The American Zone

by L. Neil Smith

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  FOR KEN FLURCHICK

  (and all of you others who wanted another

  straightforward, no nonsense novel about Win Bear in the

  North American Confederacy).

  Hey, Kenny, we’re goin’ home!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  THERE’S AN AWFUL LOT in this book that I owe to the late, great Robert LeFevre. I’d also like to acknowledge the groundbreaking brainwork of David F. Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, and Marshall Fritz, founder of Advocates for Self-Government and the Separation of School and State Foundation, in devising the political diamond Lucy describes in Chapter 17. My conclusion with regard to what lurks at the bottom corner of the diamond differs from theirs.

  MANY THANKS to European American Armory of Cocoa, Florida, to Crimson Trace Corporation of Beaverton, Oregon, and to Chris Reeve Knives of Boise, Idaho, for their valuable assistance in making this a more interesting book than it might otherwise have been.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  1: A YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

  2: SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

  3: JOSHUR FIT DE BATTLE

  4: TABERNA EST IN OPPIDUM

  5: EASY WINNERS

  6: HELL IN A BUCKET

  7: LAWYERS, GUNS, AND MONEY

  8: ALONG GAME THE F.F.V

  9: CUTS LIKE A KNIFE

  10: BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL TEXAS

  11: I NEED A HERO

  12: LAY THAT PISTOL DOWN

  13: THE JAVA JIVE

  14: THREE DOLLAR BILL

  15: BACK HOME AGAIN

  16: TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

  17: STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU

  18: THANK GOD AND GREYHOUND YOU’RE GONE

  19: IT’S SISTER JENNIE’S TURN TO THROW THE BOMB

  20: THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

  21: TEA FOR TWO

  22: ROLL ME OVER IN THE CLOVER

  23: MONEY FOR NOTHING

  24 THERE’LL NEVER BE ANOTHER YOU

  25: POISONING PIGEONS IN THE PARK

  26: STRANGER IN PARADISE

  27: RATTLESNAKE MOUNTAIN

  28: TEN LITTLE INDIANS

  29: MY BLUE HEAVEN

  30: DIRTY LAUNDRY

  BOOKS BY L. NEIL SMITH

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  1: A YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

  The great secret of life lies in choosing the right woman. It’s a mother’s job to tell you not to play with fire. Marry the girl who tells you, “Go ahead.”

  —Memoirs of Lucille G. Kropotkin,

  Whoooooosh … Bang!

  The pop-bottle rocket, fired past me from across the street, damn near singed my eyebrows.

  Offering some unseen neighbor the middle-finger salute, I backed off the balcony, through the sliding transparent doors, and into the relative security of my living room. Even if things got out of hand and something made it through the doors, the glass would heal itself by morning—which was more than could be said for me.

  Sometime tomorrow I’d remind myself to have a word with an overly zealous patriot.

  On second thought, he (or she) could hardly be blamed for his (or her) enthusiasm. I’d probably just remind myself to skip the whole thing. Nearly having my beezer Francis-Scott-Keyed off was certainly no more than I deserved for having foolishly poked it outdoors on this night of nights.

  After all, it was July Second, 220 A.L., and across the vast, twilit metropolis that was Greater LaPorte, sprawled from the Cache la Poudre River to Pistol Sight Mountain between the toes of the Rocky Mountain foothills (in a region many another culture labels “northern Colorado”), hundreds of city neighborhoods had already begun twinkling, sparkling, and sputtering, snapping, crackling, and popping! in blissful commemoration of the signing of a certain illegal document that had made young Tommy Jefferson and his little playmates terrorists in the eyes of the British Crown.

  Yes indeed, it was high summer once again on the High Plains, and—perhaps just a little high themselves by now—the good ladies and gentlemen of the North American Confederacy were celebrating their favorite occasion: Independence Day. Here in the Confederacy, it actually still meant something. And it probably helped that there wasn’t a building in all of Greater LaPorte that would burn any longer than thirty seconds, even if you dropped napalm on it.

