On a Clear Day

  Drego straightened up suddenly. He looked at Michael with contempt, then started walking away.

  “Drego, Roderick has invited us out for food tonight,” Michael called after him. “I’d like you to come.”

  Drego continued down the hall for a few steps, then stopped. He turned and looked at Michael. “Roderick of the Sturmers?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “The Brits said that a lot of people were showing up in London. The corporations are trying to make this whole conference look like some kind of freak show. And it figures they’re going to be looking for us.”

  “Why you want to go to dinner with Roderick?” Drego. His voice was calmer.

  “Roderick wants something—maybe just to figure out who we are. I don’t know. But it’s interesting that he’s shown up here,” Michael replied. “Maybe he’s just doing a check on who’s got balls. Midnight tonight. You coming?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  I remembered seeing a profile of the Sturmers online. The site was profiling neo-Nazi groups. They gave his real name as Jerry Rowland. The Roderick came from the last Visigoth king.

  “There is a tsunami, a hurricane, interlaced with tornados, rising from the bowels of the earth!” he had mumbled in his “down-home” role as a good ol’ boy who was “tired of being pushed around.” “It is not God made, but man-made. We are the storm. We are the Sturmers.”

  He wanted his message to strike fear in the heart of everyone who listened to him. Fool. People already knew that C-8 was running the show; what the hell did they have to fear from a bunch of misfits who called themselves the Sturmers?

  What the Sturmers did to fit in was to act as mercenaries for anyone who would pay them enough to commit the violence they did, or would pay them not to commit violence. To the Sturmers, and to Roderick in particular, there was no conflict except with those who opposed them. Roderick himself was a big guy, broad, and always in costume. Sometimes it would be some country-western outfit, other times it was his biker mode. But always with enough Nazi decorations to show he was an asshole.

  We were together in Michael’s room talking about our dinner with the Sturmers. Anja texts me that we do too much talking. She is wrong. Drego wants to know about Michael’s endgame.

  “To get a clue as to what Roderick will do,” Michael says. “What is he trying to find out about us? Do the Sturmers have strengths we didn’t know about?”

  “And you’re going to get the straight scoop at one meeting?”

  “With your help, with everybody’s help, I’m going to get as much information as I can,” Michael said. “So will Roderick. He’s not inviting me to dinner because he likes my company.”

  “And if there’s violence at this dinner?”

  “There won’t be.” Tristan spoke up. “There wouldn’t be a meeting if he didn’t need to find out how strong we are.”

  “How strong are we?” Mei-Mei asked.

  “Stronger than you think,” I heard myself saying.

  Mei-Mei gave me a look that was like spitting on me. I wanted to kick her ass so bad, I could taste it.

  “You all right?” Tristan asked Michael.

  Drego had already left, and Mei-Mei had followed him. I knew they would be talking smack about Michael as soon as they left.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” Michael said.

  “You sure about this meeting with Roderick?” Anja asked. “I mean … he’s known to be a sneaky SOB.”

  “I’m not sure, but I think I have to take the chance,” Michael said. “I need good people with me. Drego’s a hothead, but he knows the changes.”

  “I guess.” Tristan’s voice had an edge to it that I liked.

  When Michael asked me to stay a minute, I was glad. Then I panicked, because I thought he might hit on me. Men do that kind of thing when they’re uptight, and I got the feeling he was getting uptight.

  “Can you do a social model?” he asked. “Work Roderick into it, and maybe the Gaters as well. Everybody thinks there’s something going on, and we’re all looking at just the business side. But it could be something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “If the Sturmers got a new weapon, for example. How would that make things different?” Michael asked.

  “A new weapon?” I asked. “C-8 already has enough firepower to keep us in line.”

  “Things are beginning to move,” Michael said. “It’s clearly not a coincidence that the other groups are showing up in London.”

  “You thinking something is going to go down over here?”

  “No, or at least I hope not. The C-8 corporations are always watching for a chance to make a move. You know the Andover Group, and how they’re controlling twenty percent of all the energy resources in the west?” Michael sat on the sofa, stretched his legs out before him and crossed them at the ankles. “The Brits are telling me that they’re suddenly giving up their Nigerian oil interests.”

  “To who?”

  “The Nigerian government,” Michael said. “That’s too sweet for it not to be a cover-up, or a diversion. There’s got to be something fishy about it.”

  “Michael, straight up, are you holding back some stuff we should know?” I asked. “Because when things stop making sense …”

  “That’s why the Brits are so worried,” he answered.

  “They coming with us tonight?”

  “No,” Michael said. “They want their own take on the situation.”

  I didn’t like it, and I was feeling a little paranoid. I knew what C-8 was about, and I knew what life was becoming for everybody. But I wanted to either do something about the shit or go back to the Bronx. I didn’t want to be a bump on anybody’s road.

  At eleven, we piled into a rented van, turned on the auto-GPS, and let the vehicle make its way through the streets of England’s capital. Forty minutes later, we turned into a darkish street, the Kilburn High Road. On the left side of the street, the Tricycle Theatre flashed a blue neon sign. Our dinner was taking place at the Black Lion.

