Sherwood Nation (58 page)

Gregor called for some wet towels. “I like bandaging wounds. Sometimes my men used to get shot up, and if it was necessary we’d get them hospital ready. You wouldn’t believe how often that saves a man. It’s kind of like plumbing. You’re stopping the leak. We’re just systems of pipes. You made a terrible mess on your floor here, but since you bastards have running water here we can get this cleaned up. Going to scar pretty good, though.”

Gregor finished and groaned with the effort of standing up. He’d been on his knees and his own dirty bandage had blossomed a deeper red. “Give him this—” Gregor pulled six ibuprofen from the kit and handed them to a Ranger, then took six for himself. “You can stand up now if you like,” Gregor said, but the mayor’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t acknowledging him.

The Rangers were taking turns at the bathroom sink, drinking their fill of water, washing their faces, pleasuring in watching a small stream of water splash over their hands, like kids at a fountain.

Christopher offered him a sandwich from a tray, his face rigidly held blank, a wax carving of himself.

Gregor tried not to gulp down the sandwich but his hunger made his mouth work like a bear trap and he couldn’t help himself. Then he set his mind on doing what they’d come to do. He pulled the mayor to a stand on one leg, his eyes watering and his teeth clenched. “Come on, we got to release those prisoners. I’ll help you hobble. Between us we’ve got two good legs.”

The mayor used the police radio to talk to the chief. He called for the release of the prisoners and pardoned those who were hospitalized so that they would go free when they were out of the hospital and as he did so Gregor wondered what kind of a mayor he’d make himself. He remembered that, given control of Sherwood, within twenty-four hours he’d formed an execution line and he thought perhaps that was his answer.

“See, think what we’ve done to your reputation already, letting them go like that.”

“I did not order the tank.”

“Oh?” Gregor said. “I suppose it was the pope?”

“I would never have killed so many.”

“Listen, you did though. And we’re going to even up the score a little today.”

The mayor blanched. “It was the National Guard.”

“Don’t buy it.” There was no sign that the rest of the city even knew that they’d taken over the mayor’s office and he wondered what the hell was going on out there. Surely one of the policemen had a chance to radio off something?

He could see the appeal of the job. This office, with the advisers and the power, commanding respect at the top. In theory, he liked the idea of school budgets and business development programs, but in practice he suspected his drug lord days, and Sherwood days, were more pleasurable. The neighborhood projects he’d supported felt more like flying in on the back of an eagle with a bag of cash. No proposal, no argument, no hassle. You’re a savior and then you’re done.

Perhaps he could plant one of his Rangers here as mayor. He looked around the room for a likely candidate and, seeing no possibilities, realized it would have to be him. He wished Maid Marian were here for this coup d’état. And it occurred to him then that it was an absurd little fantasy. No coup was possible without her. She could have rallied the police force, he thought, quelled the Guard, ridden her reputation into change. As general, he could only expect bloodshed.

He steered the mayor back to the couch, where he stared sullenly at the ground and asked for the release of his advisers.

“Good man,” Gregor said. He signaled that the advisors could get up and pointed to chairs where they were to sit. He wondered how long they were going to have to wait for the mayor’s rescue team to show up. The Rangers were jittery; having sated themselves on sandwiches and running water, they were fiddling with their guns and looking for signs out the windows. The revenge they wanted could be had at any time. Gregor toyed with how much more they might yield from the situation. He hoped that she would materialize out there somewhere in the city, the news radioed into the mayor’s office. He decided to stall, to see if a course of action would come to him.

“All right,” Gregor said, picking up a controller and offering the mayor the other.

“You don’t want to play me,” the mayor said.

“What else are we going to do?” Gregor laughed. “Talk? We’ve got a lot to say to each other?”

The mayor stared at the floor.

“We’re going to be here for hours, Bartlett. We may be spending the rest of our lives together, short as they may be,” Gregor said, “Or oh—wait, I
understand
—you’re
worried
about my performance?” Gregor smiled, felt himself acting it up a little, taking up the dead air on the stage he’d planted them on. “You’re worried you’ll beat me. That’s sweet of you. But you’re all slowed down with leg wounds, and I’m a good shot,” Gregor said. “Plus I’ve got this.” He held up his gun.

“You’ll shoot me if I win?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

The mayor tossed the controller to the floor. “You’re a crazy sonofabitch.”