  For the first time in a long while, I glanced down at my left hand where I had a place-keeping finger stuck between the pages of a freshly imported hardcover I’d just brought home that afternoon: Al Franker Is a Pathetic Little Wannabe by Rush H. Limbaugh. I hadn’t gotten past the introduction so far. Turning my back to the colorful display outside, crossing a living room carpet the size of a small basketball court to the wet bar, I poured myself a scotch and scotch, adding a dash of scotch for flavor.

  It smelled wonderful. I’d tried Irish whiskey once, Bushmill’s. It smells even better, but it tastes too damned good, and for someone who has a little trouble in that direction already, it’s a gold-plated invitation to alcoholism.

  The fact is, I’d have enjoyed celebrating, too, especially here, in the heart of one of the Confederacy’s great cities. But my heart’s companion (and the most luscious female I’ve ever met), Healer Clarissa MacDougall Olson-Bear, was busy making house-calls—as she always was on July Second—attending to such seasonal calamities as scorched fingers, ruptured eardrums, and dittoed eyeballs. For what is there worthwhile in life that doesn’t involve some hazard?

  Back where I came from originally, such a ruggedly Darwinistic sentiment would likely have soiled the lace unmentionables of the whole Volvo-driving, wine-and-cheese gobbling, no-sparrow-shall-hiccup set of what the author I was reading called “lifestyle Nazis.” But I ask you, what’s left of the meaning of Independence Day, if you let some jumped-up city council, some upstart county commission, or some state legislature that doesn’t know its place, confiscate your Roman candles, your M-80s, or your pop-bottle rockets? North American Confederates would laugh out loud at such a contradiction—once the gunsmoke had cleared and the politicians’ bleeding carcasses had been hauled away.

  Leaving the book facedown on the bar, I found a comfy chair to sit in near the big glass doors and started to offer a lonely toast to my sad reflection. But just as you’re really beginning to enjoy feeling sorry for yourself, there’s always somebody who comes along and spoils it for you. This time it was my wife’s cat Silvertip—now where had she come from?—who hopped up into my lap and settled down, purring like a contented meatloaf. I say my wife’s cat. From the moment Clarissa had brought the little gray and white feline home, she’d decided she was mine—or rather, I was hers. Okay, then, happy July Second, kittycat. And happy July Second, private detective Edward William “Win” Bear. What the hell. Clarissa would be back sometime during the wee, small hours, and she’d be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that … What more can a middle-aged fat man ask for?

  Silvertip wasn’t any help; she looked up at me and asked, “Eww?”

  As if in answer to my unasked question, the doorbell chose that moment to ring. Silvertip jump
ed off my lap, leaving poke-marks in my trousers—not to mention the flesh inside them—and headed upstairs. She doesn’t really like anybody but Clarissa and me.

  Grudgingly, I rose to answer the door, not even bothering to glance at the monitor on my way over to the half-flight of steps that led down to the front door. I’d seriously considered not answering it at all, but only for a moment. My guess was that I was about to have some Independence Day customers, myself.

  Understand that it had taken me years to acquire any kind of professional reputation in the virtually crime-free Confederacy, where Captain Sam Colt had made everybody equal and President Albert Gallatin had kept’em that way (not necessarily in that order). People tend to mind their own business as a consequence, and have very little use for detectives, private or otherwise. If I wanted to hold on to that living room that you could land small aircraft in, and all the rest of 626 Genet Place that went with it (not to mention my own self-respect in a culture where absolutely nobody rushes to protect you from feeling ashamed of being a bum), I couldn’t afford to lose any live ones—even if it meant going to work on the Glorious Second.

  I did make sure that my trusty old .41 Magnum Model 58 Military & Police revolver was still hanging where it was supposed to be, from beneath my left armpit, underneath my tunic. I’d made one or two—hundred—folks a bit unhappy with me over the nine years since I’d come to the Confederacy. Now was not the time—with my personal physician out of the house—to get careless.

