Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  “Slavery! they cry. Slavery! Let me tell you, my fellow patriots, my fellow Christians. Slavery is sanctioned in the Bible. Both Testaments. Abraham had slaves. Canaan was made a slave because his father Ham saw his father Noah naked. Jesus never spoke against slavery. Consider these verses: ‘Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.’ Titus two, verses nine and ten. Or, my friends, consider these: ‘When a slave owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner's property.’ Exodus 20, verses 21 and 22. See, these passages show us that slavery was part of God’s plan. When we deviated from His plan, the country began to go to shit.”

  Marlo touched her phone again, and the recording stopped. She took another pull on the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  I exchanged a look with Drea, whose lips were pressed into a tight line. Next, I turned to Ophelia, whose jaw was set as she squeezed the blood out of the hand Judge Chancellor had slipped around her waist. Chancellor’s eyes were narrowed behind his glasses, his mouth curled down in a frown. Rory Gramm’s mouth was open wide enough for a fist to fit inside. Edie Gramm blinked in confusion, eyes darting from face to face. Alvin and Arlene Zachritz were visibly uneasy, their eyes lowered as if avoiding the eyes of others. Carpenter squeezed Randall’s hand as he gave his head a slight shake and let out a long breath.

  “He sounded like that paralyzed scientist,” Randall said. “Someone’s idea of a joke.”

  “A sick joke,” Marlo said. “But that wasn’t Stephen Hawking, may he rest in peace.”

  “If it’s who I think it is, he calls himself Morgan Krieger,” Drea said. “Morning warrior in German. Nobody knows his real name but he’s popular among supremacists.”

  “Correct,” Marlo said. “That snippet was from the podcast Dawn Warrior.”

  “Whoever he is, he’s cherry-picking the Bible,” Chancellor said, his smooth, deep voice even lower than usual. “And changing the language. If memory serves, those passages use the word servant.”

  If Bobby had been here, he probably would have explained that the words were interchangeable in the context of when the passages were translated into English and that by most measures American-style slavery was a low point in the history of servitude. But he wasn’t here, and I said nothing. It wasn’t my job to settle debates about Morgan Krieger but to protect Drea from men like him.

  “It’s one thing to have a diversity conference,” Marlo said. “It’s another to understand deeply how much we need one.” She tapped her phone again.

  “Liberty! Freedom! Emancipation! They finally got it and what did they do with it? They’ve destroyed American cities with drugs and gangs, laziness and promiscuity. Their men litter the landscape with bodies and babies as casually as a dog moves its bowels. Their women open their legs for a smile and a dollar and a please-baby-baby-please. All they want is loose shoes, tight pussy, and a warm place to shit. They’re exactly the pathetic, infantile, hopelessly primitive mud puppets the Jews want them to be to undermine white Christian civilization. Blacks are not alone in this effort, my friends. All you need to do is look around to see what decades of cultural deconstruction, race-mixing, immigration, integration, multiculturalism, and homosexuality have done to Christian and European values—Jewish control of money and the media, Islamic terrorists pouring into the country to wait for the signal to rise up against us, Asians dominating us in trade and displacing whites in every corner of the culture and economy from the national spelling bee to high tech manufacturing, murderous Spanish trash storming the southern border no longer to steal jobs from white Americans but to sell drugs, rape American women, and engage in stateside gang warfare. Saving the race—saving my race—will be a long and arduous process. If I live to see Clown World fall and a new white nation rise, fantastic. If I don’t, I’m proud to have helped set the process in motion.”

  Marlo paused the podcast again. For a time no one said anything. She crushed out her cigarette as James, hands clasped on the table, scowled at no one in particular.

  “Is there anybody he doesn’t hate?” Edie Gramm said.

  “Besides himself?” her husband said.

