Those Bones Are Not My Child (34 page)

“Churches and synagogues too,” Teo said, flipping pages. “Let’s see … in 1958, and in 1963—”

“Let’s not make heavy weather of this report. Just let me hear what you’ve got. So what about this guy?”

“Welp, I’m waiting for Sue Ellen to get through with her scene, so we gets to gabbing, me and this guy I’m telling you about. And we’re talking about how the colored senator’s trying to get Stoner’s racialist ads off the TV and all and he says Stoner’s a right guy and gonna chair this big convention of white-is-right groups from all over the world.”

“Great,” Spence muttered, worrying the gum. “A city full of Nazis.” And with nothing in place, he was thinking. The Black community becoming a killing ground, fascists from all corners of the globe marching in, and nothing was in place. “When the hell are you guys going to take responsibility for civilizing your community?” Spence snapped. “How come you’re sitting around with this bastard talking about Julian Bond instead of taking some action?”

“Jeez,” Teo muttered. “I thought we were.” He turned to Zala for
support. She seemed a million miles away, clutching the cigar box in her lap.

Spence bumped his leg against hers. Didn’t she have something to say? He slid the window down when he realized it was never going to be a good chew; parts of the gum stayed separate in grainy bits. He spit it out, then thwacked the wheel. Storm troopers gathering in the city and the community had forgotten how to defend itself. His attention had been so focused on the rally that STOP and SCLC organized, the right-wing convention had slipped his mind altogether. He’d heard nothing more on the news than that immigration had refused entry to a few of the more notorious extremists.

“What are you so riled about?”

“They don’t like you, either, don’t forget.” Spence slid the window up. “Because you’re a good guy,” he added without irony, he thought, but he could hear Gaston saying “fullashit.”

“So about this guy,” Teo said. “He bears watching, so I’m on the case. First of all, all he talks about is disaster. You know what I mean? Floods, earthquakes, nuclear accidents, revolutions, riots—especially riots.” Teo turned his head to study his audience. “Race riots, of course, being his favorite topic.”

“Right,” Spence muttered.

“Course …” Teo skinned down another slice of gum. “Sometimes when I go and visit my folks and see them crops rotting in the fields ’cause it don’t pay to harvest no more if the government’s gonna play footsie with the Russians, and I tell you the truth, I get to thinking ’bout guns and revolution myself.” He stopped chewing and looked out the window

Spence glanced across the seat, feeling suddenly alone in the car. “Has he talked about the case at all? Has he mentioned the children?”

“Guns and revolution,” Teo said. “That’s mostly what he’s been talking about lately. I haven’t worked the conversation round to the case as yet. Just dropping a few hints. Mostly he does the talking. And can he ever talk, this guy. He gotta grab you when he talks.” Teo seized Zala’s arm for a joke but let go when she jumped.

“Real beefy type,” Teo continued, swelling his chest out and deepening his voice. “But solid. You can tell he lifts weights and works out. You know the type—always wants you to sock his stomach and break your damn hand. Always selling, that guy.”

“What’s he selling, Teo?” Zala asked.

“Yeah, what’s his story? Give me something I can use.”

“Survival’s what he’s selling. Always saying, ‘Make your choice now, either you’re a survivor or a victim.’ The guy runs survival workshops in the woods somewhere—Alabama, I think. A hundred bucks per couple per weekend. Physical fitness, how to cure meat and freeze-dry veggies, how to build a fire without smoke, set booby traps, keep your weapons dry fording streams. Like that. Hundred bucks per couple.” Teo whistled through his teeth. “I don’t know what he charges for kids, but them’s the rates for grown folks. Readying up for the big war. The
big
one,” Teo emphasized when he got no reaction. “The race war, you guys. Hello?”

“War, right,” Spence said. War was being declared again and nothing was in place. A bogus peace had been proclaimed and the community warriors had placed their shields on the public pile and buckled up their honor in
GQ
suits. Out of the side of his eye Spence caught Zala watching his face. He wondered if she was reading his mind and would sneer “I told you so,” though she’d never really understood what he’d told her about warriors, she’d only been adamant—not scared, he corrected himself—when he’d outfitted himself for upward mobility, afraid of being left behind. He was sure he had that right, but her staring unnerved him, nonetheless.

“And his clothes,” Teo was chuckling. “You oughta see this guy in some of his getups.”

“You tailing him or getting engaged, T?”

