Krista drove through the old riot areas, wanting to catch and sample the air, probe the atmosphere. We’ve got combat a-comin’, the San Quentin prisoner had told her. He had spoken also of Emmy – a deliberate blow to the jugular, aimed to scare, to exploit, to throw off. Proof of intent, of an information network that distributed messages and carried commands. An impressive demonstration. They were organized, about to commit, and she had intangibles and hearsay to play with. Wire taps might help, greater surveillance could be arranged, but the Feds were as blind as any other agency and would be forced to sit back, shuffle the poker pack and wait. There was barely a supremacist cell in America, of whatever colour or inclination, that had not been logged and recorded. Prevention was better than cure, an improvement on sieving bomb wreckage and undertaking reconstructive surgery on shattered bodies. The composite picture would build. She was certain of it, had to be.
Figueroa, Grand, Hope, Flower – the arteries flowing into Downtown – carrying traffic through the steel and concrete, taking the lawyers and insurance personnel to safety in their beige and pastel-hued offices. She did a head-count of drifters and bums, noted the adolescent spitting in the face of an elderly cripple, and turned onto 1st Street to head for Mid-Wilshire. Crossing Union, into Barrio territory and Koreatown. The aerosol artwork and steel-bar quotient increased here on in. Many ghosts. She had attended South Western Law School off Westmoreland, walked freely among the Vietnamese restaurants, cheap Quinceañera boutiques and filthy malls of Vermont, hung out along 6th and 7th, ate pastries at Bullocks. All torched in the riots, pillaged, changed. She had been in Europe, living in London with Josh and Emmy. Sad to see those haunts burn, the images replayed, moments relived, on news programmes night after night. But LA had never been innocent. Finding sympathy for it was an abiding challenge.
At Wilshire Place, on impulse, she drew the replacement car over to the kerb and tapped the number sequence into her cellphone. It was too quick for reason to catch up, for caution to kick in. It must have been the nostalgia-trip, lateral thoughts of the time before heartache. She needed a second opinion, wanted to communicate on a professional level. Too bad she could not even fool herself. The phone-call went international, was through to London. To be honest with herself, and she was rarely that, she simply wanted to hear his voice. The wait. A man in tie and grey slacks scurried by in a fifty-yard dash to his office. Pedestrians were rare in the city and becoming more so. Wisdom dictated contingency planning, the shortest exposure to the street, the longest time in the corporate cocoon. It made for easier litigation, made sense to leave the problems firmly beyond the tinted glass and burly security detail. Few wished to be caught outside when the troubles came. Inevitability was assured, preparation vital. Gymnasium treadmills had been worked overtime in the quest for aerobic stamina and the ability to flee. Such was LA and its collective obsessions. The man bounded up steps and disappeared through swing doors. Things would get worse, before they got worse. In London, the telephone continued to ring.
* * *
The UK
Kemp swung his legs on to the desk and lay back in his chair. The computer blinked idly. Empty screen, empty head. He was expected to deliver a report to St Clair, but concentration had gone out with the tide. Maria Johanna had always been more successful as a home than as an office; it was too familiar. He made himself comfortable. Thinking in the recline might jolt-start the process, aid the connections. He was out of practice with three-dimensional puzzles, in unpicking the choreography behind an enemy campaign. Germany had added another element to the British situation; neo-Nazis hired to guard the flanks of a hate-material operation and ensure his trail ran cold. It implied money, structure; it meant hostile acts perpetrated by external actors and supported by home-grown players, or hostile acts perpetrated by a domestic cast and aided by overseas friends. Whatever it was, whoever they were, neither Special Branch nor MI5 had thrown up anything from their records or sources. There was no reason why he should prevail where they had stumbled. If required, he would go further, revisit the lairs of the UK’s dwindling band of fascists, revitalize contacts that were broken when he left the Service. They might be ecstatic at the upturn in their fortunes, the downturn in national and racial harmony, but the shaven-headed swastika-boys would be as mystified at the reasons as the field handlers and analysts at Thames House. No one knew. That was the worry.