  Ophelia sat forward so Judge Chancellor could shift in his seat. He let out a throaty rumble of disgust. “I for one have heard enough. If you folks will excuse my language, this Krieger fellow is an asshole.” He let out an angry breath. “If South Asian kids dominate the spelling bee, it’s because other kids are too busy playing video games or worshipping their online presence to learn anything. Toddlers who find their parents’ loaded guns lying around kill more American people every year than Islamic terrorists or undocumented aliens. Now don’t get me started on the real terrorists, those so-called lone wolves, white men who have the luxury of being mentally ill when they shoot up a Black church or a synagogue.”

  “Which is why this conference can’t be one big kumbaya,” Marlo said. “Attendees and the news media alike need to know the extent of the threat we’re facing as a democracy.” She looked straight at Rory. “Mr. Gramm, when I suggested we play parts of a racist podcast for a plenary session, you said no. The conference should be a positive experience, you said. You didn’t know I was going to do this tonight. What do you think now?”

  “I’m kind of pissed, not at you but that such hatred is still out there. These monsters are not as widespread as before. Like the Klan rally in Dayton not long ago where only ten guys showed up. But even when you have only ten, people like that are real, and dangerous.”

  “And louder and angrier than almost anybody else,” Marlo said. “Loud enough to make us all mad. That’s the point. Anger.”

  “I’m tired of hearing how angry these morons are,” Judge Chancellor said. “This country has four percent of the world’s population but most of its wealth, so they can afford their computers and tiki torch tantrums while children go to bed hungry in Africa and Asia. We use forty percent of the world’s natural resources but too many of us zone out on fifty percent of the world’s drugs. What the fuck—pardon me again—are they so angry about?”

  I had met Chancellor a few times when he accompanied Ophelia to this or that event but had never talked with him long enough to get to know him. Now I was beginning to like him.

  “Not their anger,” Marlo said. “Ours. The anger of ordinary people who believe in equality and hope.”

  Edie Gramm shifted uneasily. “Isn’t there already enough anger floating in the ether? Doesn’t anger produce more anger when what we need is understanding—and love?”

  Marlo shook her head. “I mean righteous anger. Not a toxic call to violence but a call to justice. Patient anger that gives us the strength to stand our ground and face a threat. Anger that makes us call out intolerance and make the bigot face a stronger force.” She turned to Drea. “Your anger produced a wonderful book. It kept you from being a victim. It made you the kind of person needed to take down the Morgan Kriegers of the world. Without violence, you assert the right of all to exist and call out the stupidity of his evil. You make everything plain to see. This conference must make everything so plain, justice can’t be denied.”

  Drea was quiet for several heartbeats. “I understand what you mean, Marlo. But a bill comes due with my anger. It has come due for so many before me I almost feel unworthy to be in the same company.” Her eyes glistened. “It’s a cost I would never wish on anybody.”

  “You’d belong in that company even if you hadn’t written your book,” James said. “The wives and mothers of too many martyrs to count paid the same price. A few stand out because they fought back. They wrote books and devoted their lives to justice. Coretta Scott King. Myrlie Evers. Mamie Till wanting pictures of her son’s mutilated body pu
blished. You belong with them. But too many names are forgotten by everyone except relatives and scholars.” He stood. “I’m willing to bet a hundred thousand the only people here who know the name Willa Winters are Marlo and Randall—and maybe Chelsea because he told her.”

  Carpenter snapped her fingers. “There goes my new Lamborghini.”

  “Only the down payment, Chels,” Randall said, gazing at his father.

  James waited for the chuckles to subside before he continued. “Willa Winters came to work for our company about thirty-five years ago.” His tone left no doubt what he was relating was serious. “She was a Black woman with a degree in public relations she hadn’t used in her two decades as a stay-at-home mother. But she was recently divorced and had a son in college so she needed a job. She started as a secretary—which is what every business called women in such positions then. She was talented and ambitious. Eventually she became my secretary and later the best executive assistant I ever had. Finally, I promoted her to vice president because I thought her gifts would better serve the whole company.” He took a long breath. “Twenty years ago, her son, her only child, was called the N-word in a bar in rural Pennsylvania. Then he was dragged outside and beaten to death. The men who did it were found not guilty. Temporary insanity. Extreme emotional distress. This, remember, was before sex orientation was added to hate crime legislation. One witness after another testified they heard Kai proposition the two men, even the guy who first told police the men insulted him the minute he walked in.”