Gregor chuckled and enjoyed the idea both that his reputation might allow someone to think he would shoot them over a video game, and also at the idea of shooting someone over a video game. “Anyway, we’re going to play. While we do, maybe you can help me understand what we’re going to do with this city, and how we’re all going to get off this island without dying.”

“Who all?”

“Me all.”

“Goddamnit,” the mayor said and took the offered controller. “My leg hurts.” He rapidly flipped through the startup screens and when he came to the screen where he had to decide whether to play Axis or Allies he hesitated and then chose Allies, then he leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Gregor said. “Get back there, go back, you’re playing Axis.”

“You invaded my office, I get to be Allies.”

“No way, not after that blitzkrieg you performed last night—my office is destroyed. You’re playing Axis.”

“Point blank executions? That sound like the Allies to you? What, are you going to play them ironically?”

Gregor chuckled and looked up toward the rest of the onlookers, and he could see that no one in the room was having as much fun as he was. “I’m beginning to like this guy,” he said to no one in particular. “But you’re choosing Axis.”

The mayor sat and obstinately stared somewhere to the left of the television.

Gregor exhaled in disgust and gripped his gun and stared at the ceiling and thought through his options, of which the primary was shooting the man’s other leg. “All right,” he said after a while, “play your pansy-assed Allies. I’ll be the krauts. I speak German, und du wirst heute sterben, du saumäßiger soldat!”

“Seriously?” The mayor looked across the room until his eyes met Christopher’s and they exchanged a look.

Gregor shrugged. “My dad was stationed in Munich. I spent eight years of childhood there.”

Gregor was grinning like a madman now that the game was about to start. He admired his white kraut, breathing patiently into the screen, tidy and rigid and vacant. Gregor was excited to shoot the piss out of everything. “Losgehen!”

He was vaguely aware that he had to capture some flag but the whole thing was over frustratingly fast. The mayor had obviously devoted a good deal of his term to the pursuit.

They played again but Gregor became dispirited—despite the chorus of encouragement he was receiving from the Rangers gathered around the couch now.

They finished and Gregor handed his controls and the mayor’s over to a couple of the young Rangers behind him, eager and obviously more experienced at this type of thing than he was. “Invite those guys too.” Gregor pointed at the mayor’s people, feeling as though they might all be a big happy family while they waited for the bloodbath, that what they might need most of all is a diversion. The mayor’s aides moved where they were directed with all the speed of drying dung.

“Come on, my führer, let’s see why your rescue is taking so damn long. It’s hard to make demands for your life if no one is intent on saving it.” He pulled the mayor to a stand and the mayor cried out. “Let’s go look at our city.” He grabbed the mayor by the shoulder and steadied him as he hopped and shuffled and complained out onto the balcony. “Maybe everybody gave up and we’re suddenly in power?”

“Roger is going to be in no hurry to help me. Probably hopes for the opposite outcome.”

“Who the hell is Roger?”

“Major General Aachen, National Guard.”

“Oh. But he’s going to look like an asshole if he leaves you here with the terrorists.”

The mayor shrugged. On the balcony they stared out into the city. Gregor nodded toward the pillar of smoke, acknowledging it as if it were an entity under whose service he now performed. He balled his fist and brought his right knuckle to his lips and kissed. A prayer, a recognition, an apology.

“Still burning,” the mayor said.

As Gregor turned to the mayor to make some threat or joke or caustic remark, a hole was born in the mayor’s chest. A repulsive sound ripped through the air, of rending flesh, and glass breaking behind them. The mayor jerked backwards and then was in a heap on the floor of the balcony.

“Jesus Christ!” Gregor dropped to one knee, favoring his hurt leg, and peeked over the concrete balcony but could see nothing. He looked back into the room to make sure one of his Rangers hadn’t gone rogue, even as he knew the bullet had come from elsewhere. He waited for the barrage to hit them, and watched the mayor’s life dim. He laid him out and ripped at the shirt as Rangers crawled toward the balcony.

“First aid!” he yelled into the room. They had made a terrible mistake, he thought, a horribly unlucky miss. His habit of being the last one standing felt supernatural under such odds. And then he tried to imagine how such a miss could have taken place, between a tall white man and an old black bear. Christopher was on the balcony with him then, holding the mayor’s head, his own face pressed against his ear, whispering.

Gregor risked another look over the balcony but could see nothing. The city was lifeless. Inside, the video game console—which had continued to war even as the Rangers stood and gaped—went suddenly dark.

“The radio,” Gregor yelled, “try the radio!” but it too was dead.

