Royal Flush (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 6) (11 page)

“I can see you’d appreciate our newest work of art.” She grabbed my hand and hauled me into the kitchen, to the far wall. There, above the kitchen table, was a framed full-color print of a lamp with the words
TURN THE LIGHTS OUT ON WORLD JEWRY
printed in black below it. The lampshade was made of sections stitched together. I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be until I saw faint suggestions of human features on a couple of the pieces. I felt the heat flush my face. I clenched my shaking hands together so I wouldn’t reach up and rip the damned thing off the wall and break it over her lunatic head. Fortunately, she was looking at the print, not at me.

“Of course, that was all a lie, you know.” She was talking again. I struggled to focus on her words. “There were no lampshades made of Jewskin. There was no Holocaust.” She took my hand, unclenching my fist, and led me back out of the kitchen, stopping again just outside the doorway.

“I can see you’re overcome by what I’ve shown you,” she said.

I took a few deep breaths. “Yes. I am.” I had to change the subject, quick. “So tell me, are you…” I hesitated, as if with awe. “Inner Circle?”

“Yes, indeed.”

I breathed deeply, looking at her nasty little face as if she’d just said she’d won a Nobel Prize.

Pete Ebner reappeared, heading our way.

“Having a good time, Jase?”

“A great time, Pete.”

“And what are you two talking about?”

“He wanted to know if Hal and me were Inner Circle.”

Pete narrowed his eyes.

“Kind of a personal question.”

“Just making conversation, Pete, getting my bearings. You know.”

“I
don’t
know. But I plan to find out.” He smirked, and I decided not to let him get away with what sounded like a threat.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Find out what? I swear—” I turned to Helen “—this man just keeps on saying things I don’t understand.” I laughed in a good-natured, tolerant, isn’t-he-funny kind of way. Helen shook her head and smiled.

I could tell Pete wasn’t having any, though, so I tried another approach.

“I want you to know, Pete, that I’m grateful for the opportunity to come here tonight.”

He shrugged. “Glad to hear that. Maybe you’ll get a real opportunity one of these days to do something for the Command. I mean, besides cooking dinner.” There was that smirk again. Was I supposed to hit him? Defend my manhood?

“I’d like that.”

He studied my face. “Helen, why don’t you explain to the new guy here how far he might have to go to serve the Command?” And he was off across the room again, on some other mission of intimidation.

Okay, so maybe Pete had gotten me here to impress me with something, something that he thought Helen could tell me. I turned toward her, expectant, trying to get a burning and dedicated look in my eyes while retaining Jason’s basic stupidity.

“Maybe he doesn’t trust you so much after all, Jason.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It just sounded like he was warning you about something.” Her eyes didn’t look quite so flat now. There was something hot in back of them.

“Well, I guess he feels he has to do that. I don’t mind.”

“Good.” She relaxed a millimeter. “Sounds like he wants me to talk to you some more, hmm?” She made it sound vaguely racy.

“Guess so. I’m ready and willing to hear whatever you have to say, Helen.”

“What do you know about Adolf Hitler?”

“Not a heck of a lot.” I chuckled. “You know, I got to admit I feel a little lost when people start talking about, you know, that history stuff. But I know he was a great leader. I know we could maybe use someone like him in the U.S. today, get some of the garbage and criminals off the streets, know what I mean? He was all for white people, I know that.”

“Yes. He was. And he was willing to die for his beliefs.”

I nodded appreciatively— that part wasn’t hard, appreciating his death.

“He was ready to kill for them too, Jason. Are you?”

She was leaning toward me, staring intensely into my eyes as if she were trying to read my mind. I tried to wipe it blank.

“If I had to, I guess I could. Never thought about it much, but there’s been a time or two…” I gazed into the middle distance, thinking about some of the scummier characters I’d met on cases before, getting a look of distaste and anger and maybe even hate on my face.

“Kind of an exciting thought, isn’t it?” Her face was no longer pale, but flushed and shining as if she were on the verge of orgasm.

I thought about sex— not with her— trying to create the same effect on my face. “Yeah, you know, it is…”

“See, what Pete was saying, I think, was that if you really belong in the Command we’ll find out. That you’ll be tested. That if you pass the test you’ll be in. And if you don’t…” She raised her hand to her throat, forefinger extended, and ran it across in the familiar throat-slitting motion. She was grinning. She was having a really good time.

