Skin Privilege

by Karin Slaughter

  Jeffrey told him, 'I think you met one of my detectives a few days ago.'

  'Nope,' the guard told him. 'Just got back from vacation.' He stopped at another set of doors. These were operated from a central control station. Applebaum murmured something into his walkie-talkie and the door clicked open.

  Jeffrey said, 'There was nothing in Green's jacket about drugs.'

  Applebaum shook his head. 'His boys don't touch 'em. If you're down with his crew and they catch you using or selling, you'd be better off running ass-naked through the yard than having them deal with you.' He shook his head. 'Had this one skinhead, must've been seventeen, eighteen, who aligned with Green's crew when he got in. He couldn't stay off the needle, though; got caught red-handed. He knew they were after him, so he made a shank out of his comb and kiestered it in the shower.'

  Jeffrey knew kiestering was prison slang for stowing something up your ass. 'What happened?'

  'They got a broom and shoved the comb up higher. The doc who did the postmortem says he found bits of plastic teeth practically in the guy's tonsils when he cut him open.'

  'Green did this?'

  'He ordered it,' Applebaum admitted as he stopped in front of another closed door. 'Somebody that high up, they keep their hands real clean.'

  'Somebody could flip.'

  The guard laughed as he took out a key and opened the door, revealing the interview room. 'And J-Lo could fly down to Georgia and blow me in her private plane.' He turned all business as he escorted Jeffrey into the interview room. 'Don't touch the prisoner. Don't get within five feet of him. See this line on the table? This is as far as he'll be able to reach with the chains, but don't trust that.'

  'I don't want him chained.'

  'Warden's orders.'

  'I'm not afraid of Ethan Green.'

  Applebaum turned around. 'Listen, man, I sure as shit am, and you should be, too.'

  Jeffrey nodded, taking his point. 'Bring him in.'

  Applebaum left, and Jeffrey sat at the table facing the metal ring bolted to the wall. He heard talking in the hallway and stood, not wanting to give Ethan a height advantage. Then, thinking he looked like he'd come with his hat in his hand, walked over to the wall opposite the door and leaned against it, hands in his pockets.

  The door opened and Ethan shuffled in with Applebaum and three other guards. He kept his eyes trained on Jeffrey as Applebaum and the others guided him toward the chair. He sat, staring a hole through Jeffrey as he was bolted to the wall.

  Applebaum said, 'We'll be standing right outside the door.'

  The four guards left, taking all the oxygen in the room with them. The chains around Ethan's handcuffs scraped across the edge of the table as he clasped his hands in front of him.

  Ethan asked, 'You scared to sit across from me?'

  'Where the panic button is? Not particularly.'

  Ethan's lips curled into a sneer, but he nodded as if Jeffrey had made a point. This was what Sara was so afraid of – some stupid pissing contest that could quickly turn deadly.

  Jeffrey pushed himself away from the wall and walked over to the empty chair. He pulled it out about two feet from the table and sat, legs apart, hands resting on his thighs.

  Ethan snorted, leaned back in his chair. 'You just gonna stare at me all day, Chief? You got a crush on me or something?'

  'I want to know what you've been doing with Lena.'

  He made a jerking-off motion. 'Fucking around.'

  'I know you've been making phone calls to Hank,' Jeffrey said. He'd seen them logged on Ethan's file. 'Why?'

  'To get Lena here.' He clicked his tongue. 'Worked, didn't it?'

  'The only problem is, a trick like that only works once.'

  'I got other plans.' He held out his hands, indicating the walls around them. 'I'm gonna get out of here one day, and when I do, I'm gonna find her.'

  'She'll put a bullet in your head.'

  'She'll die before she gets the chance,' Ethan returned. 'You ever fuck her, Chief?'

  Jeffrey didn't answer.

  'I know you wanted to. I saw the way you looked at her sometimes.'

  Jeffrey did not respond.

  'Let me tell you something,' Ethan said, leaning forward. 'She may look hard, but she's so sweet underneath all that. You know what I mean?' He smiled, satisfied. 'Good stuff.'

  Jeffrey remained impassive. Ethan obviously thought he was pushing a button, but Jeffrey had never been attracted to Lena. He'd never had a sister, but he imagined the feelings he had for Lena were about the same.

