Leatherman slouched in the tall, tattered desk chair that stood behind the broad expanse of desk in the round room of the big white house that was the President of the Slavestates' palace. There were uglier men than Leatherman—a couple, anyway—but you didn't see them much. Leather looked as if someone had tried to dismantle him piece by piece. He was missing an eye. The aching socket was covered by a ragged piece of hide, the straps running around his head lost in a thicket of long, lank, greasy hair.

A jagged, deep, three-pronged scar ran from his forehead, under the eyepatch and out the other side, continuing down his cheek like a river delta. The torn flesh had grown back a brilliant white in contrast to Leather's ruddy, heavy, bearded skin. An extremely savage blow had carved that scar in his face. It had been struck with a broken bottle which had popped the eye in the socket, and had ripped Leather's cheek to flapping ribbons of skin. Dara, Bonner's girl a long time back, had done it. She died.

Leather was a big man. Not Beck or the Mean Brothers' big, but a good six feet something and a couple of hundred pounds. He was beginning to get a belly, because of all the people on the continent Leatherman lived the best. Good food and plenty of it, good liquor, plenty of time to snooze, to fuck, to have a good time, Other people did his fighting for him.

He had no hands. In their place were wooden stumps set with knives: two blades on the right hand, one on the left. Bonner had amputated them with an axe. The blades had belonged to Bonner. Bonner regretted cutting off Leatherman's hands. He had struck those terrible, clean, swift blows intending to kill Leatherman—once a friend of the Outrider, now his greatest enemy.

Bored, Leather shifted and planted his scuffed boots on the fine finish of the old desk. He glared across at the Tax General who was reading from a grimy piece of paper.

"You are boring me, man," said Leatherman.

"Sorry, Leather." The Tax General, a worried-looking man named Al, was relieved. Maybe Leatherman would tell him to get lost, which meant that Al wouldn't be the one to give him the bad news.

"You want me to go?" asked Al, his voice full of hope.

"No. Just skip the boring parts."

Al tried to decide if the bad news could be called a boring part.

"So anyway," Al continued, "the convoys brought in some veg'tibles, you know, like beets 'n carrots 'n . . ."

"I could give a shit about vegetables, asshole."

Midsentence, Al changed subject. "And Lardner and Ziggy got good loads of gas. Lotsa gas . . ."

"How much?"

"Hundred, maybe two hundred barrels apiece."

"That's good," said Leather. "And I hear Swifty is bringing more down from the northeastern quarter."

Oh shit, thought Al, the bad news. "Yeah. That's what we hear."

"You don't know yet?" Leatherman was carving a little groove in his desk with the blade where his left hand used to be.

Al gulped. "No, not yet."

"So where's Swifty?"

"Not in yet."

Slowly, Leatherman swung his legs off the desk. "Awful late, ain't he?"

"Maybe something mechanical. You know, maybe one of the trucks fucked up."

"Maybe," said Leather. "What do you think, Snotty?"

The last remark had been addressed to a Radlep who was slumped against the wall, a huge over-and-under shotgun resting across his boney knees. He was the new Captain of Radleps, Leather-man's Praetorian guard: radiation lepers, men so badly contaminated by radiation that they were going to die. This slow, painful death deranged them—it also made them fearless. While they lived Leathennan made sure they would never want for anything: gas, girls, guns, they were had for the asking. In return a Radlep had to be prepared to die for Leathennan and take as many of his enemies with him as possible. There were a lot of Radleps—most people figured way too many—but there were more enemies.

It wasn't hard to see how Snotty had gotten his nickname. His nose had been eaten away so two green-gray streams glistened constantly on his scarred upper lip.

"Maybe," rasped Snotty, his voice thick with throat

scum. "Could be mechanical."

"Hey, Al, you strapped?" asked Leathennan as if he was bumming a DT.

Al froze. Leathennan had asked if he was carrying a gun. That was always a bad sign. "Yeah," he whispered, "I'm walking strapped."