“Jeez, this is getting more and more exciting.” I lowered my voice and widened my eyes. “You think this test is going to happen soon?”

She leaned back against the wall and smiled slyly at me. A high-pitched giggle bubbled up.

“That’s for me to know,” she said in a little-girl treble, “and you to find out.” Then she turned and ran into the kitchen, toward the refrigerator. She even skipped once or twice along the way.

Helen Harte, I was now sure, was completely insane.

I glanced across the room and saw Floyd looking at me. He waved me over to where he stood with Red.

Still recovering from the conversation with Helen, I walked slowly toward Floyd and Red. Before I got halfway there, the beautiful woman I’d met at the bar approached me. Gilly. She must have arrived while I was getting Hal’s fifty-cent lecture or watching Helen’s weird performance.

“Jason. Royal’s cousin. Nice to see you again.” Her hazel eyes were deep and flecked with gold. Was there a hard, cold light back in there somewhere, or was it my imagination? Her smile was warm. When she looked at me I felt nervous, attracted, and disgusted that I could be attracted to one of these mutants. I did not like the way she made me feel. Correction. I did not want her making me feel that way.

“Nice to see you too, Gilly.”

She hovered right at the edge of my personal space, threatening to break through and into it. I backed away, smiled, and told her I had to go talk to Floyd about something, and that I would see her later.

Turning away from Gilly, I damn near crashed into Leslie.

“Hey, Jase. Thought you were spending the evening with your dad.”

“Oh, just dinner. Then Royal invited me along to this great party— he asked Pete Ebner if he could bring me, and Ebner said okay.” Ebner was talking to Zack. They looked very serious.

“Really? Well, that’s pretty quick. Listen, I was thinking. I got some great websites you might want to check out.”

I shrugged and grinned. “Not too sharp in that department, Leslie. Got to go talk to Floyd. Catch you later?”

She sneered. “How fast can you run?”

Pretty damned fast, in the other direction. But I slowed down a little as I passed Ebner and Zack, trying to hear a few words. I caught two— Farrier’s and something-busting. Farrier’s was an upscale shop in north Berkeley. What was that about? I’d have to ask Royal.

Red and Floyd gave me the one of the standard greetings: a strong, silent nod.

“Floyd. How ya doing, Red?”

“Good, Jase.” Red’s nod got more energetic. “Real good. Hey, the couch is empty, let’s go sit over there.” He burped.

The three of us, Floyd, Red and me, sat and drank beer— I drank mine very slowly— and watched the party drag on.

Ebner was all over the place, backslapping and looking intense. The warriors did a lot of arm-punching and haw-hawing and drank huge quantities of beer. Leslie hung around their fringes, along with a couple of other young females similarly dressed and buzz-cut. I wondered if they wanted to be warriors. I wondered if it was ever allowed. Always a cheerleader?

I heard the words “ZOG” and “Thunderskin” a few times, “KKK” once. Hal walked by with Karl at one point, raving about the IRS.

I poked Floyd in the ribs to get his attention. “I’ll bet that Ebner’s been in this group a long time, huh?”

Floyd nodded. “Yeah. A while. I been in two years, he was in before me.” He muttered something beery about “takin’ a leak,” heaved himself to his feet, and ambled away.

Just me and Red now. Ebner, circulating closer to us, caught Red’s eye and looked at his watch.

“Think it’s time, huh, Red?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Ebner squared his shoulders and marched over to the rear wall of the living room. I hadn’t noticed it before: a roll of fabric up near the ceiling, with a rope hanging down from it. Ebner put out his hands, palms up, asking for quiet. Group by group, one by one, people turned to look at him and went silent.

“We have Hal and Helen to thank for this historic moment. They designed this flag and they made it. Let’s give them a big hand.” Flag? We were going to see a flag? Enthusiastic applause tailing off to a quiet tension, waiting, excitement ready to bust loose.

Ebner went on, his voice soft but building. “I’m really happy to see you all here tonight, to look around this room and see all you brave, clean young men, ready to go out and do battle for the white race.” He stifled an outburst of cheers with his raised hands. “Save it. Save it for the flag.” Then, louder: “Together, we’ll get the job done, and we’ll march across this country and across the world carrying this flag—thousands of these flags! The sacred banner of the Aryan Command!” He raised a fist, then in a single movement, grabbed the rope and pulled. The flag unrolled. The room exploded in cheers and roars and screams and foot-stomping joy.

