been hit.  But
any
death would be better than another cigarette, another blindfold, another firing squad, helpless, with his wrists bound.

Walker charged along the side of the room, bolting for the door.  His boots pounded on the sticky floor.  Leaping over a passed-out drunk, he aimed his shoulder at the door, kept his head down, and ran like hell.

More gunshots.

“Ass
hole! 
Asshole!”
one of the kids screamed.

An AK spat a long, ragged burst.  Bullets smashed – exploded – one of the lamps a foot from Walker’s head.  More rounds blasted a table to splinters and ventilated the side of a booth…

…but they weren’t hitting
him
, and he could still run –

Through the door, where the bouncer stood, and onto the docks, and
running
.

Running like hell for darkness to escape into, or at least into cover he could shoot back from, because somehow his gun was in his hand now and he
could
shoot back, and six to one odds were reasonable on
these
terms.

Guevara was the first out the door behind him, waving a revolver.  Then came one of the kids, who pointed at Walker and shouted something.

More wild gunfire, not even remotely close.

Two of Guevara’s bunch – then another, then two more – were in pursuit.

The docks were dark and bare, in the direction he was running.  Dark shapes loomed, dull floodlights somewhere in the middle distance where a massive crane swung.  Stacks of shipping containers towered not
too
far away, black hulks that at least would provide a moment’s cover.

He turned for a moment, fired a shot over his shoulder. 
Slow down pursuit –
they were taller than he, longer legs, he
had
to slow them – and then another shot, and the third time his gun did nothing but issue a faint and useless click.  Jammed.

Fuck.  Fuck, fuck,
fuck.

No time to clear it, not now, not with those five in pursuit and gaining.  If he had fifteen seconds….  Frantically he jacked the slide, pointing the barrel down: 
nothing
 – but, no, it
couldn’t
be one of those easy ones, could it?

If I’d brought a squad of Minutemen or some Bolsheviks, or some of Quantrill’s –

No.  No time to think about that.  Think about running.  Cover.
  Somewhere he could get the time to clear his gun and shoot back.

Heavy automatic fire burped from behind him.  Bullets clanged into the shipping crates, ricocheted hard against the metal, blowing chips off a cobblestone.  The wind was moist and salty and pushed hard at his face as he threw himself into the cover of the crates and swung right.

His slick and sweaty hands worked at the gun as he ran through the darkness in the containers’ shadow, one foot splashing into a thick puddle of filth.  An alley…

…an alley and safety.

The first of Guevara’s men appeared behind him, momentarily unsure where he’d gone.  It took a moment for them to get their bearings.

By then, Walker was already through the alley; on a street again; in a doorway, and
finally
the gun was clear.

“Where’d he go?”  One of the kids.

“Alley.”

“He’s got a gun.”

Six to one.  Five to one, perhaps, if the shotgun man was still down.  He had a gun and a sword and cover, and
these
were circumstances where
those
odds were reasonable.

They knew it, too.  They were hesitating.

You were a closed book, Guevara.  You were no longer relevant.  We’d moved on.

And suddenly it had been Trujillo again, the man taunting him…

“I’m here,” Walker shouted.  Leaned out of the doorway, gun up.  Several figures, slowly moving along in the shadow of the containers about thirty feet away.

“Come out.”  Guevara’s voice.  “I’ll even allow you to give the commands.”

Instinctively, not rationally, Walker fired twice at the nearest of the dark figures.  The response was a blazing stammer of automatic fire that came nowhere near him.

No.  Get the hell out of here.  There
is
a time to run.  You have resources….

The hell with that.

He’d take them on personally – except that he’d had eight rounds, and he’d used at least four, and there were five of them.

The Committee must be told about this.  He could deal with Guevara later.

Carefully, slowly, he moved back along the alley, keeping to the darkest shadows.  Another burst of automatic fire, apparently aimed at the doorway where he’d just been, showed that Guevara’s men were buying it.

At an intersecting alley, a three-foot-wide crack, darker than a cesspit, appeared to his right.  Out of their line of sight.  Good.