  'What you gotta do is slap her around a little bit,' Ethan continued. 'Bend her over and-' He thrust into the table, made a loud grunting sound.

  'Bend her over, huh?' Jeffrey shook his head sadly. 'I think you've been hanging out with the wrong men in here, little buddy.'

  He cupped his nuts, shook them. 'I've got your little buddy right here, cocksucker.'

  'Fight or fuck,' Jeffrey said. 'That's what they call it in here, right? You either have to fight or fuck.' He glanced at Ethan, looked at his hands. 'You don't look to me like you've been fighting.'

  Ethan laughed. 'You see these tats, bitch?' He meant the swastikas, the scenes of violence that he'd carved into his skin. 'Ain't nobody gonna touch me in here, man.'

  'That's right,' Jeffrey said. 'I heard you and your little girlfriends started your own cheerleading squad in here. What's that mean, exactly? I mean, I know you wear the same uniforms, but I don't guess y'all can sit around braiding each other's hair. Do you do your nails together? Maybe give each other enemas and talk about how the white man's gonna rule the world?'

  'You watch yourself, son.'

  'Watch what? A bunch of punk kids whose daddies never loved them? Jesus Christ, you're a fucking Oprah episode. Give me a break.'

  'Fuck that black bitch.'

  'Fuck this, fuck that,' Jeffrey mocked, standing. ' Lena was right. This is such a waste of time.'

  'What?' Ethan's eyes narrowed. 'What did Lena say?'

  'She sent me here,' Jeffrey said. 'She wanted me to see what a pathetic little girl you've turned into.'

  Ethan stared at him, obviously trying to make out the truth. Slowly, he sat back in his chair. 'Nah, man. She didn't send you.'

  'Yeah,' Jeffrey said. He was standing by the door and he leaned his shoulder against it. 'She said you were hooked up with this Brotherhood.'

  Ethan's lips curled in distaste. 'What?'

  'Brotherhood of the True White Skin,' Jeffrey clarified. 'She said you hooked up with them in here to save your own ass.'

  'Shit,' he said, practically spitting out the word. 'Those pussies? They run meth.'

  Jeffrey shrugged. 'And?'

  'Meth is the white man's devil.' Ethan leaned forward, vehement. 'You don't give that shit to your own people. Fucks with your mind, makes you a slave. It's part of Darkie's conspiracy to take over America.'

  'You really think that?' Jeffrey asked, walking back to the table. He put his palms down on the metal surface, leaned close to the red line. 'See, I've met some of those Brotherhood assholes, and they don't strike me as all that different from you.'

  Ethan laughed. 'You stupid waste of fucking air. You think I'm up with those motherfuckers? I told you, they sell meth to their own people. They smoke that shit like the niggers with their crack. Let them all fucking kill themselves. Wipe them off the face of the fucking planet so the true race can take over.'

  Jeffrey kept eye contact with him, still leaning over the table. Ethan said he'd been calling Hank so Lena would come see him. If that was his plan, it had certainly worked. What connection did he have with Elawah, though? How did Ethan fit into the meth ring that the Fitzpatrick brothers were running through south Georgia and up the coast? Jeffrey knew Ethan's arrest jacket backward and forward. The other man had never been up on drug charges. All of his piss tests had come back clean from the time he was in juvenile detention to the time he'd been on parole in Grant County. Applebaum, the guard, had even said Ethan
wasn't involved in drugs. Had Lena been telling the truth? Did Ethan just happen to be making the wrong phone calls at the right time?

  Jeffrey pushed away from the table. 'We're done here.'

  Ethan would not let him have the last word. 'You think you're a big man carrying a gun, Tolliver, but you know what you are? You're shit on my shoe. You know Lena planted that gun in my bag. You know she set me up for a fall. You think you're Mr. Law and Order but you broke the law, man. You're just as bad as those faggots over in Iraq, those Abu Ghraib motherfuckers thinking they can toss out the Geneva Conventions because they got a hard-on to paint some Arab motherfucker in his own shit. You're just as bad as them, man, maybe worse because you're not ten thousand miles from home, eating meals out of a tin can and burying your shit in the desert. You just jammed me up in the morning and tucked right back up in your bed that same night, probably titty-fucked your wife and slept the sleep of the righteous, but you know what, motherfucker? You're just as bad as all of them.'

