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  “In some ways,” he said, “it was also fortuitous.”

  Her eyebrows crested her sunglasses. “Your daughter-in-law and her unborn child die, your son almost dies. Not much fortuity in that.”

  “I meant having Natalia come into our lives.”

  “With her mother dead and her father physically immobilized and mentally traumatized by grief, we had to be there for her.”

  “Of course, but I hadn’t quite regained my humanity. You got a good start, but Natalia finished it. And…” He paused, surprised by the emotion he felt.

  “And?”

  “We became a family.”

  “That we did, significant lifestyle adjustment though it was. Now we’re about to face the biggest test of all.” She tossed him a grin and went back to monitoring traffic. “Adolescence.”

  Alexei almost laughed before he remembered Natalia’s tendency for tantrums had begun on a small scale. He kept his eyes on the woman beside him and allowed himself a quiet sigh of contentment. Theirs was a normal existence most of the time, bourgeois and perhaps a bit dull, but the occasional moments of intrigue made it bearable.

  He came out of his reverie when Mai parked again in the lot of the stables where his granddaughter took riding lessons. Alexei released his seatbelt, leaned over, and kissed Mai’s cheek.

  “You know, she’ll notice you’re not here,” he said.

  “Do you mean Natalia or your friend the Widow Baker?” Her tone was wry, and she waved to someone outside the car.

  Alexei turned to see. “Ah, the Widow Baker. She’s not my friend.”

  The forty-ish widow of an eighty-ish local sports team owner, who’d died days after changing his will to her disadvantage, waved at him in a manner he assumed she thought was sultry and seductive, a flutter of the fingers of one hand. Whenever Alexei brought Natalia to her lessons, Ms. Baker, whose daughter was in Natalia’s group, made a point to engage him in conversation and make far from subtle hints she was available. She consistently ignored his persistent I’m-not-available responses.

  “Someone needs to point out to her the trophy wife is usually much, much younger than the current one,” Mai said.

  “You’re the one leaving me defenseless against her onslaught.”

  “You’ll have to gird your loins or some such and remember I carry a gun.”

  He smiled, exited the car, and waved to her as she reversed. He would have been sentimental enough to watch the car until it disappeared, but the Widow Baker intervened.

  2

  Complicated Social Situations

  Giving her statement to the Fairfax County Police didn’t take long, despite Mai’s tendency to be thorough. Officer Davis Russell was scrupulous about checking her gun permits, though. She kept asking about her assailant but got the brush-off every time. Finally, Officer Russell explained the unhappy boy sat in a holding cell, his bruised arm in a sling.

  The boy’s surly attitude had turned nastier after he’d learned he’d be in jail overnight. Russell explained he’d called the boy’s mother, but she was unable to leave her job and indicated she didn’t have the bail money anyway.

  “Don’t you dare front his bail,” Russell said. “That’ll prejudice the case.”

  Mai wondered if a night in jail might make the boy think twice about trying to steal someone else’s car, and she mentioned that to Russell.

  “That Scared Straight stuff doesn’t seem to work on these kids today, but who knows? I’ve already heard back from a lawyer after I called the number you gave me.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and stared at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This shit-head kid pulls a gun on you, and you’re paying for a lawyer.”

  “Well, recall who disarmed him. Did you check his weapon?”

  “You were right. He didn’t know he had to rack the action to chamber a round, but I would never bet my life on a punk’s inexperience. If you got the means and the training, and you obviously do, you, uh, take care of the guy pointing the gun at you.”

  “Yes, someone else essentially said the same thing to me afterward. Look, I wasn’t interested in splattering his brains all over the garage. I’d already disarmed him. If I’d shot him, I’d be the one in a holding cell right now.”

  Russell narrowed his eyes at her. “I’ve never met a… What exactly are you?”

  “An analyst for the United Nations who works in refugee relief.”

  “I know a bunch of analysts who work for the government, and they don’t carry guns.”

  “Too bad for them.”

  “My supervisor said you must be a spy.”

  “If that were the case, Officer Russell, you’ve blown my cover. Now, I’ll have to shoot you.”

  The flat, emotionless tone made his jaw go slack, but she smiled and winked at him this time. He covered his embarrassment with a nervous laugh.

  That trite little saw worked every time.

  He leaned toward her, arms resting on the table. “So, are you available?”

  “For what?”

  “Drinks, dinner, and whatever happens after that.”

  He was a prime specimen. Late thirties, well-arranged, handsome face, neatly trimmed mustache, sandy hair, a good build which his ballistic vest didn’t obscure. Her eyes flicked to his left hand. No ring, but that meant nothing. Alexei never wore a wedding ring.

  No, this one was too clean-cut, all-American. Not her cup of tea.

  “Seriously?” she said. “You see a woman handling a gun, and you want to ask her out?

  “Hell, yes. Are you available?”

  “Sorry. Spoken for.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes. A house in the suburbs, an SUV, a husband, and a soon to be teenager. All quite dull and conventional.”

  Yeah, right.

  “You can’t fault a guy for trying.”

  “You certainly can’t. What’s my assailant’s name?”

  “Scott Wilder. Local kid. No priors.”

