Lawyers in Hell (40 page)

After he stood, Benet nudged him.  He said, “No, sir, we’re lawyers.”

“Ah, yes.  The lawyers.  CLAP.  I’ve heard of you.  You are almost as popular as I, myself.”  Cronkite’s voice sounded avuncular.

McCarthy stared at Cronkite wordlessly.

Roger spoke up:  “You are
the
Walter Cronkite?”

“If you mean the reporter, I was; yes.  What I am now, I’m not sure.  But as you can see, I’m still reporting.  It’s what I do, wherever I am.”

“I’m Roger Howard, sir.  I remember watching you while I was growing up.”

“You’re making me feel old.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“No apologies necessary.  I assume, though, that this is a professional visit?  Am I being sued again?  That happens more here than it ever did in life.”

“No, that’s not why we’re here.  We’re here to –”

McCarthy finally said, “Cronkite … weren’t you the understudy of Murrow?”

“I was,” Cronkite nodded.  “I recognize you, sir.”

Roger noticed Cronkite hadn’t greeted McCarthy.

McCarthy did too:  “Polls proclaimed you the most trusted man on television, Cronkite.”

“I was called that.  I certainly tried to be.”

“So tell me the truth, Mister Cronkite, now that it doesn’t matter.  Was Murrow a communist?  A sympathizer?”

Cronkite rolled his eyes and feigned surprise:  he must have heard the slurs in life.

“Murrow?  Not to my knowledge, no.”

McCarthy shifted uncomfortably.  “You’re certain?”

“Quite certain.  But what does any of this matter now, in hell?”  Cronkite waved his hand, indicating the area around them; he didn’t even wince in pain until after he lowered his injured hand.

Roger could see McCarthy considering Cronkite’s question.  If Cronkite was honest, then his expressed certainty was genuine.  If not, then Cronkite wasn’t the soul they wanted.  But McCarthy obviously hoped to harm Cronkite in either case.

What struggle must be ongoing inside McCarthy’s twisted mind, between duty and vendetta?
  McCarthy, you’re a moron
, Roger thought.

“Are you the most trusted man in hell, Cronkite?  Yes or no?” McCarthy pressed.

“I would hope not,” said the famous newsie.  “Not now.”

“Then you admit your were, in life, on television.  But not in hell, on hellevision?

Cronkite smiled sadly.  “What had life to do with television?  Precious little.  Television in life was a lie; hellevision in afterlife is the same.  I condensed the world’s events each day into a small nugget of predigested facts, presented for the layman.  Usually the subjects I explained were beyond my own knowledge, yet I was expected to report and comment on them, to help greater fools than I rest easy in the night.  I tried to be fair, but I did have opinions.”

“You sound like you might be our man,” McCarthy said slyly.

“You are seeking the most trusted man in hell?” Cronkite surmised, now analytical and not avuncular at all.

Mind like a steel trap, that Cronkite.  “The most honest,” Roger clarified.  “To depose for a trial at the Pentagram.”

“I see….  Well, I’m afraid I must decline the honor.  First amendment habits die hard.  And I certainly can’t claim to be the most honest man in all the hells.”  Cronkite said dismissively and turned toward his camera crew, as if the discussion were now closed.

That Fucking Benet asked, “Do you know who would be, Mister Cronkite?”

“Would be?”  Cronkite rounded on them.  “The most honest?  No.  However, in my own limited experience of the afterlife, I’d recommend Mathew Brady.”  The power of the word had once resided with this man; Walter Cronkite had not forgotten.

Roger had no idea who Mathew Brady was.

Benet looked as if he’d been shot:  “The Civil War photographer?  Abe Lincoln’s guy?”

Cronkite said, “Yes, that is he.  Was.”

“Do you know where this Brady is?” Roger asked.

“When last I spoke to him, he was just over that rise, capturing images of the aftermath of the battle between the Taliban and the Taliwhackers.”

Benet nodded.  “Thank you.  Unfortunately, we’ll still have to take you with us.”

“Oh?  Very well,” Cronkite said, seeming rather relaxed as he motioned his crew to take a break.

