Everybody Dies - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  For Hugo’s allegiance, he got perks. Queer punks to blow him. Better meals. Snacks. Free tattoos. Anytime access to the weights. Drugs, though Hugo didn’t care for that mind-altering crap. His obsession was steroids. Steroids, and memorizing the endless charter for his new gang.

  The CN—Caucasian Nation—called themselves a white nationalist movement dedicated to making America free of schlammensch. Many steps were needed to accomplish this goal, including preventing immigration of non-whites, limiting the rights of non-whites, perpetuating the inferiority of non-whites in all ways possible, extolling the virtues and superiority of the white race, and so on. It didn’t make sense to Hugo, all the weak directives and stupid principles, and he told Whitman how he felt.

  “There are two billion people on the planet who believe a guy was nailed to a tree and came back to life three days later, just so your soul can live in the clouds with all your dead relatives. What’s easier to believe, that bullshit or that whites are superior?”

  “Why believe anything?”

  “Because people need a sense of belonging. Of identity. They want to be part of a tribe, and tribes have rules, and tribes have enemies. If you want the power of the tribe, you never err in your conviction. You yell the loudest, and you never waver.”

  “You want me to yell that Jews exist because women had sex with the devil?”

  “Absolutely. What year was The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion published?”

  Hugo searched his brain for the answer, and came up with, “Nineteen oh three.”

  “And who printed up a half million copies to warn the United States?”

  “Henry Ford, inventor of the car.”

  “And what does it say?”

  “That Jews will lead a revolution, using blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, to overthrow the white man’s rightful control of the planet.”

  “And what’s ZOG?”

  “Zionist Occupational Government.”

  “And ZOM?”

  “Zionist Occupational Media. The schlammensch control everything.”

  “Not everything. What don’t they control?”

  “The white power inherent in white men. Fueled by white blood cells.” Hugo’s brow wrinkled. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Yell it until you believe it, and watch how others believe you. Trust me; there is no idea too stupid for people to embrace.”

  So Hugo memorized the nonsense, lifted weights, juiced until he went up two shirt sizes, and armored his body with tattoos illustrating the story of white supremacy. Swastikas. Arrow crosses. AKIA in big letters across the back. Celtic crosses. Tyr runes. Confederate flags. Iron crosses. Life runes. Sonnerads. Othala runes. SS bolts. Death heads. Triskeles. 14/88. Eagles. Valknots. Burning crosses. Racial slurs in English, German, and Old Norse. Wolfsangel symbols. Dobermans. All done in black ink, covering arms, back, sides, and legs, complementing the centerpiece of it all, taking up the center of Hugo’s massive chest; a schlammensch hanging by a noose.

  But no blue tears.

  A CNW—Caucasian Nation Warrior—could only get tear tatts by killing in service of the group. They were specifically linked to specific enemies in a specific order. The more tears you had, the higher your rank in the CN. The maximum was eight.

  Supposedly, the only one with all eight tears was the SC; the Supreme Caucasian.

  “He’s a well-known member of the business community. A billionaire. He’s forced to cover up his tear tatts in public with make-up, to blend into society. But when the Great Race War begins, and all of the schlammensch are lined up to be killed or enslaved by the Caucasian Nation, he will reveal himself.”

  “It’s just one guy, funding everything?”

  “Not entirely. He runs everything, but he has powerful friends in government, business, and the media that help our cause.”

  That confused Hugo. “I thought the government and media were controlled by Jews.”

  “Your job is to listen, Hugo. Not to question. The SC is why we don’t have to sell drugs or do anything illegal to fund our organization. The money trickles down to us, and to all the clubs in all the prisons in the world.”

  That didn’t make sense, either. Hugo had been a part of several drug deals that Whitman had conducted, and money was made. If the Supreme Caucasian was funding everything, why was the CN in Statesville still hustling?

  As instructed, Hugo didn’t question it. This wasn’t about a belief system. It was about a way to achieve power.

  “So if I got eight tears, I could be the Supreme Caucasian,” Hugo said.