  The front hall monitor was considerably less easy to ignore than its upstairs equivalent; it took up the whole front door. Turned out there were two of them, standing out there in the fireworks-light; I could see them (with the technology behind that monitor I could have seen them if it’d been a pitch-black overcast night and Mount Colfax was filling the air with volcanic ash) but they couldn’t see me. Which may be the reason I gasped and stumbled on the last step, fetching up against the wall of the stairwell and damn near spilling the drink I’d forgotten I was holding.

  Mindful of making a good first impression on new clients, I opened the coat closet at the bottom of the stairs, stuck the drink on the top shelf between a couple of hats, shut the closet door with one hand, summoned up my Grade-Two Professional Smile, and opened the front door with the other.

  The monitor hadn’t lied.

  The couple apparently seeking my services this holiday evening had seemed familiar from the first moment I’d seen their images at the top of the stairs. No less so now. He was perpetually fiftyish-looking and of medium height, with a uniquely textured voice, broad shoulders, compelling eyes, a bristly salt-and-pepper mustache, and rather conspicuous ears. Several strands of his hair fell sort of boyishly across his forehead and into his eyes.

  She was a thin, not-quite-pretty, fortyish platinum blond (“Better living through chemistry,” I quoted to myself before I could stop me) with nervous mannerisms and what I was soon to discover was an exceptionally sharp tongue.

  Together they informed me they’d been referred by an old mutual friend, one Lucille Gallegos Kropotkin—a former neighbor of mine who was presently out exploring the Asteroid Belt—and introduced themselves as Carole and Clark.

  As in Carole Lombard.

  And Clark Gable.

  Whah, Ah do beeleeve, ef Ah’d been Scarlett O’Hara, Ah would hev jist swooned.

  You-all, honeychile.

  2: SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

  There are two kinds of people in the world, those who say, “There are two kinds of people in the world,” and those who don’t.

  —Memoirs of Lucille G. Kropotkin

  “Well, do you plan to let us in or just go on standing there, dribbling on your shoes?”

  The blond rolled her eyes impatiently under the front porch-light I’d turned on, not quite tapping a high-heeled toe on my colorful doorstep. It wouldn’t have done her much good in any case: the surface beneath her feet was rubberized concrete and the whole block echoed with the ratatatat of long strings of firecrackers going off. A faint, marvelous aroma of black gunpowder drifted in on the evening breeze.

  “Janie!” her husband objected.

  “Hush, Pappy, Mama knows best. Can’t you see the poor dope is starstruck?” He peered at me clinically as she went on; I felt like crawling underneath the doormat. “We have to unstrike him right away, if we’re going to deal with this mess!”

  “I, er … uh,” the poor dope replied after deep reflection. “Please come in, please?” You’d think I’d be used to this kind of stuff by now, wouldn’t you?

  Nevertheless I was nothing short of breathtaken to recognize my prospective clients as the otherworld counterparts of famous movie stars, both of whom had been dead for decades in the version of reality I hailed from. The husband had died of a heart attack in 1960 (I looked it up later), the wife a generation earlier in a military air crash during a Second World War that had never happened here. The pair were well-known entertainment personalities in the North American Confederacy, as well, and both owed plenty to its advanced geriatric and cosmetic technologies, since it was 1996 by the pre-Confederate European calendar, and Gable was ninety-five years old.

  Somehow I gathered my wits enough (of course there weren’t that many left to gather) to invite them in. I tried to retrieve my drink discreetly as I hung her wrap up in the hall closet, but she caught me with an understanding Lost Weekend kind of wink. Takes one to know one, I guess.

  Shrugging, I led them up the half-flight of stairs into the living room, where I offered them a place to sit and a drink. Together, they opted for a sofa only slightly smaller than the U.S.S. Missouri. It was one of my favorite places, in any world you care to name, for an afternoon nap. She took a double-dessicated vodka Martini, he a bourbon and bourbon, with a dash of bourbon for flavor. All in all, it was turning out to be a pretty high-octane evening.

