The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America by Michael Kurland, S. W. Barton

how pretty the voice is. I’ve got to protect myself—you can see that.”
    “You can call me Cash,” the girl said. “Two hundred a weapon, I believe was the price.”
    “No prices were mentioned over the phone,” he said.
    “You quoted that to a friend of ours once,” she said softly, into his ear.
    Calvin was developing a very strong urge to find out what this girl looked like. “Go away,” he told her, “and tell whoever you work for that either I deal face to face and only with principals, or I don’t deal.”
    She thought that over. “You’ve got the merchandise?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why do you care who deals?”
    “I got high ethical standards,” he told her. “You want these beautiful pieces of machinery for revolutionary activities, that’s one thing. You want to start a gang war or go shooting up the proletariat, that’s something else.”
    She got up and walked around the table, sitting in the chair opposite Calvin. She had short, fluffy blonde hair and a round face, and might have been as old as twenty, maybe.
    The dungarees and pea jacket didn’t go with the hair, which looked as though it had seen the inside of a beauty parlor in the recent past. Then Calvin caught on: it was a blonde wig—and she had shaved her eyebrows off.
    “Okay,” he said, “we deal. What’s your name?”
    “Zonya. How many pieces can you get?”
    “How many can you pay for?”
    “We can take five now,” she said. “What about ammunition?”
    “I can get you a little.”
    “A little isn’t good enough. Our people have to have practice.”
    “Hell, they use standard forty-five caliber ammo,” he told her. “Any gun store in the country outside of New York will sell it to you.”
    “Oh,” she said. ‘That’s okay then. Five pieces and whatever ammo you have for a thousand dollars. Are they near here?”
    “I can put my hands on them,” he said. “But the price has gone up since you overheard that conversation.”
    She pushed her chair back. “Listen, mister,” she said, her voice a hard squeak, “don’t try to rip us off.”
    Calvin put his hands palms up on the table. “Look, Zonya, machine guns don’t grow on trees. You want to wait awhile, I can probably get you some cheaper guns—but these ain’t them. Besides, whatever you think you need machine guns for, shotguns will probably do just as well, and them you don’t need me for.”
    “We want machine guns,” she said stubbornly, not willing to discuss it.
    “Fourteen hundred dollars,” Calvin said.
    “Twelve,” she said.
    “I don’t bargain,” Calvin told her. “Whoever told you about me should’ve told you that.”
    “He said you were interested in helping revolutionary movements,” she said. She was gradually working her way up into a rage, her hands opening and closing in her lap.
    “Cool it!” Calvin said. “Keep your cool!”
    Zonya sat there for a minute, staring at him as though she were trying to read his face, and then she said, “I guess I’m not very good, am I?”
    “Nope,” Calvin said immediately. “You came here to score weapons, not to get insulted by what I say. You haven’t been at this very long.”
    “I’ll learn,” she said. “We’ve got to get as tough as iron, resilient as earth, and relentless as rain. Mao said that.”
    “What’s the name of your group?” Calvin asked.
    “We’re the People’s Revolutionary Brigade,” she told him.
    “I’ve never heard of you.”
    “We’re new.”
    The waitress brought over the refill and took his soiled cup away. Calvin watched her leave—she had a nice ass—and turned back to Zonya. “You have friends in any other groups, one I might’ve heard of maybe, who can vouch for you?”
    She thought about it for a minute and came out with a name.
    “Never heard of him,” Calvin said.
    “He’s in the Weatherpeople,” she said. “At least that’s what he told me.”
    “Well, I never heard of him. But then I don’t know all the