Lawyers in Hell (42 page)

Adams began to laugh.  Crowley’s request was just so bizarre that it intrigued him.  He had always savored a challenge, whether in court or politics.

“Very well, Mister Crowley, I cannot promise you that I will be successful, but I can promise you will have my best efforts,” he told the magician.

*

The huge cast-iron clock above the bar struck nine as Adams stood in the doorway and surveyed the current crop of customers.

For a watering hole merely three blocks from the Hall of Injustice and frequented by lawyers, the Hellegality Bar was small and intimate.

Operated by a man known in life as Big Bill Jansen, the place made Adams nostalgic for several taverns he’d frequented in Philadelphia and Boston.  Real work got done in places like this.  He and Jefferson had engaged in spirited debates in such taverns.

A dozen acquaintances sat at tables and at the bar, nursing undrinkable concoctions, nostalgic for pretzels and beer, hell’s unobtanium.  The Hellegality offered poor substitutes for either.

“Well, if it isn’t the world renowned Mister A,” said Jansen from behind the bar.  “Started any riots lately?”

“William, William, how often must I remind you, it was my cousin Samuel who was the rabble-rouser?  I just used his bravado to the advantage of my country.”  Adams smiled.

He had this same conversation with Jansen every time he visited here.  “I’ll have a stout, William.  Would Walter Gibson, the pulp writer, be here this evening?”  The stout was sour, the beer was stale, and the food here could crack your teeth with one bite.

Jansen drew Adams his drink, stale when it hit the air.  “You’ll find him over in the corner, giving a couple of new arrivals lessons in the finer points of cards.”

Adams sighted the table that Jansen had indicated.  Two men in military fatigues, probably from one of Caesar’s legions, sat opposite a third man, his back to the wall.

This third man, Walter Gibson, was the dealer:  curly-haired, with a forever babyish face.  He wore wire-rimmed glasses.  On the table between the dealer and the two soldiers were three cards, face down, that he moved around and around after having held up the Queen of Hearts for their perusal.  When he was finished, the three cards were in the center of the table.

“Now keep an eye on the queen.  You know royalty; they like to keep moving and make sure they are never where you think they’ll be.”

One of the two men dropped a handful of gold diablos on the table.  Adams could see the soldier’s finger linger in the air for several seconds before punching down on the leftmost card.

The dealer nodded.  With a flourish, he turned over the chosen card:  the deuce of spades.

“I was sure I had it!” the soldier laughed.

“Private Santee, you and Corporal Gideon have been good sports,” said the dealer, pushing several coins back across the table.

“Thank you, sir.”  The soldiers grabbed up the offered money and walked away.

Walter Gibson chuckled and an unfiltered cigarette appeared in his hand, between two fingers covered with band-aids.  “You’d think that after all this time anyone in the army would know about Three Card Monty.”

John Adams pulled out a chair and sat down opposite the pulp writer, surveying the man’s fingers.  “When are you going to switch over to a word processor?  That manual typewriter is so outdated, and you certainly no longer have to turn out novels so fast it damages your fingers, do you?”

Holding up his hands, fingers splayed to show the band-aids, Gibson said, “You know that this is a little gift from His Infernal Majesty.  Who knew he didn’t like my pulp writing?  And, anyway, aren’t you the man who has been seen making notes with a quill pen in court?”

“That’s what people expect me to use, but even I am learning to adapt.”  Adams reached into the breast pocket of his Hawaiian shirt and pulled out a fountain pen that he displayed for Gibson.  “I’m starting to like the feel of it in my hand, but I wish it would stop leaking on my shirts.”

“Nice,” said Gibson.  “I’d love to use a word processor but my new contract with Hellizdat Publishing specifies that I have to use a manual typewriter to write for them.”  Gibson continued, “I’m not thrilled I had to join their Union but it was the only way I could get them to accept my proposal.”

“So you got a go-ahead on your proposals for that new pulp super-villain?  That’s excellent,” said Adams.  “But it’s not your literary skill I need right now,” said Adams.  “I require your knowledge of stage magic.”

Gibson smiled.  As successful as he had been in his life as a writer, stage magic had always been his true love.  From his sleeve he pulled a red scarf, wrapped it around the top of his empty beer bottle, and passed his hand over it twice.  The scarf on the bottle was now blue.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” said Adams.  “Stage magic:  no spells; no incantations – just illusions.  That
was
an illusion … wasn’t it?”