"Just wonderin'." Leather eased his feet back onto the desk top. "So what else you got for me? Gimme some more of that there report."

"Well, uh, we got some new 'lep recruits."

"How many?"

" 'Bout sixteen."

"Hear that Snotty? Sixteen new 'leps. That's good news, huh?"

"Great," said Snotty in his oily voice.

Al was beginning to relax. A mistake. "New pussy, too."

"Yeah? How much?"

"Thirty. Forty."

"Now that's good news, no?"

"Any young ones?" asked Snotty, "wit nice tits and blonde hair."

"Uh, yeah," said Al.

Leather whooped. "Yours, buddy!"

Snotty pulled his mucous, slick lips apart. He showed a row of brown stumps that once upon a time were teeth. That ugly display was what passed for a smile on a Radlep's face.

"So Al, what kind of gun you carry?"

Al's throat went dry. "Gotta Colt."

"Nice. What kind?"

".38 Special. It's a little fucked up."

"So what else you got for me?"

Al looked puzzled. "What do you mean, chief?"

"I mean you got other reports there? I mean, it's fuckin' harvest time, right? There's gotta be a lotta stuff coming into the Cap. Or am I wrong?"

"No, no, no, Leather, you ain't wrong," Al hurried to assure the generalissimo. He had plenty of good news and he had no worries about giving it to his boss. There were three pages of crudely kept notes to read off, grain and corn and livestock and a dozen other commodities. The Bomb had done a good job of messing up the country but that was all a long, long time ago. Things were growing, sort of, and Leatherman and his hard guys made sure they got more than their fair share. The trouble was that Leatherman didn't give a damn how many beets or squashes Al had managed to get hold of.

"I-I can tell you about food . . ." he stammered.

"Fine. Tell me about food."

Al launched into a short recitation about wheat. Leatherman interrupted him.

"Sure is funny . . ."

Al stopped. "What is boss?"

"Swifty. Him being late 'n all."

"Happens every day," said Al.

"Oh yeah? Who else is late?"

Fuck, thought Al, walked right into the goddam trap.

"Hear that. Snot? Al here says it happens every day."

"No shit," coughed Snotty.

"Seems so," said Leather affably. "So tell us about it, Al my man."

"No, Leather, what I meant was that, you know, convoys get held up and you know they have breakdowns. . . . And you know, a lot of shit. Sometimes there's more stuff to bring out of the fields and it takes a while to get loaded. You know, it could be anything . . ."

"Yeah," said Leather, "ain't it the truth. Life is hard that way."

"Sure is, boss."

"So tell me, Al, how many convoys are late?"

Al figured he might as well give it to the Man straight. "Sixteen."

Leatherman shook his head for a minute digesting the fact. "Sixteen. Sixteen ..." Then he started speaking very slowly and low. "Sixteen convoys are late. Sixteen fuckin' convoys. Hey, Al, what do you think I got, shit for brains?"

"No, Leather, I don't think . . ."

Leatherman ignored his lieutenant. "You are some kind of asshole. You don't think I know how many convoys we send out. Listen to me, man. I know everything. Everything that goes on in the Cap, I know. I happen to know that we sent out thirty-seven convoys. I also happen to know that they are all back. Except, now I find out that we got sixteen missing. Man, that is news to me. I don't want you coming in here telling me about all the fuckin' broccoli you found when there are sixteen convoys missing. That is what I want to hear right at the beginning. Man, you are one stupid fuck. You were hoping that I wasn't gonna ask, weren't you. Weren't you, dickface?"

"No, Leather, I was gonna get to it. I just thought . . ."

"I used to have a Tax General. He lied. He died. Remember him, Al?"

"Yes, Leatherman. But listen, Mac, he stole from you. I ain't stealing from you ..." Mac had also ended up with his brains splattered all over the wall behind Al.

"You told me you could do this job."

"I can."

"But we still got sixteen convoys missing."

"They ain't missing. They're late."

Leathennan shook his head wearily. "Don't lie to me, man. Don't fuck with me. They're gone. You mention every reason why a convoy would be late except for two. The two big ones . . ."