Roger looked at Benet and at McCarthy, and back at Thurmond and smash-faced Summers and crooked-legged Horace and the rest of CLAP.  With the camera crew right there, there was no way to cut off Cronkite’s head clandestinely.

Roger realized no one else was going to come out and say it.  Sighing, he told the famous news anchor the truth:  “Mister Cronkite, sir – we are supposed to bring Satan your head.”

“Well,” Cronkite said gravely, motioning his camera crew to start rolling:  “That’s the way it is, this day in hell.”

Cronkite stood motionless, eyes locked on Roger, as Benet’s saber sliced through his neck.

McCarthy stepped back as blood spurted and the head of Cronkite bounced and rolled at their feet:  “I
still
think Murrow was a Commie.  Cronkite may have been smart.  That doesn’t mean he was informed.”

McCarthy had no decency in life or afterlife, in Roger’s opinion.

Thurmond put Cronkite’s head in a leak-proof bag designed for the purpose.  “In better days, I always found Cronkite to be a true gentleman,” he said in his scratchy Southern drawl.  “He was fair, respectful.  He talked to the person, not just to the politician.  I had good friends on both sides of the aisle, and we all respected him.”

McCarthy shrugged.  “So long as we have him.  I’ll find Murrow sometime, too.  I know you never believed me, Strom, but you were a Dem yourself at the time, hugging those union cretins.  You never saw the
bureaucratic communistic Frankenstein that was there.”  McCarthy’s voice trembled:  he was excited.

Tiredly, Thurmond said, “You convinced people at first, Joseph.  But in the end, no one saw what you saw.  Either you were alone in your genius, or mistaken.”  Thurmond headed back to his stick.

Roger said, “Sirs, we need to move on,” ducking his head and turning his back on McCarthy while, inside, he seethed.

Amid sporadic outgoing and incoming fire, they made their way across a rocky hillside.  No bullets came their way.  To the north, Taliban were shooting into the town.  To the south, the Taliwhackers, as Cronkite had called them, were returning fire but aiming poorly while rebel groups fought the Chinese, the Mughals, and Satan only knew who else.  Apart from the racket, travel was reasonably safe.

They made it over the next ridge on foot (for once).  Some distance down-slope, there was an American tent, Civil War vintage; nearby were encampments of other civil warriors:  English, Irish, Russian, and Mexican.

They spotted Brady, all alone outside the American tent.

Benet said, “That’s odd.  During the Civil War, Brady sent teams of photographers out, while he stayed in New York.  Each team was three to five.  Yet Brady seems to be by himself.”

Brady was handsome.  His bushy hair and Van Dyke framed an aristocratic face.  He didn’t look wounded or disfigured.

Roger thought the large-bellows-camera mounted on a sturdy wooden tripod delightful.

Here and there in the camp were other tripods and cameras, a tent with folding wooden doors that was probably a darkroom, a supply-wagon overflowing with boxes.

Benet stalked over to the photographer:  “Mister Mathew Brady?”

Brady squinted through his spectacles, then over them.

“General Benet, isn’t it?”

“Indeed I am, sir.”

Brady said, “You seem a bit older than I recall.  I’m glad you had a long life.”

“I was sorry to hear of your passing, even though it came after my own,” replied That Fucking Benet.

Brady’s face drooped slightly.  “I’d hoped afterlife would be better than life.  Instead, it seems perpetually to show me the worst of existence.  I suppose that is punishment for my photographs.”

“It may be.  Though you always showed things honestly.”

Brady’s Van Dyke trembled.  “That I did, or tried to.  War needs no exaggeration.  Nor, I found, does everyday torment.”

Benet said, “So it seems.  For your candor, sir, we must take you to Satan himself to be deposed.”

“Deposed?”

“This is the Coordinating Legal Airborne Platoon, Mister Brady,” McCarthy interrupted, puffing himself up.

“Ah,” Brady said.  “Yes, there are jokes one could make, but it’s hardly worth doing so, is it?”

Benet nodded, without rancor or humor.  “You
do
speak the truth, Mister Brady.”

“Why do you need me to accompany you?”

“Actually, sir, I will be forthright with you, as a peer.  We need only your head,” Benet told him.  “More, we are required to bring and authorized to take
only
your head with us.”

