The Complete Matt Jacob Series

by Klein, Zachary;

  “I’m getting it,” I said, vowing silently to keep scratching. His sincerity almost made me feel guilty. Almost.

  “Good,” he nodded. “Sean never talked about his own life but I think if we want people to understand where we’re coming from they got to remember what they lost.” This was Blue’s attempt to assert his new leadership. He was gonna be plenty pissed when he eventually discovered he’d done it for nothing.

  He looked at me with solemn round eyes. “And writer, people already lost a lot. My old man worked his ass off for nothing. As soon as they figured out they could pay muds less, my daddy was history. Let me tell you, you don’t raise no family on waitress tips.”

  “He lost his job, huh?”

  Blue’s face tightened as he remembered. “He lost everything. We ended up on some relative’s property, living in a fucking barn. No matter how hard we cleaned, you couldn’t get rid of the smell of shit. From what Sean told us, that was about the time it really started getting bad for everybody.”

  “What started?”

  Blue shook his head slowly and pointed to the refrigerator door. “If you talk to every guy here, you’ll hear the same damn thing. Lives fucked one way or another by the Horns. Their civil rights thing was done to get the muds to worship ‘em. White family after white family pissed on or blown away.” He raised his eyebrows. “Sean said we work together, meet together, pull shit together, to remember how it was to be a family. So we could get back what we all lost.”

  I flashed on my own losses but forcibly pushed them away. “And you think it’s the fault of the Jews?” I asked dispassionately.

  “Wake up, man. The Horns started with the immigration lawyer thing and then they took over the entertainment business. Especially television and movies. Gave them a chance to put out their bullshit.” He waved his hand. “Sean called it propaganda. See, they started television. Some guy named Smarnoff.”

  “Smarnoff?”

  Blue shook his head impatiently. “Something like that. What difference does his name make? He was a fucking Horn and he owned television. Newspapers, radio stations, books, everything. But it still wasn’t enough for the cocksuckers. They figured once people caught on they’d be finished. They looked at what happened in Germany and knew they couldn’t control everything by themselves so they started the civil rights thing. Them three Jews who were supposed to be killed in the South.”

  I jotted a couple of lines in the notebook. “Supposed to be?”

  “Sure,” Blue nodded emphatically. “It helps them get what they want. The Horns make all that shit up. Like the concentration camps.”

  “The Avengers don’t believe there were concentration camps?” I flashed on Reb Yonah’s numbers. I didn’t think he branded them himself.

  “Look, McMurphy, we ain’t Nazis but they got a bum rap. The kikes pushed their way into power and it was up to the white Germans to get ‘em out. Same as here. I’m not saying they didn’t kill a few. Hell, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. But camps? Fuck, no. That’s the kind of lies the Jew media spread to get people on their side. Made up the stories, pictures, all sorts of shit. Sean said this engineer who studied where the camps were supposed to be can prove there were no gas chambers.”

  He looked at me, anxious to assess my response. I kept my head down, scribbled away, seeing myself sitting in the middle of a refrigerator lit by a dangling naked bulb and a flashing red light. And I thought Alice took a pill to get to Wonderland. My synapses were exploding with the last gasps of the cocaine high and Blue’s semi-organized system of ignorance had produced a sweat. Despite the icebox.

  “They have that much drag, huh?” I asked, knowing I had to respond. “You guys read up on this?”

  “Sean did the reading then taught the rest of us. Now, I got to.” He paused. “The Horns have more drag than you could imagine. See, that’s why we have to keep them off guard. The weird ones with the funny hair on the sides of their head are really the ones in charge. They want everyone to believe in their God called Yahweh. The Jews that look white work for them. But as soon as they take over they’re gonna outlaw us Christians. That’s why we work the Beards over. If we keep them busy they don’t have time for other things.”

  “Sean taught you guys a lot, huh?”

  “Well, when he understood what was happening he couldn’t just do nothing. See, all of us knew something was wrong but we never put it together. We thought it was us. Sean showed us whose fault it really was.”

  “What were you into before the White Avengers?”

  Blue looked at the pen in my hand and motioned for me to put it down. “I ain’t gonna talk much about that and I don’t want you to write any of it down.”

  I dropped the pen. “Fine.”

  “You ever notice that once in a while an armored car gets hit?”

  “That’s you?”

  He waved his hands. “Oh no, I ain’t saying that.”

  But he was and, at first, I didn’t understand why. But he couldn’t keep the pride from his porky face and I finally got it. “You don’t have to answer any of this and it’s not for the story, but I’m guessing you were in charge, not Sean?”

  “Bam, bam, take ‘em down quick, get outa there. Leave ‘em with a few knots on their heads, and a couple pounds lighter. Let’s say, one of us did the planning and one of us ran the job.”

  “Were you busted?”

  “Never.” His barrel chest swelled and his voice filled with pleasure. “Look, before any of us understood this Horn thing we were just angry and acted like it. Stole from anyone. Even people who weren’t no better off than us. Who gave a shit? We never figured we’d have a real chance at things. The dice were loaded but we didn’t know how or who done it. Now when we do something we got a reason.”

  “So tell me about the shootings.”