It was not a poor shot, Gregor realized. The likely scenario came to him with sickening dread. This was not his coup.

A terrible boom sounded above them, an echoing terror, and Gregor ducked at whatever new devilry was coming down on them. Some fantastic, fucking artillery.

“Pop,” a Ranger said, crouched in the doorway to the balcony. “It’s thunder.”

Gregor looked up into the sky to see a blue vein of lightning come down onto a building not far from them. The thunder sounded again and despite his inner warnings he stood and leaned against the wall to get a better sense of what was happening.

The sky boiled darkly, and as he watched, with the sound of Christopher’s hysteria in the background, it thundered again, this time farther off. On the balcony he felt as though he could reach up and touch whatever happened there, whatever cloud god warred in the turmoil. He wished he could grab ahold of a leg and give him an angry shake. The sky lit up and another blast of thunder rolled over them. It was so loud and consuming that Gregor leaned out into the balcony, forgetting whatever sniper menace. Dust blew in a gust around him, circling the balcony, giving everything a quick coating of grit.

With the mayor’s shirt torn away he tried to focus. He wiped away a portion of the blood with a wet towel and saw that they’d shot high, several inches above the heart. He exchanged looks with Christopher.

“I didn’t do this,” Gregor said.

Christopher asked him to hurry. Blood welled up in the hole. Gregor ripped another bandage from the first aid kit, smeared it with a glob of Vaseline and taped it hard against his chest. He felt the mayor breathing but his eyes did not open. He did the same for the wound on his back, where the bullet had exited.

A drop of rain hit him square in the forehead, a great powerful drop, as if he’d been prodded by an index finger. It melted across his forehead and he whispered rain and stared up and waited for another drop, but the sky did nothing.

“Come on, you cocktease sonofabitch!” he yelled into the sky and shook his fist, but there was no answer.

Gregor turned angrily on the crowd of Rangers and advisers behind him who crowded at the edge of the balcony in a dumb state of spectating. “You.” He pointed at a blond-haired, suit-jacketed man who looked like he was riding out some ambitious career ladder. “Get a car! He needs to be at the hospital.”

A kid Ranger in her twenties, having stared at the mayor too long, rushed past him and threw up her sandwich over the edge. Thunder sounded again.

“Let’s go!” he shouted across the balcony but it was lost in a great peal of thunder. He wondered if they’d be allowed to escape or if the way was trapped. “Let’s go!” he yelled again and waved his Rangers off the balcony.

“Christopher,” Gregor said, putting his hand on the man’s bowed shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

Christopher nodded.

“We’ll be blamed for this, whether he—whether he passes or not—and you’re a witness. They’ll want to shut you up.”

“Yes.”

“You could come with us.”

“No. Thank you, I will stay with him.”

Gregor rode the glass elevator to the basement with the mayor. Christopher was under one of they mayor’s shoulders, and a big, hunky advisor under the other, their faces ashen. “This chat’s not over,” he told the mayor, but he had long ago lost consciousness. Through the elevator glass he watched his Rangers take the stairs by twos in a hurry to get outside. He’d instructed them to carry their dead to the front door where he would pick them up.

The cars were beautiful black Lincoln Town Cars. He helped the mayor and Christopher off in the first one and watched it accelerate out of the basement. After they’d left, he stood next to the car he would steal from the city and sighed. He felt a certain loneliness, an insignificance in learning that someone else’s coup had won out. He was just an old man who needed to find a place to sleep tonight.

Inside his car, he inhaled deeply of the leather luxury, and then inspected the dashboard. It was immaculate and lacked nothing. Gregor drove out of the basement parking garage and into the open and stopped to let the Rangers load their dead in. Three in the backseat strapped in with seat belts, another strapped in the passenger seat, her head slumped over to the glove box. The smell of blood was thick in the car. He had known each of them.

A dirty, sporadic, sprinkling rain obscured the windshield and for a while he drove along with his Rangers. As they biked he saw their foolish grins, their relief. Alive, and the miracle of a little water from the sky. He watched their faces through windshield glaze and it made him happy. They were like puppies, cycling manically and grinning like fools, the grief in them like wadded pieces of paper deep in pockets, to ignore now and unravel later. As with every fickle rain, they considered the possibility that this changed everything. That this was the end. Maybe it was, he thought, but he suspected it was not.

Again, he thought of Maid Marian: holed up or in flight or dead somewhere.