Recipe for Hate

by Warren Kinsella

  Inside, X and Patti and those of us in the new Hot Nasties stood up near the stage during the Mild Chaps set. We’d gone to Matthew’s for chicken and chips, and by the time we returned to Gary’s, there was nowhere left to sit. The place was packed. It was totally amazing.

  Betty was really excited. During lulls in the action, the two of us gave interviews about the importance of opposing organized racism to WBLM, 1310 AM, and even a terrified-looking Daily Sun reporter.

  Midway through the Mild Chaps set, Koby, the Gary’s waitress, approached Sam and Sister Betty. “Hey, honey, there’s a reporter out front who wants to talk to you about all of this stuff,” she croaked into Betty’s ear, balancing a tray full of empty draft glasses. “Mike said he wants to film you outside or something.”

  “Okay, thanks, Koby,” Betty said, then turned to Sam. “Wanna come? You’ll be famous, like me!”

  Laughing, they walked over to X and Patti. “I have to talk to another reporter out front, okay? Be right back,” Betty said.

  “Okay,” Patti said. “Don’t be long. We’re on soon.”

  Outside Gary’s, the lineup to get in was getting shorter. Only about a half-dozen people remained outside. Mike was checking the clearly fake ID of a group of clearly underage girls when Sister Betty and Sam stepped through the main doors. “I’m here for my cameo,” Betty said, arms wide. Mike looked at her, frowning.

  “What?” he said.

  “Never mind. Koby said there was a reporter out here who wanted to talk to us.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mike said, returning to the fake ID. He pointed a finger west, toward Free Street. “Frank said they’re in their van around the corner in the lot, getting set up. Cable station or something.”

  “Okay, sweetie, thanks,” she said, patting Mike on the arm.

  C H A P T E R 48

  “There’s no van there,” X said, returning to Gary’s Brown Street entrance. He had searched the parking lot at the side of the tavern, the alleyway at the back, and all along Brown and beyond. Betty and Sam were gone. Vanished.

  No. NO NO NO NO NO.

  Patti, her voice quavering, turned to Mike. “Who told you there was a reporter outside? Did you see any reporter?”

  “No, I was checking IDs,” Mike said, his expression dark. “The door guy, Frank, told me they were looking to speak to one of the organizers. I’ll ask him.”

  Gary’s entrance was deserted, save for a hooker sitting on a chair getting warm. Frank was watching Kojak on a tiny black-and-white TV high atop a shelf in the corner. “Hey, Mike,” Frank said, as we approached the desk. “What’s up?”

  “That guy who said he wanted to interview one of the kids, did he show you any ID or anything?”

  “Nope,” Frank said. “Just said he wanted to interview the organizers, is all. Why?”

  “He’s not there, and neither are our friends,” X said, squeezing Patti’s hand. She was leaning forward and looked like she might faint. I took her arm.

  “What did this guy look like, Frank?” Mike asked. “Do you remember anything?”

  “Sure,” Frank said. “Shaved head, air-force style jacket. Big guy.”

  “Oh God,” Patti said, the blood draining from her face. She grasped X’s arm. “They’ve got Betty.”

  Christ. Who would want to hurt Sister Betty?

  I felt sick. Mike reached for the battered payphone and dialed the operator. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver. “We’ve got some trouble at Gary’s on Brown. We’ve got a couple kids missing, looks suspicious.” He paused and looked at X, who was helping Patti to the only other chair in Gary’s tiny lobby. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” X said. “Tell them to let Detectives Chow and Wright know.”

  Mike did so, and hung up. “They say they’ll be here soon,” he said, wringing his big hands. Patti was weeping.

  The hooker, who until this point had said nothing, asked, “What’s up, Mike? Someone in trouble?”

  “Don’t know, Suzie. Hope not.”

  Suzie extended a skinny arm around Patti Upchuck. “Well, if it helps any, the big guy with the shaved head wasn’t alone. He was with another guy.” She pointed to the entrance at the side of Gary’s. “There were two of them.”

  “What did the other guy look like?”

