sift things out.
Too much had happened too quickly. Only eight months earlier he’d been sitting in the correctional facility computer lab, checking job postings open to ex-cons through the state-sponsored release program. And then one of the Aryan brothers, he’d shown him how to bypass the browser’s security settings, directed him to the Storm Front discussion threads. A new world opened with a single mouse click. There were men on the outside who needed help establishing new communities, who were willing and able to set people like him up on the outside, who saw their convict status not as a stain but as an asset. Inside, he had no choice but to belong among the whites, with their swastikas, sieg heils, and Ghost Face Gangsters. It was simply membership and a matter of protection within those walls. He hadn’t felt himself change when he joined, not his truest self. How would it be any different on the outside?
It was different, of course. He soon realized that. Gavin Noon had not been what he expected. At first, he had been unable to determine what bothered him about this man who was offering him a chance at a new life. But then it became clear. He was not a man of violence, not in the way the others were. Gavin was a coordinator, a theorist. His interests were conceptual and measured, attached to ideas rather than memories, and Harrison could think of nothing more dangerous than that.
Delilah sunk her empty beer can in the water and went to the cooler to get another.
“You want one?”
“Yeah, reach me a can out.”
She placed it in the sand beside him, let her hand stray to the back of his neck. Her palm remained there like it was something she meant to grow in place. He wanted to say something to her, something that she could carry away and understand, but he knew that was impossible. Unlike Gavin, Delilah was full of the hurt that had brought her here. Hurt from when her brother had been killed in prison and hurt again when she’d found what was supposed to be a sanctuary in this fantasy of Little Europe. She had been drawn to him because she’d thought him strong. He had needed her to think that, so he’d done his best to make it true, though he had learned that what was true yielded so quickly to what was not.
He heard the approach of jet skis and walked out to the wooded point of the island to see them coming on, a pair of men with women tightly hugging their backs as they raced across the placid green water. They swung around and entered the channel, their engines going silent as they neared the beach. The man in the lead, short but muscled in bright orange board shorts and Oakley sunglasses, swung a leg over the side and came within a few feet of Delilah, stood over her, dripping.
“Howdy, darling. You wouldn’t know a man by the name of Harrison now, would you?”
“I might.”
He laughed, wiped his forearm across his jaw.
“He must favor a smartass then, if you’re any indication. He here or not?”
Harrison came forward from the tree line.
“He is. He may even have a set of ears on him.”
“Glad to hear it. I was worried you’d gotten shy on me.”
“Nope. Looks like you’re missing something in your hand though.”
The man laughed again, went back out to the jet ski where his blonde girlfriend handed him a bulky envelope sealed in a Ziploc bag. He opened the seal and counted out five hundred-dollar bills, laid them there on the beach towel next to Delilah’s feet.
“A gift for your little redneck mermaid then.”
Delilah picked up the cash and folded it into the cleavage of her top. Harrison fished the weed out of the backpack and set it on the beach.
“That’s a pile of fun right there,” the man said as he sat down in the sand and slit a Case knife blade up the plastic seam. “Come on, everbody. A party of one ain’t no party at all.”
The other three came out of the water and joined him. The other man from the jet ski had a small glass pipe. He was fat and had a permanent scowl. His woman giggled when she plopped down so hard it looked like it hurt. She grabbed the pipe, packed it and they each took a hit.
“Pretty fucking solid, brother. I’ll have to say I didn’t really know what to expect. You mind sharing some of those beers? We’re fresh out.”
“Sure. We’re about to leave anyhow.”
“Come on now,” the man said. “Why is it I get the feeling you two think we smell bad? We just come up here and dropped half a grand and you don’t even want to spend a little fellowship. That seems decidedly uncharitable.”
Harrison had already seen the shape of a revolver tucked in between the man’s shorts and life vest. He gathered the beers and handed them over.
“Get yourself a couple,” the man told him. “You and the mermaid both. Maybe she’ll loosen up a little bit with a touch of lubricant in her.”
The girls tittered.
“She’s fine. I told you that we’re both fine.”
“Boy, the way you say it seems more like you’re telling me to go fuck myself. What do you think, Taylor? Am I imagining it or does it sound like this wayfaring stranger is telling me to fuck myself?”
The one called Taylor grunted, pawed at the sand. Harrison picked a beer for himself and squatted a few feet away from the others, sipped and waited.
“That’s better. I feel relaxed now. I don’t feel like I’m being rushed. A terrible thing for a man to feel his leisure is rushed.”
The man took a deep toke from the pipe before passing it along. Harrison wondered how long the man had stood in front of a mirror working on his hardboiled personality. Every gesture and word like something he’d gathered from a pulp paperback. He’d seen what happened to men like that, men who acted as though the force of their bluster would make up for their lack of attention, their failure of intelligence.
“I’ve noticed something about you,” the man said.
“You have?”
“Yessir. I’ve noticed your eyes. They don’t look like the eyes of someone who lets much get by him.” He reached down and patted the grip of the pistol. “I saw that you noticed the old hog leg here just as soon as I stepped up on the beach. But you acted like you didn’t notice it. Didn’t want me to know that you knew. I find that pretty interesting. I find it interesting that you’d still stand there and act like you were the one in charge of how things were going to transpire despite the fact that you knew I was holding the cards that mattered. That tells me you’re pretty confident. Tells me you think you don’t have too much in this world that gives you any concerns. And I’ll tell you, that makes me think you’re a dangerous man. The kind of man that makes me think it was a prudent idea to come out here toting a piece in the first place.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, sounds like.”
The man smiled, shifted so that he could draw the handgun from his waist and set it in the sand beside him.
“I don’t mean nothing by that,” the man said. “I just want to sit here and be comfortable. I hope you don’t mind?”
“I’m just sitting
