Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,27
out of the room like a whipped hound.
The other man, Mr. Unibrow—who looks about as bored with all this as a cat given a Rubik’s Cube to play with—doesn’t get up.
Atlanta’s seen him before. She’s sure of it. Can’t place him, though.
The door closes.
She feels trapped. A cornered rat.
“Sit,” the elder Erickson says, pointing to the chair just vacated by Mitchell. “Please.”
The word is warmer, friendlier than she expects. She’s sure it contains a secret vein of threat, a subtle promise to break open her cheek with that ruby ring, but it’s so subtle she can’t hear it. The man sounds like he’s talking to a business cohort or the target of a sales pitch.
Atlanta doesn’t see much choice. She eases into the chair. Legs shaking.
The big man sits behind his desk, framed by a massive elk-head on the wall behind him. It’s then she realizes: he looks the part of big-game hunter. She can picture him in a pith helmet and khakis, blasting blunderbuss rounds off at escaping elephants just to get at their tusks.
“I’m Orly Erickson. Mitchell’s father.”
Atlanta nods toward the man in the corner. “And him? Who’s Unibrow?”
But Orly just ignores the question.
“You made a lot of trouble, little girl,” Orly says. His big voice calls to mind the distant Doppler rumble of a tractor trailer on the highway. Before she can protest, he adds: “My son and his friends have made trouble, too. They responded poorly. Nobody would disagree with that.”
“Poorly,” she says.
“Poorly.”
“I think the police might have stronger words than poorly.” She watches the man in the corner and sees a small smile tease the edges of his mouth. It’s then that she recognizes him.
He’s a cop.
He was there. That night. The night of gunsmoke.
Shit.
Her heart pumps faster: a cold rush of saline through her veins.
“Not so sure the police need to be involved in this,” Orly says. “Kids being kids and what-not. You started something. They finished it. Nobody’s a winner if the law gets involved.”
“I see.”
“You do? Good. Very good. The actions of children shouldn’t be confused with the troubles of adults.”
“And what troubles do you have, Mister Erickson?” she asks, her gaze floating over the room. A black banner hangs on the caddy-corner wall: on it is a white cross framed by a white circle, and above it the text: PRIDE WORLDWIDE. Next to it is a familiar-looking license plate with the tag, 14WORDS in white lettering on a black plate. Next to that, a t-shirt with a white fist in the center of a horseshoe of laurel.
(And early though the laurel grows. It withers quicker than the rose…)
“Every man has troubles his children don’t understand. Not until they’re older.”
Bite your tongue, she says to herself. And she does. She literally bites it hard enough where she thinks, …just a little more pressure and I can bite clean through. She even tastes that coppery tang of blood.
But it doesn’t matter.
She says what she’s going to say anyway.
“Troubles. Like Jews. Or blacks. Or let me guess—wetbacks, faggots, chinks.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Those words don’t sound good coming from a young girl’s mouth. Besides, don’t confuse me with my son’s friends. Like I said, children and adults have different concerns.”
Orly fidgets with the ring.
“That’s a big ring,” she says.
“It was my father’s. It signified membership.” Way he turns it and strokes it she can tell it means a lot to him. He turns it this way and that, letting light play across the ruby facets.
“All this wall décor signify membership, too?” she asks.
“Just symbols of one man’s belief.”
“And that one man’s belief is that the white man is supreme. That about right?”
He straightens up, massive shoulders tensing, looking like logs rolling just beneath the surface of water. “A man can have pride in who he is. No harm in that.”
“White power.”
“White pride. Nobody begrudges black pride. Nobody says ‘boo’ to feminists. And so why balk at pride in being white? One would assume that to delight in one’s heritage is a good thing.”
“Being proud of being white is like being proud of being not-crippled.”
“So those who aren’t white are cripples?”
“What? No, I didn’t—“
“Your words, not mine.”
“But that’s not what I meant.” She feels frustrated. Cornered. “You know what? Fuck you.”
“That how you talk to adults? Guess I don’t blame you. After what happened.” He relaxes again. The tension settles—he takes it off himself and gives it to her. A sharing of energy. Bad energy. He studies her face, must see it in her eyes.