  “The gay panic defense,” Judge Chancellor said. “A surprising number of defendants all over the country have tried it ‘Another man made a pass at me, your honor, so I lost my damn mind.’ Thank God it was banned in New York.”

  “The state police thought he was lost and looking for directions,” Marlo said, lighting her second cigarette. “GPS was still new and not available to everyone.”

  “Why he was there didn’t matter,” James said. “I don’t know if he was gay or bi or gender fluid, as they say today. I never asked and his mother never told me because that wasn’t the point. He didn’t deserve to die like that. Nobody does. His death was bad enough. Worse was the hate mail sent to ‘the mother of a Black faggot now burning in hell’ and to the N-word ‘too busy smoking crack to keep from raising a queer.’ But the acquittal practically destroyed Willa. By then she had been my secretary about two years. I told her to take all the time she needed before coming back in but work turned out to be the medicine she needed. She threw herself into it with an energy I rarely see. Torrance Brockhurst owes a good measure of its success to her.” He paused, his eyes filling. “About ten years ago she was killed in a chain-reaction crash on FDR Drive.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ophelia said, as others murmured agreement.

  “I never got the chance to recognize her for her dedication and hard work,” James said, a tremor in his voice. “To tell her she was an inspiration and a role model, someone who made me rethink everything I thought I knew about people and society. How much I admired her strength and persistence in the face of hatred. This conference will give me—give us—a chance to do that.”

  Marlo stood as if on cue and smiled as she looked down at Drea. “After your speech at the awards brunch, Drea, James will come to the stage and present you with the first Willa Winters Endurance Award, which comes with a million-dollar donation to the charity or social welfare organization of your choice.”

  21

  The scream was brief but sharp enough to knife through my sleep and bring me to my feet, gun in hand. Moving through the glow of the surveillance monitors, I glanced at the door to the suite for any sign of intrusion. Pete and I reached Drea’s bedroom at the same moment. He too was in a T-shirt and shorts, carrying his gun and not wearing his glasses.

  “The Brink’s bar is still in place,” I said, opening the bedroom door and hitting the light switch.

  Covers down to her waist, Drea Wingard lay flat on her back, shaking uncontrollably, eyes wide and wet and fixed on the ceiling but seemingly unaware of her surroundings or the light from the corner floor lamp. Her lips were moving but she said nothing aloud. Her chest heaved against her damp white nightgown as if struggling against a weight placed upon her. She looked terrified.

  “Jesus!” Pete said as I moved to the bed. “Her eyes are open. Is this some kind of seizure?”

  “I don’t think so.” Putting my gun on the nightstand, I sat on the edge of the bed and waved my hand above her face. Her eyes registered nothing. I touched her shoulder. “Drea, it’s G. Wake up! You’re having a nightmare.” Again, no response. I squeezed her shoulder and shook her, gently. “It’s only a nightmare.”

  Beside me now, Pete leaned above her and brought his hands together in a single loud clap that startled me as much as it was supposed to startle her.

  As Pete stepped aside, Drea snapped her face toward me, blinked, and gasped. I saw recognition spark in her eyes, followed by a realization of where she was and two or three hard swallows. Then came tears that might have signaled relief or embarrassment. Unable to tell, I pulled her up into a sitting position. She squeezed her eyes shut, almost as if afraid she might open them to a different reality. I slipped an arm around her, resting her head against my shoulder.

  “It’s all right,” I said, rocking her as she wept. “It was a bad dream.”

  She shuddered. “A hell of a dream,” she said, hoarsely.

