'You'll be able to talk to the FFF people. They'll trust you. Even if they aren't the same people as back in the seventies and they don't know you from David Dinkins, you'll know how to get them to talk to you. They won't trust me, and they won't talk to me, because I'm a cop.'
'This is possible.'
'And like I said, the other reason I wanted to bring you into this was, I wanted to see you again. For one thing, I wanted to find out if you were the same smug pain in the ass you were sixteen years ago.'
'And was I?'
'You're worse,' Barner said. 'I'm almost sorry I even mentioned your name to the J-Bird and his people.'
'Almost sorry, but not quite?'
'You got it.'
'Jeez, Lyle. What else is new? The more things change with you and me, the more they stay the same.'
He watched me, poker-faced. He apparently was taking as much satisfaction from the love-hate-or to put it more precisely, like-dislike-games we were playing as he had when we observed the same awkward rituals sixteen years earlier. He said, 'Anyway, Strachey, you're gonna love these FFFers once you smoke them out. They're obviously a bunch of punk anarchists, and deep in your heart, that's you. It wouldn't surprise me if you brought them in and then you joined up with them.'
'Lyle, you've nailed me again. I'm both a control freak and an anarchist.'
'Think about it,' he said.
'And when the J-Bird puts the FFF on his show, I'll be right there on the radio with them, promoting all my inconsistent causes and tendencies. Strachey the radical Presbyterian with J-Bird the broadcast postmodernist.'
Barner said, 'Don't believe that crap about the J-Bird putting the FFF on the air.
He'll never do it. He wants to get them in here, and then he'll hire some goons to beat the shit out of them. That's how postmodern Plankton is. Anyway, after the tear-gas attack there's no way these people can avoid being charged.'
'They can't be charged if they choose to deny doing the tear-gas attack and there's no good forensic or other evidence tying them to it. Is there any?'
'Not yet.'
'As for the J-Bird's putting them on the air, listen to his show sometime. What Jeris is telling me is plausible. Plankton respects aggressive, and he respects nasty. He gets these people into his studio, and nobody will change anybody's mind. But they'll all hit it off famously in their twisted way. I think these guys might mean what they say about putting the FFFers on the show. At least in that regard, I think the J-Bird can probably be trusted.'
Looking skeptical, Barner was about to reply when the door to Jeris's office opened and the J-Bird stuck his head in. 'Hey, you two gumshoes want to meet a real, live FFFer?'
'That's the plan,' I said.
'Then get your wide-load butts out here. One just walked in the door.'
Chapter 5
A lanky man in his mid-forties with wavy straw-colored hair, china blue eyes and big ears was standing just behind the J-Bird in the corridor. In scuffed work boots, a pale green loose-fitting T-shirt and jeans faded not by fashion technicians but from wear, the man was sunburned across his forehead and nose. My guess for the source of the sunburn was a rare weekend out of the city, maybe waterskiing at Lake Hopatcong.
But as I shook the sizable rough hand of Thad Diefendorfer-Plankton casually mangled the name, and Diefendorfer just as casually corrected him-there was a pleasantly rural aroma about Diefendorfer that suggested not outdoor sport but an outdoor occupation.
Diefendorfer confirmed this when he explained that he was a vegetable grower in central New Jersey. He had hauled a truckload of eggplants into the city, and while he was unloading at his wholesaler's Hunts Point dock he overheard a report on an all-news radio station of the tear-gas attack on the J-Bird and his crew.
'You weren't listening to the show this morning?' J-Bird said. 'I find that hard to believe. Are you some kind of NPR elitist fruitcake, or what?'
Apparently uninterested in being provoked by Plankton, Diefendorfer said evenly, 'I listen to public radio sometimes. I mostly listen to the all-jazz station in Hobo-ken when I can pick it up. I've never actually tuned into your program, Mr. Plankton. Maybe I should. What's it about?'
'What's it about?' Plankton sniffed. 'What kind of a freakin' question is that?'
'Mr. Plankton's show,' I told Diefendorfer, 'is about Mr. Plankton. Now that you've met him, you can tune in weekday mornings from seven to ten if you want more of him.'
We had all moved back into Jeris's office, where Barner said, 'Thad, what made you come over here this morning? You're a member of the FFF that did the tear-gas attack?'
'No,' Diefendorfer said, 'I have no connection with whoever threw the tear gas, and I have no idea who they are. But if they call themselves the Forces of Free Faggotry, I just want to make it plain that they're not the original FFF. I was a member of that organization, and we were totally nonviolent.'
'Sounds like a bunch of wimps,' Plankton said.
'Why? Because we didn't want anybody to get hurt during one of our operations?'
'Well, no. You know what I mean.'
'No, I don't. What do you mean?'
'I mean… I guess to somebody like you I have to stop everything and explain the obvious. I mean, if some mean bastard deserves a fat lip and you don't give him one, then you're a wimp.'
Diefendorfer remained serene. He said, 'So?'
'Whaddaya mean, 'So'?'
'So we're wimps. So what?'
'What do you mean, so you're wimps, so what? If you're wimps, you're… you're wimps. Do you want to be a wimp?'
'I don't care,' Diefendorfer said mildly.
'Are you totally spineless?' Plankton asked, looking incredulous.
'No, not at all,' Diefendorfer said. 'I'm Amish.'
We all looked at Diefendorfer. Apparently this was the last thing anyone in the room expected to hear.
After a moment, Plankton said, 'You're shittin' me.'
'No, sir.'
Barner said, 'And you're gay? You're gay, and you're Amish, and you're out of the closet?'
'It's actually more complicated than that,' Diefendorfer said. 'But basically, yes, I'm Amish, I'm gay, and I'm out. I'm also shunned in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. But I live in New Jersey, which puts up with me pretty well.'
Plankton said, 'But you're not wearing that black-and-blue getup that the Amish wear.'
'No, not anymore,' Diefendorfer said.
'Did you drive your horse and buggy up six flights?' Plankton asked. 'I hope to hell you didn't ride up on the elevator. Wouldn't that be a heinous sin? Apparently, getting corn-holed is no longer a big deal among the Amish- which is news to me. It's not the Amish of-what was that Harrison Ford movie? Eyewitness News or something? But can you ride elevators, too? I seem to be behind the times.'
'My horse and rig are out in the lobby,' Diefendorfer told the J-Bird. 'I walked up the stairs, but my horse, who's a Methodist, road up ahead of me.'
'An Amish wiseass,' Plankton sneered. 'Now I've seen it all.'
'And, homosexuality is still frowned upon among the traditional Amish,' Diefendorfer went on. 'But personal conscience has always been respected among the brethren, and my conscience has led me farther afield than has been the case with some others.
It's what led me to the Forces of Free Faggotry when I was eighteen, and it's why I came over here before I headed back to the farm. 1 came to tell you that the FFF was as righteous a community of men and women as I've ever known, and no true FFP'er would ever attack anybody with tear gas. Not even anybody as confused and