  Jeffrey did not respond because, for the most part, Ethan was right. Jeffrey had known that Lena planted that gun the minute he'd pulled it out of

  Ethan's backpack. The Nazi knew his way around firearms. Even the most inexperienced jackass would not throw a loaded weapon into his backpack and jog to work.

  Still, knowing that, Jeffrey had arrested him, and he'd certainly slept the sleep of the just that night because Jeffrey knew – he knew - that Ethan Green belonged behind bars. Ethan had systematically beaten and tortured. Lena wasn't strong enough to stop him, but Jeffrey sure as hell was. He became a cop exactly because there were people like Ethan Green and Lena Adams out there in the world. It was his job to protect the weak from the strong, and he had never been more certain of anything than the moment he slapped the cuffs on Ethan's wrists.

  Jeffrey raised his hand to knock on the door. 'Thanks for the speech, Ethan. It's been real fun, but I need to get back home to my wife now.'

  'I'm gonna get you,' Ethan said, his voice a low threat. 'You just wait.'

  'When I least expect it, right?'

  'I'm not going to ever leave her alone.'

  'You don't have much of a choice.'

  'I'm gonna get out of here. You wait for that, big man. I'm gonna get out of here and Lena 's gonna welcome me with open arms.'

  'I think you're in for a big shock if you're expecting that.'

  'She can't live without me,' Ethan said, standing as much as the chains would allow. 'A part of me is inside of her.'

  Jeffrey smiled, then said one of the crudest things that had ever crossed his lips. 'Didn't she tell you? I thought that was why she came, Ethan. To tell you about that part of you that she had cut out.' Jeffrey had been expecting surprise, more hatred, but all he saw on the Nazi's face was sadness. Slowly, Ethan sat down in the chair. When he spoke, Jeffrey had to strain to hear him. 'We're gonna go away together,' he insisted. ' Lena and me – we're gonna find a beach somewhere. Lay out in the sun all day, fuck all night. We're gonna be together for the rest of our lives.'

  'Yeah.' Jeffrey knocked on the door again. 'Send me a postcard, buddy.'

  Ethan's head jerked up. 'Watch your mailbox.' Jeffrey cupped his nuts, duplicated Ethan's earlier gesture. 'Watch this, you stupid asshole.'

  The con did not offer a parting shot. He sat at the table with his hands clasped in front of him, head down, probably dreaming of his fantasy life on a beach somewhere with Lena.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Lena had seen the tattoo on the underside of Jake Valentine's left arm when he'd lifted his shirt over his head. Just at the base of the bicep was an AB followed by a dash. AB-negative. She remembered the explanation written on the back of a photo in Ethan's arrest jacket: Symbolizes rank of general in white power movement. Her mouth moved; words came out that she couldn't control.

  'AB-negative,' she said. 'His blood type is AB-negative.'

  Sara asked, 'What?'

  Lena 's brain had frozen, but she felt her adrenaline kick in. She lunged for Valentine's gunbelt on the table, but his reach was longer and he easily beat her to it.

  Sara held up her hands as she backed toward the door.

  'Stop right there,' Valentine ordered, pointing the gun at her. ' Lena, come around here so I can see both of you.'

  Lena didn't move. How had this happened? She had never seen Jake Valentine at the warehouse. He wasn't in any of her logs or photos.

  'I said get over here.' He grabbed Lena by the arm and shoved her toward Sara. He reached around for his belt and found his handcuffs, tossed them to Lena.

  'Put one on your wrist, one on hers,' he ordered.

  'Make ' em tight. I'm not as stupid as I look.'

  'No,' she told him, her heart pounding in her throat. 'This isn't right. Call your boss.'

  'Who's my boss?'

  'Clint.'

  He laughed at the name. 'That piece of shit? Clint couldn't boss a one-man army.'

  'I talked to him this morning. He said we had a deal.'

  'You're right,' Valentine agreed. 'Had a deal. You keep your mouth shut and everybody just walks away clean. But, that was before you opened your big fucking mouth and brought her into it.' He meant Sara. 'Now put on the handcuffs like I said while I figure out what we're gonna do here.'

  Lena did as she was instructed, ratcheting the cuffs down on her left wrist and Sara's right. She left only a finger's width between the metal and their skin, knowing Valentine was watching.

