Run You Down (Rebekah Roberts #2)(45)

“A lot more girls are doing the shaved head thing. If I wasn’t so fat I’d cut mine. Maybe after the baby comes. Hank would love that. Did you shave it yourself?”

I rub my hand over my head. “No,” I say. “It was kind of an accident.”

“Have you ever done any modeling?” she asks, pouring me coffee into a mug with a deer and the words ADIRONDACK STATE PARK on it. She takes some milk out of the fridge and I add a little, wave off sugar. “I know a guy who makes tshirts and panties and stuff and he’s always looking for hot skinhead chicks. Do you have tattoos?”

“No,” I say.

She shrugs. “Well, anyway. He’s up in Troy. I could give you his number.”

I suppose I should take this as a compliment. Wait till I tell Iris: I’ve been spotted by a Nazi model scout!

“You sell online?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “Online and at shows. I did pretty good on Etsy for a while but I got kicked off last year—which is total bullshit. If you say your swastika’s Buddhist you can sell whatever you want. And people can sell vintage SS pieces.” She shrugs. “I do other stuff, too, like hoops and stars and crosses. But the white power stuff sells the best. There aren’t that many other people making it. I’ve got a pretty good following now. Valentine’s Day and Christmas are my big holidays. And I’ve done a couple wedding parties. It’s kinda slow right now so I’m trying some new stuff. I like the lightning bolts ’cause they’re subtle, you know? Like, if you want to represent at work but your boss is a liberal or a nigger or something.”

I’ve never known how to respond to people who use racial slurs easily. I don’t encounter them much, fortunately—although there is one photographer for the Trib who talks like he’s living in 1950s Alabama—but when I do it’s always a little shocking. Mellie looks perfectly normal. Throw a pair of boots on her and she’d blend right in on Bedford Avenue.

“Have you been doing it a while?” I ask.

“A couple years. I started right around when I got pregnant with her. Hank goes to the gun shows with his dad and there’s always all these wives and girlfriends wandering around kinda bored. Nan—that’s his grandma—used to bitch about how there’s never any good accessories for women. Nothing, like, feminine. That’s sorta what I’m known for. We go to bike rallies, too, and the patriot marches. Here,” she says, opening a plastic file box that’s tucked beneath the kitchen table. She hands me a shiny black business card with a Web site address printed in hot pink: WWW.WHITEGIRLPOWER.COM.

“Cool,” I say again. “So when are you due?”

“July eighteen. It’s a boy. Thank God. Hank’s obsessed with the bloodline. Well, really it’s his dad, Connie, who’s obsessed. But Hank, too. Him and his dad are really close. Especially now that Ryan’s a faggot.…” She pauses. “Wait, how do you know him again?”

“I’m actually looking for a friend of his. Sam Kagan?”

Mellie’s expression changes. She raises an eyebrow. “You’re friends with Sam?”

“Well, no. I’ve never met him. I’m looking for him because…” I don’t want to tell the whole story, so I use shorthand: “I’m adopted. And I think Sam might know my birth mom.”

“You’re adopted?”

“Yeah,” I say, hoping I don’t have to extend this lie too much longer.

“Me, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“My birth mom was a junkie. She got locked up when I was a baby and my dad wasn’t in the picture. I was in foster care for a couple months then my mom’s cousin ended up adopting me.” She looks up expectantly. It’s my turn.

“My mom gave me up. She had me really young.”

“So you’ve never met.”

I shake my head.

“Oh wow,” says Mellie. She lowers her voice. “Sam’s a Jew, did you know that?”

“Oh?” I say.

“Yeah. One of those crazy black hat kikes. Like, with the coats and the…” She makes a spiral beside her head.

“Huh,” I say, trying to sound like I don’t quite know what she’s talking about.

“Do you think you might be Jewish?”

“I don’t know,” I say. It’s not a lie. Okay, it’s a lie. I am denying my Judaism in the home of a Nazi.

“I hope not, for your sake,” she says. “They’re really dangerous. I mean, they’re breeding an army down there in Rockland County. You know they all have like ten kids. At least! And they’re all on welfare. I mean, they’re seriously worse than niggers and spics on that. But nobody knows about it. That’s what so crazy. They’re taking over the school boards and the city councils and they’re all f*cked up sexually. They have arranged marriages, like the Muslims. And men and women can’t even touch. And they let people molest their kids. Seriously.”

“Huh,” I say again.

“Fucking Sam,” she says, shaking her head. Eva spits out her pacifier and starts whining. “You hungry?” she asks the child, already reaching for the refrigerator door. “If you see him, tell Sam to stay the f*ck away from here. Connie’ll shoot him if he sees him. I might, too.” She pours whole milk from a plastic gallon jug into a bottle, twists the cap on, shakes it, and hands it to Eva. “He’s caused a lot of drama. First of all, he’s a total liar. Him and Ryan both. I can’t even get into it it’s so bad. People are always trying to infiltrate the Brotherhood, so Connie thinks he’s a narc. I don’t know if he’s like, FBI, or some Jew mafia, but the point is that now, even though we’re supposed to be saving for a place of our own that isn’t right on top of his whole family, Hank’s basically spending all our money on guns.”