  “You saw his tee-shirt and tattoo?”

  Russell nodded and said, “A skinhead or a wannabe.”

  “Do you see much of that in this area?”

  “Not much. Isolated stuff. Spray-painted neo-Nazi graffiti. Have you seen the numbers eight, eight among gang tags?”

  Mai thought she might have and said so. “What does eighty-eight stand for?”

  “Not eighty-eight. Eight, eight. The eighth letter of the alphabet.”

  “H, H?”

  “Yep, as in Heil, Hitler.”

  “How unoriginal. What else have they been up to? I’d like to know what other crap I have to protect a teenaged girl from besides the inevitable legion of boys.”

  “An occasional queer-bashing. The car-jackings. Until today, those incidents had been perpetrated by guys in their twenties or thirties. The Wilder kid is the youngest I’ve seen. They go out of their way to select a person of color to ‘jack, usually an older man or a woman alone, a woman with a child.”

  “Cowardly.”

  “Yeah, well, they think they’re Nazis.”

  “Has he been questioned yet?”

  “The detectives will get around to it, but he overheard what you said about the lawyer, so he’s shut up.”

  “May I talk to him?”

  She thought Russell might tip the chair.

  “What on earth for?”

  “I’m an analyst. Information-gathering is my job.”

  “What the hell does a skinhead have to do with refugee relief?”

  “There are skinheads all over the world. It would be completely off the record, and I’m curious why a fifteen-year-old is enamored of Adolph Hitler.”

  They stared at each other, neither yielding.

  “If you don’t let me,” Mai said, “I’ll call some people in the FBI who owe me favors, and, well, why can’t we do this amicably?” She smiled at him.

  He shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

  Davis Russell p
laced Scott Wilder in a featureless interrogation room with a small, wire mess-reinforced window in the door. The set-up was straight out of every cop show on television or in the movies. Mai peered through the window and observed the boy for a while before she entered.

  He sat at the single table in the room, another chair across from him. He hummed some indeterminate tune, his good hand tapping out a rhythm on the table, the other wrapped and in a sling.

  In the unlikely case the boy decided to get physical, she rotated her shoulders to loosen muscles there and flexed her fingers. An interrogation. It had been a while. She smiled.

  Mai nodded to Officer Russell. He opened the door for her and followed her inside. He closed the door and took up a position next to it.

  Scott turned when he heard the door open, his smirk indicating he had some smart-ass remark prepared. When he saw Mai, he had the good sense to lower his head. In shame, she suspected. Mai walked around the table and stood across from him.

  “How’s the arm?” she asked.

  He shrugged and didn’t look up.

  “Scott, I’m Ms. Fisher. We weren’t properly introduced before.”

  That got a snicker from him, but his eyes stayed down.

  “I was a bit curious about some things, and I wanted to ask you a few questions. I’m not the police, and this is off the record.”

  “He’s in here,” Scott said, jerking his head toward Russell.

  “Oh, he’s here to protect me from you, Scott.”

  The teen snickered again. “Yeah, right. I say something, and he tells on me.”

  “I promise he won’t.” She gave Russell a meaningful look. “Besides I’m the one providing your lawyer.”

  This time he looked at her and frowned. “Why? I’ll get one of them, whaddaya callits. Public defenders.”

  “Call it liberal angst at offering you the opportunity to descend into a life of depravity.”

  He gave her the expression she often received from Natalia, the one that said, all adults are insane.

  Officer Russell didn’t bother to mute his laughter.

  “Yes,” Mai continued, “you’ll likely qualify for a public defender, but you’ll have to take whomever they give you.”

  Scott’s forehead creased as he considered that.

  Time to push a button. “That could be, you know… Anybody.”

  “Even a nigger?”

  Success, but ignoring Russell’s presence, she leaned toward Scott and punched him below the left eye, enough to sting, not enough to leave a mark. A glance his way showed her Russell’s reaction. He shrugged again, as if to say, did something happen. She turned back to Scott. His face flushed, lips pursed, he started to rise.

  “Stand, and I’ll wipe the floor with you,” Mai said.

  “You can’t do that. Not with the cop here.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the cop, and he doesn’t give a fuck about you.”

  He lowered himself to his seat, eyes on the table.

  “What made you think using that word in front of me was acceptable?” she asked.

  “What word?”

  “You know what word, you piece of shite.”

  Scott fidgeted in his chair and mumbled, “You’re white, but you’re some kinda foreigner, so you don’t understand how it is here.”

  “I’ve lived here a long time, Scott. I understand completely. Under no circumstances will you use that word in my presence again. Understand?”

  He glared at her, but her expression made him look away. “Yeah.”

  “What’s the fascination, Scott?”

  “With what?”

  “Swastikas, burning crosses, Hitler.”

  “Hitler was, like, misunderstood.”

  “Really? By whom?”

  “History, man. He was, like, right about Aryans being the master race, you know.”

  “No, I don’t. Who are Aryans?”

  “Us. People like you and me.” He nodded toward Russell again. “Even him.”

  “White people?”

  “Yeah. You see, God meant us to be, like, the real chosen people, not the ni— Uh, not the blacks, not the Kikes.”