  Whitman nodded. “You, or me, or any white man with enough strong white blood cells in his veins can rule the world. You just have to kill the eight enemies of the Order. The acronym is Ri-La-Po-Ho-Zom-Zog-New-Blood.”

  “Ri-La…” Hugo stumbled over the rest.

  “Ri-La-Po-Ho-Zom-Zog-New-Blood. Ri is a rival gang leader. La is a lawyer. Po is police, a cop. Ho is a holy man, any denomination. Zom is someone in the Zionist Occupational Media. Zog is a politician.”

  “And new?”

  “The seventh tear is a hard one. Something that only the most dedicated race warriors have the strength to do.”

  Hugo waited.

  “A baby,” Whitman said. “You must kill a newborn.”

  Hugo had no idea why that would be considered hard. It’s not like a child could fight back.

  “So what’s the eighth? Blood?”

  “A blood relative. Has to be immediate family. Mother, father, brother, sister, child. No cousins or aunts or any extended family shit.”

  “I have a brother,” Hugo said, thinking of Phineas. “I dunno where he is, but I’ve been wanting to kill him since we were kids.”

  “Hold off on it until you’re told. You have to go in order.”

  That was too bad. It would be nice to feel Phin’s neck in his hands again. “How long do I have to wait?”

  “See these?” Whitman pointed to his cheek. “Three tears. Took me twelve years to earn them.”

  “I won’t wait that long.”

  “That’s up to the SC.”

  “Let me talk to him. I’ll convince him.”

  Whitman grinned. “Keep at it, Hugo. Memorize the charter. Follow the rules. Wait to be called to duty. Your chance is coming soon.”

  Hugo’s first call to duty happened a year later.

  Tear #1

  RI is for Rival

  For all the talk of segregation and the coming Great Race War, Whitman seemed to pal around with the other gang leaders a lot, taking meetings with them, making deals, sometimes openly speaking to them in full view of the whole prison.

  “We don’t want all-out war while we’re all stuck in here,” Whitman explained to Hugo. “Gotta be peace while we’re doing time.”

  That made no sense. Either kill your enemies or don’t. Playing grab-ass with them just weakened the cause.

  Hugo kept that thought to himself. And Whitman continued to act like an ambassador to the schlammensch instead of a proper leader. But apparently some line got crossed, because after a soured drug deal, Whitman ordered Hugo to eliminate Pedro, the head of the Puerto Rican gang.

  Pedro was the biggest ‘Spanic Hugo had ever seen. Though a foot shorter, his biceps were almost as big as Hugo’s, and he could bench press five hundred pounds. Not only was he cut, but Pedro was a good-looking guy, with thick hair and sharp features. Whitman could rant on and on about the genetic superiority of the white race, but it would take about four seconds for Pedro to kick Whitman’s flabby, balding, inferior-in-all-ways white ass.

  Hugo got his shot during yard time. At precisely 1pm, Hugo had a thirty second window where the bulls would turn their heads. It was Pedro’s scheduled daily time at the bench press, and they’d set it up so Bruiser would miss a basketball pass, throwing the ball near the free weights. The plan was for Hugo to go after the ball, get into Pedro’s inner circle, and fight his way to Pedro for a quick
shiv.

  Hugo injured four ‘Spanics getting to Pedro, and then stabbed him thirteen times with a sharpened broom handle.

  Pedro died en route to the prison infirmary.

  No one saw anything.

  And Hugo Troutt got his first blue tear in service to the Caucasian Nation.

  Tear #2

  LA is for Lawyer

  Paroled after two years for good behavior, the CN set up Hugo in a trailer park in Decatur as a sleeper operative. He got a key to a post office box, and was ordered to stay put until he got orders. All of Hugo’s bills were paid for him, and he was given two hundred bucks a week for food and utilities.

  It wasn’t enough to cover his steroids, let alone all the protein he needed to sustain his mass.

  For extra cash, he took to robbing people at ATMs. All he needed was a ski mask, and hands that were big enough and strong enough to pop someone’s kidney, even if the person was obese and wore a winter jacket. Decatur was a large town of over seventy thousand people, and Hugo operated for months without getting caught.

  Then the phone call came, with his activation code word. Omega.