"Yeah," said Snotty from the comer.

"You might got some runaways. Nice Stormerboys who got themselves a whole truckload of gas or something and then say to themselves 'Fuck, why should I give this good shit to the Leatherman.' The Leathennan who gave 'em guns and food. No. They figure they could just cut out to Chi-town and hole up with them fucking degenerates there and sell my shit and get rich. No fuckin' respect. Or they're good boys, loyal, do what they're told. They know they go out on the road and get the stuff and come back and they know that Leathennan is going to take care of them. Loyal but stupid. You know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah," said Snotty emphatically.

Al didn't know what the Man was talking about, but he nodded vigorously anyway.

Leathennan was getting angrier and angrier. His face had gone red and that made the scar glow like a white river of lava in the shallow valley it carved in his face. When Leather got like this it was, in Al's experience, best to nod and agree and do anything Leather wanted until you got the fuck out of there.

"You know what I mean, right? I'm talking about riders. That scum that live in Chi-town. They don't follow no rules. They take what don't belong to them, shit they ain't worked for. They cut up my boys and they take my shit. Those guys, man, someday ..." Leather pounded his blades on the desk. '''Someday . . . You know, Al, this is why these motherfuckin' convoys ain't here. They ain't comin' and it's 'cause they either fucked off to Chicago or they got took down by those fuckin bad-news riders, like that shithole Bonner. So don't tell me mechanical."

Leathennan stopped abruptly. "Gimme your gun."

Al paled. "Leather, please man, I can't help it if the convoys run into trouble with riders. I mean ..." A cold trickle of sweat ran down his back. "I mean if I had my way the convoys would go out and the convoys would come back just the way we plan things. I don't steal nothin', I work hard for you . . ."

Snotty had pulled the nicked and scarred Colt from Al's thick leather belt. "Awww no man ..." whined Al. "Look, Leather, gimme a break. It ain't my fault. It's them riders. It's Bonner and the rest of them creeps . . ."

Snotty had jammed the blunt nose of the Colt up against Al's temple. Al had heard that Leather liked to have men killed with their own guns . ..

Something made him keep on talking. His brain was no longer keeping track of what he said. He just looked into Leather's eyes and spoke. He had grown very pale and his face was bathed in sweat.

"We oughta go in there, boss, we oughta go into Chi and get rid of them. Yeah. Then the convoys would move, no problem. And there's a lotta good shit in Chicago, I bet. I'm telling you all we gotta do is take some Stormers and 'leps and kill them riders dead. Get it?"

Attacking Chicago flew in the face of conventional wisdom. The rulers of the few feudal states that took up the continent felt that the risks and costs involved in cleaning out the nest of very tough, very dangerous, very handy-with-a-gun men that made the last open city home was not worth the rewards. Al didn't care about all that. He was just interested in staying alive.

"Want me to waste him, boss?"

Leather took a few seconds before replying. "No," he said finally, "no. The man has given me an idea."

Al sighed heavily,

"Yeah," said Leather, "the man has given me an idea. A very good idea. Let him go."

"I ... I ... Leather, I'm telling you, you won't regret this . . ."

"Regret what?" said Leatherman.

"Letting me live."

"Stop sniffling, asshole. Get outta here."

"Yes, boss," said Al, heading for the door.

"Hey, Al," Leatherman called after him.

Al froze. "Yes, boss?"

"Dontcha want your gun back?"

"Yes please, boss."

"Give it to him. Snotty. One bullet at a time."

Snotty raised the Colt.

Al shrieked, took a step back, and threw his arm up to protect his face, as if that would do any good against six slugs fired at close range from a heavy-weight-Colt revolver.

Instead of the sharp crack of the gun Al heard Leatherman's deep laugh. Slowly Al took his arm down from in front of his face.

"Just a little joke, Al. Give him his gun. Snotty."

Al took the gun and walked out of the office trembling.

"Asshole," he thought.

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