  You could hardly see “The Black Lion” printed above the windows. There were slatted blinds that shielded the interior from the public, and the heavy doors damped down the music. If you could call the crap that was blaring through the pub music. It sounded like golden oldie ska being played by a band of crackheads. The stupid thump, thump, thump of the bass alone was enough to make me want to leave.

  The Sturmers were in their biker-cum-Viking outfits. Lots of black leather, silver studs, obscene tats, and bare arms. A big table had been set up along the wall, and I saw a huge, bearded clown waving us over the moment we came in. I figured that must be Roderick.

  The whole set was carefully staged. I felt the hair on my neck stand up, and I need to pee, only there was no way I was leaving my little group and going into a bathroom alone.

  There were ten Sturmers. Six guys and four girls. They were making enough noise for twice that many.

  My running talk show. I’m in the bedroom with Michael, and he talks to me about computer models while I sit on the bed in a half slip. Stupid, but sweet.

  “Here comes the posse!” Roderick throws his arm around Michael’s shoulder. “Let’s get this party started!”

  Roderick. Up close he has a huge nose with large pores. He’s taller than he looked in the profile piece, maybe six feet six, a shaggy, uneven beard that is dyed red, bad teeth, and what look like acne scars. Disgusting. That’s the way the papers say he wants to look. He wants people to feel uncomfortable and turn away. He catches my eye and smiles. His lips are greasy. I don’t turn away.

  A few stupid jokes from the Sturmers as we watch their girls swig down whatever it is they’re drinking. Roderick signals the wait staff, and they disappear into the kitchen for a minute and then come out with plates of food.

  “What are the girls wearing?” Anja, under her breath.

  “Slut strips!” I said.

  The slut strip came in around twenty years ago and apparently was hot for a while.
It was just a strip of aluminum covered by two microthin layers of silver. You could glue them onto walls or your knapsack and pick up the Internet. Girls put them on their lower backs, which was supposed to make some kind of statement. To me it was just a high-tech tramp stamp. Every time a Sturmer girl moved and her blouse went up, you could see her slut strip flash.

  The food. Nothing special, just lots of it. The talk around the table really stupid and really loud.

  The Sturmers were mostly downing pints of dark beer and shots of some clear liquid. I asked one of them what it was, and he said it was embalming fluid.

  “Y’all got a nice smile, lady!” he says.

  I flashed him a nicer smile, thinking all the time that his down-home drawl didn’t cut it.

  Nobody was talking about anything real, just a whole bunch of eating and drinking and feeling each other out. I don’t like drinking, and the cloudy cider I’d been nursing was getting my stomach upset. The Sturmer women started floating around the table. Pierced faces, makeup thrown on if they were wearing any, tight jeans, and combat boots. Some of them were missing teeth. Any one of them looked like she could be a chapter in a freaking social worker text.

  Mei-Mei nudged my elbow and pointed her nose toward a broad guy with long hair who was trying to get the waitress’s attention. As he turned, I saw a sign painted on his jacket: “If You Can Read This, the Bitch Fell Off!” Hilarious. If he hadn’t already noticed, all the Sturmer women looked as if they fell off something. Maybe a dump truck.

  We ate and waited for Roderick to let us in on why we were at the Black Lion. My mind shifted back to the Andover Group’s giving up the Nigerian oil rights. Whatever Andover had in mind was too sophisticated for the Sturmers. You got smart people like the ones they had in C-8, and you couldn’t mix them with anybody like the Sturmers. They were going for two different things. C-8 was shooting for profits that the Sturmers couldn’t even have imagined. The Sturmers would be happy with their next beer.

  We ate, and waited, and then the punch line came. With Sturmers, the punch line was always violence.

  Roderick reached over and started feeling up the waitress. She looked Irish. Tall, thin, kind of pale, but just fragile enough for somebody to want to take care of her. She pushed Roderick away as she cleared the end of the table. Grinning, he reached from behind and put a huge hand between her legs. A younger white guy who was bussing tables stepped in and knocked Roderick’s hand away.

  “What the hell ya doing?” he yelled,

  Roderick, mouth open as if he was surprised, looked the kid up and down and then laughed.

  “Olga! He’s yours.”

  A Sturmer chick stood, walked over to the guy, and punched him in the groin. The guy went over quickly, and she chopped him on the back of the neck. The Sturmers burst into laughter. Stage shit. It was all stage shit. I glanced over toward Tristan. Calm eyes. Such calm eyes.

  A few of the other customers stood. You could see the fear in their eyes. They didn’t know what was going down. This was the kind of world we were living in, and people like Roderick were gaming it to the max.

  He stood up and raised his arms. All the Sturmers shut down. More theater shit. The reference to Nazis was clear, and they were milking it.

  “We’re disturbing the people,” Roderick says. “There’s another room. Maybe we can go to it.”

  “You grabbing any more women?” Mei-Mei asked.

  “I wouldn’t touch you, sweetheart.” Roderick grinning. In charge. Big man. Drego’s throat bulging with anger.

  A bootlicking sucker, his fat gut hanging over his belt, showed us to another room. Tristan went in first. I followed him. He looked around, sat at the long dark-wood table. The tables outside were heavy, mahogany. Real wood. Roderick was chowing down on some kind of meat, holding the bone in his hands. The waiters brought the rest of the food from the outside tables.