  He pulled out a chair and told Lena, 'Sit down.' When she did, he told Sara, 'Finish up with my side so I don't bleed to death.'

  'No,' Sara told him. 'I'm not going to help you.'

  'You saw what happened to Charlotte,' Valentine reminded her. 'You want the same thing to happen to your friend here? You can watch her burn while you wait your turn.'

  'Go ahead,' Lena told Sara. 'Stop the bleeding.'

  Reluctantly, Sara continued attending to the wound in his side. The cut was deep, but the bleeding had slowed to an ooze. Lena was no expert, but even she could tell what a sloppy job Sara was doing. If Lena had been able to figure out a way past the gun at her head, she would have dug her fingers into his side until she felt his organs.

  'Ow,' Valentine said, flinching as Sara jabbed her finger into the gauze pads. 'You did that on purpose.'

  Sara asked, 'What are you going to do to us, Jake? Are you going to hurt us? You need to think very carefully about who exactly you're trying to cross.'

  The flash in his eyes revealed that Sara's words had hit a nerve. Lena imagined that over the course of the last few days, the sheriff had figured out that Jeffrey wasn't someone you fucked around with. If Valentine was smart enough to pick up on that, then he certainly knew what Jeffrey would do to anyone who threatened Sara.

  'Jeffrey will kill you,' Sara told him. 'It doesn't matter what you do, where you try to hide. He will kill you.'

  Valentine took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number with his thumb. 'I don't hurt people,' he explained, putting the phone to his ear. 'Clint, it's me. You know that stuff you were gonna set up for me over at the place?' He paused. 'Yeah, I'm at the other place now. We're gonna do it here instead.' Valentine nodded. 'No, something's changed. We'll figure out another way to make that happen. I'll tell you when you get here.' He looked down at Sara, almost with regret. 'And tell our little buddy that his presence is required to take the edge off.' He closed the phone against his leg and dropped it back into his front pocket.

  'What are you going to do with us?' Sara demanded.

  'Right now, I'm going to have you sit down,' Valentine told her, kicking over another chair. 'Go on.'

  Sara hesitated, but she clearly knew there was no easy way out of this. She sat in the chair, her hand on the table so that Lena 's rested beside her. Her other hand was fisted in her lap, and Lena saw that she had underestimated the other woman. If Sara saw her chance, she was going to fight her way out of this or die trying.

  'Does Clint work for yo
u?' Lena asked, trying to distract him.

  Valentine scooted up onto the counter, wincing as the cut in his side pulled. 'Lots of people work for me.'

  Harley, Lena thought. Nobody worked for Harley. When she had confronted Clint at the warehouse this morning, the photos of Harley were the ones that sent him over the edge. All of the color had drained from his face, and his hand had shook as he picked up the phone, dialed the number. His voice had gone quiet as he'd explained to whoever was on the other end of the line that Lena was willing to trade the pictures and the logs for their lives. That was all she wanted – not money, not drugs, not anything but their lives. She would hold the originals for safekeeping and the swastika boys could go on their merry way.

  Clint hadn't said much on the phone. Mostly, he'd nodded, his eyes locked on Lena 's, his fear palpable in the empty warehouse. He'd hung up the phone and told Lena to turn herself in, that the judge was on their payroll and would let her go with a slap on the wrists. Lena had assumed that Clint had called Harley. Had he talked to Jake Valentine instead? Had the sheriff actually been pulling the strings this entire time?

  'Hell, I need some aspirin.' Valentine slid down from the counter and started opening the cabinets around him.

  Lena knew there were all kinds of painkillers in the first-aid kit, but she wasn't about to clue him in. He had his back to them both, and out of the corner of her eye, Lena saw Sara put her hand on the metal box, move it closer.

  Lena asked, 'What did you mean on the phone -something to take the edge off?'

  He checked the last cabinet. 'You'll find out soon enough, darlin'.'

  Sara seemed to have the box where she wanted it. She told Valentine, 'Your bandage is coming off.'

  He looked at her handiwork, sighed. 'Fix it,' he demanded, walking over to her. She lifted her hands but he stopped her, pressing the gun to her head. Til hold this right here so you don't feel the need to grab that metal box and hit me upside the head.'