  The air went out of him like a snapped popper. “I got nothing to tell. I didn’t even know it was gonna happen.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Sean kept a lot of things to himself…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he didn’t always tell us what he was going to do. See, Sean wasn’t like the rest of us. He figured we needed a family, but he was different. He learned shit on his own, did things on his own. Offing the Horn was his own thing.”

  Blue sounded miffed. “Don’t get me wrong, if he’d a lived he’d a told us his reasons.”

  “You’re telling me you don’t know why he shot the Rabbi?”

  “I’m telling you he had his reasons. After Sean understood what was what, he never did things wild.” Blue smiled at the memory of Sean. “I’m telling you, McMurphy, he was a genius! Sean could figure out a plan for anything.”

  For a second I didn’t recognize my name and almost turned to see if someone else had entered the fridge. But Blue was so intent on his deification of Kelly he didn’t notice.

  “I don’t know what happened that night. We were supposed to be laying low. We done a lot of stuff to the Horns since we organized and Sean was worried something negative would come down.”

  “What sort of stuff did you do?”

  Blue spent the next twenty minutes detailing a long list of harassments: some light, some much more serious and threatening. All done with the purpose of bonding a large old-fashioned white family out of the multi-colored mess they believed America had become. I sat and listened while he regaled me with stories detailing the Avengers’ commitment to scaring the bejesus out of Yeshiva students. I tried to get him to talk a little more about the armored car stickups, but here he balked. He also continued to deny any involvement or knowledge about the Rabbi’s death. He preferred to turn Kelly into a prophet and martyr. A man who stood tall in the cause of White Liberation.

  My high was gone and with it any desire for more information. My throat was sore from too many cigarettes and my head felt too big to squeeze back through Alice’s keyhole. I was cold, tired, and disgusted. It was time to leave.
But then Blue brought me back to attention. “Why ain’t you writing?” he demanded suspiciously.

  I remembered the boy scouts upstairs and worded my answer carefully. “I took down the facts. Listen man, this is my first opportunity to speak with someone who wants to save the country.” I had to keep talking so I threw in, “Now that Communism is gone, you know, it’s easy to let down your guard…”

  Blue was suddenly excited again. “Another fucking lie! See, that’s how smart the Horns are. They got the whole world thinking Communism is dead but they’re just keeping it quiet. When they get the chance they’ll shove it right back up our ass!”

  I stood. “Look, let me go to work and put an article together.” I paused, picked up my stuff, and shook half my smokes onto the table. “One thing. I thought armored cars were impenetrable. Wells Fargo and all that. I don’t want details…”

  “Don’t worry, you ain’t getting any,” he laughed as he scooped up the cigarettes. “If you stake ‘em out real careful, take your time and watch them right, you notice little habits the drivers and guards have.” Blue stood up. “Where they like to stretch their legs, where moving the money goes slow, shit like that. Kelly was a fucking genius when it came to that stuff. The rest is like I told you. Whack, whack, bam, bam. Don’t even have to shoot nobody. Shit, those companies be better off hiring us. Save themselves a couple of bucks.”

  “Where did the money go?”

  “You gotta live.”

  “All of it?”

  His voice dropped a notch. “We ain’t the only group defending the country. What we get, we share. Sean took care of all that.”

  “You weren’t afraid he’d rip you off?”

  Blue’s face darkened. “What are you thinking? We started out as thieves but we ain’t that way now. We pull for each other ever since we understood what was going on.”

  He stopped and stared, a mean look in his eyes. “Listen, you better not fuck up this article. If the White Avengers come across wrong, your ass is gonna be in a sling.”

  I quickly made amends. “Don’t worry. I understand what it’s like to have your family blown apart, find another, then watch that one go.” I couldn’t believe my words; I had just identified with Blue and his group. “I’ll show you the article before I shop it around,” I added dispiritedly.

  His body relaxed. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah. So how do I get in touch?”

  “Check with Buzz.”

  I followed Blue up the stairs. Everyone was bottles and eyes when we came through the door. I made my way through their hostile family. Buzz wanted to know whether Blue had turned the cooler back on but I didn’t wait for the answer. I wanted the chill out, not on.

  Despite the night’s drop in temperature, bone-chilled as I was from my time in the cooler, the outdoors were a flat out relief. My own white man’s liberation. I took my time returning to the car; no rush to be back inside a closed space, even a cozy one. I understood how Blue and his horses got to the water, even though the pool was poison. Something I knew from my own previous dips into violence and hate. I wanted time to shake Blue’s clumsy thinking, his blind rage. Time to forget my momentary identification with the Avengers’ blown-out lives.

  A block and a half from my parking spot a skinny black figure darted across the street. I’d been so internal I hadn’t thought to watch my back. Cheryl apparently had.

  “What are you doing here this time of morning?” I barked protectively.

  “Tailing your honky ass, Matthew Jacobs.”

  “Jacob, without the s.”

  “Whatever.”

  She started to talk but I grabbed elbow and dragged her quickly toward the car.

  “What are you doing?” she complained, pulling her arm.

  “I’m trying to keep both our butts lead-free. If the Avengers see us together again, I’m fucked and you won’t be sitting pretty either.”