  If they’re putting up with this, it means that they’ve been well paid. In the computer projections, I need to add a money trail.

  Roderick stood and wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  “Whatever is said, whatever anybody feels, there’s something we all know,” he said. “What we know is that some of us are better than the others. We can play games about democracy or equality, but in our hearts we know. What I want to do is two things. Not very complex, not very risky, not very hard. One is to let everyone feel in their heart what I say aloud, which is the truth. That there are people on top and people on the bottom, and there always will be!

  “Once we say this—and we all believe it; there are no fools here—then we can go on to the next step. And that step is to make life better for everyone,” Roderick went on. “What that better life is like we can question, but who doesn’t want a better life, eh?”

  The bone, the fat dripping off the glazed skin, partially covered Roderick’s face as he bit into it. I wondered what role Roderick could play in the C-8’s latest plans. Maybe he was not as confident as he seemed if he still needed all the theatrics.

  “How do you see us getting a better life, Roderick?” Michael asked.

  “Hah, I’m glad you said ‘us.’” Roderick wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “The trouble, as I see it, is that the crawly creatures are the biggest problem. They are the neediest, so it’s natural that they invent wars against us to get what they want. But they hold the key to the way that everybody has to live. You can’t travel anywhere for fear that they’ll attack. Yeah, I know that what they want is food, and sometimes medicines. But they are still the source of the conflict, the root cause.”

  “And if we just found a way to give them more?” I asked.

  “They would still want to be equals in an unequal world, wouldn’t they? And please, don’t bore me with some nonsense about us all groping our way to some level playing field. That ain’t happening, baby.”

  “And you’re proposing?” Michael.

  “To control them,” Roderick said. “To make the world a better place by removing the worst elements. If you have a diseased body, a cancer growing in you, you try to remove that cancer. You don’t kill the body.”

  “A final solution?” Michael touched his fingertips together.

  “Hey, would your women screw one of those guys from Peru?” a Sturmer chick asked. “One of those little greasy dudes? I don’t think so. So what’s going to happen is they’re going to stay pissed and look for ways of getting what they want. You can’t blame them, but you can sure as hell stop them.”

  “There’s no reason to make a decision—any decision—tonight or even over the next few months,” Roderick added. “It’s just something to think about. We stop the wild kids, the ones roaming through the streets with Uzis and butchering people, and we raise the stock of the world and have more resources to pass around. You guys know who you are. You’re top of the pile. You got more education, more class, and a pissload more brains than the average Gater, than half the people in C-8, than every jerk—What do they call them? Favelos? Tell me you don’t know that. Tell me that Asian chick doesn’t have an IQ as high as two of them put together.”

  “Bottom line, Roderick,” Michael put his hands palm down on the table. “How do you plan to ‘stop’ these kids, these favelos?”

  Roderick laughs. He looks at the Sturmers with him, and they chuckle to themselves knowingly.

  “We’ll find a way,” he said. “Trust me.”

  “Why we meeting in London?” Drego. “Why not New York, or Boston?”

  Roderick turned to Drego slowly.

  “Y’all over here making friends, Othello.” Roderick let the words slide out his mouth. “We just want to know if we gonna be among those friends. Now you can’t blame a good old Southern boy for thinking on that, can you?”

  Back to the eating and drinking. A Sturmer girl throwing kisses at Tristan. One of the Sturmer men sticking out his tongue at Mei-Mei.

  Winding up. Michael asked for our bill, but the Sturmers, predictably, paid for it all.
We shook hands all around on the sidewalk. The narrow street was dark, but not so dark we couldn’t see Roderick relieving himself against the side of the building.

  7

  At the hotel. Michael was saying that we should start packing up to go home. He was collecting his mail, and I saw the clerk hand him a small leather pouch.

  “Maybe just hang in London for a day or two and then split.”

  It sounded good to me, and I immediately started thinking of buying gifts for Mrs. Rosario and the old man. Mei-Mei was whispering something stupid to Drego. I couldn’t hear it, but I knew it was stupid. Javier was already in the elevator when Michael called to him. There was an urgency in his voice, and we all stopped.

  Drego caught the elevator door and Javier powered out. We all waited as Javier took the pouch and the paper that Michael handed him.

  “This legit?” Michael asked Javier.

  “Could be.” Javier turned over the paper. “Let’s call the Brits.”

  “What’s up?” Tristan.

  “This is a diplomatic pouch, and there’s a message in it that’s supposed to be from a Sayeed Ibn Zayad,” Michael said.

  “Who’s that?” Tristan.

  Michael shrugging. Everybody else too pooped to care.

  Anja asked if she could come to my rooms.

  “Sure.”

  “What did you think of tonight?” she asked when we got there, taking off her shoes. “It wasn’t as stupid as it looked.”

  “What did you see that I didn’t see?” I asked. “Because it looked stupid as hell to me.”

  “We come to London and the Brits are like looking at us to do something, and then the Sturmers invite us out to their little circus,” Anja said. “They’re feeling us out and the Brits are feeling us out—”