Old Hinkey still handled the bookings, mainly because he had more interest in turning a buck than his 220-pound son. He didn’t pay attention to the bands’ names, but he kept up with D.C. scuttlebutt enough to go only for acts that brought in some kind of crowd. He’d heard that Loki and the Giants were popular with long-haired, highly tattooed kids who dress only in black, so he closed the deal with the lead singer-of course they didn’t have a manager.
It turned out to be one of the worst decisions he’d ever made.
Loki was in what Hinkey called the dressing room. The proprietor had told him he used to take broads there back in the days when piss wasn’t all that came out of a dick. That explained why there was an ancient bed with a rat-chewed mattress along one wall. Maybe the cracked mirror on the opposite wall dated from then, too. Hinkey had put a battered table and a light under it, and called it a dressing table. Pity he didn’t pay more attention to his own dressing-the Hawaiian shirt he was wearing made Loki’s eyes burn.
Still, the singer thought, the shit hole had some good points. The so-called dressing room had a door that opened onto the yard at the back of the bar. It had been asphalted and there was just room for the band’s van to park there. That had saved them humping the amp, speakers and instruments through the front of the dive. It also meant that pussy could be checked in and out without anyone noticing.
Loki took out a Baggie and emptied some of the contents onto the table. That was another advantage to Hickey’s-it had a resident dealer upstairs. He chopped out a couple of lines and bent low to snort them. The stuff had been heavily cut, but it still did the job. He sat back and twitched his head, feeling greasy strands of his waist-length hair slap against his cheeks. Since he’d turned forty, he’d had to start dying it black-gray hair didn’t cut it when you were a thrash-metal Nazi satanist. He bared his teeth at the mirror. The lower part of his face was covered by a beard that reached his belly, while his cheeks and forehead had been tattooed with Viking runes and whorls. His arms bore similar designs in red and black. His prize tats-the ones that would have gotten him beaten up in the street or even arrested in some of the more liberal states, including the hyper-politically-correct District of Columbia-were under his black T-shirt. There was a ten-inch swastika on his chest and an Iron Cross hanging from the bottom hook, while the words I Am the Final Solution adorned his back in six-inch-high Gothic letters. If the audience was the right kind, he’d take a chance and strip off to give them the full show. He’d had Mein Kampf tattooed on his lower abdomen, with an arrow pointing to his groin. He didn’t think the Fuhrer would disapprove.
Loki-born Duane Speckesser-had come a long way from Wisconsin. His parents were third-generation Germans with a small farm. When he was a teenager, he got progressively angrier about their lack of interest in the Fatherland. His old man had served in the Airborne and was proud that he’d kept the victors’ peace in Berlin after the end of the Thousand Year Reich. As far as Duane was concerned, he should have hung his head in shame. A quarter of Americans had German roots, but very few of them showed any respect to the greatest German of all. Although the young Loki had little ability as a singer, he threw himself into the far-right music scene because he understood the power of songs to influence and inspire people. It also got him laid more often than his unprepossessing appearance would otherwise have merited. He had started off as a skinhead then found his real place in the underground metal scene that emerged in the eighties. He didn’t even have to sing anymore, as roaring vocals out was the preferred style.
Loki did another line and stretched his muscular arms. He might have put on a load of pounds, but he still worked out with weights on the long drives between gigs. The Giants were the most popular Nazi satanic metal band in the South and Midwest, but the opportunity to play the capital, the seat of the Zionist Occupation Government, was not to be turned down, even if Hinkey was paying peanuts-the old fucker had tried to pay them off with a couple of crates of beer, but Loki had put him right. Maybe he’d put him even more right after the show. Then again, Loki was doing pretty well, what with album sales on the Internet-his songs were bought around the world, thanks to modern technology-and with donations from clandestine far-right organizations that approved of his agenda. Compositions like “Aryan Race,” “Rise Up and Fight,” “Smoke over Auschwitz” and “We Are Satan’s Storm Troopers” had turned out to be real money-spinners. He had to be careful how he presented himself in public, though. That was why he’d chosen the name of Loki, the Norse trickster god, and given the other musicians giants’ names. He’d have preferred to have performed as the Children of the Fuhrer, but that would have gotten the ZOG and its pinko pals jumping like scalded cats. He’d been inside more than once and he wasn’t going back.
The singer stood up and slapped his black leather pants. They were getting tight; he could do with a new pair. Maybe he’d go shoplifting tomorrow. It was amazing how easy it was to rip things off when the rest of the band started brawling and threatening to throw up in shops. Which reminded him… Where were his sidekicks? There was less than an hour till showtime. The assholes had probably disobeyed his orders and gone into one of the black districts. It wouldn’t be the first time they turned up for a gig covered in blood. Still, it was good for the image.
There was a double knock on the back door. Loki opened up.
“Look what we got!” said Bergilmir, the stick-thin bassist.
“Fresh as a Dachau daisy,” added the guitarist Skadi, a podgy woman with dyed white hair down to her ass.
The drummer, Thiazi, pushed forward a young woman in a head scarf. “Guess what, big man? I reckon this one’s a virrrgin.” He smiled, revealing several missing teeth.
Loki grabbed the woman and pulled off her scarf. She had thickly curled dark hair. Around her neck was a gold chain with a small pendant. Loki pulled it off and let out a loud shout.
“A Star of David,” he said, looking at the band. “You finally got one.” He dropped the pendant and crushed it with his biker’s boot. “Right, you guys get ready in here. I’m taking the dog to the van.”
“Aw,” Skaldi moaned. “Can’t we watch?”
“Not this time,” Loki said. “I’ve got something real special planned for this piece of Yiddish meat.” He shoved the young woman toward the door. “No peeking,” he said, staring at the musicians.
They nodded sullenly but cheered up when they saw the bag of coke on the table.
Outside, Loki opened the rear doors of the ramshackle white van and dragged his victim in. She was whimpering, but she hadn’t given up struggling. When he ripped her blouse open, she let out a scream. The sound stopped abruptly when he slapped her cheek so hard that her head bounced against the sidewall. She slumped down, unconscious.
“Shit,” Loki said. “I was going to ram Big Adolf down your throat.” He unzipped his trousers. “Guess he’s going somewhere even wetter.” He grunted and pulled up the woman’s skirt.
It was then that he heard a faint noise outside.