Royal Flush (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 6) (12 page)

I went back to the party with Royal, just so it wouldn’t look like the flag had chased me away, but it was still hanging there and it still made me sick, so half an hour later I made a big show of being really tired and a little drunk and took off.

When I got home I fired up my slow 486, got on Netscape, and searched the word “Thunderskin.” There were a bunch of sites listed, one in Germany, one in Britain, and one called “Thunderskin Warlord.” Most of the headings I clicked on led nowhere. A couple gave e-mail addresses for further contact. Some led to warnings that I was about to be offended, but I could go ahead and enter if I was not homosexual, Jewish, drugged out, or nonwhite. A couple of them led to elaborately graphic home pages with various emblems— burning shields with crossed lightning, stars with crossed lightning, Confederate flags with crossed lightning. One of the elaborate ones included an apology that said its creators wanted to make it “Members Only” but were “having trouble” getting set up. Another promised to “return” at some unspecified time. An “international list of addresses” came with the disclaimer: “Don’t complain here if you don’t get no answers.”

I was, certainly, offended. I was also a little relieved by their lack of organization. Prospective members would have to be a lot more motivated than I was to make contact. The original Nazis were a lot more efficient.

Royal didn’t call me that night or early the next morning, so I assumed— hoped, anyway— that ten was the hour, and let Rosie know what was up. She offered to come along for the ride.

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to go, as Jason or as myself. This was not an easy decision. Royal had said this thing, whatever it was, was no secret in the group, but that didn’t mean that it would be okay if he told someone on the fringes, like Cousin Jase. And I didn’t want them seeing me there and testing my loyalty by inviting me in on whatever they were doing. Which meant I should put on the curly wig and wear normal clothes. But with a bunch of warriors around, I was worried that someone might recognize me as Jason anyway, and wonder what I was playing at.

Rosie came in on the side of the wig and tipped the scale. This would be the rug’s first major public appearance.

I picked up Rosie and Alice B. The poodle loved riding in my convertible. Rosie’s dark hair was covered by a straw sun hat and she was wearing her baggiest overalls.

“You going for the Iowa cornfield look?”

She explained that she hadn’t wanted to look like her real self but was saving her more complete disguise for her “Thor’s drag.” Which was going to include a blond wig, she said. It was all getting very complicated.

We got to north Berkeley by 9:30, and as close to Farrier’s as Shattuck and Vine, when we heard the sound of voices raised in that old familiar, Vietnam-era chant— “Hell no, we won’t go!” I wondered, where was it they would not go?

I figured some of them had just gotten their records stuck in 1968 and couldn’t say anything else.

I grabbed the first parking place I came to, Rosie slipped the leash onto Alice’s collar, and we jumped out of the car, looking for the source of the noise. We weren’t the only ones; lots of heads were turning. North Berkeley was not that often the site of demonstrations, certainly not these days; most protestors still seemed to enjoy doing it at Sproul Plaza, right on campus, in the traditional fashion.

About a block away, we could see a dozen or so people marching and waving signs. They were heading in the direction of Farrier’s, a yuppie clothing shop that specializes in imports. When we got close enough to read their signs, I began to get a glimmer of what they were protesting. Overseas child labor,
BOYCOTT THE CHILD-KILLERS!
one sign read. Another:
THIRD-WORLD CHILDREN DIED TO MAKE FARRIER’S RICH
. Printed in large red letters across the bottom of each sign was the name of Frasier’s group— ThePeople. At the head of the parade was someone I recognized from newspaper photos, a tall, gaunt man with red hair, the curly orange kind, that stuck out all over his head. Not like a perm, more like a foaming fountain. And lots of big freckles on his face and arms. Cary Frasier. I pointed him out to Rosie.

I had mentioned to her that Royal had a vague idea that maybe the left-leaning target slated for the Command’s grand plan was— possibly, not necessarily— Cary Frasier.

“They’re planning to kill the lefty after the righty, isn’t that so?” she asked me.

“That’s what Royal said.”

“But if he’s wrong…”

“This could be a hit.”

“Okay. Just in case, then.” Like Superman, she ducked inside a phone booth. Unlike Superman, she didn’t undress. She just made a quick call.

