“That was Meltzer’s first effort,” Ben noted. “He’s penned a dozen others, all basically the same, all standard fare for the Aryan library.”

Harry tossed the book on Ben’s desk. “Meltzer make money at this?”

Ben shrugged. “Not a lot, given the limited market. But he also sells T-shirts, posters, flags, key rings –”

“Key rings?”

Ben scrabbled in his desk, tossed me a stamped-metal medallion with a key loop. I stared at it, a swastika over a WP: white power.

“Yours for $18.95 plus shipping and handling,” Ben said. “Everyone who’s anyone in the movement has a Meltzer key ring.”

“Costs maybe a buck to make,” I said. “Nice margin on Aryan nick-nacks.”

“As long as there’s a difference between races, Meltzer makes money on this shit. But it’s his dope muling that brings in the big bucks. Of course, he keeps himself removed from the drugs.”

“This rabbit ever pop from his hole?” I said.

Ben said, “Funny you should ask. Meltzer’s making a guest appearance tonight at a white-power rally near the border. He’s been uncommonly visible the last couple of weeks, this being his third rally in as many states. It’s unusual.”

“This like a Klan rally?” Harry asked. “Sheets and secret handshakes and burning crosses?”

Ben grinned. “Times have changed. Picture a rave, only with lots of hate and a median IQ of about twelve.”

“You have informants at the rally, Ben?” I asked.

He shook his head. “We know time and location, but penetrating a Meltzer rally is nigh on impossible. The only people invited are the inside crowd who know one another. They’re suspicious folks. Or maybe a better word is paranoid.”

We raced back to Mobile with the lights flashing. Harry had a late-afternoon meeting with the District Attorney’s office about an upcoming trial. We discussed Meltzer on the high-speed run, wondering whether to pity the little boy in a dress made to stand one-legged on a stool, or hate what he’d become. Harry grudgingly opted for the former, I voted for the latter.

I dropped Harry at his car so he could run to the DA’s office. He leaned back in the passenger window.

“Where you heading, Carson?” he asked.

“Home,” I said. “Maybe take the boat out, paddle a bit.” I yawned against the back of my hand, did a tired look. “Or maybe I’ll catch a full night of Z’s, be fresh and ready in the morning.”

Harry looked dubious. “You’re not thinking about Meltzer’s rally tonight, are you?”

“Was it tonight?” I yawned.

“You’d get your ass caught. With no one to pull the wolves off your back.”

“Jeez, bro…” I shook my head. “You think I’m nuts or something?”

Chapter 37

The rally was down a long country road, deep in the piney woods. A few guys on Harleys blew by me, did the white-power salute and I gave it back. There was another turn-off and I saw activity down the short piece of red-dirt road. I went two hundred yards past and pulled into a fire road in the trees.

Staying low, I moved through the brush until I was twenty yards from the activity. It was a checkpoint. I watched bikes and pickups and SUVs roll up, show a piece of blue paper to a half-dozen guys who looked like hell’s bellhops: greasy hair, gaps where teeth used to be, chains rattling on their boots, leather holsters holding serious ordnance. I figured the blue sheets were official passes, probably signed or somehow protected against copying. Someone smart at the top, like Ben had said.

I looked in the direction of the gathering, thinking of sneaking through the woods. I discerned a couple guys in camo among the trees, holding rifles and smoking. Step on a twig and draw fire; no thanks.

It was the checkpoint or nothing.

Dark was falling. I crept back to my truck. It looked impossible to slip past the grimy crew at the checkpoint, but could I wangle an invite from someone less inclined to study me? How did the process work?

Nothing to do but find out.

I drove back to a spot a couple hundred feet from the turn-off, turned around as if aiming at the rally, pulled off the road. I got out and began rummaging through my glove box, throwing maps out on the road like they’d been tossed there in a rage. I saw a stripe of red beneath my seat: the ridiculous flag yanked from Beefer’s truck: Hank Williams, Jr. on a Stars’n’Bars. How would it play to this crowd – heroic icon or cartoonish blasphemy?

I hung it in the rear window as a big van roared up from behind, a half-dozen people in the rust-bucket vehicle, four burly men and two women. I shook my head and started jamming the stuff back in the box as the truck rumbled up beside me. My keychain dangled from my pocket, the WP medallion flashing against my jeans.

The van stopped and the driver yelled out the window.

“Problem, bud?”

I did childish rage. “I’m turning around and gonna miss the fuckin’ blow-out, that’s the problem. I’m stupid. That’s another problem.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“My pass. I thought I stuck it in the glove box, but musta left it in the saddlebag of my hog.” I kicked the tire, yelled, “Fuck!”

The guy driver jumped out and moved toward me. He was six four or so, Harry’s size. Wearing a pirate’s beard. Hard muscles all over, with wild hair half restrained by the bandana. He sucked from a bottle of Dixie beer and stared into my face. He scratched his beard and I saw the word KILL inked across the knuckles of his right hand.

“Where’d you get it?” he growled. “The invitation here.”

“Sonny Rollins,” I said, figuring these guys weren’t into jazz.

Suspicious eyes. “Never heard a him.”

“Sonny’s ramrodding the movement in Memphis. Sonny couldn’t make it but got me a pass; thought I might make good contacts. I know Sonny through Donnie Kirkson.”

The hard eyes somehow got harder. “How you know Donnie?”

“He got in Holman two months ’fore I got out. We helped keep the niggers off each other.”

His hands curled into fists and his eyes tightened to bunkers.

He yelled, “BULLSHIT!”

My heart stopped. I think everything stopped.

“Uh…what?”

“That was a goddamn bullshit charge. I heard the runaway looked at least eighteen. They been after Donnie for years, finally used that goddamn bullshit charge to lock him up.” He calmed a degree or two, did concern. “Donnie doin’ all right, bro?”

“Puttin’ on a little weight,” I said, patting my gut. “Prison food. But he’s hangin’ tight.”

The guy flashed a look at my keychain. Studied the flag. A grin took his face. He sang, “Are you ready to par-teeee?” echoing a Hank Williams, Jr hit song.

“I was, but now I ain’t,” I said, climbing back in my truck. “Y’all take care and party hard for me.”

The guy started back into his van, thought a moment. “Come on in behind us, I’ll vouch for ya. One of the guys on security is my cuz. We all forgit shit now’n then, right?”

“I wish you’d stop forgettin’ to wear underwear,” the scraggly blonde in the passenger seat crowed out the window, provoking a chorus of hoots and catcalls inside.

“Thanks, brother,” I said. “Eighty-eight.”

“Fuckin’ yeah,” he grinned. “Eighty-eight. Fall in behind.”

The air at the rally smelled of beer and sweat and barbecued pig. I walked to a white tent bordering the woods where a hog was roasting in a pit and three guys were pulling beers from ice-tubs and setting them on the slat-board counter. Aryan Nation flags hung from the rear of the tent. I tossed down a ten-dollar bill, took away a can of Bud and a half-cup of ’cue ladled over a grocery-store bun that was mostly air.

“Hey, buddy, you forgot your change,” a voice yelled to my back.

“Keep it, brother.”