Free On a Clear Day by Walter Dean Myers Page B

liked.
    When Michael asked me to stay a minute, I was glad. Then I panicked, because I thought he might hit on me. Men do that kind of thing when they’re uptight, and I got the feeling he was getting uptight.
    “Can you do a social model?” he asked. “Work Roderick into it, and maybe the Gaters as well. Everybody thinks there’s something going on, and we’re all looking at just the business side. But it could be something else.”
    “Like what?”
    “If the Sturmers got a new weapon, for example. How would that make things different?” Michael asked.
    “A new weapon?” I asked. “C-8 already has enough firepower to keep us in line.”
    “Things are beginning to move,” Michael said. “It’s clearly not a coincidence that the other groups are showing up in London.”
    “You thinking something is going to go down over here?”
    “No, or at least I hope not. The C-8 corporations are always watching for a chance to make a move. You know the Andover Group, and how they’re controlling twenty percent of all the energy resources in the west?” Michael sat on the sofa, stretched his legs out before him and crossed them at the ankles. “The Brits are telling me that they’re suddenly giving up their Nigerian oil interests.”
    “To whom?”
    “The Nigerian government,” Michael said. “That’s too sweet for it not to be a cover-up, or a diversion. There’s got to be something fishy about it.”
    “Michael, straight up, are you holding back some stuff we should know?” I asked. “Because when things stop making sense …”
    “That’s why the Brits are so worried,” he answered.
    “They coming with us tonight?”
    “No,” Michael said. “They want their own take on the situation.”
    I didn’t like it, and I was feeling a little paranoid. I knew what C-8 was about, and I knew what life was becomingfor everybody. But I wanted to either do something about the shit or go back to the Bronx. I didn’t want to be a bump on anybody’s road.
    At eleven, we piled into a rented van, turned on the auto-GPS, and let the vehicle make its way through the streets of England’s capital. Forty minutes later, we turned into a darkish street, the Kilburn High Road. On the left side, the Tricycle Theatre flashed a blue neon sign. Our meeting was taking place at the Black Lion.
    You could hardly see “The Black Lion” printed above the windows. There were slatted blinds that shielded the interior from the public, and the heavy doors damped down the music. If you could call the crap that was blaring through the pub music. It sounded like golden oldie ska being played by a band of crackheads. The stupid
thump, thump, thump
of the bass alone was enough to make me want to leave.
    The Sturmers were in their biker-cum-Viking outfits. Lots of black leather, silver studs, obscene tats, and bare arms. A big table had been put up along the wall, and I saw a huge, bearded clown waving us over the moment we came in. I figured that must be Roderick.
    The whole set was carefully staged. I felt the hair on my neck stand up, and I needed to pee, only there was no way I was leaving my little group and going into a bathroom alone.
    There were ten Sturmers. Six guys and four girls. They were making enough noise for twice that many.
    My running talk show: I’m in the bedroom with Michael, and he talks to me about computer models while I sit on the bed in a half slip. Stupid, but sweet
.
    “Here comes the posse!” Roderick throws his arm around Michael’s shoulder. “Let’s get this party started!”
    Roderick. Up close he has a huge nose with large pores. He’s taller than he looked in the profile piece, maybe six feet six, a shaggy, uneven beard that is dyed red, bad teeth, and what look like acne scars. Disgusting. That’s the way the papers say he wants to look. He wants people to feel uncomfortable and turn away. He catches my eye and smiles. His lips are greasy. I don’t turn away.
    A few stupid jokes from the