Crusader (32 page)

I had no idea what she was saying. I was just really sorry I had insulted her like that. She got out of my face, walked back to the counter, and announced to everyone, "My name is Elizabeth Lopez."

Nina perked up at that. "Really? You're Cubana?"

Betty told Nina, "My father is."

"I never would have guessed that. What's your mother?"

"French Canadian."

"Oh yeah. What, are they really white up there?"

Betty clenched her jaw. "Some of them."

"So do you speak Spanish?"

"No."

"No? Your father doesn't speak it at home?"

"No. My father doesn't speak at home. Listen: This is stupid. You're all stupid. I'm leaving." Betty shot one more angry glance at me and walked out.

I felt like I needed to get out, too. I ducked over to the card shop, feeling very embarrassed and very stupid. Mrs. Roman was at the register. She told me, "I'm covering so Isabel can get some extra rest. She's not feeling well."

"Oh? What's wrong?"

"She says 'nothing in particular.' She just needs to sleep."

"Is she coming back to make the night deposit?"

"No. I'll have to do that alone, unless I can convince a big strong man like Leo to help me."

I turned and saw that Leo had followed me in. Leo spoke right up. "So, Millie, did you see the big show yesterday?"

"What show?"

"The flying Santa Claus?"

"No. But I heard about it from Isabel. You saw it?"

Leo winked at me. "Yeah, you could say that."

"So what happened?"

Leo chuckled mirthfully. "Nothin too much. Let's just say old Santa got hisself a swamp-water enema."

Mrs. Roman's eyes narrowed. "Don't joke about that, Leo. An enema is nothing to joke about."

I said, "Excuse me. I have to get back to work."

Uncle Frank came out front at eight-forty-five. He called everybody together and announced, "We're going to close the doors now. Here, Roberta, put this sign out." He held a homemade sign up so we could all see. It said
CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY.

I taped it on the glass door. I saw that he had made it on the back of Karl's
YES, WE'RE OPEN
sign. Then Uncle Frank told me, "Thank you. Now you can go. Kristin, you should go, too. Give Roberta a ride home."

Kristin looked puzzled. She told him, "I don't want to leave, Daddy. I want to know what's going on."

Uncle Frank answered flatly and efficiently, "What's going on is that the arcade has been rented for a private party. The people who have rented it wish to try some Arcane experiences that are not available to the general public. That's all I care to say about those experiences."

"Who rented it?"

"Devin. And some invited guests."

"Daddy, why are we doing this?"

"We're making five hundred dollars for this one-hour party. And we're being paid in cash."

"So why can't I stay?"

Uncle Frank swallowed hard. I could see that he absolutely hated this. He finally answered, "You'll be the only girls here. But I guess it's all right if you stay. I'll leave it up to you."

Uncle Frank handed a pile of new CDs and legend cards to Karl. He told him, "These are for the party only. At the end of the night we'll change them back to the regular experiences. Devin wants these four, and him." He pointed to Crusader. Then he spun around and walked into the back. We all gathered around Karl to read them.

There were four new experiences. They were titled Klan Ride, Lynch Mob, Krystallnacht, and Martial Law. The legends described them as providing
ultra-action and over-the-top thrills.
Two of the experiences, Klan Ride and Lynch Mob, featured blacks as the enemy. Krystallnacht had Jews. And Martial Law had
a horde of white America's enemies.

We all looked at each other. Kristin said to me, "Maybe we'd better go. I don't want any part of this."

I said, "You go ahead. I'd like to stay."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a reporter."

Kristin gritted her teeth. "Then I'm staying, too. But this is wrong. Nothing is worth this."

The back door opened. Devin walked in, followed by a line of young guys. I recognized one or two as Memorial High kids who had graduated, or who had dropped out.

Karl said, "Here, let's put these in." He gave a CD and a legend to Hawg, Ironman, and me. We each changed out an experience. I replaced Vampire's Feast with Martial Law.

Hawg sidled up to me after finishing with his. He muttered, "I'm not sure how many of these boys would pass Mrs. Bit-off's Random Drug Test."

