Issa Qumdis, blinded by blood, kept swiping at his eyes.

Pea Coat raised his weapon. Black plastic paint gun. Shrieking, “Fascist!” a woman in the second row, one of the gray-hairs, shot to her feet and grabbed for the weapon. Pea Coat tried to shake her off. She clawed and scratched and got hold of his sleeve and hung on.

Milo hurried to the front, zigzagging through the makeshift aisles, dodging chairs, as the woman’s companion, a bald, weak-chinned man wearing granny glasses and a red CCCP sweatshirt jumped up and began rabbit-punching the back of Pea Coat’s neck. Pea Coat struck back at him, caught him on the shoulder, and the man fell back on his rear.

Issa Qumdis had cleared his eyes, now, was staring at the melee. Albin Larsen stood behind him, stunned, as he handed Issa Qumdis a handkerchief and led him toward the back of the store.

By the time Milo reached the fracas, another gray-hair had joined in and Pea Coat had been pounded to the ground. The woman who’d fought for the paint gun had finally gotten hold of it. She aimed downward, shot a torrent of blood at Pea Coat but he kicked her and her aim shifted and she hit her companion instead, reddening his jeans.

“Shit!” he cried out. A flush captured his face. He began kicking viciously at Pea Coat’s prone body.

Milo yanked him away. Pea Coat struggled to his feet, took a roundhouse swing at Granny Glasses, missed, and lost his balance again. Issa Qumdis and Larsen had slipped into the unisex bathroom.

The woman aimed the paint gun again, but Milo pressed down on her arm and the weapon dribbled onto the floor.

“Who’re you?” she exclaimed.

A couple of pierced-and-brandeds stood.

I rushed over just as someone shouted, “Get the fascist!” and the crowd erupted into shouts and curses.

Milo grabbed Pea Coat’s sleeve and dragged him toward the back door.

The young men marched forward and got within arm’s length of Milo. Milo stopped the bigger one with a quick, hard squeeze of bare biceps. The man’s eyes fluttered.

Milo said, “It’s under control, compadres. Go away.”

No badge-flash. His tone froze them.

I got the rear door open, and Milo shoved Pea Coat out into the briny, night air.

As the door swung shut slowly, I looked back. Most of the onlookers had remained in their seats.

A few feet behind the folding chairs, half-concealed by bookshelves- tucked in his own vantage point- stood the tall, thin black man in the good gray suit and the charcoal shirt.

Behind the store was a service alley, blackened by night. Milo propelled Pea Coat westward, walking fast, shoving the man when he faltered. Pea Coat began cursing and struggling, and Milo did something to his shoulder blade that made him squeal.

“Let go of me, you commie bastard!”

“Shut up,” said Milo.

“You-”

“I’m the police, idiot.”

Pea Coat tried to stop short. Milo kicked at his heel, and the man jerked forward involuntarily.

“Police… state,” he said. His voice was thick and raspy, words punching out between shallow breaths. “So you’re a fascist, not a commie.”

“Another moron heard from.” Milo spotted a parked car a few yards up, shoved Pea Coat to it, pushed him up against the trunk. Jerking one of the man’s arms behind his back, he got his cuffs free, snapped them around the man’s wrist, twisted the other arm, and completed the task.

Since Pea Coat had aimed his paint gun till now, no more than five minutes had passed.

The man said, “Antisemitic-”

“Keep your mouth shut and your head down.”

Milo frisked him thoroughly, came up with a wallet and a key ring.

The man said, “I know exactly how much is in there, so if you’re-”

Milo’s finger landed atop Pea Coat’s shoulder blade. The memory of the first touch made the man break off midsentence.

I could hear cars rumble by on Broadway; but for that, the night was still.

Milo inspected the wallet. “There’s twenty bucks in here. You know different?”

Silence.

Then: “No.”

“Twenty whole dollars,” said Milo. “Preparing for a big night on the town, smart guy?”

“He’s Hitler,” said the man. “That pig. He lies, he’s Hitler-”

Milo ignored him and read his driver’s license. “Elliot Simons… what’s this, here… Cedars-Sinai ID card- RN… you’re a nurse?”

“Surgical nurse,” said Elliot Simons.

“Great for you,” said Milo. “You’re a little out of your element, Mr. Simons.”

“He’s Hitler, he lies, claims to be-”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Milo.

“Stop cutting me off, let me finish,” said Simons. “He claims to be-”

“He’s a fraud,” Milo cut in. “Wrote a book, claiming to be a Palestinian refugee from Jerusalem, but he was born in Italy, is half-English, half-Syrian. There was an exposé on it in one of the Jewish magazines.”

I stared at my friend. So did Elliot Simons.

He kept quiet as Milo thumbed through his credit cards. Then: “You’ve been watching him? Who sent you?”

“Who do you think?” said Milo.

“The government? They finally got smart and put him under surveillance? About time, the man’s a traitor, September 11 happens, and the government still can’t get it right. How many outrages does it take to get you people on the ball?”

“You see Issa Qumdis as a terrorist.”

“You heard him.”

Simons had a workingman’s face, an ordinary face. Except for his eyes. They blazed with something well beyond anger.

He rattled his cuffs. “Let me out of these.”

“How long have you been stalking him?” said Milo.

“I haven’t stalked anyone,” said Simons. “I read the papers, found out he was spreading his lies, and decided to do something about it. I’m not apologizing for anything, you want to arrest me, go ahead. I’ll tell the whole story.”

“Which is?”

“The guy’s Hitler with a fancy Ivy League degree.” Simons’s eyes heated further. “My parents were in Auschwitz. I’m not going to stand by and let some fucking Nazi spread big lies.”

Milo pointed to the red splotch across the front of the pea coat. “That really pig’s blood?”

Simons grinned.

“Where’d you get it?” said Milo.

“East L.A.,” said Simons. “One of the slaughterhouses. I took some heparin from work and mixed it in. It’s an anticoagulant, I wanted to make sure it was nice and wet.”

“Fancy work. Being a surgical nurse and all.”

“I’m the best,” said Simons. “Could’ve been a doctor but couldn’t afford to go to med school. My dad was always sick, couldn’t work, because of what they did to him in the camp. I’m not whining, I do fine. Put four kids through Ivy League colleges. I’m the best. You don’t believe me, check me out, the doctors love me. They ask for me because I’m the best.”

“You know Dr. Richard Silverman?”

Simons nodded hard and fast. “I know him, he knows me. Magician with a knife- how do you know him?”

“I know of him,” said Milo.

“Yeah, well,” said Simons. “You call and ask Dr. Silverman about Elliot Simons. He knows I’m no nut; when it comes to getting the job done I’m totally focused.”

“Tonight you were focused on ruining Issa Qumdis’s clothes.”

“If only I had a real gun-”

“Don’t say more, sir,” said Milo. “For your sake, I don’t want to hear any threats.”

” ‘Sir’,” said Simons. “All of a sudden you’re turning official?” Another shake of his cuffs. “So what now?”

“Where’d your kids go to school?”

“Three at Columbia, one at Yale. Fuck them,” said Simons, spraying spittle. “Not my kids. Them, the Nazis and those commies back there who believe all that shit. Fifty years ago they wanted to exterminate us, we survived and thrived and said, ‘Fuck you, we’re smarter than you.’ So fuck them. You want to arrest me for standing up for my people, fine. I’ll get a lawyer, I’ll file suit against the Nazi bastard who kicked me back there and his douche bag Nazi bitch. Then I’ll sue that Arab scum and that Swedish prick who’s probably fucking him in the ass and throw you in, too.”