, Boone thinks. Rhymes, anyway. Boyd leans over and yells into Boone’s ear. “Fourteen! Fourteen
!”
Which turn out to be, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Boone counts them—fourteen words, all right. “The man who said that,” Boyd hollers, “died in prison!” Good idea, Boone thinks.
“He gave his
for the cause!” Boyd yells. He has fucking
in his eyes. “We all have to be prepared to give our lives for the cause!”
Yeah, no, Boone thinks.
Not me.
Not for
cause.
White supremacist, neo-Nazi, needle-dick, double-digit IQ, mouth-breathing, bottom-feeding, off-the-chart dismo, sick bullshit.
The skins are rocking out now—the adrenaline is pumping, the blood is flowing.
Good, Boone thinks.
Bleed out.
55
As Boone drives away, his ears are still ringing from the music and Boyd’s parting words.
Yeah.
Boone drives west until he spots a Starbucks sign—no big trick there—and pulls off. He digs out the laptop and Googles.
The fourteen words—“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”—were the Nathan Hale of one David Lane, founder of the neo-Nazi group the Order, who was sentenced to a buck ninety in prison for murder, bank robbery, and other happy crap. He tapped out in the joint in 1997.
So good things
happen in prison, Boone thinks.
He types in “5 + white supremacist.”
What comes up makes him sick to his stomach.
In white-supremo code, “5” stands for “the Five Words”:
56
Turns out to be a white supremacist slogan coined by a local San Diego buttplug, Alex Curtis, at his trial for violating people’s civil rights. Boone sort of remembers the whole thing. Curtis was a young creep from “East County” who had a Web site and a streaming podcast to spew his drool. Was a big proponent of the “lone wolf” tactic—which said that the racists should act alone to foil law enforcement—go out solo to kill Jews and blacks and the rest of the “mud people.”
Curtis went to jail back in—was it 2006?—and became kind of a cult hero-martyr for the knuckle-dragger set, and according to the story on the Web site, his words in court “I have nothing to say” became a slogan.
Encoded in the number 5.
Good, Corey, Boone thinks.
Real good.
I guess you found something you could belong to.
57
Regarding the next morning’s Dawn Patrol, there’s dawn . . .
. . . but not much of a patrol.
Boone, Dave, and Hang are out there, but Johnny and Tide are 404.
“Johnny must have got hung on a case,” Dave observes.
“Probably,” Boone says.
“Yeah, but where’s Tide?” Hang asks.
“He was at The Sundowner last night,” Dave says.
“He say anything?” Boone asks.
“About what?”
“I dunno,” Boone says. “Anything.”
Great, he thinks. Lie to the friends you have left.
“He was quiet,” Dave says. “A big Buddha statue sitting at the bar, banging beers. I left early, had a date with a nurse from Frankfurt. The Euros are here in force, man. The beach is like the freaking UN.”
“Weak dollar,” Boone says.
“I guess.” Dave looks at Boone funny, like, What aren’t you telling me?
Boone sees it and ignores it. Can’t tell you what I can’t tell you, bro, and you’ll find out about it soon enough anyway.
58
Corey Blasingame sits slumped across the table from Boone.
“I have noth——”
“Save it.”
Corey shrugs and reaches for the plastic bottle of water by his right hand. Boone gets to it first and moves it out of reach. When Corey stretches his arm out to get the bottle, Boone grabs his wrist and holds it down on the
