"So where is he?" asked Cooker testily,
" 'cause if he ain't coming, I'm out of here."
"He's coming," said Starling confidently.
He spoke with an assurance he did not feel.
"Well he better," said Cooker. On the edge
of a cool breeze he was sure he could smell the tantalizing whiff of gasoline from the
vast dump in the Cap.
"Sure would be a shame if he didn't," said
Harvey. In a pool of light thrown by the fire he worked diligently at assembling some
nasty little bombs out of the ingredients he had snatched that day.
"Why would it be a shame?"
"Because I want to see if these little babies
work." He had packed black powder and blasting caps into heavy glass bottles. He had
found a clearing strewn with the containers and he was making the most of the materials at
hand. Harvey sniffed deeply at the neck of an empty bottle. A faint scent lingered there.
"Hey, Starling," Harvey asked, "can
you read?"
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"Yeah."
"Read me what is written here." He passed
him the bottle and Starling squinted at the faded label.
"Martell Cognac," he read slowly,
"fondee 1715."
"Well, Martell Cog-nac smells like a fine drink
to me . . ."
"1715. Jeez," said Starling, "how long
ago do you s'pose that was?"
"A while back," said Clara vaguely.
"What's this one say?" demanded Harvey.
Starling held it close to the fire. "Leroux
Blackberry Brandy."
"Smells good too."
"So what are we going to do?" said Sister
Jamie suddenly.
"Yeah, are we going to sit here all night?"
Sister Lynn surveyed the group.
"I think Bonner's got himself caught and that
means he got himself killed," said Sister Kay matter-of-factly.
"Do you really think he's dead?" asked
Sister Brenda.
"If he's caught, he's dead."
"Leather can't kill Bonner," said Starling
vehemently.
Abruptly, the two Mean Brothers who had been
following the conversation, got up, shouldered their weapons and headed into the darkness.
"Where the fuck are they going?" demanded
Cooker.
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"I think they're going to get Bonner," said
Jamie, "and I think we should tag along."
"Yeah," said Clara, "Sisters, let's
move it."
"Starting," said Cooker, "you and
Harvey going?"
"Yep."
"You assholes," said Cooker, "he's
dead already."
"If he's dead, I have a score to settle with
Leather," Starling's voice floated back from the dark. There was a note of
determination in Starling's voice. The tall smuggler meant what he said.
"Well," said Cooker standing up, "I
come this far . . ."
Bonner blinked his eyes to clear his head and
immediately wished they had not taken him alive. His hands were bound firmly behind his
back and a Stormer stood on either side of him. He looked around the room.
It was a vision out of hell. He was standing in a
huge marble room, fronted by columns that looked out onto a huge rectangular pool of water
that dimly reflected the the flames of Leather's eternal flame. The room itself was lit by
a dozen burning braziers that threw off a smoky light etching long dark shadows on the
smooth walls. The room was filled with the first citizens of the Slavestates: all the
tax-generals, the ranking Radleps and Stormers, the torture squad, and all had brought a
dozen hangers-on. Jojo stood to one side. Every eye was on Leather. He sat in his throne
which dominated the room. The throne was a huge statue of a man, seated in
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an enormous marble chair and it took up the central
part of the chamber. Reclining on a dozen cushions in the marble man's lap, lay Leather.
Three members of his harem, young women, naked to the waist, sat on either side of him
ready to cater to his every need. Leather stretched luxuriously and beamed down at his
court. Above him, in the shadows, the sage face of the great marble statesman looked down
sadly, as if the evil and depravity he was forced to witness was an affront to his wise
stone eyes.
"Well, Bonner," said Leather, "you're
going out in style." Leather's deep voice boomed through the great space.
"I shot you," said Bonner. "Bullets
don't kill the Leatherman," shouted a courtier.
"You know, Bonner," said Leather,
"he's right." "You're flesh and blood," said Bonner. "Maybe . . .
maybe . . . But those wise old ancestors of ours came up with some pretty fantastic
inventions."
Bulletproof vest, thought Bonner. He had heard of
them, but he had never seen one. He doubted that they existeduntil now. It
contravened the rules of nature, the rules by which the world now lived:
nothing was bulletproof. It was just like Leather to
get hold of one and then exploit the cult of his own immortality.