He reached for a photograph frame and held it in his hands. It contained a montage of Emmy growing up, reaching her teens. She never made it to the Senior Prom, to high-school graduation. He had missed so much, missed her so much. A father – daughter thing. As a baby, she had given him her first smile, picked him for her first word, calmed whenever he lifted her. Impossible to give up. He remembered the talcum-smell of her hair at four months, her initial tottering steps at a year, the way she would bend stiffly at the waist like an old man to look round at him. The charm and the joy had stayed with her – would have been with her still. But not the gods – they had deserted her, walked away, left her in the company of an acid-dropping delinquent with a handgun. No point searching for reason or clues. It was done.
Far in the background, coming closer, the sound of his telephone intruded. He sighed, withdrew his legs and returned to upright. Throat clearance, a swallowing of the pang. He was ready to talk.
* * *
That should teach them. It was a lesson that came with a practical demonstration, a lesson from which no one left empty-handed. Hands-on teaching. There were DVD players to be had, entire sound systems for the taking, kitchen accessories, automotive parts, toiletries, play-stations, white goods that would no longer find passage to the homes of white people. Britain – a land of opportunity, a warehouse burgeoning with targets of opportunity. Pilferer’s paradise. It had everything for the committed bargain hunter with quick eyes, quick fingers and quicker feet, a full range of items ready for carriage in a hundred temporarily requisitioned shopping-trolleys. Sales over. He wandered down the cinder-charred street, past the blackened parade of burnt and abandoned shops, the torched cars in scorched parking lots. A youth lounged on a low wall, legs swinging, his back to an upturned Bedford chassis, his thumbs trembling feverishly on the push-buttons of a Game Boy, Hot property. The temperature around here had only recently fallen. Across the road, workmen erected scaffolding around the shell of a former pub, its front heat-peeled, its sign flame-grilled. Happy hour, grievance or no grievance, a fine time had by all. A chalk board left beside a vandalized lamppost promised traditional fare. He was so much better at keeping promises. The remains of a telephone box caught his attention: smashed, the frame jutting angular from a deflowered soil bed like a municipal sculpture, the sort placed as an act of desperation, in lieu of regeneration, by civic leaders who had lost interest and failed to find answers. Sad, some might say. He did not recognize the emotion, did not recognize the statements or posturing of anyone. Riots were for fools, the mob. He was more surgical, more precise. Naturally, the girl had died. Blood loss and shock made it inevitable. Seizing media attention and air-time against the competing backdrop of primary-coloured street-fighting was no mean feat. Performing clitoral circumcision in the back of a transit van and dumping the patient off an East London thoroughfare was no mean feat. The note pushed in her mouth was inspired. Poor taste – cardboard generally was – but it needed saying. That would remind her, inform the rest. He was for real, in earnest. Interracial bonding, pairing, was off-limits, a dead end. They would come round to his way. The black teenage male went on swinging his legs … swinging his legs … swinging his legs. Engrossed, irritating. One could take limb movement for granted. He chewed on his bottom lip, would get the boy’s attention.
* * *
The USA
A rally – Pentecostal in fervour, political in nature – the noise swirling and surging, the lights of the Forum dazzling and beating down. Angry, joyous, the capacity crowd shrieked and cheered, their arms waving, faces upturned towards the rostrum. Reverend Al Azania was their man, their saviour, their anointed. He stood, demagogue-still, breathing the atmosphere, palms outstretched to embrace and encourage. Pure theatre, bravura performance. They loved it, loved him. He could smell their excitement, their expectation; he could smell blood. Fee… fi … fo … Some screamed, some fainted; others spoke in tongues, hollering at their leader. He did not respond, waited for their obedience, the silence of supplicants. Their fervour increased. He spoke the gospel according to truth, according to justice. Amen, they shouted, for they believed. Amen. A perfect venue – once a stadium, now a church. Sport, religion, what did it matter. His mission went beyond either.