“Funny guy, your husband.” Teo shoved against the door to give himself dressing room. “Wears a flak jacket, air-force flight glasses, fatigues, hiking boots, and an assault vest, Spencer, with a hundred pockets. Carries everything in them but attack dogs—got bolo knives, hand claws, and these watchamacallits. Ever hear tell of ‘Brute Vitality Energy Paks’?” Teo was scraping the plastic pen case in his breast pocket to show where Brute Paks were fitted on his subject. “Super energy food done up like K rations. The guys wacko, I’m telling you, well-educated and sharp as hell but wacko. And you gotta see the flight bag he lugs around with him all the time. Not just his scripts and costume gear, he’s a walking library too.
The SWAT Team Manual, The Survivor’s Almanac, American Defender, Strike Force, Gung Ho, Soldier of Fortune
—that type of stuff. Them magazines with the bodybuilding ads and Help Wanted
mercenary columns and ‘Clip This Coupon for a Course in Hypnotism to Have the Ladies Do Your Bidding.’ That type of stuff.” Teo ran a finger across his brow and shook it.

“You’ve looked over the material?”

“Hell, yes. That guy could sell anything. Got me taking out subscriptions to them field-and-stream and shoot-and-kill gazettes. You bet.”

Spence turned it over in his mind: hypnotism, costumes, weapons. He turned to Zala to see what she made of it. She was sniffing at the cigar box, not the least bit listening to Teo.

“Sue Ellen says he’s got an ammo crate at his place. Some of the actors get together, between rehearals at the church, to go over their lines,” he explained, slightly crimson in the crinkles as he smiled, or tried to. “And he’s got one of them Remington ammunition crates—foot spikes, carbines, handguns, grenades, tools the likes of which—well, hell, I don’t know what kind of tools they are. But the point is the guy’s a walking arsenal. Wacko. Except he ain’t altogether wacko, ’cause he makes a sort of sense, in a wiggy sort of way.”

“Yeah?”

“I worry about the company you keep, Teo,” Zala said suddenly. “I really do.” She took another whiff of the box. But how did a piece of faceted glass smell, or a pick?

“Like I say, he’s real persuasive. ‘Don’t get dinosaured out,’ he’s always saying. ‘Get with the times.’ Sounds like paranoid, I guess, hunh?” Neither Zala nor Spence answered. Teo braced his back against the door again and blew his chest out, walking his fingers across the front of his waiter’s shirt until Zala looked up. “He’s got this T-shirt that says ‘Gun Control Is Hitting Your Target.’ ” Teo laughed, then cut it short when they didn’t.

“Like you said, T, this guy bears watching.”

“Welp, I’m on the case.” Encouraged, Teo flipped through more pages. “His other job,” he said, folding the pages back, “I got onto this one night when he had the director hemmed gainst the costume rack talking a blue streak about ballistic-proof armored vehicles. Bug-proof, too.” He ran his hands over the dashboard. “Got a little device that jams any kind of transmitter. He’s a security consultant for overseas corporations. Kidnappings his specialty. Guarding against them, I mean.”

“Kidnappings!”

“Ahh, now you’re both perking up.” Teo danced around on the seat, jerking his thumbs around. “Why do you think I’ve been on his tail? From the first day I spotted the guy in Daily’s taking lunch with one of the reporters, I sez to myself, Tune in on this one, and sure enough they were discussing kidnappings. So I sez to myself, Fucking right, get on it, Teodescu.”

“The children?”

“Naw, not children. Terrorist stuff. And not here. You know, in them countries where they take an American businessman to trade for one of their own buddies locked up. That kind of thing. Hasn’t mentioned the case yet, and doesn’t pick up on my cues, so I wait. Talks a helluva lot, so he’ll get to it if there’s something to get to. But he sure knows all about the kidnapping racket.”

“Like what?” Spence leaned away from the wheel to hear.

“Well, for instance, in 95 percent of all kidnap cases, an automobile is involved.”

Spence looked at his army buddy thumbing through his notes. “That’s it? That’s the extent of four weeks of sucking up to the creep?”

“It’s something,” Zala said. She kept her hands securely folded on the box lid while Teo and Spence argued back and forth across her about what was worth spending time on. It was Spence who was making heavy weather of the report. Teo, Beemer, and one other white vet who’d stuck it out in McClintock’s encounter group were keeping tabs on the Stone Mountain right-wingers and were renewing old associations with school chums, ’Nam vets, and cousins who could help them keep tabs on known Klan members and sympathizers on the police force. But what if it wasn’t outsiders but someone right in their midst?

“How long have you had this box?” she asked just as Spence leaned across her to ask Teo what the wacko guy’s name was.