"You been causing a lot of trouble, Bonner. I
heard about Drexy. I heard about New York, the island . . . You are a pain in the ass . .
. Now I hear
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that Marxie and fifty Radleps are missing. Did you
have anything to do with that?"
"Marxie'sdead."
"Oh, you're going to wish you hadn't said
that," said Leather as if he was scolding a little child. "My Radleps are going
to put on a bigger show than even they planned, right, boys?"
From around the hall, the rasping coarse voices of
the Radleps were raised in a chorus of menacing assent.
"Who you travelling with, Bonner? And where are
they? Sure you're pretty good, but not even you could mess with Marxie and fifty of my
boys and get away with it. Who is crewing with you?"
"You don't really think I'm going to tell you,
do you?"
"Not right away, no. But we'll get it out of
you." Leather clapped his hands and a woman came forward carrying with her Bonner's
Winchester and the holster with his three blades. Leather examined them expertly.
"Nice stuff. They'll look good in my collection
. . . How many men you figure you've killed with these things, Bonner."
"Not enough."
"Whoa, that's pretty tough talk. Scares the shit
out of me." Leather laughed and the courtiers laughed with him. "You know, in a
few minutes when I start to kill youstart, I saidbecause the finish is quite a
ways offI'm going to do it with these." He held up Bonner's equipment.
"We're going to carve you
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up a little, then I'm going to blow your fucking head
off. Then it's game over, I win."
Bonner wasn't afraid to die. But he was damned if he
was going to die at Leather's hands. He would rather be brought down by the lowliest
street worker back in Chicago than go out in a grand and painful ceremony in the center of
Leather's throne room.
"So, you're the big, tough president of the
Slave-states. The meanest, baddest man on the whole continent," sneered Bonner.
"Sure, it's real easy for you to kill here and now with all your pieces of shit body
guards around. Big brave man. Come on, Leather, how about a fair fight? You and me. No
Radleps, no Stormers, no bulletproof vests . . . just the two of us ..."
Leather laughed. The courtiers laughed. "That
was always the trouble with you, Bonner. You're stuck in the old world. Or what you
thought was the old world. A fair fight . . . 'Fair and square' I think they used to say.
That world is gone and if you had realized ityou and that cunt of yoursyou
wouldn't be here now. You were dead in the Outriding days, Bonner. You wanted to build the
old world. What you never knew was that the old world never existed. Sure, they had rules
and codes and regulationslaws. But those people were the same ones who bombed the
shit out of each other. But you couldn't see that, could you, Bonner? No, I'm not going to
give you a fair fight, Bonner, because there's no such thing, a fair fight is the one you
win and it doesn't matter
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how you do it. Winners and losers, that's what it
conies down to. I'm the winner, you're the loser ..."
Leather looked at Bonner. "They can understand
this" he gestured toward the crowd "how come you can't? Bonner, you
and me could have had the whole continent. There would be no Hotstates, no Snowstates ...
All of it could have been ours. But you had to ... I don't know, fuck it up, I guess. Now
you've got to die. But first, a little entertainment." He clapped his hands.
Two Radleps entered the chamber dragging Dara between
them. She was limp, her long dark hair falling down in front of her face. She was clad
only in a light shift, that rode up to mid thigh as the Radleps pulled her to the center
of the chamber. As she was brought in the crowd started hooting and whistling, their
catcalls filling the air.
Bonner felt every muscle strain at his bonds. His
eyes blazed with hate, his stomach churned as if he had been kicked.
"Show her," ordered Leather.
The Radleps dragged Dara before Bonner. Her chin
rested on her chest, so one of her captors yanked on her hair, snapping her head back. Her
eyes were closed so the Radlep slapped her, tearing the delicate skin of her lip. Her
eyelids fluttered open. For a second she didn't recognize him. Then their eyes locked
together and Bonner could feel her gaze on him. She stared, her blue eyes filled with
pain, with fear and with hope . . .
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"Save me," she whispered, as the Radleps
pulled
her away. Bonner felt tears well into his eyes.
Dara was dragged to the platform that stood at the
base of the throne. Leather stood.
