Perdition, U.S.A. Read online

  Kodama, wanting to understand, searched through the past then said. “Yes, the psychoanalyst to the Hollywood Communist Party members and fellow travelers. He convinced some of his patients to rat before HUAC because it would resolve their inner conflicts. And it’s alleged he even told McCarthy’s bully boys confidential information he’d learned from his sessions.”

  “And his rationale?” Kane asked, knowing she knew.

  “Advance the class struggle,” she replied wearily. “By ridding the Party of a bunch of armchair revolutionaries and cocktail-circuit Bolsheviks, the core that remained would be that much stronger. Those remaining would constitute a hardened vanguard.”

  “And the fear and hysteria that was whipped up would polarize the masses, thus heightening the contradictions, comrade.” Kane emptied his glass, looking over the rim past the walls of the bar. “The worse it gets, the more one is forged.” It was if he were reciting scripture.

  “So Grainger dies at the hands of a white supremacist,” Kodama said. “His hate crimes legislation, which is never going to get out of committee, would pass. Public sentiment would carry it. But there’s no way to control all the fallout.”

  “Politics is about taking chances,” he chimed. “Momentum is very important.”

  “That’s very Machiavellian of you, “Kodama commented ruefully.

  “I like to think somebody like Ralph Reed would appreciate it, dear.” Kane gripped her arm. “Look at what’s taking place in Italy, France, Germany, Bosnia for God’s sake. Fascism and racism and homophobia and anti-Semitism ain’t dead, it’s breeding, Jill. We don’t have time for piss-ant reformist measures. We have to be as ruthless as our enemies.”

  “And Bright went along with this?” She removed his hand.

  Kane licked his lips. “Let’s pretend, you and I. Let’s pretend someone could convince our conflicted supremacist there was somebody like him on the other side. Only this person’s gayness was open, his supremacy was closeted.”

  “And Bright rationalizes his homosexuality in the Roman fashion. Making love to a man was the ultimate expression of his manliness, therefore his whiteness,” Kodama finished.

  “There you go.” Kane finished the gin.

  “No, Walter. What about striving for the higher ground? What about vision and compassion? We can do better.”

  “In Never-Never Land,” he sneered.

  She backhanded him with enough force to rock him on his stool. Several of the queens put hands to their mouths in a theatrical manner.

  “Harder, baby.”

  A cunning look seized Kane. “Let’s pretend our avatar sets Meyer in motion, too. Behind Bobby’s back, of course. The younger man has the respect of the more violence-prone members like the War Reich. He was the one always pushing for more direct action, more confrontations with a society he didn’t acknowledge.” An envy lit him from within.

  “It wasn’t hard, Meyer’d publicly accused Bright of being too much in love with the cameras and talk show circuit. He was looking for a way to bring the faggot down.”

  “And I bet you’re the one who confirmed it for him about Bright being gay,” Kodama observed icily.

  “Chaos from within, an emboldened movement slicing parts of the enemy away from without.”

  “And what kind of victory would such a poisoned movement sprout?” Kodama demanded.

  Kane broke a pretzel neatly in two. “That’s a question the ones left standing have the luxury to answer.”

  Kodama rose, leveling a finger at her one-time friend. “Maybe there’s no evidence to be put against you, Walter, but I’ll make sure everyone knows what you did.”

  “That would be slander, your honor.”

  “Sue me.” She walked toward the exit.

  Kane called out. “You’ll just be building my reputation, Jill. I’ll get all kinds of offers to run presidential campaigns.”

  On the stereo “Smiling Faces” by the Dramatics played.

  Chapter 28

  Bobby Bright disappeared. “Hard Copy,” “Inside Edition,” “A Current Affair,” and even “Unsolved Mysteries” did variations on Bright and the theme of the making of a gay skinhead. Juanita Oray didn’t allow herself to be interviewed for any of these shows. But there were others who were more than willing. For the right price.

  There was one show with a skinhead, his face obscured via pixelation, who said he was gay and knew of many others who were gay in the white supremacist movement. There was another with a woman who’d been Bright’s baby sitter and told of the horrifying incident of Bright touching the private parts of his male cousin. It was pointed out later they both had been five at the time and taking a bath together.

  On one tabloid program members of a skinhead rock band debated drag queens. It ended in a brawl, the hostess got a concussion, but the show topped the week in ratings. Howard Stern hosted the babes of white supremacy contest on one of his pay-per-view specials. The woman with the daggers tattooed on each areola and her pubic hair shaved in the shape of a swastika won.

  There was even an open invitation from one of the tabloid shows to Bright for him to do an interview from underground. They offered to pay him $100,000. But some pointed out that in addition to his being outed, maybe the fact that a federal conspiracy to commit murder warrant hung over him might be another reason he wasn’t going to take up the offer.

  Monk returned to Perdition at the request of Rameses and Katya. They’d asked him back to provide public testimony on a hearing they’d pushed Ash and the city council to hold on the growing threat of the supremacist’s movement.

  “Hey, isn’t that—?” Monk asked Katya, standing with Rameses and some of the others on a street corner after the hearing.

  Solemnly, she said, “Yes, that’s her.”

  “Damn,” Monk replied, shocked.

  “Both of her loves are gone, Monk.” Rameses intoned softly.