  As they’d previously arranged, Hugo went to his PO box and got a postcard with a handwritten note.

  Raymond Forrester. 189 Maple Brook Lane, Decatur.

  Hugo memorized the name and address, and as instructed, ate the post card.

  On a hunch, he looked up ATTORNEY in the phone book and confirmed that Forrester was, indeed, a lawyer.

  The next day Hugo broke into the lawyer’s house, and broke the lawyer’s neck.

  The cops never noticed that the lock plate on the back door was brand new, replaced by Hugo after he kicked it off.

  They also never questioned how the lawyer’s head had turned one-hundred and eighty degrees around from something as commonplace as falling down a flight of stairs.

  Two days after completing the mission, Hugo got a second phone call.

  “Omega, go to Vic’s.”

  Vic’s was a local tattoo parlor.

  They were expecting him, and gave him his second blue tear.

  Tear #3

  PO is for Police

  Robbing people at cash stations gave Hugo enough money, but it didn’t fulfill his deep-seated need to inflict pain and distress.

  Hugo didn’t know why hurting others gave him pleasure. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and Hugo weathered his share of beatings, and worse, until his younger brother Phineas was born and took the brunt of Dad’s wrath. Maybe Hugo inherited the meanness gene. Or maybe humanity had been molested out of him at a young age. Maybe a little of both. Hugo didn’t dwell on it, or question it. He just followed his nature.

  His nature led him to preying upon Decatur’s gay population. Not that Hugo had anything against queers, but the cops, and the community, didn’t care as much when one turned up dead, and with his muscles Hugo found it easy to attract guys. That was when he began cutting his shin for each murder, as a way of keeping track. In his first year, Hugo murdered six men, varying the cause of death (sometimes making it look like a hate crime, other times like a robbery gone bad, other times like a hit and run) so the authorities didn’t catch on.

  Until the authorities did catch on, and Hugo became a subject of interest.

  This apparently didn’t sit well with his CN handlers, who no doubt preferred to keep Hugo off the radar, and again he was sent to the PO box. The name on the post card was the lead detective investigating him.

  Like the lawyer, the cop was a white guy (which didn’t make sense, why was a white nationalist group killing other white people when there were so many schlammensch in the world?) and Hugo followed him to a local mall. While the pig shopped, Hugo slashed one of his tires. As he was preoccupied changing his tire, Hugo was able to walk right up to him, clamp a hand over his mouth and nose until he passed out, disarm him, and shove him into his trunk, all in less than a minute.

  The cop was ready for a fight when Hugo let him out of the trunk, but his one hundred and seventy pounds couldn’t do much against three-forty. Hugo beat him into submission, duct taped him to a chair in the middle of a cornfield, and then poured gasoline all over him.

  Then Hugo opened up a pack of Camels he’d purchased for the occasion, sucked one to life, and slapped the cop into awareness.

  “Got a smoke for you,” Hugo said.

  “Please…”

  “Open your mouth, or I’ll set you on fire.”

  The pig followed orders.

  “Careful with the ash,” Hugo warned. “I can see the gas fumes coming up from you.”

  Then Hugo did it with another cigarette.

  And another.

  When he got to fourteen, he stopped.

  “Look at this,” Hugo said, making a show out of reading the warning label on the pack. “It says cigarettes may be dangerous to your health.”

  The cop didn’t answer. His mouth was full.

  Then Hugo stepped away and watched. Watched as the cigarettes burned down.

  Camels were unfiltered. As the first one reached the cop’s lips, he began to moan in agony. His moaning became a keening wail when the second and third ones burned down. When four cigarettes began blistering and cracking his lips, he finally tried to spit them out.

  They fell onto his legs. He went up like a dried-out Christmas tree.

  No Decatur cop ever bothered Hugo again.

  Hugo kept the man’s handcuffs as a souvenir.

  It was the first pair of more than forty that he would acquire, and discard.

  Tear # 4

  HO is for Holy Man

  Being a sleeper cell for the Caucasian Nation was, in many ways, a lot like being in prison. Hugo’s trailer was small, bare bones. He was being monitored; Hugo found listening devices in his home phone, his bedroom, and his kitchen. He was fed, spent most of his time pumping iron, and had no choice but to follow orders.