‘Out there …’ He pointed to an illuminated Exit sign. ‘Out there, on the streets, our brothers and sisters are fighting a war, a just war … against an unjust enemy, an unjust society.’ Rapturous applause, yells of assent and ecstasy. ‘In there, locked in jails and penitentiaries, chained in work gangs, our brothers and sisters are prisoners of war.’ More tumult. ‘You know … in classical Arabic, the word for a black person and the word for a slave are the same. You know that?’ he shouted. They did not, and shouted back. ‘The word is Abd, brothers and sister, Abd … I want you to remember it, and I want to hear you say it … C’mon, say it, say it with me … Together … Say it loud and say it proud.’
‘Abd … Abd … Abd … Abd …’ they chanted.
He quieted them, shaking his head. ‘It is not a stigma, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, my people, it is a badge. It is a badge we should wear, a badge of honour, of courage, sacrifice, a badge of commitment. Say it again!’
‘Abd … Abd … Abd … Abd …’ came the refrain.
‘And you know what?’ he interrupted. ‘Today, in the United States of America, the whites still make no distinction between us and slaves … we are scourged, we are vilified, we are kept in poverty …’ Breath was held in the audience, barely drawn by the speaker. ‘The whips of the nineteenth century have been replaced by the lash of prejudice in this one, the lynchings of the twentieth century have been replaced by the coordinated machinery of Death Row, the hit squads of the LAPD, and the secret policy to infect us with HIV in this one …We are still bleeding, we are still dying.’
They were mesmerized, they were gone, they were his. And the money kept rolling in, the ammunition belts kept racking and stacking high. His voice had fallen from crescendo to conspiratorial, ached with emotion. He was thinking of doing nose-candy in the back of the Rolls-Royce en route to his mistress, thinking of his visit to London, England. His message was global, his appeal far-reaching, his appetite unlimited. All paid for by subscription and donation, all primed with the guilt and confusion sown among the white foe. Opponents could be cowed, critics scared with the merest threat of a racist tag. The Race Card – his trump card. Opinion was for taming and turning, opinion was for softening with a wake-up call by the Union League, with a visit from his shock-force of Tigers.
‘The American Dream is genocide, the American Dream is one of suffering for our people, our race …’ His body and diction trembled. The crowd swayed and pulsated before him. ‘I have seen the Promised Land – through the bars on my window … At times I feel low, at times I feel weak, at times I feel we will not get there. For the route is choked with weeds and betrayal, the promises have been substituted with lies. But I say here, to all those who listen – Enough! … Enough! … Enough! …’
‘Enough! … Enough! … Enough,’ the thousands responded in rhythmic unison, stamping feet, punching the air.
He spoke over them, speaking to the wider world. ‘We are the eradicators of those weeds, we are the destroyers of those lies. As Nelson Mandela walked to freedom, so shall we.’
‘Enough! … Enough! … Enough! …’
‘We will walk with our heads held high and our fists clenched, we will walk with fire in our eyes and certainty in our hearts, we will walk in a multitude on Washington … We will know no fear, we will take no prisoners …We will trample all before us. And they will quake, for we are coming … Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!’
‘Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!’ they howled.
He swept his finger in an arc across the expanse of heads. Round one. In the round. ‘You are numbered among us. I feel your strength. We can do anything. We … can … do … anything.’
He would do anything.
* * *
The UK
Sophie counted the glasses again, straightened a napkin and went to check on the savoury mini-muffins. She welcomed supper parties, the chance to escape from toddler tantrums and macaroni cheese into semi-formality and upper middle-class small-talk. It was a comfort zone where adult company and creative cooking turned a three-bedroomed artisan semi into a watering-hole for the like-minded and dangerously outnumbered. She could forget she was marooned on the wrong side of the river, forget that most of her friends had moved out of town. There would be laughter, gossip and good wine, the interaction of those who understood the code, who had been privately schooled to recognize their own, protect their own. A minority interest. Surrounded. The incident with the deranged Mercedes driver and his passenger had unnerved her. Silly really, irrational. Hugh had made some quip about savages, and the subject was dropped. Not forgotten. She tried to expel it from her consciousness, yet it stayed, hung around as a toxic shadow. The rule of law was so tenuous. Yes, tonight was a welcome relief.
