They echoed him, but out in the open like this, it didn’t have much punch. Hard room to fill.
Then the Grand Dragon began to sing “Amazing Grace” and they all joined in. I decided it was time to break ranks and entered the circle, walking right up to Starkweather, who paused in mid-lyric and his lamb-dropping eyes glared at me through the big eyeholes.
“Back in line, knight!” he demanded.
“I’m here for my payment,” I said. “As arranged.”
The eyes got squinty. “Later, man. Can’t you see the meeting is in full swing?”
“I’m not a member. I want the money now. Take a break.” I nodded to the guy holding the Confederate flag, then to the one with Old Glory. “Have Moe or Larry take over. Time to do business.”
But I’d misjudged it. This wasn’t like interrupting an Elks Lodge meeting or not respecting Robert’s Rules of Order. Several of the rank-and-file were abandoning the circle to come toward us, or really toward me, and then more joined in. They were unfriendly ghosts floating right at me, and I backpedaled, knocking into the guy with the Dixie flag. He stumbled backward, into the smaller cross, and the flag went up in flames and then so did he, and he started running around like, well, like a man on fire.
They were all yelling, screaming now, though of course the one-man conflagration on the run was screaming loudest. But the rest were still coming at me, closing in as they shouted their outrage.
The Grand Dragon stormed through and leapt at me with his hands clawed from under his big sleeves, like a villain in an old serial about to strike, and Jesus, what do you think I did? I ran from him. Back behind the burning crosses, I turned and kicked out like Bruce Lee and caught the bigger cross at its base. It splintered, it gave, it fell on the Grand Dragon, not heavy enough to take him down and pin him or anything, but when he pushed it away, the wind-whipped flames were curling around him, drawing him to them, stroking, fondling, embracing, squeezing a nearly orgasmic cry from him as he succumbed to their seductive power.
The base of that cross was wrapped in some flame-retardant material, so I tried picking it up and the thing was light, which made sense as who wants to carry a heavy wooden cross for very long, and now the enraged hooded white robe wearers were swarming around me. I whipped the thing around, awkwardly, the flames snapping and hissing and leaving tracer trails in the night, catching some of those white uniforms, decorating them with dancing orange-and-blue demons, and from those white uniforms the demons leapt to other white uniforms and others.
Turns out white sheets are pretty fucking flammable.
A hooded handful that the fire hadn’t yet touched were poised like they wondered if they should rush me. I hurled the burning cross at them and they changed their minds, scurrying away. I took the opportunity to get out of the hood and then the robe, knowing I was anything but immune to the hell I’d unleashed here. Then I kicked the other two fiery crosses over, to further discourage anybody fucking with me.
And then everybody but me was running away, those that were on fire trailing flames like the ass of a jet engine, while those who had somehow avoided catching fire were making sure they stayed that way. They ran in seemingly every possible direction and it was like seeing roaches scatter when you turned on a kitchen light. Roaches that were on fire. That were screaming.
Screaming loudest of all was the Grand Dragon, who was flat on his back, on the grass, which had caught fire around him, creating a flickering orange body outline. The green silk was black now, his hood a crackling charcoal like a roasted marshmallow that stayed too long on the stick — or was that just his skin with the cloth burned away? Either way, he was staring up at me with Jolson eyes, trying to roll on his side but not able to, his nerve endings just not able to send the right signals anymore.
The prick deserved a long, slow, miserable death. But he was wailing in such agony that there was nothing to do but shoot him in the head. Maybe I was getting soft at that.
Then I was alone in the clearing. The wind was gradually putting the fires out, the short dead grass not able to really get going. Two extra crispy corpses were the only real damage done — one of them Starkweather himself, the other the bearer of the rebel flag, who’d made it about fifteen yards, dying on his stomach and even now sending up smoke signals that would not be answered.
I did for Starkweather what he couldn’t do for himself. Using my foot, I rolled him over and over, until the fire was out. The silk robe was all but gone, but the smouldering remnants of his tan Nazi-esque uniform gave up his car keys.
By the time I started walking toward the hill, the night had turned very quiet, the Hunter’s Moon painting everything a vivid ivory. After all the hubbub, the sudden solitude was nice. Soothing.
At the top of the hill, through the cluster of trees, I could see only two cars remaining. All those Krazy Klansters had jumped in their cars and scrambled back to their real lives. The only sign that they’d ever been here was a handful of scorched white robes and hoods.
One of the two remaining cars was the white Lincoln with rebel flag decal and the WALLACE FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker — down at the bottom of the hill, mirroring the Dodge Charger parked on the other side.
I unlocked the Lincoln trunk and easily found the plump envelope of cash tucked behind the spare tire. Hundreds, as crisp as the man who’d brought them. One-hundred hundreds — ten grand. Having collected my windbreaker, I stuffed the envelope in a pocket.
I walked up the hill. The night was quiet. If there was a God, maybe He’d noticed the fuss down in the clearing. But nobody else seemed to have. I walked down the hill.
Unlocked the Charger trunk.
Delmont looked cramped yet strangely comfy. You can get used to an indignity after a while.
“Jesus fuck, Jack!” He looked up at me the way a dog in its cage does its overdue master. “What the shit-fuck-hell was goin’ on out there? Uh... is something burnin’?”
I helped him out. He moaned and groaned a little. I could hear bones pop. It’s tough being ten pounds of meat in a five-pound can.
He was damn near babbling. “I mean, I could hear screams and guys rushin’ around and swearin’ and even bawlin’! Car doors openin’, slammin’, more engines startin’ than Indy, drivin’ off, kickin’ gravel... what the hell did you do down there, man?”
“I got your money,” I said.
That brightened him.
I handed him the fat envelope and he grinned as he thumbed through the new bills. When he looked up, I was pointing the silenced nine mil at him.
“Jack — what’s the idea, man? We’re partners!”
I put out a palm. “Hand it over.”
“Jesus fuck! That ain’t fuckin’ fair, Jack!”
I snatched the envelope back, slipped it in the windbreaker pocket.
He looked like he might cry. “What do you need my money for? You said I’d be in the black!”
“You will be,” I said, and the nine mil hiccuped.
Twelve
Boyd and I sat in our underwear at the kitchen table at the lookout pad. It was a little after eleven P.M. and the end of a very long day, much of it spent on a bus getting from one out-of-town campus rally to another, only to return to find a lumberjack beating Boyd to shit, followed by a moonlit KKK meeting. Little man, you’ve had a busy day.
Ten thousand dollars — all in crisp new C-notes — rose in two equal stacks on the Formica tabletop, like we were in a high-stakes poker game and somebody forgot the cards.