“Now, now, John.  That would be telling.  So what’s going on?”  Gibson leaned forward, elbowing aside his scarf-covered bottle of beer.

“I have a client who has been accused of cheating at chess.  He says he’s innocent and that there may be real magic involved.  But, it’s occurred to me that there may
not
be,” said Adams.

Gibson sat quietly for several moments, gnawing the edge of his lower lip with his teeth.  “Cheating at chess, now that isn’t something you can easily do.  I’ll make a few inquiries, if you would like, to see if any of the usual crowd has come up with any new illusions that could be applied to chess, although I rather doubt it.”

“The tournament is in two days,” said Adams.

“Two days.  Not much time.  I can give you a few telltales to watch for,” said Gibson.  “Have you considered the possibility that it may actually be a combination of real magic and sleight of hand?”

*

A cold wind blew down the street as Adams emerged from the tavern.  Gibson had given him something to think about.

A few people were drifting along the sparsely-trafficked streets around him.  Most had the glazed look of clerical workers who knew that in hell there was no end to their labors.  Adams doubted that most of them even noticed him.

Harmless, to the last damned soul, were these.  Yet as he walked, Adams couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following him who was not so harmless.  Long ago, his friend Hammett had taught him several ways to determine whether you were being followed without giving any sign that you were suspicious.  Adams wished he’d paid closer attention to Hammett’s tutelage.  Try as he might, he could not detect who following him.

Pausing just before an intersection with a rutted main road, his shoe bumped something.  Adams looked down and saw a broken chess piece lying directly in front of his left foot.

It was a rook, raggedly split in twain.  Picking it up, he was certain that the chess piece was made from the same stone as the one that Crowley had brought to his office.

The distinctive snick of a switchblade sounded.  Adams turned and saw a small curly-haired man in a frilly shirt and dark jacket, cleaning his fingernails with the point of his knife.

“Check,” the man said, his accent betraying a South London origin.  “Bad time to be out and about, mate.”

Before Adams could say anything, a red sports car came screaming down the street, its spoilers scraping potholes as the car weaved its way around slower vehicles.  Tires screeched on asphalt.  Though the car wasn’t close to him, Adams took a step back as the vehicle vanished quickly around the corner.

When Adams turned back toward the stranger, the man was gone.  On the ground where the stranger had been standing was another chess piece, this one unbroken.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Adams.

*

“I was wondering if you were going to make it,” said Aleister Crowley when he saw Adams enter the anteroom of the Demon’s Gambit chess club.

Adams looked up with a smile; he passed his traveling cape and tricorne hat to a wraithlike sycophant who materialized for the purpose.  The creature attempted to take Adams’ walking stick, but the former president retained a solid grip on it.

Adams approached Crowley.  “Not to worry, Mister Crowley.  I was delayed at the Hall of Injustice, with this heavenly audit going on.  The bureaucracy is frenzied; mistakes are multiplying.  Now, with Erra and the Seven involved, I don’t want to deal with the courts unless I absolutely must,” said Adams.

The high priest of Thelema seemed calm enough.  He held a book in his left hand and Adams noted a slight tremor in his fingers.  Nerves?  Palsy?  Or something else?

There was a small hand-held magnetic chess board on the side table near Crowley.  The pieces were arranged in a variation of a classic chess problem.

“So, have you felt an urge to cast any spells in relation to the tournament?” Adams asked his client.

“No, I have not.  I even considered the possibility of having one of my associates put a dampening spell on me that would prevent it,” Crowley said.  “However, I thought that might tip our hand to my enemy.”

“Yes, far better to be discreet,” said Adams.

The tournament would begin in one hour.  The Club was filling with members and visitors.  Static exhibits dominated the smaller rooms.  One featured a chess-playing computer.  Rumor had it that anyone who beat the machine would be entered into a drawing for a one-way ticket out of hell.  So far, no one had beaten the computer.  The few who tried to beat the computer and failed were reduced to Hiroshima-type shadows on the wall of the club.