She turned the dial on the cooker. Freddie was asleep upstairs with his muslin and teddies, his night-light and recording of nursery rhymes; he had asked for endless re-readings of Brothers Grimm fairytales before consenting to settle down. The busier she was, the more demanding he would become, the longer the bath-time and committed the delaying tactics. Thank God Hugh had arrived home early and taken the strain. Her husband would be showering and shaving, washing away the commuter soot and City mindset, would appear in chinos and Lacoste sweater, human again, relaxed, a round peg escaped from the Square Mile, to chat and tinker with his drinks cabinet. He was proud of his cellar. She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes to go. There must be something she had overlooked. She cast about, mind and gaze travelling through the house. That was it – the seating plan. There were six guests coming – two couples, two singles – a decent mix of friendship, fine art and finance with PR and law making a showing. Bright, opinionated, unshockable, they should get on, they had much in common. Jill and Robert were a slight concern, and might use the neutral status of the house as excuse for a bout of mutual inter-marital sniping. Wedding bets had given their marriage six months. Eight years on, they were still together, still bickering, still point-scoring. Exhausting for everyone but themselves. She would place them at opposite ends of the table, fill the no man’s land with enough noise and diversion to smother any awkward outbreak of hostility. All done. She made a quick alteration to the vase arrangement of cut flowers, stood back and smiled. Everyone would enjoy themselves, appreciate her food. Rocquefort soufflé with crisped pear slices followed by braised lamb shanks and garlic-spinach potato mash. Perfect. The pudding was to die for.
* * *
‘What d’you want? What are you ’ere for, then?’
The old man’s voice was querulous, confused. There was no reason for a bloody coon to show at this hour. He did not like or trust them, could not understand why they infested an area he had once recognized, loved and called home. Born here, raised here, married here, likely to die here. And all he wanted to do was leave. Three times he had been robbed, seen his pension money vanish in the blink of an eye and the flash of an air-cushioned undersole. Insult and injury. First they fracture his wrist, cut his forehead; then some surly African witch-fucking-doctor with an unpronounceable name and appalling English patches him up in Outpatients. No justice, there was never any justice. In fact, there was not even a cup of tea from the police. They were over-stretched, had taken his statement, filed his complaint, nodded impatiently when he talked of how things were, how things could be. Nothing would be done. It was too late for him, too late for Britain. He would sit for days turning the pages of his photo albums, dreaming of gentler times, dredging the past for young faces of friends who served alongside him, who had died in war – choked on their blood – so that insolent piccaninnies were free to threaten the survivors. And these imposters, these immigrants and low-digit generation settlers, who had no understanding, pushed their way to the front of the Post Office queue, the housing queue, the benefit queue, never wore Remembrance Day poppies, were deemed his countrymen. Here, have a passport; here, take our money, our taxes; here, bring your relations in; here, trample anything we believe in. Sod ’em.
He peered through the spy-hole. Teeth were bared in a smile on the other side.
‘Go away,’ the octogenarian said, his mouth to the door. ‘I don’t want you ’ere.’ That would be an understatement.
‘I can’t. Special Delivery.’
‘Special what? It’s the neighbours you want.’ That Sophie woman. Nice girl – husband a bit stuck up, mind you – had given him a decent bottle of whisky for Christmas. Kind of them, really. Kid made a bit of a racket now and then, and their workmen had been a right pain. Yuppies for you, always tearing down and putting up. He was the one who put up with a lot. ‘You ’eard me. Wrong place. Piss off.’
No give, no departure. ‘Number 19. Mr Fox. Right?’
‘Y—es.’ Suspicion lengthened the vowel. ‘I haven’t ordered …’
