Free Cape Hell by Loren D. Estleman Page A

truth to the rest.
    â€œThat he intends to liberate this country at last, most definitely. That he is a traitor”—thin shoulders rose above his pristine collar—“must be left to history. Washington and Jefferson were both marked for the gibbet had they failed to repel the British from their shores.”
    â€œSince you know so much about me, you must know also that I’m not interested in history lessons.”
    He sat motionless; but whether he was turning over what I’d said or planning his next move didn’t make it as far as his bland placid face. He knew his own way around a courtroom, it seemed.
    At length he stirred; I flexed the knuckles of the hand resting on the thigh nearest the Deane-Adams. But all he did was lift a small copper bell from the desk and shake it once. The tinkle was discreet, like everything else about him.
    A door opened at the back of the room. I gripped the butt of the revolver; only to relax once again when a boy entered in white cotton peasant dress and sandals. He couldn’t have been older than ten, with straight black hair cut square across his brows. Bonaparte spoke to him in clipped tones, in Spanish so rapid I couldn’t catch it. The boy withdrew, to return a moment later carrying a leather folder bound with a cord and placed it on the desk. He was dismissed with a snap of the hand.
    Bonaparte went on in his pleasant company voice, as if there’d been no interruption, untying the cord as he spoke.
    â€œDo not think that I shall warn the General of your coming. There is no telegraph to his plantation, and the bandit situation is such at present that no mounted messenger would accept the commission. At all events he is prepared perpetually for contingencies of every sort. It is you who should be warned.”
    â€œ Merci, Monsieur. ”
    â€œAh! Parlez-vous? ”
    â€œ Un petit. I spent a season in San Francisco.”
    â€œA cosmopolitan city, I am told.” He removed a bundle of paper from the folder and sorted it into stacks on the desk. His fingers were long, spatulated at the tips, and moved with the swift grace of a skilled faro dealer. “Yes, a most extraordinary man, the General; though he himself prefers the humbler rank of major. These are his papers, which I hope someday to donate to your Library of Congress, and ask no more than a footnote identifying myself as the contributor. Men such as I can hardly expect glory beyond that reflected from the blaze of the truly great.”
    I watched mesmerized as he placed portions of Childress’ meteoric life into prosaic piles, according to his file-clerk’s sense of order.
    â€œYour client conducts most of his affairs with the outside world through Cabo Falso,” I said. “How can you represent him from five hundred miles away?”
    â€œI agree the situation has difficulties. That I remain alive is not one of them.” He continued his activity, cutting no-doubt revealing documents like a deck of cards. “I am not courageous, like you. It is a failing, yes, but one over which I have no control. Would you condemn me if I were born without an arm or with my heart on the wrong side of my chest? It is the same, an unintentional omission on the part of our Lord. Cabo Falso is a nest of pirates and worse. A man of my sort would not survive a week. The General understands this, and thinks no less of me, because I am so much better equipped to deal with paperwork quite as crucial as fertilizer and harvesting equipment. It requires a measure of courage, I assure you, to take a dispatcher to task for a serious error in shipment.”
    He described his situation so practically I felt ashamed of my own lack of cowardice.
    I reflected on what he’d said about fertilizers and harvesting equipment. “He’s keeping up the pretense of producing sugar?”
    â€œThere is no pretense about it; quite the reverse. He produces more sugar than his five