Bode Gazzer said, “WCA. Don’t see why not.”
“Because otherwise it’s kind of a mouthful.”
“No more ‘n the first one.”
“But hey, that’s cool,” Chub said.
White Clarion Aryans. He sure hoped no smart-ass rock bands or rappers or other patriot tribes had already thought of the name.
From the lawn chair Bode rose in his rumpled camos and lifted the now-empty vodka bottle to the sky. “Here’s to the motherfuckin’ WCA. Ready, locked and loaded.”
“Damn right,” said Chub. “The WCA.”
At that moment the young man called Shiner, glazed by Valium, was admiring the letters W.R.B. that were freshly tattooed in Iron Cross—style script across his left biceps. Etched below the initials was a screaming eagle with a blazing rifle locked in its talons.
The tattoo artist worked out of a Harley joint in Vero Beach, Shiner’s first stop on his way south to Florida City, where he planned to hook up with his new white brothers. He had quit the Grab N’Go, leaving on a high note—Mr. Singh, the owner, demanding to know why Shiner’s Impala was moored in the store’s only handicap space. And Shiner, standing tall behind the counter: “I got me a permit.”
“Yes, but I do not understand.”
“Right there on the rearview. See?”
“Yes, yes, but you are not crippled. The police will come.”
Shiner, coughing theatrically: “I got a bad lung.”
“You are not crippled.”
“Disabled is what I am. They’s a difference. From the army is where I hurt my lung.”
And Mr. Singh, waving his slender brown arms, hurrying outside to more closely inspect the wheelchair insignia, piping: “Where you get that? How? Tell me right now please.”
Shiner beaming, the little man’s reaction being a testament to Chub’s skill as a forger.
Saying to Mr. Singh: “It’s the real deal, boss.”
“Yes, yes, but how? You are not crippled or disabled or nothing, and don’t lie to me nonsense. Now move the car.”
And Shiner replying: “That’s how you treat a handicap? Then I quit, raghead.”
Grabbing three hundred-dollar bills from the register, then elbowing his way past Mr. Singh, who was protesting: “You, boy, put the money back! Put the money back!”
Yammering about the videotape Shiner had swiped, on Bodean Gazzer’s instruction, from the store’s slow-speed security camera—in case (Bode explained) the cassette hadn’t yet rewound and taped over the surveillance video from November 25, the date JoLayne Lucks bought her lottery numbers.
Bode Gazzer had emphasized to Shiner the importance of the tape, should the authorities question how they’d come to possess the Grange ticket. The camera could prove they didn’t enter the store until the day after the Lotto drawing.
So, shortly after Chub and Bode had departed, Shiner obediently removed the incriminating video from Mr. Singh’s recorder and replaced it with a blank. Shiner wondered, as he gunned the Impala past the Grange city limits, how Mr. Singh learned about the switch. Normally the little hump didn’t check the VCR unless there’d been a robbery.
Shiner would have been more properly alarmed had he known that Mr. Singh had been visited by the same nosy man who’d accompanied JoLayne Lucks to Shiner’s house. The man named Tom. He’d persuaded Mr. Singh to check the Grab N’Go’s security camera, at which time they’d found that the surveillance tape from the weekend had been swapped for a new one.
Shiner’s misgivings about the video theft were fleeting, for soon he was absorbed in the tattooing process. It was performed by a bearded shirtless biker whose nipples were pierced with silver skull pins. When the last indigo turn of the B was completed, the biker put down the needle and jerked the cord out of the wall socket. Shiner couldn’t stop grinning, even when the biker roughly swabbed his arm with alcohol, which stung like a mother.
What a awesome eagle! Shiner marveled. He couldn’t wait to show Bode and Chub.
Pointing at the martial lettering, Shiner asked the biker: “Know what WRB stands for?”
“Shit, yeah. I got all their albums.”
“No,” said Shiner, “not the band.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll find out pretty soon.”
The biker didn’t like wise guys. “I can’t hardly wait.”
Shiner said: “Here’s a hint: It’s in the Second Amendment.”