  An advantage to being on the outside was his extracurricular murder activities. But a major disadvantage was solitude. In jail, Hugo always had lackeys fluttering around him, attending to his needs.

  Freedom was much lonelier.

  No sex on demand. No one to fetch him anything he wanted. No adulation. And he even missed the warped and contradictory mentorship of Whitman. Hugo had zero contact with Whitman since being paroled. His new commanding officer was a man named Packer, who attained the rank of Gruppenführer in the Caucasian Nation and demanded to be addressed as General.

  Hugo first met General Packer at a CN meeting in Carbondale, and found him to be surprisingly rigid. Where Whitman had energy, passion, and an opinion on many things, Packer was like a mindless, by-the-book drill sergeant who stepped out of some old black-and-white war movie, but no one told him the war had ended. He was the same type of barking orders asshole as the guards at Stateville.

  One more thing to help blur the line between freedom and incarceration.

  “You’re a soldier,” Packer told him. “Soldiers don’t think. Soldiers don’t question. Soldiers don’t act on their own. Soldiers follow orders.”

  Packer had three blue tears. While he was on the CN payroll, same as Hugo, he suspected the older man had a second job. Gossip hinted at everything from CIA spook to hitman to private security contractor.

  Fueled by a combination of curiosity and boredom, Hugo tailed Packer home from a rally, and the next morning followed him to work.

  General Packer was a junior high school gym teacher.

  He covered up his tears with make-up. Or maybe his tears were make-up, and he drew them on for meetings.

  While Hugo had never met a person he respected, his opinion of Packer actually went up once he discovered his double life. Many of the white nationalists that Hugo knew would laugh at it, probably call Packer a poseur. But Hugo was intrigued by his ability to blend in.

  Hugo had trouble blending in.

  He tried his best. Experimenting with disguises and identities. But no matter where he went, Hugo stood out
in the crowd. Even wearing make-up and baggy clothing.

  So he kept to himself. Robbing. Killing. Buying steroids and handcuffs.

  Doing his time, like the world was his prison.

  After over a year without any assignments, Hugo asked Packer what was taking so long. During that time, he’d racked up quite a string of robberies and murders in Decatur and the surrounding areas, and two months earlier Packer had ordered him to stop his extracurricular activities, doubling his weekly allowance so Hugo could pay for juice.

  “Be patient.”

  “Do you get laid, General?”

  “What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”

  The General seemed to protest a bit too much, but Hugo let it slide. “Then you understand the sex-drive. I’ve got a hurt-drive. If I’m not allowed to do something soon, I’m quitting.”

  “Quitting would be a mistake, Hugo. The CN might consider it treason.”

  “Who would they send after me?” Hugo asked, snorting in amusement. “You?”

  “Your devotion to the cause hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Supreme Caucasian has his eye on you.”

  “I don’t even know if that guy is real.”

  “He’s real. I’ve met him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I took an oath of secrecy. But you’ll meet him. In time. I’ll talk to the CN and see if they have any work for you.”

  The next day, Hugo got a phone call. The post card provided the name and address of a man in Chicago.

  Fr. Michael Chaucer.

  A priest.

  Hugo visited a hardware store, then took a bus to the city, crammed into a tiny seat behind a screaming toddler who came so close to death so many times that Hugo lost count of the different ways he imagined killing the little brat. The only thing that saved him was the fact that Hugo was under cover, complete with face make-up and a wig. As per orders, Hugo never discussed his missions with anyone, but Packer had called him with the bus ticket info, and had filled in some normally empty blanks.

  “You’re taking a Greyhound, and you need to dress like a civilian. Cover up the tatts, wear a hairpiece and a hat. The CN is having some issues with the Chicago Archdiocese paying what they owe, so this guy needs to be an example. The messier, the better. We want this to be high profile. But no one can know you are linked to it. This isn’t beating up old ladies for money at the ATM, or strangling homos in parking lots. This is a big one. You need to make sure there are no mistakes.”