A walnut stained door led into the corner suite, there was a hand written sign crookedly taped above the mail slot, ‘KRAZ National Headquarters’. I opened the door and walked in, or at least I tried. About three quarters into opening the door struck the edge of a desk forcing me to make a quick side step.
“Hello,” I called, still holding the door open.
The desk, a mid 60’s surplus model was covered with stacks of files. Random scrawled notes were taped to the wall behind the desk. Aging newspapers littered the stacks of files and spilled onto the floor.
“Hello, anyone home,” I called again.
I heard a raspy cough which was followed by the appearance of a guy in the doorway off to the right. He wore large, dark framed glasses, wrinkled, cream colored cotton slacks and a grey t-shirt that read “KRAZ, America’s Right!” in bright red letters. He held a cigarette with a two inch ash in his right hand.
“Hi, I’m looking for Farrell Earley,” I said.
He took a drag, thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Do you have an appointment?”
“Yeah, Devlin Haskell, he’s expecting me,” I would have handed the guy my card, but I’d run out a few weeks back.
He exhaled a blue cloud, gave a slight cough.
“Oh yeah, nice to meet you, Farrell J. Earley. Any problem finding the place?” he asked extending his hand. He looked nothing like his gorgeous, knife wielding, crazy sister.
“No, no problem, exactly where I thought you were,” I lied.
“Come on back to the office, I want you to meet Tommy. Give you an idea of what we’re dealing with, see what you think.” He was saying this as we walked through what must have been an office at one time. The room was crammed with stacks of blue and red plastic crates filled with cords, key boards, three or four antique computer monitors. The things probably leaked radiation and looked as old as me.
“Pardon the mess, we’re in the process of updating,” he said, making for a door on the far wall.
Through the door we entered a dusty office with walls painted a baby shit brown color. A red faced guy with a crew cut sat behind the desk, typing on an electric typewriter.
“With you in a moment,” he said, not looking up, fingers dancing across the typewriter keys. With every key stroke a ball about the size of a golf ball struck the paper.
Farrell motioned me toward a dusty, black leather couch. We sat there and waited in a blue cloud of his cigarette smoke. Eventually the typing was complete and the guy pulled the sheet from the typewriter, then placed it face down on a stack of paper, turned in his chair and looked from me to Farrell, then back to me.
“Sorry about that, can never be too careful. Tomorrow’s broadcast, do that on the computer and there’s no telling who’ll get hold of it, use it for their own degenerate purposes. Alright then, who do we have here?”
“This is the fella I was telling you about, the private investigator, Dennis Haskell.”
“Devlin, Devlin Haskell,” I corrected.
“Thompson Barkwell,” he said holding out his hand.
I had to get up off the couch and take two steps to grab it. He gave me a limp shake for the effort.
“Nice to meet you, Mister Barkwell.”
“Please, call me Thompson, we get to know one another better and you can call me Tommy. But, let’s keep it at Thompson for right now, shall we?”
Fine with me jerk, I thought, smiled and nodded,
“Yes sir, I look forward to getting to know you much better.”
“Farrell bring you up to speed with our situation?”
“Not really, what seems to be the problem?”
They looked back and forth for a long moment. Eventually Thompson took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair and said, “Here at K-R-A-Z we like to think of ourselves as the voice of the American future. A right thinking America. We….”
The future of America is the electric typewriter? I was wondering why I should even be surprised? After all they got my name from that knife wielding lunatic, Kiki. I wondered if she’d calmed down yet? Then I remembered her breasts bouncing up and down while she swung the knife at me. Wondered if maybe it had just been a one time sort of melt down and maybe we could …
“… view us as a threat to their socialistic ways, and therefore intend to deal with us accordingly.”
They sat and looked at me, waiting for a reaction. I tried to erase Kiki from my mind.
“So what do you think?” Thompson finally said.
“Give me that last part again.”
“Not much to it. The note said that we were a threat to their socialistic ways and therefore they intended to deal with us accordingly.”
“So many questions,” I said, stalling for time.
“Would you care to share them?” Thompson asked.
“Well first off, tell me about the note. How did it come to you? Where is it now? Did you inform the police?”
“Like I said, it was shoved under the door when we arrived yesterday. Yes, we did call the police,” Thompson said.
“They’ve got the note now,” Farrell added.
“I see, I see,” hoping to sound like I did.
“Of course they’re probably worried about equal rights and the other nonsense that’s become the left’s mantra. While patriots like us just soldier on, moving forward, constantly under fire,” Thompson said.
“So you consider this a threat, the note? You don’t think someone might just be pulling your leg?”
“Pulling our leg? You’ve got to be kidding? No, we’ve struck a nerve, probably more than one. No doubt you’ve listened to our broadcasts, you know how they are.”
“To tell you the truth I don’t listen as often as I’d like to.”
“Which was your favorite?” Thompson asked.
Farrell exhaled another blue cloud and leaned forward on the couch.
“Oh, it would be tough to pick one,” I dodged.
“But, you must have a favorite.”
“I really like them all, no, no, too tough to narrow it down to just one. Honest.”
“I know what you mean,” Thompson said, looking thoughtful.
Farrell nodded, fired up another cigarette using the butt of his last one.
“Okay, so we’re working with what, a death threat?” I asked.
“Exactly,” replied Thompson.
“Yeah, death threat, definitely a death threat,” Farrell chimed in.
“And what, exactly, would you like me to do?”
“Well first and foremost, protection, that’s paramount. Something happens to either one of us and the movement dies, right here, right now.” Thompson struck the desk top four times with his index finger in perfect time to ‘right here, right now’.
“Then, when you’re not protecting, we’d like you to get to the bottom of this. Find out what sort of pinko, commy group of misfits uses murder and intimidation as a logical consequence of open dialogue.”
“What about the police?” I asked.
“Can’t be trusted?” Farrell said.
Thompson nodded his head in agreement.
“What sort of protection do you want?” I asked.
“You carry a gun don’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m licensed.”
“For the love of…, hell we’re all licensed, if that’s what you want to call it. Part of our second amendment rights. But we need some extra firepower. These folks will stop at nothing.”
“Look no offense, but so far all you’ve got is a note slipped under the door. You’ve given that to the police, they’ll check it out for you. From what you tell me it sounds like it could be as simple as a college prank.”
“A college prank? You can’t honestly believe that threat represents a college prank. Although given the state of what passes for education now-a-days…” Thompson seemed to drift off somewhere distant, then slapped the top of his desk. “No, I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury of living in such a cavalier fashion, Mister Haskin.”