Royal Flush (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 6) by Shelley Singer Page A

Leslie likes you too.” This contribution came from Helen, with a half-smile on her thin lips.
    I smiled back. “Well, I think Floyd’s a great guy. Pete, too, of course. I think—” I gazed fondly out at the assembled crowd “—they’re all great guys. I can’t believe my good luck at finding you people— that my own cousin would know you. I got to say, it’s a thrill.”
    A bit of color rose to Helen’s cheeks.
    “Yes, it is exciting, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah. So you’re members then? Of the Aryan Command?” I put as much reverence as I could into the name.
    “Oh, yes.”
    “Wow. Listen, I really want to get into the group, but how do you join?”
    Helen opened her mouth to answer, but Hal broke in. “When people get to know you, they invite you.”
    “I see. Well, I hope that happens to me soon. I really want to do my part. Do you have to be invited by a member of the Inner Circle?”
    “No, but they have to approve the invitation. We have to know you feel the way we do about things.”
    “Well, how exactly do you feel about things? I mean…”
    Hal held out his hand and began ticking off points on his fingers. “We are white people. We are proud of being white people, the creators of all decent civilizations, all noble causes.” I thought the Egyptians and the Chinese would get a laugh out of that. “We feel that white people have a right to be proud and to maintain themselves separately from nonwhites like Jews and Mexicans and Africans. We feel that our U.S. government has been taken over by the forces of the nonwhites, by the evil ZOG, and that the government is attempting to dilute our noble European blood and destroy the country we love. Which would, of course, destroy the world. It is our duty to prevent that from happening. To do anything we must to protect and defend our white honor.” He was on his second set of fingers by this time, but I was still back at “the evil ZOG.” What in the name of God was
ZOG?
“We have a sacred duty to fight the forces of darkness and raise the banner of white people to sovereignty.”
    He stopped and dropped his hands to his sides.
    “Wow,” I said, before I remembered I’d already used that one. Should have gone for “zowie.” “Did you memorize that? That’s really amazing. I can’t tell you how excited I get just hearing that, you know, hearing the things I been thinking all these years set out so clear and true.” This was too easy. Maybe my future was in the theater.
    Hal seemed exhausted by his recitation. He nodded vaguely, mumbled something about chips, and wandered away.
    Helen watched him go, then turned back to me. “Yes, well, you know you can’t say those things everywhere. The world has been made unsafe for white people. And we’re going to take back the world.”
    “Yes,” I said. “Yes, we are.” I smiled at her. “With women like you.” Helen smiled and blushed. “Very exciting. Very.” Yeah. The group was as exciting as a grenade and she was as exciting as heartburn. “How many members do we have now, anyway? Here in the Bay Area? And wherever?”
    She smiled. “That’s a secret.” I should have guessed.
    “Have you been in the Command long?”
    Helen nodded, her eyes moving slowly over the crowd in her living room. “A few years. Not from the very beginning, but soon after. Right after I saw the black helicopter.” There it was again. I’d heard Leslie refer to black helicopters.
    “I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know about those helicopters, Helen.”
    “Don’t be ashamed. They’re part of a government conspiracy. They belong to the UN.” A slightly confused look crossed her pinched face. “Or to a secret faction of our own federal tyranny. There are secret underground hangars all over Napa County. They’ve been seen in other places too.”
    Conspiracy. Always possible, I guess. But I tend to think the kinds of control freaks who’d be into world domination couldn’t manage to share a house, let