A rap on the door brought a short, round woman in her midsixties, wearing a brown muumuu and flip-flops.

She looked Duarte over and said, "We got no vacancies."

He said, "I was looking for one of your tenants."

"Who?"

"Mr. William Floyd."

"Ike? Why you want that moron?"

"I need to talk to him."

"You a cop?"

"Would that surprise you?" He didn't offer any identification.

"Not at all. That boy had a job, but them people he hangs out with, they is trouble."

"What people?"

"Them Nazi or Klan people. Whatever they is callin' themselves nowadays."

"You think he might be over there?"

The lady shrugged her shoulders, and Duarte thought he might know how everyone else felt now. He didn't own the patent on shrugs.

"You know where he works?"

"Nope. Like everyone else in this town, he's some kinda telephone solicitor." She paused, looking down the hall. "You trustworthy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I don't know if you're a cop or not, but for twenty bucks I'll let you in his apartment, as long as you don't take nothin'."

He had the twenty in her hand before she could change her mind. He followed her down the narrow hallway to William Floyd's apartment.

Inside the cramped one-bedroom apartment, Duarte checked a pad of paper on a small table with the telephone. The old landlady stayed by the door and watched to make sure he didn't steal anything. He searched a small, one-drawer desk and found a pocket-sized address book. He was about to take it, then remembered his pledge to the old landlady. He turned and held up the black book. "I'll throw in another five bucks if I can take this."

"Done."

He found a brochure for the Omaha chapter of the National Army of White Americans. He held it up and showed the landlady the address. "That around here?"

"'Bout three miles off Forty-second. Maybe ten minutes away."

Duarte nodded and looked around some more. He found a single sheet of paper. Cal Linley's phone number was scrawled on it. There was no doubt now. This was "Ike." For his own good, he better have some answers for Duarte.

He thanked the landlady and got directions to the address on the brochure. Fifteen minutes and two wrong turns later, he was looking at a duplex. One side was quiet, but the other had loud George Thorogood guitar twanging out of the windows. A lanky young man with a shaved head stood by the front door. Duarte doubted he was a chemotherapy patient. One part of him almost hoped these idiots gave him a reason to question them harshly. Either way, he was about to get some answers.

WILLIAM "IKE" FLOYD WATCHED AS MR. ORTÍZ KEPT HIS GUN barrel on the girl's head. She had shown no interest in the gun since he had placed it there. She reminded Ike of a hound dog who didn't know what a gun could do.

Craig said, "You wanna know what happened?"

He looked from Ortíz to Pelly, not knowing who should hear the story.

Ike's heart started to beat harder, and his grip tightened on the pistol in his hand. He was about to get smacked in the face by the truth, and he had to do something quick. He couldn't let Craig tell them how he had tricked Ike.

Without thinking, he raised his pistol and said, "Where's the crate, Craig?"

When the young man hesitated, Ike started to jerk the trigger of the slim SIG-Sauer.380. Three of the first five rounds caught Craig square in the chest.

Ortíz instinctively stepped back, away from the gunfire.

Craig dropped onto the couch without another sound, snatching silently at his chest for a moment until he went still.

Once Ortíz had backed away, the girl stood up. The seventh shot from Ike's gun had caught her in the throat and she tumbled next to her boyfriend, her big eyes staring at Ike.

When the small pistol was empty and the slide locked back, he stepped up to the couch. He looked down at the lifeless Craig, satisfied he had gotten his revenge. The girl squirmed next to him on the couch, using her small hand to try to stop the blood pouring from the wound in her neck. A gurgling sound escaped from her that turned Ike's stomach. After a few seconds, she lay still, too.

Ike heard the door burst open and saw the man from the porch. Pelly raised his gun to the man's head and said, "Where's the crate from the truck?"

The man's eyes popped when they fell on the dead couple in the living room. He stammered, "The satellite?"

Pelly said, "What satellite?"

"The one in the crate."

Pelly looked over to Ortíz. Then back at the man. "Yes, the satellite."

"It's in the garage in the back."

Ortíz said, "I'll stay with our friend. You two check the garage."

Ike followed Pelly out the door and through the house. He still held the empty pistol. He couldn't believe he had just shot a man up close. He'd shot a girl, too, but that was an accident. He was becoming a killer.

They didn't encounter anyone else in the house as they searched for the back door to the one-car garage. Going in through the kitchen, they found the bomb in the middle of the clean garage with only the top of the crate torn off.

Pelly stood on his toes and looked out of one of the windows built into the wooden garage door. He turned back to Ike. "The man working on the car has headphones on. He's still there."

Ike, still shaky from the adventure, said, "How're we gonna move this thing?"

"We'll get another rental truck. The fat mechanic earned his stolen one."

Duarte casually walked up to the duplex and waited for the man standing by the front door to look up. There was no need to be rude. Yet.

The man's eyes came up to meet Duarte's. He said, "We're not buying."

"I'm not selling anything."

"Then get lost."

Duarte tried not to smile. "I'm looking for Ike Floyd."

"Who're you?" The man's angular face made him look angry even though he didn't sound like it.

"I'm the guy looking for Ike."

"Oh, a smart-ass. You look like you might be an Italian or Spanish smart-ass."

"I'm from Florida, and I need to talk to Ike. Where is he?"

"Look, Mr. Florida." Now he sounded pissed off. "I don't care who you are or what you are. This is a private club, and by lookin' at ya, I doubt you could join."

Duarte kept a calm expression. Something like this made him realize how little his heritage mattered to most people, but when he found an idiot like this, it was all he could do not to take his head off. Instead he simply started to step around the wiry man.

The man tried to grab Duarte's arm as he said, "Wait a minute. I said…"

That was all he got out once Duarte had bent the man's wrist in the most unnatural downward position.

In a quiet voice, he said, "No loud noises or you won't write any letters for more than a year. Understand?"

The man nodded furiously as he hunched his whole body, hoping for the slightest relief he could get.

Inside it looked like a comfortable museum, with couches along the walls and shelves of knickknacks. On the walls, vintage posters of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis hung in an orderly fashion.

Duarte said, "You guys love your memorabilia, don't you?"

The man just said, "Let up, let up."

Duarte did slightly and said, "Where're your buddies? I need to talk to someone about Ike."

The man nodded forward, and Duarte could see two men inside a small room off the hallway. He thrust the man with the sore wrist inside the room, then stood in the doorway until they were done bouncing off one another.

A wide man, who resembled a pro lineman, stood up from a chair that looked like a kid's prop next to him. "Who in the hell are you?"