  “So you have been meeting with them,” she crowed triumphantly. Then, in a more somber tone, asked, “See us again?”

  “That’s right, Cheryl, again.”

  She stopped resisting and matched me stride for stride. She remained quiet until I pulled away from the curb. “Where are you taking us? It’s a little late, or maybe a little early, for a pleasure cruise.”

  I snorted but kept driving until I’d clocked a mile, then parked. “Why the hell are you still ‘tailing my honky ass’?” I demanded without any real fire. Something about her vibrancy shortcircuited my annoyance.

  “I told you, I’m going to get this story out.”

  “Then why not get it out on your own instead of riding my back?”

  “Are you kidding? You’re as close to the White Avengers as I can get.”

  “Lady, I’m as close as you ever want to get.”

  An exuberant grin lit up her face. “Now you got it; that’s why we’re talking.”

  This time I didn’t fight Cheryl’s enthusiasm. It was a relief after my time with Blue. “Okay,” I said with a weary smile. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to know what you know. Who you talked to, what they said. I want to know as much as you’ll tell me. I want people to understand the danger of letting groups like this go unchecked. See, Matthew Jacob, I believe ‘the truth will set them free.’”

  “Everyone has their own version of truth, Cheryl. I just got done listening to the Avengers’.”

  “That’s not truth; that’s fear and rage. What you heard was hateful and disgusting, right?”

  I looked at her bright face. Then I looked at her body. She had changed clothes and now wore a high-riding black skirt. With plenty of leg. I ripped my eyes away, lit a cigarette, and sat quietly trying to decide what, if anything, to say. “Look, I can’t talk to you until after I meet with Roth. He pays the bills.”

  “And you’re only in it for the money.”

  “I’m a Frank Zappa fan.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Never mind. I’ll speak to Simon. Maybe he’ll let me feed you what I get.”

  “You’re not saying that just to be rid of me?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to be rid of you.”

  She cocked her chocolate Lena Home head and drawled, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Her question flustered me. “I like you, that’s what it means. I like your attitude. If I didn’t we wouldn’t be talking. And I dislike the Avengers.”

  I felt Cheryl’s eyes on my face. “You sound different than you did earlier today.”

  “‘Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.’”

  “The quote is ‘Foolish consistency.’ Listen, Matthew, I saw the way you steamed out of that bar. Both times. Something has you by the short hairs.”

  I shook my head. She didn’t know Zappa but had Ralph Waldo down. Or was it Thackeray? I grunted and started the car. “Where you parked?” I asked.

  I dropped Cheryl off with a promise to call. To prove my sincerity, I asked for her card. I was sincere. Usually I’d rip. This time I tucked the 2-by-3 into my pocket.

  On the way home I hoped for a solid eight. But when I got there my nerves didn’t agree. Something tugged at the corners of my awareness while I strenuously worked to keep it out. I tried the Holy Three—but grass, whisky, and television simply added weight to the chorus. I grew worried about sleep: if I couldn’t, if I could. The throbbing in my head finally settled down when I remembered the plastic bottle of Valium in the gym bag.

  Which I found. And knew I’d eaten when the telephone’s ring slapped me upside the head. I reached onto the night table, knocked a Crumley to the floor, and finally found the handle. “If this is a fucking computer I’m gonna hurt someone,” I mumbled.

  “No computer,” Simon barked. “Wanted to see if you were all right.”

  I started to roar when I heard the phone shut down. Smart man, my friend Simon.

  But not smart enough. I’d fallen back asleep and, from the look on his face, taken
more than a few seconds to distinguish between the pounding on the door and the pounding in my head.

  “You look terrible,” Simon said as he walked to the kitchen holding a McDonald’s bag between his thumb and index finger. “Time for lunch.”

  “I like Burger King,” I complained, untwisting the sweats from around my ankles.

  “Always running with the loser,” he snorted.

  “Not that complex. I like the King’s food better.”

  “Bullshit. The Sox, Detroit. Who you kidding?”

  I fumbled with the coffee and hoped he hadn’t noticed. I didn’t like all his noticing.

  “When the Dodgers moved out of Brooklyn, I rooted for the Yanks.”

  “Is that right?” Simon seemed genuinely surprised.

  “At least until I heard Les Keiter do the Giants.” None of us like to be without our images.

  Simon grinned. “That’s my Matt. You still look like shit.”

  I got the pot perking, lit a cigarette, and turned around. “Sleep deprivation can do that,” I said. Simon almost answered, instead, shook his head and dumped the bag. The packages hit the table without a sound but still made me wince.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t here with whitefish and bagels,” I said, unwrapping a sugar-coated croissant.

  “Gotta take your shots, don’t you?”

  “Doesn’t everyone? You shag me about drugs, I bang you about the ‘opiate of the masses.’”

  I couldn’t hold my tongue. When I stopped talking, a small tremor shook my hand. I willed the coffee to hurry and puffed on my cigarette. I was not in a good mood. Despite Simon’s charitable donation. Fuck it, he probably kept the receipt.

  “I didn’t say a word about drugs,” he protested.

  “I know the look.”