“Couldn’t reach Hank or Pauline— I think the cop I talked to was humoring me.”

“Great.”

We caught up with the action in time to see ThePeople march right up to Farrier’s door and plant themselves in front of it. A couple of customers who had been about to go inside backed away. One guy turned around and damned near ran down the street. Maybe he’d OD’d on protests in the Sixties and thought he was having a flashback. Alice, who’s a really tough watchdog, was looking pretty tense and standing pressed against Rosie’s side.

The owner of the store, a small, thin woman with platinum hair, burst out of the door waving her arms, red-faced, and began pushing at the protestors, screaming shrilly at them to go away and leave her shop alone. They didn’t argue with her, but they didn’t move, either.

“So that’s where hell-no-they-won’t-go,” I said to Rosie. “Away from the door.” She rolled her eyes— at them or at me, I couldn’t tell.

“It’s a lie!” the owner shouted, but her cries were drowned out by their chants: “Boycott the child-killers,” and, still, “Hell no, we won’t go!”

“I’m calling the police!” the owner screamed, but nobody cared.

ThePeople had actually brought a wooden crate with them, not a soapbox but a reasonable facsimile, and Frasier climbed onto it and held up his hands, asking the chanters to stop. He started shouting something about dead children and slave labor. The store owner had given up and gone back inside, presumably to alert the law. That was good; another call couldn’t hurt. The demonstrators began walking in a circle. A few passersby stopped to listen.

Frasier had just gotten to the part about Farrier’s participation in the exploitation of the third world when a light blue pickup truck screeched to a stop at the curb and several yelling warriors leaped out. Alice started barking. Rosie hushed her. We were looking at the truck’s passenger side, and without getting closer, I couldn’t tell who was behind the wheel.

Royal wasn’t with them.

There was Zack. Skink. Washburn. A couple of kids I’d seen around but didn’t know. They were all wearing leather jackets and boots and carrying what looked like police nightsticks. I didn’t see any guns.

Just to be sure none of the boys saw me, even though my wig, khakis, and striped shirt created a pretty good non-Jason effect, I touched Rosie’s arm and shuffled sideways to hide myself behind a clump of retreating spectators. She shuffled with me.

The warriors swarmed through the demonstrators, waving their nightsticks and chanting, “Two-six-oh-five Barclay Street!” over and over again. I heard the sound of hard wood hitting muscle and bone. Frasier’s people scattered, cursing and screaming. Skink, still chanting, shoved Frasier off his box, and three protestors rushed to his side to help him up.

Our little knot of concerned citizens was moving and splitting up at the same time. Our thin shelter was evaporating. As I looked around for new cover, I caught a glimpse of one of the skin-chicks who’d been at the party with Leslie the night before, leaning against the window of the store next to Farrier’s. Buzz-cut black hair, bony body. She’d been looking my way, and I couldn’t tell from her sulky expression if she’d recognized me or even seen me.

Rosie was pulling at me with one hand and at Alice, who was straining at the leash, woofing in her deepest voice, with the other. I followed her into a nearby recessed doorway. We tucked ourselves in and kept on watching.

The warriors fought the protestors for their signs, won, and smashed the wood and cardboard against the sidewalk, against the fire hydrant, against the front wall of Farrier’s. A woman standing near us began crying. The warriors kept on smashing. And over and over again, they shouted those words: “Two-six-oh-five Barclay Street!”

Then, as suddenly as they had come, they were back in the bed of the truck and the truck was roaring up the street. I noticed there was an Aryan Command flag tied to the tailgate over the license plate, a foot-long version of the monstrosity Ebner had unfurled the night before. I couldn’t help but wonder if Helen had spent the night sewing it.

The crying woman mumbled something about “poor Cary,” who was, in any case, still alive, and I asked her if she knew what the Barclay-Street chant meant.

“Of course,” she said. “That’s Cary Frasier’s home address.”

The police arrived a few seconds later, responding to somebody’s call, and seemed surprised to find the protest already shattered and some of the picketers slightly injured. One man sat against the store wall holding his bleeding nose. A woman was nursing a wrist that seemed to hurt a lot.

Frasier, wearing a red abrasion on his cheek, accosted one of the cops, yelling, “This is what happens, when—” but the cop managed to quiet him down.