Uncle Frank emerged from the back. He said to the entire room, "I want to lay down a few ground rules. First, no one is to leave these premises for any reason. The doors will remain locked at all times. The party will last one hour. There is to be no drinking, eating, or anything else." He looked at Devin. "That's all." I'm not sure how many of our guests were listening.

Devin looked at Kristin and me. He said, "You might want to send the chicks home. Things could get out of hand."

Uncle Frank leveled a stare at him. "No. Things are not going to get out of hand."

Devin held his bony hands up in surrender. He selected a helmet and stepped up onto Galactic Defender's black circle. It was now programmed for Krystallnacht. Karl walked over and started it for him. Then the other guests did the same thing. Soon all five experiences were going full swing.

Kristin whispered to me, "This is too creepy, Roberta. This is evil. Let's get out of here."

"No. I want to be here. But you go ahead. You should do what you think is right."

Kristin thought hard about it. "All right. I'm leaving. See you tomorrow." She let herself out the front door.

I heard a strange voice behind me. "So ... we've had our first casualty of the evening?"

I spun around to see Devin standing there, staring at me. He said, "Don't you worry. You're perfectly safe with me."

I lied, "I'm not worried."

He took a step closer. He seemed to be scrutinizing my face. "I knew you when you were a baby."

"You did?"

"Yes. Back on the Strip. I knew your dad and your mom." He moved even closer. "That's who you look like. You look like Mary Ann."

I hated hearing him use her name. I said, "You knew my mom?"

"Sure. We used to party together."

I didn't believe that for a minute. I told him, "Well, I sure don't remember you."

"No. You were too young. And right after you were born, your mom got super-straight. She wouldn't party at all."

"Oh no? What about my dad?"

"Your dad? Hey, your dad's another story. Didn't he ever tell you about me?"

"No. What's to tell?"

Devin smiled creepily. "Not a thing. But even if there was something, you wouldn't hear it from me."

I said, "Excuse me," and walked up behind the register. I observed the rest of the party from there, from afar. It was a bizarre and frightening scene. The guests, except for Devin, were all the same. They were all white, teenage males. Each had paid fifty dollars to attack and kill nonwhites, and they set about it with grim determination. Except for the swishing and hacking of the white wands, they made no sound. It was almost silent.

After about forty-five minutes, Uncle Frank came out and watched. He stood impassively, with his arms folded across his chest. He signaled me to come over. "Roberta, we'll give you a ride home after."

"That's okay, Uncle Frank. I'm staying with Mrs. Weiss tonight."

"How are you getting there?"

"I'm going to walk."

"Through that dark parking lot?"

"They have a security guard."

Uncle Frank shrugged. "All right. If you think it's safe..." Uncle Frank held his watch up to Devin. He said, "That's it. The hour's up."

The guests were definitely ready to leave. An hour of Arcane experiences is a very long time. They cleared out quickly, leaving us to restore the CDs and legends of the four altered experiences.

At ten o'clock, Hawg, Ironman, and I exited through the back door. I turned left and started walking toward Century Towers. But when those guys were out of sight, I took off running. I circled the south anchor and ran up to a small metal door near the front. I banged on it and slipped in as soon as Sam cracked it open. He said, "Did anybody see you?"

"No."

We crept up front and reclaimed our spots in the window of La Boutique de Paris. As soon as I sat down, I noticed a big mistake on the Arcane closing checklist. The Crusader statue was still out in the mallway. His unblinking blue eyes were aimed right at us.

Sam said, "How was the party?"

"How did it look from here?"

"Pretty sick. What was it about?"

"It was a party to try some Arcane experiences that are ... hardcore. That are worse than the usual ones."

"Worse than Crusader?"

"Yeah. Crusader was one of them, but I think the others were worse."

Sam shook his head sadly. "Who were the victims?"

"Blacks, Jews, and some assorted enemies."

"There always has to be an enemy, doesn't there?" Sam nodded thoughtfully. He told me, "I've been thinking about Crusader. I went home and did some reading. Do you want to hear about it?"

"Yeah. What were you reading?"

"Let's just call it the Arab version." Sam leaned forward and checked the mallway in both directions. Then he sat back and said, "There are at least two versions of what happened anywhere at any time. Usually more. On the Crusades ... If you listen to western historians talk about it, it was a holy war. Listen to an Arab historian and you'll get a truer picture of what happened." He asked me, "What do you think it was about?"

