Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! (40 page)

“Huh,” Willhelm muttered, tipping his head back and quaffing his beer. “But you must have had a snitch or two from back then still around. Like that photographer who followed the civil righters around, and at the same time was a rat for your bunghole loving boss Hoover.”

“It's not like turncoats belong to a club, Clete. Don't you think I've been out there beating the bushes?”

“What about, what you call it, an intermediary? One of them burr head preachers all hyped up on keeping the peace and shit. Somebody that wasn't on the payroll but who you leaned on in the past, you know, one of those reasonable negroes.” He chuckled.

At first Briscoe was going to make a dismissive comment then got a faraway look on his face. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Maybe for a cut.”

“Or at least he thinks he'll get a cut,” Willhelm opined.

“My friends we must keep up the good work. The Lord's work really. I am so heartened that we are one step closer to winning the culture war and restoring sanctity and values for our impressionable youth and our nation. I applaud your efforts good citizens in shutting down that blasphemous exhibit at the Smithsonian. It was a true waste of our tax dollars.”

Masai Swanmoor smiled thinly, shaking his head slightly. He turned off the small digital radio, ceasing the woman's rants. He had to admit though, the sound quality was amazing. Modern technology. He left his hideaway and was soon walking through the park, having reconnoitered the perimeter like he'd been taught in country.

Laughing children under the watchful gaze of their mothers or nannies played on the swings and slides. Sitting on a bench under a maple tree was Big Stick Caruthers. After two bouts with cancer, once in the throat and the other time in the stomach, he was a slender shell of his former defensive tackle frame.

“Young blood,” Caruthers greeted. He stood and the two men hugged. “You're looking pretty damn decent. What's your secret?”

“I wish it was big titty virgins and palm oil, but I only got the latter in abundance.”

“I heard that,” Caruthers said, sitting down again. Swanmoor remained standing and scanning.

“It's just you and me. I'm the messenger, not the tethered goat.”

“Not knocking you, brother.”

“Just being on point. I ain't mad at you like the adolescents say.”

Satisfied, Swanmoor also sat on the bench near the former owner of the Lamplighter bar. “So what's their offer?”

“The ofays figure you and them don't need to be in this scorched earth mode. Two dead and—”

“Two?” Swanmoor interrupted. “I left that lumberjack shouldered broad alive. Bleeding but no fatal wounds.”

“That's not what was on the news but what's the difference?”

Swanmoor smiled humorlessly. “Wheels within wheels, man.”

“One race hater dead, two race haters dead, even they mamas probably won't miss 'em.”

“No doubt. But they probably came from a long line of sieg heiling fucks.”

“Children don't always follow in their parents' footsteps.”

“There is that. Briscoe came to you alone?”

“He did. Motherfuckah phoned for me at the senior hall during our square dancing night, you believe that? Was in the middle of do-si-do-ing with a cute little widow with some beachfront property. Sheeit.”

Both men snickered. “What I believe is he's a greedy forked-tongue devil. He expects me to do the grunt work and then I just give him a cut being all nostalgic and what not?”

“He calls off the Legion. Says you been green lit 'cause of you dropping members of the calling. The inference being it wouldn't just be you in their crosshairs.”

Swanmoor looked off in the mid-distance. “How is it that Briscoe's got an in with them? The Aryan Legion wasn't around in his day.”

“We're getting off topic, aren't we, Masai?”

“You've kept your ears open, Big Stick. I can't imagine you've retired that much.”

Caruthers made a face then said, “His daughter. She was a doper, college dropout, ran the streets, the whole bit. Don't know the full story but damn right, I made it my business to keep tabs on friends and enemies alike. She winds up marrying one of these white power studs while he's in the joint. He gets out, they set up house, it's all tattoos and mud-people-bashing, but they eventually split up. She got born-again.”

“It's your educated guess that Briscoe reached out to his former son-in-law once he knew I was back on the scene?”

Caruthers made a small gesture.

A silence dragged by as Swanmoor considered his response. “If I get the goods they'll kill me. What's my guarantee?”

“Briscoe says he knows who your daughter is. The Legion doesn't know and he'll keep it that way if you agree to the split. Fifty-fifty”

“Shit,” Swanmoor swore.

“He's going to call me later today. What do you want me to tell him?”

Swanmoor stared at Caruthers.

