As they pulled away from the school, Ty sideways-glanced at Lock. ‘This Roach kid sounds like a real charmer.’
Lock puffed out his cheeks. ‘Big fish in a small pond. Maybe if we drain the water a little we can get him flapping.’
‘You think he’s caught up in this?’ Ty asked.
‘I can definitely see him giving up Aaron. I’m not so sure about anything else. Although, if he wanted to make a name for himself, then who knows.’
Lock fell silent for a moment, his jaw clenched tight.
‘I’ll promise you one thing though, Tyrone.’
‘What’s that, brother?’
‘He’s gonna tell us everything he knows about what went down.’
51
The boy they’d spoken to at the school was right, Roach was hard to miss. Six foot plus and maybe a hundred and eighty pounds. He wasn’t up there with Reaper or the other members of the AB, but he would hold his own in most prisons, which in Lock’s view was exactly where he was heading.
He greeted Tyrone with a faux-menacing ‘What you looking at, nigger?’
Tyrone’s expression read mock-offended but he kept his hands by his side as Roach’s compatriots snickered. He and Lock hadn’t exactly expected a ticker-tape parade, and they weren’t going to be disappointed.
‘I get it,’ said Ty. ‘This is the part where I say, “Who you callin’ a nigger?” And then you say, “I’m callin’ you a nigger, nigger.” And then I throw a punch at you. And that gives you and your cronies here the perfect excuse to triple-team me and beat me to a pulp.’
Ty’s speech seemed to throw Roach. He looked to his fellow skinheads for a reaction, but they seemed equally perplexed.
‘Except,’ Ty went on, ‘there’s a couple of problems. One, I’ve been called all kinds of names. And you know that saying about sticks and stones…’ He pulled down his T-shirt to expose the fresh wound on his shoulder. ‘And I been shot too. Recently. You ever been shot?’
Roach looked at his cheerleaders. ‘Nigger’s crazy.’
Lock eyeballed Roach. ‘Answer the man’s question.’ He parted his jacket just enough that the butt of his 226 was on view. ‘You ever been shot?’
Roach backed up a step. ‘Screw you, nigger-lover.’
Before anyone had a chance to react, Lock’s gun was in Roach’s face. Roach’s mouth shaped to say something, then he changed his mind.
‘Get in the car,’ Lock whispered to him.
Roach’s bravado was very slowly ebbing away. Easy to be top dog in a town like this, thought Lock, especially when you were big and stupid.
‘You’re playing in the big leagues now, Roach.’
Roach reacted to hearing his name. ‘Who are you?’
The longer the delay, the more chance someone would call the cops, Lock knew, smashing his gun into the side of Roach’s face. His buddies did some sidewalk dancing and shouting, but none of them made a move to help their fallen leader.
Ty grabbed Roach, dug both thumbs under his jaw and propelled him towards the Lincoln. Together, he and Lock bundled him into the back. Lock climbed in with him, giving Roach a few digs of his elbow for good measure.
‘You guys are dead!’ Roach shouted.
Ty caught Lock’s eye. This was going to be fun.
They drove for more than an hour in total, heading due east towards the desert. The longer they drove, the more Roach’s self-confidence peeled away in layers. He quickly moved from threats to a sullen silence, finally settling on a couple of half-hearted pleas for leniency, all of which were met with studied silence by Lock and Ty.
As the traffic on the highway thinned out, Lock finally spoke.
‘You bring the shovel?’
Ty glanced in the rear-view for the briefest of seconds.
‘In the trunk with the quicklime.’
Five minutes later, Ty pulled the Lincoln off the road and they hauled an unwilling Roach out. They walked him for ten minutes, hitting a rise and putting them all out of sight of the highway. Every time Roach tried to look over his shoulder, Lock prodded him with the gun.
‘This looks as good a spot as any,’ Ty said.
‘Get down on your knees,’ Lock ordered.
Roach was crying now. Big mucus-filled sobs. Just like Aaron Prager. Lock contemplated starting out by cutting off one of Roach’s many Nazi-themed tattoos. He jammed his gun into the back of Roach’s neck.
‘This is bullshit, man. You’re going to kill me because I called someone a name?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve done a lot worse. Sure there’s been more than a few blacks, or Hispanics, or gay folk, or people who just looked different, who’ve run into you and your little jerk-off crew. Haven’t there?’ The SIG was ready to fire. He withdrew it from Roach’s neck. ‘I’m going to use this, but I don’t want any contact burns. It makes the gun easier to trace if they find you.’
Taking a step back, Lock aimed the SIG six feet to Roach’s right, then pulled the trigger. Roach let out a choked scream and, judging by the smell, emptied his bladder and bowels simultaneously.
‘Damn, that’s rank. You want to get a bit more variety into your diet there, son,’ Ty said.
Roach turned to them, tears streaming down his face. ‘Hey, if you’re going to do this, just do it, OK?’
‘Why shouldn’t we torture you a little bit first, like your friends did with Aaron?’ Ty said. ‘Eyes front, cockroach.’
Roach complied.
Lock raised the SIG again. ‘Now, you have one chance and one chance only to tell us who you ratted Aaron out to.’
Roach sucked some snot back up his nose. He shuddered a sob. ‘He never told us his real name.’
‘He must have called himself something.’
‘Cowboy.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Like six two. Bigger than average. Real fit. He was in the military.’
Another look between Lock and Ty.
‘Ex-military?’
‘No, still serving. He was trying to get us to sign up too. He said that was the best shot the movement had. For as many of us as possible to join up, get the training and then use it when the time came.’
‘What unit was he in?’
‘He never said.’
‘Infantry? Air Force? Navy? What?’ Lock pressed the SIG into Roach’s back.
‘He just said something about Special Forces.’
Lock noticed Ty’s wry grin. Every wannabe Walter Mitty character — and the white supremacists had plenty of those — claimed some kind of connection to Special Forces.
‘Did he say where he was based?’
‘He said they came from all over, but he was down in Coronado.’
‘You got the Seals down there, far as I remember anyway,’ said Ty.
Lock jabbed the gun into Roach’s flesh. ‘That ring a bell?’
‘No. I swear.’
‘So this Cowboy guy came down and hung out round here?’
‘Yeah.’
‘After you told him about Aaron and who his father was?’
‘No, I met him before that.’
So much for Aaron dicking about on the wrong internet forums. The Feds had called that one wrong. Lock could see Ty thinking the same thing.
‘He come on his own?’
‘Apart from one time. There was a woman with him.’
‘Catch her name?’ Lock asked, his attention sharpening.
‘Chance,’ said Roach.
Lock sighed. Another street name.
‘What was she like?’
‘Like maybe twenty-five, twenty-six. Blonde. Super-hot. Nice rack.’
‘She military as well?’
‘No, but her father had been. She talked about him some. He was a martyr to the cause. You know, like David Lane and those guys in the Order.’
‘He was in the Order?’
‘No, he came after those guys. She said he was up in Pelican Bay.’
Lock breathed in sharply. ‘She have a name for him?’
‘No.’
‘Think hard, Roach,’ Lock said, pushing so hard into Roach’s neck with his gun that he could see a welt starting to form.