  He flinched away from her, probably wondering if “Kike” were taboo as well, but her hand still throbbed from the first punch. She gave him a narrow-eyed warning instead.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Yeah, so, us, but this ain’t our country no more. Jews and them have taken it over, and they’re gonna put all the white Christian men in concentration camps so they can, like, take the white women and force them to breed with ni… With blacks.”

  Obviously, he had no clue how ridiculous he sounded. “Why on earth would the Jews want to do that?”

  “To get rid of the white race, ‘cause we’re superior. Like I said, we’re God’s chosen, and they can’t, you know, deal.”

  “Have you always felt this way, Scott? Did you learn this from your parents?”

  “I was misled for a while, but I now walk the true path. My ‘rents?” He flushed and looked away. “They’re, like, divorced. My old man, I ain’t seen him for a couple of years. My mom works real hard, like, two jobs, but she can’t make nothing, you know, ‘cause they give good jobs to blacks and stuff. You know, that affirmative action shit.”

  A simplistic excuse for a complicated social situation, Mai thought, but to her, his words sounded practiced, too pat, as though he repeated what someone else had told him to say.

  “Scott, it seems to me those words are coming from you by rote. Do you know what that means?”

  He shook his head.

  “As if you memorized them without any context. I don’t sense much conviction behind them.”

  “What do you mean? I ain’t been convicted of nothing yet.”

  Russell’s laughter was a snort this time, and Mai gave the policeman her sternest look.

  “Never mind, Scott,” she said. “Why did you want my car? Remember, this is all off the record and can’t be used against you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Russell and motioned Mai closer. She sat in the other chair, and they leaned toward each other.

  Voice low, Scott said, “See, I know these dudes, and they’re, like, connected with these other dudes who, you know, fill orders for cars for, like, in Bolivia and shit. I get paid real good for boosting the cars.”

  “How many times have you done it?”

  “Well, today was, like, the first time I tried.”

  “I suspected that. What do you need the money for? Drugs?”

  “Hell, no! Drugs are, like, supplied by the Jews and the blacks, you know, to poison the white race.”

  “You’re not doing drugs?”

  “Tox screen was clean,” Russell said, from his corner. “No tracks in the usual places.”

  “I don’t do no drugs,” Scott said, over his shoulder. To Mai, he continued, “It’s, like, part of their plan.”

  “The Jews’ plan?”

  Scott’s nod was enthusiastic.

  “Well, if you don’t need the money for drugs, what were you going to do with it?”

  “I was gonna, like, buy stuff to protect my mom and me. Guns, ammo, freeze-dried food, MREs, things like that. For, like, survival, when the race war comes. I’ll take my mom and all the stuff into the mountains, like the Bible says.”

  She took in his fleshy arms, pale skin, and rotund middle. Oh, yes, surviving in the mountains on MREs would not be much of a success for him or his mother.

  “When is this race war supposed to happen?” Mai asked.

  “In the End Times.”

  “When will the end times be here?”

  “They’re already here.” That he did say with conviction.

  His words evoked a memory, some report or other she’d read from her employer’s Domestic Analysis Group. It hadn’t interested her, until now.

  “Scott, if you cooperate with the police, this can go a lot easier for you,” Mai said.

  “Cooperate how?”


  “Tell the police who gave you the .45, about the dudes who know the dudes who sell stolen cars.”

  “I can’t rat on my fellow patriots.”

  White supremacy, biblical prophesy, and now patriotism? What a mix of unusual ideas Scott Wilder had accumulated.

  “Scott, holding up someone at gunpoint is not a patriotic act. Hating people is not patriotism. It’s intolerance.” She paused, hoping her words sank in. “Here’s the deal your lawyer will try to work out: You cooperate with the police, get back to school where you belong, and make something better of your life.”

  He squinted at her, suspicious. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  “I hate to see anyone waste potential. Look, I’ll sweeten the deal. I’ll personally speak with your mother to see what kind of job training she needs to get a better position. I’ll even help with that, but it’s up to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Scott Wilder, skinhead. You’re a loser because skinheads are losers and not because of Jews and blacks. As long as you pay attention to losers, you’ll stay a loser.”

  “You’re one of them,” he said, through clenched teeth. “A Jew.”

  “Scott, I don’t believe in God. I believe in myself. Once you start believing in yourself, you’ll stop being a loser.”

  Mai stood, her hands resting on the back of the chair.

  “That’s the deal, Scott. I hope you take it. If you don’t, the next person you try to car-jack might not cut you any slack. Then, you’ll be a loser with a hole between your eyes.”

  Outside the interrogation room, her mind replaying the conversation with Scott Wilder, Mai became aware of Russell’s intense stare.

  “What is it with you?” she asked him.

  He nodded toward the room. “You’ve done that a time or two.”

  “And if I have, what makes you think I can tell you about it?”

  His grin broadened, and his eyes wandered everywhere except her face.

  “So, are you going to stalk me now?” she asked.

  “You want me to?”

  “Husband, remember?”

  “Well, there’s all kinds of levels of commitment.”

  “Not in my case. However…”

  “Yeah?”