Black Buck(107)

She went to the fridge and grabbed a gallon of Poland Spring. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“What do you want?” he asked, twisting his head around. “Money? I can give you that.”

“Don’ need it,” Jason said.

“Okay, then what? I’ll do anything.”

I won’t lie; seeing him like this, desperate and vulnerable, made me feel good despite all the shit it was going to land us in.

“For starters,” Rose said, uncapping the jug, “you can stop all this white supremacist bullshit you’ve been spewing for the past couple of weeks.”

I opened my mouth, but Jason clamped his palm over it. He shook his head. I understood. Clyde knew my voice. If he could identify me, we were in trouble. Jason switched on some jazz; a saxophone’s wail filled the room.

Rose poured water over the rag covering Clyde’s mouth, causing him to shake like he was undergoing electroshock therapy. “I’m sure you’re used to Evian, but I hope you don’t mind Poland Spring.”

“Please!” he screamed. “Please stop.”

“That’s what we want you to do,” Rose said. She tilted the plastic jug again and poured water on his head for ten, maybe twenty seconds.

“What you’re experiencing,” she shouted over the music, lifting the jug up for a moment as Clyde coughed, then resuming, “is the sensation of drowning.”

He jerked his head in every direction, his hands and feet convulsing as if he were possessed. Before, it was fun, even exciting, but now this was real one-hundred-percent bona fide torture. My heart was beating faster and faster.

“You see, the water soaks the rag,” Rose continued, “causing it to cling to your face, making it harder to breathe. The water enters your mouth, runs down your throat and nostrils, making you feel like you’re really—”

“Drowning!” Clyde shouted after she emptied the last of the jug and removed the rag. “I can’t! I can’t breathe,” he said, spitting water all over the kitchen floor.

“Are you gonna stop this Nazi bullshit?” Jason asked, kneeling next to Clyde’s drenched body.

Clyde twisted and pulled on the damp plank before nodding.

“Are you gonna get rid of the White United Society of Sadists?”

A whimper escaped his mouth—the sound of an abused animal.

“What was that?” Rose asked. “Louder.”

“Yes,” Clyde whispered.

“Louder!” Jason said, pulling out his phone, recording the scene. “Say ‘I am Clyde Reynolds Moore the Third, and I am wrong for what I’ve done. The White United Society of Salespeople is racist, bigoted, and evil.’”

“I,” Clyde started, choking on his spit.

“Shout it to the heavens!” Rose ordered. “So loud your precious white God and blue-eyed, blond-haired Jesus can hear you!”

“I,” he said, louder now, “Clyde Reynolds Moore the Third, am wrong. The White United Society of Salespeople is racist, bigoted”—he paused and Jason squeezed his leg—“and evil.”

Jason and Rose bumped fists. I stood there speechless. I went to the fridge, grabbed a beer, and chugged the entire thing in one gulp, trying to taste something, anything.

“If we hear anything from you again,” Jason said, rolling the black bag back over Clyde’s mouth, “we will take you, jus’ like we did today. But you won’ live another day to talk about it.”

“I understand,” he said, soaking in fear. “N-n-now what?”

“You’re going to go to sleep for a while, and then you’ll wake up like nothing happened,” Rose said.

“Huh?”

She delivered a swift kick to his head, knocking him out.

“Start the van,” Jason instructed her. “We’ll carry him down.”

As we carried him down the stairs—I held his legs while Jason held his arms—Jason whistled as if everything were normal. We shut the doors to the van Ellen usually used with the new recruits, and Jason hopped into the driver’s seat. Rose took shotgun.

“Don’t worry,” Rose said. “We got this.”

Jason smiled from his window. “Yeah, Superman. Go home and get some sleep. You can finally rest easy now that this is all over. Told you this was the only way.”

They peeled off down the street. I waded through the thick humidity of a summer night, heading for the subway, wanting the underground to take me as far away from what just happened as possible. We had crossed a line and there was no going back—especially not with someone like Clyde.

Before finding sleep, I called Kujoe, who denied being the rat but admitted to discussing the Happy Campers with Eddie. Did I truly believe that he wasn’t the rat? No, not at all. Anyone who broke our primary rule of not discussing the Happy Campers couldn’t be trusted, so I told him he was banned from HQ until further notice and to keep to himself at Sumwun or I’d fire him.

With that done, I mentally prepared myself for whatever was going to happen next, even though I could have never anticipated the lengths Clyde would go to to win. But sleep was pulling me into its abyss, and I had to surrender, at least for the night.





32