  “Bigger than the one with the shaved head, but pretty normal looking,” Suzie said, squinting her heavily made-up eyes as she tried to remember. “One of those lumberjack checked jackets, hair wasn’t too short. Jeans, boots. I couldn’t see much of his face, because he was standing sideways. But he had some tattoos on his arm.”

  “What did the tattoos look like?” I asked her.

  “I couldn’t see much,” Suzie said. “There was one on his wrist, I think. Looked like a knife through a cross or something.”

  “It’s them,” X said, barely audible.

  “Why you so sure?” Mike asked, puzzled.

  “It’s a neo-Nazi symbol,” he said. “It’s kind of the new swastika.”

  “Great. Fucking terrific,” Mike said, clenching his fists. He turned on Frank. “Christ on a crutch, Frank, how did these guys fool you into thinking they were reporters, for fuck sakes? Were you asleep or something?”

  “Sorry, Mike, sorry,” Frank said, raising his hands in protest. “Since the punk rock stuff started up around here, everyone has looked a little strange, right?”

  Shaking his head, Mike turned back to Suzie. “Did you see which way they went? Did you hear them say anything to each other?”

  Suzie shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “They headed off toward the lot on the Free Street side. But the way the guy at the door was, you could see that he was in charge. The one with the shaved head looked sort of scared of him.”

  “Okay, thanks, Suzie,” Mike said. “You’re going to have to stay here until the cops arrive, okay? They’ll probably want to ask you some questions.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Mike, do I have to? I don’t need no hassles.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said, firmly. “You have to. These are good kids and they could be in big trouble. And you and Frank are the only people who can give a description of the two guys who may have grabbed them.”

  On the chair beside Suzie, Patti started sobbing again, while a single siren could be heard outside, getting closer. Mike turned to X and me. “Go back in the bar, tell everyone we need people to start looking for them,” he said. “Maybe Betty and Sam are around here somewhere, maybe they’re okay. When you get back, meet me up in my room.” X ran into the bar, and Mike turned back to Suzie. “Look after her for a minute, would you, Suz?” he said, gesturing to Patti.

  “Of course, Mike.” She put an arm around Patti. “It’s okay, honey.”

  It wasn’t.

  C H A P T E R 49

  While Patti was on the phone to her mom, and while the entire Portland punk scene was out looking for Sister Betty and Sam, X and I dashed up to Mike’s room.

  We found our biker friend standing by his bed, along with two other big guys — Mike’s unaffiliated biker pals from the gig at Coyle Street. Mike jerked a thumb at them. “This is Pete and Marty. Kurt and X. You’ve all met before,” Mike said, looking at us. “You got people out looking for Betty and Sam?”

  I nodded. “We rounded up about a hundred of them. Cops just arrived, too. Just two uniform guys. No detectives.” I paused. “Why are we up here, Mike? Shouldn’t we be out looking for them?”

  “We’re not gonna find them around here, kid,” Mike said. “They’re long gone. And I’ve had it with this bullshit.”

  “So?”

  “So,” Mike said, stepping back from his bed to reveal a half-dozen rifles, two handguns, knives, brass knuckles, and some big chains. “So, we’re gonna get them back, and Pete and Marty are gonna help.”

  “Where have they gone?” I asked, bewildered. “When are
we leaving?”

  Mike glanced at X. “We think they may have taken them to that acreage in Exeter,” Mike said. “Or so say X’s sources. We’ve got to get up there fast.”

  He paused and pointed a big finger at me. “You need to stay here, Kurt,” he said. “You need to look after Patti and keep doing the search.” I looked at X, but he didn’t say anything.

  Fuck that, Mike. I’m not staying here.

  Downstairs at Gary’s, meanwhile, no big police search was underway at all.

  X and I had raced back downstairs. Patti was off the phone, and she was having no success persuading the two Portland police officers that anything was wrong. That was all the dispatcher had sent to Gary’s: two uniformed cops. No Detective Chow, and no one else either.

  This is insane.