A good way to earn you a ticket into the hands of the Undertaker, not to heaven, Adams thought.  Since he had awoken to find himself in hell, Adams had not once returned to the clutches of the Undertaker; his single memory of the Mortuary was one he’d rather forget.  He had gone to great lengths to avoid a return visit.

Adams watched Crowley work his away across the room, chatting with guests as he went.  Adams spotted several Dutch and Spaniards, heads together, probably up to no good, and Walter Gibson, stage magician and pulp writer, unobtrusively following in Crowley’s wake.

At the tolling of a huge clock on the wall, people took seats before the platform where three tables and boards were arranged.  On the far wall huge chessboards would reflect each move made by the players so that the audience could follow the games.  Several video broadcasts had utilized micro cameras at board level, but such programming had proved too boring even for hell.

To his surprise, Adams found himself interested in the progress of the tournament.  When Crowley’s round started, he defeated his first opponent, a captain in the personal guard of Czar Nicholas of Russia, in a dozen moves.  His next two were tougher, their games lasting nearly a half-hour each.

Crowley showed no sign, during his play, of being under any kind of external, or infernal, influence.  If there was a plot against Crowley, it was not evident … yet.

Two hours into the competition, Adams picked up his glass of wine and noticed the words
‘I have him
’
scrawled on his coaster.

Reaching into his vest, Adams got his hellphone and punched three numbers.  He hoped he remembered how to work the silly thing … and hoped it
would
work.  He longed for the simplicity of his quill and parchment.

Having placed the call, Adams knew it would just be a matter of time until the whole matter came to a head.  So he turned his attention back to his client who now sat at the center chess table.

Crowley’s opponent was a soul whom Adams had known in life:  Captain Meriwether Lewis, the American explorer.  Adams had approved Jefferson’s appointment of Lewis as co-commander of the expedition sent to map the Louisiana Purchase.

“I call foul, sir!  You are cheating!” said Lewis to Crowley.

The explorer pushed back from the chess table and glared at Crowley.  A tall gangly redhead in a black suit and string tie, Lewis loomed over the board like a scarecrow.

“Cheating?  Just how does one cheat at chess, sir?” said Crowley, remaining calm, per Adams’ instructions.  “I suspect you are far gone in your cups!”

Adams pushed through the crowd and climbed onto the platform, taking a position to the right of Crowley.

“You claim dishonor, sir?  Then I would suggest,” said Adams, “you explain yourself forthwith, proving your claim – or else you owe Mister Crowley and the other members of this club an apology!”

“I know you, Mister Adams.  You’ll not twist things to serve your own ends as you did in life,” warned Lewis, his voice steady.  Lewis brought out a palm-sized mirror, its surface fogged as if someone had breathed hard on the reflective surface.  “I was given this by François Duvalier.  It clouds up when someone within five feet tries to put a spell on me.  Aleister Crowley is the only one close enough to be doing so!”

The crowd’s murmurs grew louder, but Adams paid no attention.

“I think not, Captain Lewis,” said the former president.  “In this particular case, perhaps unlike other circumstances, my client is totally innocent.”

“I doubt that.  Mister Crowley is a dishonorable cheat,” said Lewis.  “Nothing you can do will change that fact, Mister Adams, no matter how you may twist the truth.”

“I don’t need to twist anything,” Adams said, pacing slowly back and forth along the edge of the platform.  “I fully admit that magic was involved in this incident.  Mister Crowley, kindly empty the contents of your coat pockets onto the chess table.”

Crowley stared at his lawyer for a moment, then complied.  He had a kerchief, a notebook, a snuff box and a small yellow stone incised with a complicated sigil.  “I’ve never seen that stone before in my life,” Crowley said.  “But I recognize the sign on it:  it’s a compulsion stone.  Put there by my opponent, Lewis, no doubt, in order to ensure his victory.”

“A likely story,” muttered Lewis.  “Besides, why would I need to use magic against Crowley to win?  I’m twice the player he is, if not more so.”

“I will leave assessment of the relative chess skills of Mister Crowley and Captain Lewis to those who know the game better than I,” said Adams.  “I will conjecture, Mister Crowley, that this isn’t the first time such a stone has been among your effects, even if you haven’t known about it.  Think for a moment, Mister Crowley:  was Captain Lewis present at your last chess tournament?”