"I'm first, Bonner." He climbed down from
his throne, loosening his pants as he went, "then every body will get a turn."
Bonner looked away as Leather whipped awav Dara's
scant covering. Her long, white, muscled leg' seem to gleam gold in the light cast by the
crackling braziers. A Stonner grabbed him by the jaw and forced his gaze back onto the
rape.
"He gonna fuck her," he said. "You
gonna watch."
But Dara had not given up. As Leather advanced on
her, she scissored her legs, brought her knee? back to her chest and then, with every
ounce of strength she could summon she kicked at his exposed crotch. Her heel slammed into
Leather, crushing the softness of him against the hard ridge of his pubic bone. Leather
yelped and fell backwards, holding himself in both hands, screaming in his pain:
"Okay. That's it. Take her, beat the rucking
bitch to death. Cut her, kill her . . ."
Instantly, a dozen people were on her, Radleps,
tax-men, anybody, pounding her, torturing her de-fenseless body. In a matter of seconds
her pretty. fragile face was a mass of blood.
"Bonner!" she screamed. He closed his eyes
as a. torture squadsman approached with a blade. Dara's attackers stepped back as if
deferring to the master. She dragged out the last syllable of his name, her
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voice arching into a long, tortured, inarticulate cry
that begged, pleaded, beseeched him for salvation. Her scream filled his head with the
searing intensity of hot oil and every fiber of his being flared up in a crescendo of
unalloyed pain and anguish.
The two Stormers on duty outside the fuel dump never
saw the Mean Brothers. They died with the sound of the crack of their own bones filling
their ears. Bonner's force sprinted up the long wide flight of steps into the domed ruin
and found themselves in a huge round room. It was crammed with oil drums. In corridors
running off the rotunda they could see rows of gasoline cans, orderly as a rank of
soldiers, running down the long hallways for what seemed like miles. Harvey crashed into a
few rooms off the corridor: more drums. "Holy shit!"
"Can you blow it?" demanded Starling.
"Can I blow-it? A fucking dog could blow it. The question is can we get clear?"
Cooker looked like a man who had been allowed a
glimpse of heaven. He stood staring about him like a man in a trance. He sniffed deeply.
The sweet fumes smelled as good to him as home cooking. He tried to say something but
found his words caught in his throat.
"You and the sisters take as many barrels as you
can and roll them down the steps. I want them steps soaked in gas." They jumped to
his command. Harvey started kicking over fuel drums until the
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round room was awash in gasoline. The bluish green
fluid belched out onto the smooth marble. The fumes rose, choking.
"Means. Go down the hall; open as many drums as
you can." The Mean Brothers nodded and lumbered down the long corridors. They swept
open two giant doors and found themselves in a vast room ringed around with heavy mahogany
desks. A balcony overlooked the huge space. Every inch of the room, including the massive
raised lectern that stood against one wall, was covered in gasoline drums. They raced to
the platform and began knocking open the containers, starting a waterfall of gasoline,
coursing down over the woodwork.
Harvey appeared at the door. "Okay, Meanies,
out!"
The Mean .Brothers paused to kick open a few more
cans, then followed Harvey to the exit.
Back in the rotunda, Harvey made sure everybody was
there. "Okay, out, everybody out."
The sisters and the rest sloshed through the gasoline
lake and out onto the slick, wet steps. "Move it," screamed Harvey, coughing and
choking on the dizzying gasoline. The crew sprinted down the stairs and into the park that
fronted the gas dump. "Keep going, keep going," Harvey urged.
He followed but stopped in the cracked street before
the huge domed building. He withdrew one of his little glass bombs. He leaned back as far
as he could, then whipped the bottle as far as he could up the steps. Before it landed he
was off and running,
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through the tangled green strip trying to put as much
ground between him and the dome before it went. With a sound like a wind from a hurricane
the gas on the outside stairs went up: "Whup."
Harvey felt the heat of the flames wash over him,
singeing the hair on his head, the green slash suddenly illuminated by a huge black and
orange fireball.
Just then, the dump went. It sounded like the end of
the world. Harvey skidded in the grass and stopped. He had to watch. This was the biggest
explosion since the bomb and he had caused it. A blast of flame like a tidal wave washed
over him and he burned in a flash as bright as day.