“Why should it end, Isolde?”
“Because we’re not meant to be.”
“Not meant to be? Who’s not meant to be?”
“We’re supposed to live our lives for others. Me and Johnny.”
“This is still the United States,” I said. “You can be whatever you want and tell other people to kiss your foot.”
“I’m scared, Mr. Robicheaux.”
“Call me Dave. Scared of what? Of whom?”
“The people who are going to take it away from us.”
“Nobody is going to take anything away from you. Not if Clete and I have anything to do with it.”
She wasn’t buying it. In the meantime, something had happened at the bar. I should have known it. William Blake called it the canker in the rose.
Clete had obviously changed his mind about having a drink. He was leaning against the bar, wearing his Panama hat, a bottle of tequila and a shot glass and a salt shaker and a saucer with sliced limes in front of him. As I walked toward him, he poured a shot and knocked it back, then sucked on a salted lime. He wiped his fingers and began talking to two men in paramilitary drag as though continuing a lecture he’d had to interrupt in order to put some more fuel in the tank. “See, I know a little Vietnamese and a little Japanese, but I never took up the study of European languages. So you got to tell me what those words on your medallions mean. They look like artworks. I might want to join your organization.”
“What’s happening, Cletus?” I said.
“No haps,” he said. “I just dig these guys and their medallions. There’s a torch on them, like at the Olympics. What looks like German writing, too. I’m correct, aren’t I? It’s German?”
One man stared at me boldly, then went back to his beer. He was either a pro who knew when to disengage or a man who didn’t like even odds. The second man’s body was as stiff as coat-hanger wire. A tiny swastika was tattooed at the corner of one eye. His face had the angularity of an ax blade, like he was wired on meth or fear.
“You guys mercs?” I said.
“Security,” said the man with the ink.
“Let’s get some food, Cletus,” I said.
“Absolutely not,” Clete said. He poured into the shot glass until it brimmed, then knocked half of it back. He sucked on the lime, then set down the glass and wiped his mouth. “Come on, buddy, don’t leave me in the dark. I know what Juden means. How about the rest of it? You guys work for the Israeli government?”
The man drinking beer laughed to himself, looking out the window at the rain. He was unshaved and had a cleft chin with a scar across it, like a piece of white twine. I put my arm across Clete’s shoulders. “Time to dee-dee.”
He shook off my arm. “There’s coke and weed all over this place,” he said to the two men. “These kids don’t need that. If you guys are doing security, it really blows.”
“We do what Eddy tells us,” said the man with the swastika. His pupils were tiny dots. He touched Clete as though they were brothers-in-arms. “Look around. This is a Caucasians-only environment. That’s because we do our job. If a little product gets in, we keep it under control.”
“I want to know what the German writing means,” Clete said.
“It means whatever you want it to mean,” said the man with the scar on his chin, gazing out the window at the squall. “It could mean haul your fat ass out of here, Bluto.”
“Bluto?” Clete said. “Like the guy in Popeye? That’s probably a compliment, right? Just tell me what the German writing means.”
“Or what?” said the same man, twisting his head.
“I could use a job. Maybe you guys could help me out. I was in the service.”
“Ou-rah,” said the same man.
“Say that again?” Clete said.
“I get sick of you assholes,” the same man said, sipping at his beer, not bothering to turn around.
“Let’s go over in a quiet corner,” said the man with the swastika. “Just us three.” He kept his gaze off me.
“I hate to be obsessive here,” Clete said, fishing in his coat pocket. “I want a translation.”
“Why?” asked the man with the swastika. His mouth moved slowly when he spoke, as though he were afraid to grin and afraid not to.
Clete removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He shook one loose and stuck it between his lips. “You might be Jews. You know, undercover.”
The man with the swastika flexed his mouth, almost like rictus. “Us?”
“Maybe you’re with the FBI,” Clete said.
The man with the swastika took a long swig from a beer mug that had been filled with Jack poured on crushed ice. He lowered the mug and looked sideways at Clete, his pulse fluttering visibly in his throat. “We’re trying to be nice, man. We’re a brotherhood. We ain’t out to hurt nobody. Unless we get pushed. My friend Klute here is pretty well known in the movement. He’s not a man you mess with.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Clete said. He tossed his unlit cigarette at a trash can behind the bar. “What’s tod mean?”
“That’s German for ‘death,’ ” said the man with the swastika.
“How about für?”
“Come on, man.”
“What’s it mean?” Clete said.
“It means ‘to.’ ”
“And Alle?”
“Like it sounds. It means ‘all.’ ”
“What’s the whole thing mean?” Clete said.
“There’s a couple of people over there probably don’t need to hear this,” said the same man. “We got no beef with them. We’re for Aryan people. That don’t mean we’re necessarily against other kinds of people.”
“Don’t make me ask again,” Clete said.
“It means death to all Jews,” said the man with the swastika.
The man named Klute drained the foam out of the bottle and lay the bottle flat on the bar. He spun it in a circle with one finger, then glanced at Clete. His mouth was small, his teeth tiny, spaced apart. “You’re not gonna do something silly, are you?”
“Dave and I are going to eat, then we’re leaving. I shouldn’t have been preaching about weed and such. I’ve got addiction issues myself. I just don’t like to see you screwing up these kids, because if there’s any product in this room, you brought it here.”
“Hang around and see what they’re doing later,” said the man playing with the bottle. “Ever hear of a Crisco party?”
“I think you’re full of it, Jack,” Clete said.
“You’re a familiar kind of guy,” the man said. “You did something in ’Nam you can’t forgive yourself for, so you go around playing the good guy and sucking up to any titty-baby bunch of knee-jerk liberals that’ll let you clean their toilets.”
Clete’s eyes were green marbles, devoid of expression, as though he had floated away into a serene environment no one else could see. He seemed to gaze out the window like a man about to fall asleep. He blinked and rested one hand on top of the bar. He picked up his cigarette lighter and dropped it into his pocket. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes had flattened and turned into tiny green threads, the skin white and as smooth as clay. He pursed his lips and breathed slowly through his nose, then smiled at the two men.
The man named Klute seemed bewitched by Clete’s tranquility and appeared to have no idea what was occurring. Clete fitted his hand around the man’s neck and drove his face into the oak bib of the bar, smashing it again and again into the wood. Then he elbowed the other man in the face, kicked his feet out from under him, and proceeded to stomp both men into pulp, coating the brass rail, balancing himself with one hand, breaking bone or teeth or cartilage or anything he could find with the flat of his shoe.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to pull him back. I could smell the heat and funk and rage and trapped beer-sweat in his clothes, see the acne scars and flame on the back of his neck, the grease in his pores, the moisture glistening on the tips of his little-boy haircut, and I knew there was no way I could restrain him, any more than I could save a drowning man who would take down his rescuer if necessary.