  The cops, one male and one female, stood in the lobby, police-issue notepads and pens in their hands, but neither was actually taking notes. They looked like they couldn’t give two shits about our friends. Every minute or so, their police radios beeped and screeched, and — listening to it — it was pretty obvious that no massive search was underway for Sam Shiller or Betty Kowalchuk.

  Patti was alternating between terror and rage, clenching her fists at her sides. “I’ve given you their descriptions!” she said. “Why the hell aren’t you calling them in, or whatever it is you do with that information?”

  The male officer looked at her. “Calm down, Miss,” he said, not bothering to disguise his dislike. “We know our jobs. We’ll pass along their descriptions when we know that the two young people are, in fact, missing.” He paused and looked down at his notes. “Betty Kowalchuk and Dan Schuler.”

  “Sam. Shiller. Not Dan Schuler,” I said, angry. “Why the hell aren’t there more officers here?”

  The male and female officers exchanged a knowing look. “Let’s just say we received some information,” the male officer finally said. “We’ve been advised to first determine if there has, in fact, even been an abduction. Teenagers take off on their friends all the time.”

  Jesus Christ! They don’t even believe Betty and Sam are gone!

  X whipped around and stared at the officer, his uneven pupils flashing black. “In fact?” he hissed, repeating the words the officer had used to sound authoritative or whatever. “In fact, they have been. In fact, one of them was about to go on stage in front of two hundred people. She wouldn’t have just taken off. In fact.”

  The female officer shrugged. “Teenagers take off all the time,” she said, loudly chewing her gum. “How are you so sure they didn’t go off together somewhere?”

  “We’re sure,” Patti said. “I know my sister. She would never do that.”

  “Particularly,” X said, seething with rage, “since there have been multiple attacks on our friends, and particularly since the Portland cops haven’t done anything about it.”

  He watched the officers, to see if they were listening. They seemed to be, maybe, for the first time. “That’s why she wouldn’t have taken off,” I said, “because it’s totally fucking dangerous.”

  The two uniformed cops started to look a bit uncertain and a lot uncomfortable. The female officer spoke up, reluctantly. “Well, we received a call that there was some big benefit happening here tonight, from someone who would know, and that there might be some mischief calls to get publicity. That’s why it’s just the two of us right now.”

  What?

  X stared at the officers. “Someone who would know?” he repeated. At that moment, at that instant, I could see that X knew. He knew.

  He turned to me and Patti.

  “This is a waste of time,” he said, putting an arm around Patti. “Mike’s waiting for me. I’m going with him to look for them, okay? I might be gone for a while.” He looked at me. “Brother, are we good?”

  “Yeah,” I said, still pretty unhappy about what had transpired up in Mike’s room. “We’re good.”

  But before Patti or I could say anything else, X was speeding toward the stairs, and up to Mike’s room.

  C H A P T E R 50

  This is what they told me.

  Northman’s gutted trailer had been divided into two sections: the side where the door was, containing two cots, a portable fridge, a tiny washroom, a long wooden box containing a dozen Ruger Mini-14s he brought from Potter County, and two rectangular tin boxes containing thousands of rounds of Remington .223 ammunition.

  The other side was smaller. All around, it had been framed with two-by-fours, then padded with layers of sound insulation. Across the ceiling, a single six-by-six beam had been bolted, diagonally. Hanging from the beam were two lengths of heavy chain, set about six feet apart. There was no light, apart from a portable lantern on the floor by the small padded door.

  Martin Bauer shoved Sam and Betty through the door, which more or less separated the two sections of the trailer. For whatever reason, Bauer had taken the burlap bag off Betty’s head. With the bag still on his head, Sam slammed into a two-by-four and started to bleed. “Get in there, kike and dyke,” he said. “Up against the wall.”

  Betty had started to cry again. “It’s okay, Betty,” Sam said. “It’ll be okay.”

  “No, it fucking won’t be,” Bauer sneered, snapping the handcuffs onto Sam’s wrists until they bit into his skin. He pushed Sam over to the chain dangling from the ceiling, ran it between his wrists, and pulled, hard. Bauer snapped a padlock onto the chain, so that Sam’s arms were pulled upwards.