I was shaken by the suddenly-there, suddenly-over blitzkrieg attack, by the violence, and by the powerful intimidation tactic the Command had used— shouting the man’s own address at him. I also had a minute’s worry that the driver of the truck might have spotted me. The warriors had been busy pillaging, but he’d just sat there waiting, and would have had time to look the crowd over.

Ah, what the hell, I told myself. Different hair, different clothes, and somehow, I didn’t think that the driver, whoever he was, would be all that interested in crowd-watching. Chances were better that he’d have been eyeballing the warriors and rating their performance.

All of the injured seemed to be more or less okay, on their feet or getting there. The store owner was talking to one of the cops. I heard Cary Frasier telling the other cop that he didn’t need an ambulance.

The show was over, but the people still left on the street were stunned, immobile, babbling to each other. Three words were being spoken over and over again: Nazi, flag, and skinheads. A van from Channel 2 News pulled up at the curb and a crew spilled out, including one of their hotshot on-air reporters.

On the drive home, we rehashed the show.

“It was quite a performance,” Rosie said. “But I think it was a simple enough statement: break up the left protest, make a public appearance, wave their flag.”

I’d been thinking: This wasn’t just another Red Run. It was something more significant— the first big announcement of their presence. A show of strength. The first public display of their new flag.

“But they made Frasier a hero today. Nobody would have noticed this little protest if they hadn’t turned it into a war. They’re getting him big coverage, making him a martyr to a strong and emotional cause. Why would they want to do that?” Odd bits of conspiracy theory were trickling through my brain.

“Know what I think?”

“What do you think, Rosie?”

“I think there’s no point in wondering why they do things. I think they’re just stupid little bullies who get a kick out of this kind of crap. And stupid little bullies tend to self-destruct.”

Just as she was saying that, we were crossing the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the bridge with the big tan troll: San Quentin. Yeah. Sometimes bullies self-destruct; sometimes they rule their worlds.

“So tell me, Leslie, besides coming here and going to Hal and Helen’s, what else do these guys do? Where do they go for fun? I mean this is a nice bar, but, you know, it’s a bar…”

She looked at me appraisingly, and I wondered what she was thinking.

Friday night. Getting right back on the Thor’s horse after I’d watched it biting people. And this was a very big night, Rosie’s first visit to the Commands watering hole. She was wearing a blond wig, short and straight, black jeans, a tight red T-shirt, two earrings in each ear and a cuff on her nose. She really did look like a different woman from the one who’d been in north Berkeley that morning, and she certainly looked different from the Rosie I know and love, who leans a bit to the preppy side when she’s being herself. I had introduced her around as my friend, Rosie Van Dyke.

After the protest-bash, we’d headed back to Marin, Rosie to the office and I to meet with Sally and make an offer on the house on Scenic. Sally was also moving right along on the hoped-for sale of my house. A prospective buyer was coming early Saturday evening and an open house was scheduled for Sunday.

Working on Rosie’s theory that Sally thought I was pretty hot, I made sure our conversation didn’t end with business this time. I asked her to go out to dinner with me after the next day’s meeting with the buyer. She said yes.

Which made sitting in Thor’s and talking to Leslie just about the last thing I was in the mood for.

Leslie had come into the bar a few minutes after we got there, looked around, and plunked herself down next to me. I introduced Rosie; Leslie squinted at her and mumbled hello. Karl had come in with Floyd a few minutes after her and they sat down on Rosie’s other side. They introduced themselves and this time I heard that Karl’s last name was Tullis.

Zack and Pete Ebner were sitting at a table across the room. The pal of Leslie’s I’d also seen at the lefty-bashing was there too, the skinny one with the buzz cut. I hadn’t seen anything in any of their faces, not so far anyway, that told me they’d spotted me on the street as Jason wearing a wig.

I was hanging out, trying to relax, breathe easy, and blend in. I was also wondering about Floyd. Zack was a kid. Ebner was a lunatic. Red was a slob. Karl was a gnome. But Floyd— I could guess that women might not find him too ugly. He was broad, solid, and tall. His nose wasn’t smashed in, and although his eyes didn’t exactly sparkle with intelligence, they weren’t crossed or anything.