“Gills himself Bedford. One minute it’s not, next minute it’s Pat. I don’t set much store by what he says. He’s got three initials stamped on his flight bag—NBF—but the first time I met him he told me to call him Pat. You figure it.

“NBF. Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Spence said dryly.

“You know him? You know this cookie? Hot damn, Spencer, you know everybody. And here I was tailing the guy and calling myself Barnaby Jones. I’ll be damned.” He poked Zala. “Ain’t he somp’n?”

Spence shook his head. “Hell, Teo, half the city streets are named
after Forrest, come on. Civil War hero, Klan founder, great American patriot—which is probably where ‘Pat’ came from. He’s messing with your mind, T.” Spence laughed. “Soon as they figure how to work ole Nathan up there on Stone Mountain next to General Lee and Stoney, they’ll chisel him in. That’s the kind of shit they used to teach us in civics class—to write letters to have ole Nathan up there on the wall. One of the benefits of so-called integrated schools, T, you get to worship at the shrine.”

“Now that’s inneresting,” Teo drawled, his jaws working. “You don’t suppose NBF is like a class ring—say, like one of them pins Masons wear to court and flash from lawyer to judge to jury? A secret-society pin?” He chewed awhile, thinking it over. “You don’t guess there’s a bunch of these NBFers marching around the city with initials stamped on their briefcases?”

“Or on those black leather cases cops wear on their hips.”

“Jeez, this is getting scary, and this sorryass gum don’t help.”

“Best way to conquer fear, ole buddy, is to have at it.” Spence pressed the button to slide the window down on Teo’s side so he could get rid of the gum. “What say you get yourself an invite to the party, T?”

Teo gagged, then spit out the gum. “Is this what ya call Black comedy? All joking aside, Sarge, ain’t there somebody else to pull this duty?”

“C’mon, a haircut and you’d blend right in. I thought you guys were gung ho to make use of all these contacts you’ve been making?”

“Gung ho my ass. It’d be a haircut all right.” Teo yanked up a shock of his hair and hung himself. “First thing I’m gonna do when I get home is study that insurance policy you wrote up.”

“Got an address at least?”

“Address? Have you got my family covered is the question.”

“The convention site, T. Where’s Stoner hosting this hoedown?”

Teo tore out a page and plastered it down on the lid of the box in Zala’s lap. “Hotel out in Cobb County,” he said guardedly, then leaned back and let out a long, breathy, spearminty sigh. “Pardon me, folks, while I catch some shut-eye.”

Spence tapped the horn at a brown dog lying curled and sleeping in the middle of the tunnel that a year ago marked the line of demarcation
between the new International Boulevard and the old Magnolia Street. Lazily the dog roused itself and shook all over, then blinked at the grill of the limo. Spence beeped again. The dog trotted down toward the Magnolia end of the tunnel, veering around trenches and digging equipment, signs of convention center encroaching inch by inch on the old neighborhood. The takeover schemes of the seventies had been foiled, for the time being at least, first by the unexpected appearance of hundreds of young Black professional couples who bought up the re-gentrified homes, second by the Black Christian Nationalist Church, which bought up a whole block on Gordon for the Shrine of the Black Madonna Center. The West End secured, community workers no longer studied the master plan of the Atlanta 2000 Project, which targeted several districts for “demographic changes” in time for the International University and the World’s Fair, both slated for the turn of the century. Malik, one of the brothers who’d accompanied the caravan weeks ago, had said that if they were to study the plan, they might note a relationship between the series of fires set in the West End area, the proposed school closings there, the proposed reapportionment schemes, and the aggressive offers real-estate dealers were making to old-time residents of the neighborhood to get out.

Spence wondered if there might be a gathering of warriors at Malik’s place. One of Dave’s friends, Malik lived near West End Park, where a sect of Muslims owned homes and stores. He’d offered his home as a meeting place one night so they could divide up the route—Dave’s group, starting out from where the Carter boy had lived, traveled northwest along Gordon Street till it became MLK Drive, then swung up into Hightower Road toward Jackson Parkway, covering some seven points on the map and ending up where the boy from Cleveland had been staying; B. J.’s group drove east to Memorial Drive and Conway, covering nine points on the map, and stopping where the Richardson boy had last been seen alive; the limo went south to the Lakewood and Campbellton area, where Detective Dowell promised to meet them off the clock. At the appointed hour, 8:30 p.m., each stopped to make notes, then headed toward site number 1 on Niskey Lake Road. Spence supposed there would not be a meeting at Malik’s, for come to think of it, Saturday was their Sabbath. Where, then, might someone be raising an army to defend the community?