  Bauer moved over to Betty and repeated the procedure. By now, she was wailing. “Don’t touch me, you bastard!” she screamed.

  “Don’t touch her, you fucking prick!” Sam yelled, still unable to see anything. Without hesitating, Bauer kicked him in the stomach.

  “I’ll fucking do to her what I want, Jew boy,” Bauer said, as Sam gasped for air. “I’ll …”

  “You’ll do nothing to her,” Northman said, his voice flat, familiar. His face still covered by a bandana, he had apparently returned from parking the van on the abandoned logging road, the one they had used to enter the isolated corner of the High Aryan Warrior Priest’s property without being seen. “We don’t soil ourselves on that, understand? They’re bait, that’s all.”

  “Yes, kinsman,” Bauer said, looking cowed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Northman said, checking the chains that bound Sam and Betty. “Let’s get the gear out of the van.”

  Northman stepped out. Bauer ripped the bag off Sam’s head. Sam squinted and blinked, frantically scanning the walls of the soundproofed room.

  “Look around as much as you want, kike,” Bauer said, heading to the padded door, not looking back. “You’re never ever getting out of here, you race-mixing pieces of shit.”

  Betty didn’t want to, but she started to sob again. Bauer stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  An hour later, Mike was pushing the station wagon hard. In the back seat, Pete and Marty were looking out the windows, the soft-sided hockey bag full of guns between them. In the front passenger’s seat, X was carefully holding one of the handguns, a blued .22 caliber Walther semi-automatic.

  A half-mile or so behind them, an AMC Gremlin discreetly followed.

  C H A P T E R 51

  Detective Chow rarely got mad, but he was mad now. Standing in the lobby at Gary’s — as Patti Upchuck, Luke Macdonald, Leah Yeomanson, Frank the bouncer, and Suzie the hooker looked on from about ten feet away — Chow was grilling the two uniformed officers. He pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch.

  “These two young people have now been missing for almost four hours,” he said, seething. “At any point, tonight, did it occur to either of you that they were indeed missing? And that you should therefore call in for help, particularly since some friends of these young people have been killed and assaulted? Did it?”

  The two uniformed cops looked very unhappy.
They scanned the lobby floor, silent. Detective Chow shook his head. “That’s all for now. Go join the other officers in the search, please.” It wasn’t a request. The two officers quickly scurried away. The punks were impressed.

  This Chow guy is all right. For a cop.

  Detective Wright, Chow’s partner, stepped through the front door, notebook in hand. “No closed-circuit cameras or anything in this neighborhood, of course,” he said to Chow, voice lowered. “But three hookers further down Congress said they saw a couple of big guys loitering near a van. Said it had no markings on it indicating it was a news organization.”

  “Descriptions?” Chow asked.

  “Shaved head, bomber jacket on one,” Wright said, scanning his notes. “That would be Bauer, I expect. The other guy had hair, maybe facial hair. White. Not too old, physically big. That’s it.”

  “All right,” Chow said. “That’s something. Any luck with Murphy or Savoie?”

  “Reached Savoie, he said his partner’s been out with the flu going around,” Wright said. “Said the same thing you did.”

  “Exeter?”

  “Yep,” Wright said. “Want me to call the FBI detachment up in Portsmouth?”

  “Yes, please,” Chow said. “They should exercise great caution. These people will be armed to the teeth, and we may need to start finding a judge to give us a warrant.”

  C H A P T E R 52

  Betty said the first blow was a punch, directly to Sam Shiller’s face. There was a cracking sound. Martin Bauer had hit him hard, fist tightly clenched, and it broke Sam’s nose. Blood gushed over Sam’s mouth, chin, and his homemade Wire T-shirt. Betty started to scream.

  Bauer didn’t hit him again. He paused, staring intently at Sam’s face, as if admiring a work of art. “There,” he said. “Jew juice everywhere. That should do it. Looks nasty.”