“Not all of me…”  Brady slumped and sighed.  “I see.”  He looked from That Fucking Benet to Roger to Thurmond, to the rest of CLAP, behind them.  “May I make a final request, then?  Final for now, I suppose.”

“What is that?” Benet asked.

“Would someone capture a photograph of this event?  Before I go?  The photo can be delivered with the others.”  He indicated a leather box with a large label gummed to it.

Benet said, “I can work the camera.  I am familiar with the type.  Mister Howard, will you take my sword?”

Roger wanted nothing less than to take Benet’s sword in hand.  Death might not be permanent, but suffering was always remembered.  Brady’s head would be turned over to higher headquarters, perhaps eventually to Satan himself.  Roger looked around, hoping one of his colleagues would volunteer to do the deed.  All CLAP knew what Roger wanted.  Everyone looked at their feet.

“I regret this already,” Roger said.  “But I will do it.”

The inevitable cannot be successfully forestalled.  Brady led Benet to the tent.  Roger followed.

“Let me prepare the plate and set the equipment,” Brady said wistfully.  The two disappeared into the tent, leaving Roger alone outside.

In tight quarters, the two bumped canvas now and again.

Behind Roger, McCarthy came up.  “Are we ready, then?”

“Yes, sir,” Roger agreed.  “General Benet will take a photo of the scene as Brady’s last request.”

“What the devil’s the point of that?  Really.  This is hell, if no one has noticed.  Such a photo won’t go anywhere, accomplish anything….”

“I suppose a paper somewhere might print it, sir,” Roger said.

“If anyone remembers who this man is.  And he’ll be back, soon enough.  I live for the day when I get to meet Karl Marx face to face.”

“I’m sure you do, sir.”

“What is that supposed to mean?  I’ve been watching you for some time, Howard.  Didn’t you go to some fruity liberal school back east?”

“Harvard, sir.”

“Harvard.  Bastion of northern intellectual liberal elitists – my enemies.  A stronghold of communist ideology in the decades following my death, I understand.”

“Certain professors; yes, sir.” 
McCarthy, you understand nothing.

“I never did trust that type.  Nor artists.  This fellow,” he nodded his head toward Mathew Brady, “is one like that.  Always wants to show the pathos, the tragedy, the art of misery.  Next thing you know, people think the aggressor is some kind of tragic hero.  Who was that little bearded commie after I died?  Made into some kind of tee-shirt icon for hippies and dope fiends?”

“Che Guevara?” Roger guessed.

“That’s him.”

McCarthy finally shut up as Benet and Brady brushed the canvas aside and came out of the tent.  Brady took a deep breath and shivered slightly.  Benet placed a comforting hand on Brady’s shoulder.  With the other, he drew his long, curved saber.

Roger awkwardly accepted the heavy blade from Benet; he had little experience handling real swords.  Inexperience, today, was a problem for Roger; it mustn’t become a problem for Brady.  A botched execution would be too much to bear – for them both.

“Mister Brady, I am deeply ashamed,” he said, and hesitated.  “I must ask you to kneel.”

Brady lowered himself to his knees with dignity and bent forward.

Benet was at the camera, under the hood, fiddling.

Roger asked, “General Benet, are you ready?”

“Almost,” replied That Fucking Benet.  “This is not the same model of camera I trained on.  However, I have focus, I think.  And flash powder.”

Benet fumbled with the plate, reached back under the hood, and slid stuff around.  He poured a measure of powder over what looked like a long match, and held it aloft.

“You may proceed, Howard,” Benet told Roger.

Mathew Brady shut his eyes and started praying:  “Our Father, who art in heaven...”

Prayer to heaven:  both touching and ridiculous.  Praying to those Above could do no good here, under the rufous vault of hell.

Tears filled Roger’s eyes.

Brady stopped praying only when McCarthy made dismissive noises:  “Great act.”

Roger raised the sword.  Its keen edge glittered in the baleful light of Paradise. 

He must ensure his swing was true:  drop his arm; snapped his wrist; and the blade should cut cleanly through Brady’s neck.

Benet pulled the lens cap and tugged the string that ignited the powder.  The flash lit the landscape and stinking sulphur filled the air.