Walking back to another car he'd stolen that morning, a fifteen-year-old beater with a dented roof, he took off his shirt, shaking it and feeling up the material. He knew bugging devices had changed greatly since the days of cassette tapes and wanted to make sure Big Stick Caruthers hadn't planted some kind of tracking button on him when they'd embraced. The former bar owner was a pragmatist after all. Relieved Big Stick hadn't planted anything on him, Swanmoor re-buttoned his shirt over his athletic-T and drove away.

There was a decorative table in a corner of the high-rise office of the Wilder Foundation. Upon its surface was a vase filled with fresh cut flowers including lilies and chrysanthemums. Their fragrance subtly altered the area. Yet the fragrance of the studious young woman who came out to greet him, was both more powerful and understated simultaneously.

“Ms. Van Meter apologizes but her call should be over in the next five minutes,” the young woman said. “Would you care for coffee or sparkling water?”

“I'm fine, thank you.” Swanmoor took a seat in a plush chair and leafed through a recent issue of
The Atlantic.
He was into an article about the origin of the Garamond typeface when a pointed shoe touched his shin.

“Well, well.” Alison Van Meter stood with her hands on her hips, head cocked, eyes peering over her designer glasses. Her blonde hair was streaked with white but was shoulder-length and full-bodied.

“Hey, Ali,” Swanmoor said, rising.

“Get your ass in here before the black helicopters come swooping down.” She pivoted and marched toward a set of double doors. He followed. Van Meter was heavier than back in the day, but he could tell she maintained an exercise regime. There was a muscularity apparent in the calves visible below the hem of her business skirt.

They entered her large office, and she closed the doors behind them. Pressing him against those doors, she kissed him for several beats before they parted. A man could get very used to this he reflected.

“You know you shouldn't have risked this, Masai. The swag might not be there. You could have sent word. I would have retrieved it and gotten it to you, you know that.”

“Sending a proxy would have been shaky. Notwithstanding there's a damn good chance one of the construction workers could find the dough.”

“I'd have gone personally, chump,” she said.

He pointed at her stylish shoes. “Those are Jimmy Choos, aren't they? You wouldn't want to break one of those heels, would you, trawling among the lumpen?”

“Being the sexist dog you remain, it figures you'd keep up with women's fashion.”

“Look, I started this, it's only right I should finish it. Anyway, I was homesick, Ali.” As he talked he walked around her office, holding his hands wide. “Nice.”

“Money is just a means of exchange, comrade.”

“The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power.”

From a mini-fridge she offered him fresh-squeezed blueberry and pomegranate juice which he accepted. He sat on the couch in her office and she in a chair near him. Looking past her at the cityscape out of her wide windows, he brought himself back to the present.

Van Meter was talking. “I got you a room at the hotel. Part of the place has been demoed, that's how his handgun was found in the remains of the dumb waiter.” A cell phone picture of the gun had been shared among the work crew and by chance Van Meter, making a site visit, had seen the shot. Given the location and its age, she concluded it was the piece she'd obtained for Swanmoor decades ago—the one she knew had been used in the job. She then got in touch with him.

“There are some tenants left who are moving out by month's end. It's unlikely anybody will bother you as you prowl about,” Van Meter said.

She rose and went to a closet and returned with an equipment bag she placed on the floor near him. “A few items you might need.” She sat on his lap. “Now about the equipment I need,” she teased.

“Shouldn't I be resentful being objectified in this way?”

“Shut up.” They kissed again.

Later that day Masai Swanmoor took his room at the Warwick, these days a residential hotel. It was in a part of downtown still home to the poor—though they were being pushed out due to the area's stepped-up gentrification efforts.

He stepped into the hallway. Loud rap music issued from behind one door and an argument through another. He walked downstairs as the elevator had long been out of use. In the lobby there were a few about, including two old men, one with a walker, involved in an intense chess game. Van Meter, whose foundation was behind redeveloping the hotel into mixed-use affordable housing, had provided a layout to Swanmoor. Across the lobby and to his left was a door leading to the basement.

“Where do you think you're going?” a voice challenged as Swanmoor put his hand on the doorknob.

He looked over at a pudgy bald man in his mid-fifties with a tweed jacket and cargo pants. He had an iPod in his sports jacket's handkerchief pocket and removed his ear buds.

“Who are you?”

“I live here, you don't.” The man frowned at Swanmoor.