  “Damn.” Monk looked at Elsa Meyer as she crossed the street in front of them.

  “She just wanders about town, stopping to buy groceries and such, but that’s about it,” Juke added, looking at the retreating figure.

  “Look boys, let’s not forget she financed the War Reich as much for her son as to keep the town from being united. She’s still a big landowner around here and has fought community development on our side of the tracks for years,” Katya reminded them. “With few businesses getting loans in our part of town, the skinhead shit on top of the usual bank redlining, everybody had to shop downtown where the stores that rented from her are.”

  “Granted, Katya, still it’s a shame,” Monk commented.

  “Methinks friend Monk cries crocodile tears,” Rameses said.

  Monk was going to respond but Juke interrupted.

  “Here, you can be one of our first contributors.” Juke handed him an envelope with something printed on the front.

  Monk read it. “Really?” he said, looking at Rameses.

  Katya responded, “Hamm’s up for reelection this year. We think with everything that’s happened, we’ve got a good chance. At least we’ll raise the issues.”

  “Hell yes.” On the top of a car, Monk wrote out a check and put it in the envelope. It was printed with the message, “Contributions to the Orin M. Oray for Sheriff Campaign.”

  Elsa Meyer walked back to her big, empty Gothic Revival mansion. She climbed the darkened stairway to the second floor. At the top, she momentarily paused, looking at the apartment her son had occupied. She lowered her head and marched into her room, leaving the door open.

  At an easy chair facing the window with the curtains pulled back, next to a table with a half-empty bottle of Chablis on it and a lead crystal glass, she sat down. Clad in a shapeless, long-hemmed dour dress, her hair now all white, her face like leather dried in the sun, Elsa Meyer poured herself a measure.

  She raised the wine to her mouth, her lips barely touching the glass. Something had caused her eyes to wander, the focus lost behind them. The glass slipped f
rom her hand. It struck the Belgian carpet and the stem broke away from the body, the contents eddying onto the thick rug, soaking into the surface. Elsa Meyer stared at it, watching it disappear. A solitary tear ran down her cheek.

  It turned out at the very moment Ronny Aaron was killed, Nolan Meyer was the in-studio guest of the local War Reich on their cable access show out of Tustin. Herbert Gaylord Jones finally admitted his guilt. He’d been clean and sober for a month.

  “Thanks, Mr. Detective.” Clarice bounced her daughter on her slim hip. She offered him a sealed envelope.

  Monk made a deferential motion with his good arm, the busted one in bandages and a sling. “Keep it for Shawndell, Clarice.” It was that awkward time, the resolution of the puzzle which was supposed to bring satisfaction. But the dead did not rise, and the grieving kept on missing them. Clarice kissed him on the cheek.

  Garcetti, the D.A., was going to ask for special circumstances concerning Meyer, making him eligible for the gas chamber. That wouldn’t make the future any brighter for the struggling teenage mother, but it seemed the feeble best the current stock of no-buttermore-prisons politicians on both sides of aisle could offer in these waning days of the American empire. While the cellular phone set jockeyed for position to catch the rising wave of Chinese capitalism on their Sharper Image brand surfboards.

  Swede was forced to sell his part of the garment finishing businesses. In return, the information on him wouldn’t get in the hands of the IRS, and he was not to bother Mrs. Urbanski. Subsequently, she sold the business to some cheerful folks who promptly cut wages and increased the workload.

  Somebody delivered an informative package to the local International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and they promptly waged an organizing campaign.

  Monk, over time, convinced himself the hate was stamped down, buried under the layers of the cool observer he sought to maintain. Yet like a chronic heart condition, he knew it would come back. No doctor could cure it, no treatment was strong enough.

  And Jimmy Henderson still lay in a coma, an innocent who’d become a totem of his failure. And in true modern fashion, his family was fighting the insurance company to keep him alive on the machines.

  “Okay, but you have to wash your hairs out of the sink when you trim your goatee,” Kodama admonished him.

  Monk was wrestling with a crate of his LP’s, placing it alongside her couch in the den. “Yes, dear.”

  “Be cute,” she said.

  “I’ll try.” Monk went out to retrieve another box of his stuff.

  The judge never did finish her painting.

  Acknowledgments

  Bob Coe is the first, and will remain the best book editor I’ll ever have. His on-point observations and guerilla fighter’s discipline for verisimilitude in content and form has shaped this work into something much better than it was.

  Naturally, its shortcomings are all mine.

  The research and topical material published by People Against Racist Terror, the Center for Democratic Renewal, R.A.S.H. (Red & Anarchist Skinheads) Update from the Center for Contemporary Activities, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League were not only great stores of information, but demonstrated how common folk of various races working together can combat the rise of hate groups.

  And though we weren’t drinking buddies, the late Gordon DeMarco is responsible for my further forays into the world of Ivan Monk. For that I am grateful. I hope you found Harry Lime, man.

  Lastly, this is being written on the day after Ross Thomas’ death. It meant something to me that we shared a panel once, and had both worked for unions in our time. He signed my copy of his Seersucker Whipsaw, “… to a fellow pork-chopper.” Mr. Thomas, you’ll always have game.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1996 by Gary Phillips

  cover design by Elizabeth Connor

  This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

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