At first glance I thought it was the stars and stripes. It had the right stripes, red and white, but where the blue field of white stars should have been was a black field with a white swastika.

The beer threatened to erupt from my clenched stomach. I covered my mouth, tears spilling from my eyes. Red was staring at me.

I caught my breath, forced the beer back where it belonged, and smashed my fist down on the coffee table. “Incredible,” I said. “So incredible. It damn near makes me cry.”

I invited Cousin Royal for a short stroll outside. “I’m going to leave in a little while, Royal. You staying?”

“I guess I have to. It’s for us. For the warriors. They’d think it was strange if I left early. I never did before.”

“Can you get a ride?”

“Sure. Zack or maybe Skink. No problem.”

“I heard something. About Farrier’s. Tomorrow. Do you know what that’s about?”

“Oh, yeah— tomorrow. Nothing much. Some lefties are going to protest something, I forget what, and some of the guys are going to break it up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged, looking a little sullen. “I said it was no big deal. Not a secret or anything. A lot of guys are going.”

“Are you?”

“I guess so. I told Zack I would.”

We had walked down the street a couple hundred yards. I stopped, under a huge eucalyptus, and pulled Royal to a halt with me.

“Listen, Cousin— I need to be kept informed and you need to let me know what the hell’s going on. Maybe you don’t think this is important— and maybe it isn’t— but I’ll decide. Got that? And get that damned beeper so I can call you!”

His eyes narrowed, his lip curled. “Shit, man, pull that stick out of your ass.”

That was a lot more than I was willing to take from this punk. I grabbed the neck of his T-shirt and twisted. “If I do, I’ll apply it to yours. You’re my mole, remember that. You let me know what’s going on. You don’t make decisions about what I know and don’t know. That’s dangerous for me and for you and Deeanne too. Let me do the thinking, Royal.”

His gaze shifted away from me and dropped. His shoulders sagged. I let go of his shirt. It was all stretched out.

“Okay, Jake. I’m sorry, okay? I, like, forgot about it. It’s not like that’s where they’re going to kill someone or something, like we talked about. Don’t be all, Royal’s trying to hide shit. I’m not, okay?” I believed him. What a dummy. “I’ll try to remember to tell you everything I hear, okay? And I will get a beeper. Some of the guys have got ’em. It won’t look bad or nothing.”

“Good. What time is this protest?”

“I think morning, like ten.”

“Find out for sure and call me if it’s another time.”

He nodded and started walking away.

“One more thing,” I said. He stopped and turned his face toward me, his body still in escape mode.

“The paper said there was some trouble last night— a cemetery, a church, a gay bar— anyone I know responsible?”

“Yeah.” He looked at his boots. “Zack and Skink.”

Big surprise. “On their own?”

“’Course not. Red put it together.”

“Was it part of this big plan you told me about, with Switcher, and—”

“Nah. Just a Red Run.”

“A what?”

“A Red Run. Just practice. Games. Maneuvers. Red sets ’em up sometimes.”

So Red got his kicks by setting up war games. Nothing that counted for much. Maybe a bone Ebner threw him to keep him in line. Or Steve.

“And this thing tomorrow? At Farrier’s? Is that just a Red Run?”

“Not exactly. I think it’s a little bigger than that. I think it’s connected with the plan. Some way.”

Clear as mud. We started walking back, but I stopped him again. “Leslie mentioned those Thunderskin websites. Maybe I should take a look at those.”

“Maybe. I did, once. They’re all, like, ‘Odin,’ and ‘Thor,’ and those guys. Leslie says this Odin’s the big god of warriors, but they talk about Thor a lot too. Some of them even, like, worship them, I mean they’re not even Christians or anything.”

“But the Command isn’t Thunderskin?” I was still trying without much success to get a handle on how everything tied together, if it did— Nazis, KKK, survivalists, Thunderskins…

“Well, like I said, not part of it. You know, people check it out. Different groups, you know.” I didn’t. And neither, obviously, did he. Lots of splinter groups, no solid core? I hoped.