I answered, "Freeing the Holy Land."

"Really? Freeing it from whom? From the people who lived there?"

I added, "And helping the Christian pilgrims who were getting attacked."

"In Europe those pilgrims couldn't get a mile out of their home towns without getting attacked. Europe was a violent, lawless cesspool. Its roads were full of armed bands of thieves and murderers. So the Pope and some of the kings decided to export their problem to the East. The pope convinced some prominent thieves and murderers that the rewards were much bigger in Jerusalem, and the victims were much richer. So the crusaders put on the cross and headed for the civilized lands of
the East. They set upon peaceful towns like vicious animals. They beheaded thousands of innocent men and paraded around with the heads on stakes. They roasted little children alive and then ate them."

I shivered and screamed, "Get out!" Then I caught myself and peered carefully into the mallway. Nothing stirred.

"Hey, don't take my word for it. It's all in the histories. The Arab histories."

I whispered back, "Yeah? Where am I going to find those?"

"Waldenbooks." Sam paused and added, "I'm joking."

"I know."

We sat still for a half minute. Then he asked me, "So tell me, Roberta, what were they? God's own army of righteous pilgrims? Or a rampaging mob of bloodthirsty cannibals?"

I was ready for him. "It all depends on who's telling the story."

"You got it."

"But I believe that your version is just as prejudiced as mine."

"Believe whatever you want. Any way you look at it, it was a bloody mess. And it was all in the name of the cross."

I had heard enough. I mumbled, "Like Uncle Frank said, that was all a long time ago."

"Do you really think so? Do you know about your uncle Frank's Desert Storm? Do you know what happened in that?"

"Please, Sam. That's enough."

"You don't want to hear the Arab version?"

I looked at him. I thought to myself,
I'm a reporter; I need to hear things.
I said, "Okay, what?"

"Remember what Mr. Lyons's bulldozers did to Toby and his fellow turtles?"

"Yes."

"Well, the American army did the same thing to the Iraqis in Desert Storm. They trapped them in their desert trenches and then came at them with huge bulldozers. If the Iraqis ran, they got shot. If they didn't run, they got entombed under the desert sand. That's where they still are, I reckon. Just like old Toby."

I said, "I don't believe that."

"Okay. Don't."

After that we sat in stony silence for about five minutes. Now I felt anger at Sam—a patriotic American anger. I was trying to formulate something to say back to him, something about how he should be grateful to our soldiers, when I heard the noise.

Sam heard it, too. Footsteps. And they were hurrying our way. I felt my neck and my head moving forward. Sam's was moving the same way. We both pressed our faces against the Plexiglas, fogging it slightly, but not enough to obscure what we both saw. A figure was hurrying down the mallway, a man's figure.

The figure walked briskly up to the Crusader statue. He stopped and looked at it, as if wondering what to do. He was carrying a can. Was it spray paint? Yes, definitely. The figure set the can down on the mallway, and I could clearly read the words
GLIDDEN
and
PAINT
. The man unlocked the door. He pushed the Crusader statue inside. Then he scooped up his can and backed in. Before he relocked the door, he peered out to see if anyone was watching.

Someone was. Sam and I. We both inhaled with a sharp sound as we saw his face. It wasn't Hawg. It wasn't Devin or Karl, either.

It was Uncle Frank.

No question about it.

Sam and I sat there paralyzed. Finally Sam could whisper, "I was ready for that Hawg guy. But not this. If it was that Hawg guy, I was gonna go after him tonight. Now I don't know what to do."

I said, "Let's go down to Crescent and see if anything happened. Let's see if he painted anything."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea."

We unlocked the door from within and ventured out into the silent mallway. We ran down to Crescent, our adrenaline pumping, but there was no vandalism to be seen. The windows were all free of paint. Sam unlocked the door and went straight to a video camera that was trained on the front window. He removed its tape, stuck it into a VCR, and pressed Rewind.

I was glad Sam didn't ask me to help him, because I would have been useless; I was in a state of shock. He turned on a big TV, set it on Channel 3, and pressed Play.