I was close enough to see his mouth, and its full and pursed femininity surprised me, as if someone had pasted the lips of Marilyn Monroe on Adolf Hitler. The mouth twitched and blossomed as the crowd roared, palms slamming together, fists waving, boot heels pounding the hard dirt.

Meltzer patted his hand downward in the silence motion and the crowd obeyed as readily as sheep; in seconds all I heard was breathing. He looked out over the throng and moved to the mic with catlike grace.

“Ih-ehs-isn’t it a buh-beautiful night t-tuh-to b-be white, my Aryan buh-buh-brothers and ssss-si-issssss-sisters?”

Arnold Meltzer stuttered. Not gently, but racked by the struggle to push words out, hunching his shoulders, clenching his fists, fighting for syllable by tortured syllable. Had I seen the contortions from behind, I would have thought his body gripped by epileptic seizure.

When Meltzer finished his sentence, the crowd exploded, first into joyful screams and rebel yells, then into a rising chant: Arn-old, Arn-old, Arn-old…

It occurred to me that Meltzer’s acceptance of his impediment played perfectly in a crowd where all were afflicted, mentally, emotionally, economically, educationally. He may have been smarter, wealthier, and better educated, but he too was deeply wounded.

Arn-old, Arn-old…

He allowed a full minute of adoration, drawing energy from the vocal thunder, then waved the chanting down, the pursed lips satisfied, the mouth of a man receiving dues a long time coming. Beside Meltzer, Baker’s puffed chest and wide stance might have been funny if he hadn’t been holding a weapon that could cut down an oak.

The guy beside me said, “Fuckin’ incredible, hunh? Arnold is God.”

“Who’s the guy beside him? The crew-cut guy to the right?”

“That’s Boots Baker, brother. Boots is a monster, Meltzer’s shadow. You walk up to Meltzer without being asked, Boots takes your head off.”

The guy grinned at the idea of heads coming off and turned to face front as Meltzer launched into his own particular form of sermon, his voice brittle through the metal cones of the public address system.

“A fuh-false prophet is more d-d-deadly than a wu-weapon, for a weapon can only ki-ki-ki-kill bodies, but false prophet can d-destroy souls. The f-false prophet can destroy ten thousand sssssouls with a ssssingle utterance. Wuh-we have s-seen a fu-fuh false prophet and learned of his tuh-terrible d-d-debasement…”

The crowd booed as Meltzer hissed and twitched out an obvious reference to Scaler, heaping manure on the man’s legacy, alternately painting him as mad, debased, delusional, traitorous. Meltzer shoveled for a few minutes, then segued to an allied theme.

“Those who wuh-would r-r-rule us like sheep have nuh-new weapons and n-new lies…” he said, feet away from Briscoe’s deputy. There was a sneer on Baker’s face, as if standing atop that truck next to a lump of human garbage marked the pinnacle of his existence.

“We mu-muh-may hear terrible l-l-lies over the n-next weeks and muh-muh-months. Lies designed to-t-t-tear the wuh-white race apart. Lies designed to du-du-destroy our way of life. Sssstay strong and du-don’t ever waver. It will all b-be lies. Lies. Lies! LIES! LIES!”

The crowd picked up the rhythm and chanted the word lies until the ground shook. Meltzer seemed to be preparing the crowd for some upcoming news or announcement detrimental to the movement.

The speech ended with thunderous applause as Meltzer performed a series of salutes including white power and the standard Nazi crowdpleaser. I wondered if successful white supremacists had to memorize salutes like NFL players memorized play-books.

I was ready to leave. My head hurt from the noise and assaults on reason and I had much to think about, including Deputy Baker being one of Meltzer’s honor guard. How the rant against the dead Scaler fit into anything. And Spider’s mention of a strange baby, a stream of babble reminding me of the mad screeching of Terry Lee Bailes.

The parking area was on the other side of the milling, agitated crowd, and I waded into the hoots and rebel yells and displays of the various salutes. The band had returned and was playing a heavymetal version of Dixie, the singer howling out revised lyrics.

I wish I was in the land of cotton,

the niggers and spics dead and forgotten,

It’s God’s way, it’s God’s way, it’s God’s way,

Dixie land

I crossed fifty feet past the barbecue tent, looked up to see Meltzer’s security detail fueling on pork. Baker was to the side, a solemn, powerfully muscled apparition in the rippling orange light of the nearby bonfire. He was scanning the crowd and looked into my eyes.

I saw reptilian curiosity, brow furrowing as neurons of recognition fired in his brain. I pulled my hat low and tight and ducked into a dozen men standing in a circle and comparing sidearms.

I heard Baker’s voice. “Hey you – stop!”

Baker was frantically waving several men to him, pointing in my direction. I sunk deeper in the crowd, staying low. I saw a group of heavies walking fast at the edge of the rally, looking in. I ducked and circled. When I looked again, I couldn’t see what direction they’d headed. Should I cut to the left or right to make my break? My palms turned wet.

I ducked lower, headed for the edge of the crowd. I decided to cut left, to the east.

A nearby voice hissed, “No. Right! Go to the right!”

I spun to the voice, saw only a wide back stumbling away under a dirty gray cowboy hat, beer bottle in hand, another drunk. But I took a chance on the strange twist of fate, dodging to the right. After a long two minutes, I emerged by the wood fence separating the rally grounds from the parking area.

I slipped between vehicles, saw an orange Toyota Four-Runner ahead and to the side. It boasted all the trimmings, roof lights, chrome luggage rack, mud guards. I wouldn’t have seen the vehicle except that it was lit by twin halogen lamps. A white towel was closed in the rear gate of the vehicle, a red cross hand-painted in its center.

It was a small aid station, which made an ironic sense, given the stoners and drunks wandering through a farm field at night. It was a place to fix barb-wire gouges, burns from stumbling in the fire, noses busted in friendly fights, methedrine ODs, and so forth.

I heard a voice moan, “Owwww. That fuckin’ hurts,” and recognized the voice of Spider. I saw him in a chair beside the aid station, the medic’s back to me, pulling a suture tight.

“It hurts, gawdammit,” Spider moaned. “I hurt ever’where.”

I heard voices back in the field, the unwelcoming committee trying to figure which way I’d run. I yearned to hear more of Spider’s cryptic ramblings about Frankenstein babies, but crouched and zigzagged to my truck, blowing away with lights off before my pursuers arrived with a noose.

Chapter 38

I made it home at two a.m. I saw the call light flicking on my phone, pulled out my cell, shut off before the rally. Calls were stacked up on the cell as well, all from Harry. I felt a sense of dread.

“What is it, bro?” I said when he picked up.

“Noelle’s gone. This time the grab was successful.”

My breath froze in my throat. “What? How?”

“The security detail and staff were distracted by a car burning on the street below…”

“A what?”

“The fire trucks added to the drama, kept the faces glued to the window. The flames were twenty feet high.”

I saw the picture. “Staged,” I said.

“Stolen car. A backseat full of rags. A soaking of gasoline and fuel oil. The staff were distracted for maybe five minutes.”

I heard voices in the background, a clattering like a cart or gurney.