  “Now where did you come from, sweetie?”

  Silvertip was suddenly present in the room. She stropped herself across Lombard’s decorative ankles a couple of times—I’d seen that cat shear around other people’s extremities like a mechanical apple peeler, and with about the same results—then levitated up and into the woman’s lap, landing lightly as a blown kiss.

  I started to warn Lombard about Silvertip’s temperamental nature, but gave it up as pointless. The animal was obviously perfectly content in the lap she’d discovered, getting cat hair all over a dress worth more than my car.

  Somehow, I felt a little betrayed.

  Both Gables lit cigarettes—Silvertip tolerated even that—and I followed suit with a nice Belizian Jolly Roger. Unlike other places, smoking hasn’t fallen out of fashion in a continuum with effective cures for cancer, emphysema, and political correctness, although one negative aspect to Confederate technology is that it’s impossible—unless you pull the house breakers—to fill a room full of the wonderful aroma of cigar smoke.

  Outside, the heavens went on sparkling and coruscating with colorful explosions.

  Gable turned out to be a pacer. The minute I started to ask him, “What can I do you for?” the man was up and stomping around in circles like a caged cliché, his Tony Lamas or Dan Posts or whatever they were threatening to wear a rut straight through the living-room carpet into the hardwood and polymer floor underneath it. Then he stopped abruptly, took a long drink and a longer drag on his cigarette, and regarded me with that famous sideways squint of his. I started looking around again for that doormat. “On my own time, Mr. Bear, I’m a man of few words!”

  Tweed. That’s what the texture of his voice reminded me of, rough tweed. I don’t know what it was about this guy that made me want him to like me—and took it as a failure of character on my part if he didn’t. Maybe that’s the definition of charisma or something. If it is, you and Judy Garland can have it.

  From the bar, where I was pretending to be busy freshening my own glass, I turned and replied, “Let’s make that ‘Win,’ Mr. Gable—‘Mr. Bear’ was my father.” Actually,
Sergeant Bear was my father. A waistgunner, he’d died aboard a B-17 in Germany when I was too young to know anything about it.

  “Fair enough.” Gable nodded and grimaced in the famous way I’d seen a thousand times on the giant silver screen (as well as the nasty little plastic one that superseded it). “Then I’ll be Clark to you. The point I was going to make is that I flatter myself that you know our work, Janie’s and mine. We do drama—a little Shakespeare, an occasional thriller for the right author or director, even some intelligent comedy.”

  I nodded because the customer is always right except sometimes. Pulling around the chair I’d occupied earlier, I sat down, ignoring my drink. The unfortunate truth was, having grown up in an entirely different universe, I’d found this world’s Gable and Lombard a little difficult to fathom. They’d made only one picture together where I’d come from, nothing special, early in their respective careers. It’d been offscreen that they’d been a national sensation, or a scandal, depending on who was writing the memoirs. But here in the North American Confederacy, they were a legendary theatrical couple, like Tracy and Hepburn, Rohan and Rohan, or Branagh and Thompson.

  Gable shrugged angrily. “Now, suddenly, there’s all of this … this crap flooding the Telecom! It Happened One Night and, by Gallatin, Janie, what did they call it?”

  Sipping delicately at the vodka to which I’d added not more than fourteen molecules of vermouth, Carole Lombard wrinkled up her not-quite-pretty nose. “Gone with the Wind.”

  He shuddered. “Gone with the Wind, by Gallatin!”

  “By Margaret Mitchell, actually,” I offered unhelpfully. There hadn’t been a War between the States here, either, and the “Gallatin” he’d mentioned—Albert Gallatin, second president of the Confederacy—was foremost among the reasons. So the film I personally regarded as the greatest movie ever made must have seemed to them like bad skiffy, something like the 1950s War of the Worlds, maybe, or Creation of the Humanoids. “Just wait’ll you see Teacher’s Pet.”