Guevara’s trip had been productive, so far – valuable contacts made, and a lot of new recruits. But the traveling had been a nerve-racking stream of insults and humiliations. His dignity was deeply wounded. Though they’d passed through the Roman hells unharmed, at one point a centurion (an officer, no less!) looked straight at Guevara without recognizing his face, his beard, his beret … nothing. He’d wanted to shrug off his cloak, take the man by the shoulders and shake him into awareness, but Garibaldi and Kurt Cobain pulled him back at the last moment.
Here, things were no better: no one recognized him. Che Guevara’s star, he admitted glumly to himself, had been eclipsed.
“Scum from the wharf district ruining everything,” Cobain muttered, as the two passed a busker screeching his nails on a chalkboard. “Wasn’t this bad when I was last here.”
“It’s been too long,” Guevara agreed.
“Our most fertile ground.” Kurt Cobain, heroin-addicted rock star in life, had died before thirty, but looked forty in hell, with his long blond hair, scruffy beard, and needle-scarred arms. He’d been one of Guevara’s top lieutenants since arriving in the underworld. A couple of beatniks strolled by them, passing a joint back and forth; the smell was one-quarter marijuana, three-quarters pungent horse-shit. “Never should have abandoned it. It’s where we find our people.”
They turned down some surprisingly-clean stone steps into a basement club. A big venue: dark with a high ceiling and a real stage on the far side of the room. A band onstage was trying to be heard above deafening squeals of feedback and a bouncy tune coming from somewhere below counseled the listener what to do “if you’re happy and you know it.”
Feedback squealed above the drummer’s attempted solo while the lead guitarist fumbled to replace a broken string.
Wincing, Cobain moved them in the direction of the bar.
“Broken glass or shit?” Guevara asked. “Or maybe some of that dog piss these people call whisky?”
“I used to work here, before you showed up. Maybe I can get us something better.”
“Oh, man,” came voices in an awed tone Guevara hadn’t heard for far too long. “Is it him?”
“It’s really him!”
Guevara turned around, a gracious smile on his face. Two scraggly girls in flannel and jeans were approaching, excitement glowing on their faces. Bad beer, insulting inattention from Authority – the love of the masses could make up for all of that.
“I killed myself over you! And we finally found you!” the black-haired girl squealed.
“I told you we’d find him eventually!” came from the redhead. “I told you, bitch!”
“I’m back.” Guevara extended his hand for them to shake.
“Seriously!” said the black-haired girl. “It’s Kurt Cobain! Right? It is you! We love your music! Damned well lived for it!”
“Died for it!” said the redhead. “Blew ourselves away, just like you!”
Guevara gave his rock-star henchman a murderous glare.
“We’ve been waiting an eternity for you,” the redhead said. “Shit. Hot demon shit. It is you!”
“It’s good to be back,” said Cobain. Noting Guevara’s irritation, he added, “But screw music, unless it’s about revolution, right?”
“Right,” the girls said enthusiastically. “Screw society. Screw everything. All that crap. Die and screw everyone.”
“We’re making a real revolution,” said Cobain. He inclined his head toward Guevara. “This is Che Guevara, our leader. We’re back!”
The girls scrutinized Guevara.
“Devil up my ass,” said the redhead. “You’re real? I thought you were made up by some tee-shirt designer.”
Guevara raised his chin and gave the girls his better profile, staring into the middle distance.
“He’s leading a rebellion against Satan Himself,” Cobain said. “You want to fight Authority? This is your chance. You want to stand up for freedom? He’s your man.”
“We were down for a while,” added Guevara, “but we’re back. We always come back. They can’t fight the human spirit. Not even Satan can crush our dreams!”
“My dream was to meet Kurt Cobain,” said one of the girls. “And it’s come true!”
Guevara gave Cobain another warning glare.
“And now you can follow us in afterlife,” Cobain said. “Just like you did in life!”
One of the girls turned, waving at a passing friend. “Hey, Tim! Come over here! It’s Kurt Cobain and the guy from the tee-shirt!”
Tim had close-cut blond hair dyed purple in spots, thick black-rimmed glasses with no lenses, and a white-and-black striped tee-shirt. His wrists were bleeding from deep cuts. Blood ran down his forearms; every so often he wiped the blood on his crusty jeans.
“Awesome,” he said, flat and sarcastic.
“You’ve got to excuse Tim,” said the redhead. “He’s still kind of pissed that he ended up here.”
“We all are,” said Guevara. “But when we overthrow Satan, we’ll make hell a better place. Create our own heaven. A world of brotherly love and unlimited equality!”
Feedback screamed in a deafening burst. Guevara’s hands twitched toward his ears, and then the ‘If you’re happy and you know it …’ song came back. One of the guitarists on stage played a few barely-audible notes before another string snapped.
“Yeah,” said Tim, maybe sardonically. “That’s even better.”
“Tim’s pissed not so much that he ended up here,” the redhead said, “but how.”
“Suicide, right?” asked Guevara.
“Nah. Accident. I wasn’t trying to die. I cut my wrists to get those cool scars,” said Tim. “To show my friends how smart and desperate I was. I was supposed to look like a really cool nonconformist. Not die.”
“You want to be a nonconformist?” Guevara asked. “They call us the ‘Dissidents.’ We’re organizing to challenge Authority. Again. And this time, we’ll win.”
“I don’t know,” said the redhead. “Really, actually fighting Satan would be dangerous. These guys aren’t hall monitors. They’re mean.”
“It’s real,” said Tim. “A real fight. Not just this fake hipster bullshit.” He adjusted the empty frames of his ‘eyeglasses.’ “I’m in, tee-shirt man.”
“They can kill us,” Guevara said to the girls, “but they can’t kill our souls. They’ve killed me – how many times? Ten, twelve, fifty? I come back.” Raising his voice, he looked soulfully into first the redhead’s eyes, then the other girl’s. “So what if they kill us? Si, it hurts! Who cares? You can live with pain or it kills you, but either way, who cares? So long as you’re fighting. So long as you’re challenging them, fighting them, showing them an alternative!” One by one, if he had to, he’d rebuild the revolution. Inspire them. Give purpose to those who had nothing with which to fill their emptiness. “This is hell, guys. This is real. Fighting repression is real!”
“He’s right about it being real,” Cobain put in quietly. “Nothing’s more real than the struggle. Not the music, not nothing.”
“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 littl
e 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 2nd century BCE, he and his brother Gaius had been the founding fathers of both socialism and populism.
But this wasn’t Rome in the 2nd 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 h
im – 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.
“Asshole! 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.
Lawyers in Hell Page 10
