Free Red Templar by Paul Christopher Page B

catching the second skinhead in the crotch. The kicked boy dropped to the ground, screaming, hands between his legs.
    Eddie cocked his left arm and gave the boy with the knife a hard fist to the throat. The boy turned blue, gagged and fell to the hard pavement, landing on his face and nose, gurgling, then passing out from the pain. The other two skinheads, eyes wide, stepped back. One of them turned his head and vomited.
    Eddie dropped to one knee, took the switchblade from the now unconscious teenager’s hand and snapped the blade off between two of the interlocking paving stones. He patted the cheek of the boy he’d kicked in the crotch, stood and stepped over the unconscious teenager and continued his interrupted stroll to the Alexander Column.
    The boy who’d been kicked struggled to his feet and, still bent over, began screaming for the police at the top of his lungs. Not far from where Holliday was standing two
gorodovye
—junior police officers in dark green military uniforms complete with absurdly large peaked caps—were smoking cigarettes and studiously ignoring the screaming teenager. As Eddie passed the two cops the one closest to him grinned and gave him a discreet thumbs-up.
    “Horoshuyu rabotu,”
the cop called out.
Good work.
    “Blagodaryu tebya, moi’ droog.”
Eddie nodded.
Thank you, my friend.
The cop’s smile grew even wider at the sound of the Cuban’s fluent Russian.
    “So what was that all about?” Holliday asked as Eddie joined them.
    “The one with the knife wanted all my money and called me a
‘negr huesos,’
which is a very unpleasant thing to say in Russian, believe me. I told him his mother was a Georgian goat and that he had been born through her . . .
ojete?
In Russian the word is
zhopa
.”
    Genrikhovich snickered.
    “I think I get it.” Holliday smiled.
    Eddie shrugged. “He became very angry and he try to stab me with his knife, so I broke his wrist and kicked the other one in his
huevos minúsculos
.”
    “We must not draw attention to ourselves,” chided Genrikhovich, clearing his throat. “It could be very dangerous.”
    “Should I have allowed the boy to stab me with his knife?” Eddie asked. “It looked as though he had not cleaned it in a very long time. The boy looked as though
he
had not been cleaned in a long time as well. I could have been given an infection.”
    Genrikhovich grumbled something under his breath and turned away, heading for the Palace Bridge and the small patch of green between it and the Winter Palace.
    “Anybody on our tail?” Holliday asked Eddie as they followed the Russian across the plaza. To the south the immense golden dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral gleamed in the clear, crisp air.
    “No one,” said Eddie, shaking his head. “Nobody I could see,
mi amigo
.” He shrugged. “But these days, who knows? Maybe there was a satellite looking down on us, or one of your drones.”
    They caught up with Genrikhovich as he reached the far side of the square and stepped into the park beside the Winter Palace. “You have a lot of skinheads in St. Petersburg?” Holliday asked as they walked beneath the trees.
    “
Shkoora-galava
? Yes, they are a problem all over Russia, especially in the cities. They hate anyone who is not Russian and white. The worst kind of fascists. They could easily be my country’s future, I’m afraid.” The older man shook his head. “They call themselves patriots.”
    “‘Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,’” said Eddie, the English flawless. It was clearly a quotation.
    “Who said that?” Holliday asked. “Fidel?”
    “George Washington,” said Eddie. “We learned this in school.”
    Holliday laughed. “You don’t have skinheads in Cuba?”
    “In Cuba? No, it would not be allowed by El Comandante,” said Eddie, smiling broadly, rubbing the top of his smoothly shaved head. “And also the young men in my country are much too
vanidoso
 . . . conceited about their hair. We