  “If talking about it would help—”

  She wiped her closed eyes, and I felt her shrug.

  “Same old dream. Same old piece of hell. That night. My husband. Those horrible skulls. Sometimes I scream at them to leave us alone. Sometimes that works and they go away and I feel this great relief, like the real dream is the life I’ve lived since—” Her voice cracked. “Since Grant died. Then I wake up and it feels like I dragged a straight razor back and forth through old scar tissue. It always comes back when something rattles me,” she said.

  “What rattled you tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe hearing Krieger again. I haven’t heard his robotic bullshit since I finished my book. But his voice was in the dream this time, kind of narrating things as they happened, telling the skulls what to do. Which is weird because I never heard of him until long after that night.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “But there was something different about him. In the dream and what we heard tonight.”

  “Different how?”

  “I’m not sure. Just different. Like somebody new.”

  “A new Morgan Krieger?”

  “Something about him always felt old. Like behind the electronic voice spouting Bible verses to justify racism was a get-off-my-lawn guy whose real issue was his resistance to change. Tonight his phrasing and word choice sounded different. Maybe that’s what it was. He felt younger, if that makes sense.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He won’t get any closer than the old Krieger or Wally Ray Tucker.”

  “You’ll take care of them?” At that point the flutter in her voice made her seem both childlike and exhausted. Or maybe she was so tired of being afraid she wanted to hand off every burden to someone else. “Krieger and Wally Ray?”

  “Yes. Your safety is all that matters.”

  “Would you kill them?”

  “If necessary.”

  “Have you ever had to kill someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that’s something we have in common.” She paused and nestled deeper into my chest. “Did it feel strange to you too? Killing somebody?”

  “It’s supposed to feel strange, or we’d make a habit of it.”

  “What if they kill you?”

  “I’ll do my best to take them with me.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Pete said. “They won’t get both of us.”

  Blinking, Drea lifted her head and looked past me. She saw Pete for the first time and drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, God! I woke you both? I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s
okay,” Pete said. “It was snack time anyway. I was about to look for something in the fridge.”

  “Snack time?” Drea said.

  A glance at the digital clock on the nightstand told me it was 3:07. I looked up at Pete and narrowed my eyes in an unasked question. He grinned at us. She half-grinned back.

  “Sure. I was lying there thinking about nuking one of those frozen tacos. It’s been a while since I had one of those things but it’s also been a long time since I had a good case of heartburn. So maybe now I should heat some water and make tea for all of us. My mother packed me a variety of Korean tea blends she says will help settle my nerves. She likes to tell people how nervous I was as a child but never realizes she was the one who made me so nervous. She and my father. You see, I was their only child and even though they hid it, I knew how sad they were that she could never have another. Sure, I know they loved me but they were Korean and doctors. It wasn’t like them to speak of their feelings, ever. I wanted to make them happy—especially her—so happy they would never want another kid. I tried hard to please them every way I could but I was always afraid I wouldn’t be enough for them. So I drank tea with them anytime they wanted. To my surprise, I came to love the tea ceremony, which was reserved for special occasions. We had hand-painted tea bowls on a small table we knelt around. While the tea steeped, my mother poured hot water into the bowls so they would be warm enough to receive the tea without ruining the taste. When the steeping was done, the water was poured out and the tea was poured in, a little at a time into each bowl, back and forth, until the pot was empty and each bowl had the same amount. Then my mother would take her bowl, always with two hands, and take the first sip to test the quality. If the drink was good enough, she invited us to join her. The whole experience had a calming effect. It was something we did as a family. They seemed happy we could find peace together and I was happy to see them smile. As I grew older, I came to understand how good her teas were, and I came to love them as much as the ceremony itself. I could show you how to make tea the Korean way. Or I could make some the American way. It’s almost as good. Bamboo leaf? Pagoda flower? Smoked plum? Oh, let’s not forget magnolia berry. Tasty stuff and no caffeine to keep you awake. Any of those appeal to you?”