End Game (Will Robie #5)(22)

He slammed in his mag and then slapped himself in the face.

“Get it right, get it clear, Robie. Or Blue Man won’t be coming back. Your personal shit is just that, shit. Your scope sight is black. You can’t see a damn thing because you keep jumping around. Get your crap together. Now!”

He went to the window and looked out onto the main street of Grand.

Bad elements. They needed to see if any of those elements and Blue Man had run into each other somehow. Robie as yet did not have a good feel for the lay of the land here. He needed to better understand all the parts and how they interconnected. Claire Bender had given them some info on that, the cops some more, and Patti Bender and her group still more. But it wasn’t nearly enough.

There was no sign of a struggle at Blue Man’s cabin. Nothing really missing except for him. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been taken against his will. One man with a gun would have been enough, with the element of surprise on his side.

As he continued to look out the window, a surplus Army truck with a canopied bed came barreling into town. It pulled up to a stop in front of the bar across the street.

Eight men clambered out of the back. They were all armed.

And they all walked into the bar with their weapons.

Guns and liquor, what could go wrong? thought Robie.

But then it might also hold some opportunities.

He slid his gun into his holster along with a couple of other items and headed out to do some digging. And he was going to start with these guys.

Because on one side of the truck was painted a symbol he’d never seen before. It was a K and an A set at forty-five-degree angles from one another.

Robie paused on the street to eyeball the truck. The driver was still sitting in the front cab. It looked like he was reading a book.

Maybe Mein Kampf, thought Robie. Brushing up on his hatred and intolerance.

Robie passed by the truck and let his peripheral vision do a screen shot of the driver. He was young, maybe early twenties. He was lean with a shaved head, on which Robie could see tats of the same K and A set at angles. All the other men had shaved heads as well. And they probably had similar tats.

He looked to his left and saw Valerie Malloy leaning against a column holding up the porch in front of the police station. He nodded to her. She inclined her head back at him. Derrick Bender was nowhere to be seen.

With one last glance at her, Robie walked into the Walleye Bar.

The space was large and half full. Low tables with chairs were in the center of the room; high tables with seating for two or four ringed this main area. The bar was set against the far wall and had seating, too. It was about twenty feet long and made of mahogany. Two bartenders were manning it. Behind them were multiple rows of liquor bottles stacked on shelves.

The young men from the truck had pushed two tables together and were ordering from a tawny-haired, slim waitress around forty who seemed to know them, and she looked like she would rather be any other place on earth than in the same room with them.

Robie walked over to the bar, sat on a stool, and ordered a beer.

He could see the group without turning around due to the large mirror behind the bar.

They were loud, annoying, and they acted like they owned the place.

So in addition to being possible skinheads they were dickheads.

Well, then again, you probably couldn’t have one without the other.

When the bartender, a man in his fifties with a crown of graying hair around a dome of skin, brought him his beer, Robie said, “The freak show over there? Where do they call home?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m sorry if they’re friends of yours.”

The man snorted. “The day I call them friends is the day they can lock me up in the loony bin.”

Robie reached into his pocket and showed the man his badge. “That’s my interest,” he said.

The man quickly glanced over at the men and then back at Robie. “I don’t think even the Feds want to mess with those guys. They’re badasses.”

“We have our share of badasses with the good guys,” Robie pointed out.

“Well, I’m just seeing one of you and eight of them.”

“I consider that an even fight.”

The man grinned until he saw that Robie was serious.

Robie said, “What’s the K and A stand for?”

“King’s Apostles.”

“Okay. And are they the ones with some sort of compound?”

The bartender nodded and said, “Fifteen miles east of town, straight line on the main road. Can’t miss it.”

“So in the same direction as the cabin owned by Roark Lambert?”

The bartender took a rag and started wiping the bar. “So you’re here about that Walton fellow gone missing.”

“I am. You think the skinheads could have done that?”

“I can’t tell you they didn’t. And we got neo-Nazis in the area, but just so you know, this bunch here don’t consider themselves skinheads.”

“So what do they consider themselves?”

“Enlightened. And they don’t cause any trouble, really. They just don’t like anything about the government. They can get pretty vocal about it. They’re their own law. But they keep to themselves, thank God.”

“How long have they been around here?”