Flirting with the waitresses in them shiny orange shorts, sweet God Almighty, sporting the finest young legs Chub had ever seen. And asses shaped just like Golden Delicious apples.

And outside: a pickup truck full of guns.

"A toast," said Bode Gazzer, lifting his mug. "To America."

"Amen!" Chub burped.

"This here is what it's all about."

"For sure."

Said Bode: "No such thing as too much pussy or too much firepower. That's a fact."

They were shitfaced by the time the check came. With a foamy grin, Bode slapped the stolen credit card on the table. Chub vaguely recalled they were supposed to ditch the nigger woman's Visa after the gun show, where they'd used it to purchase a TEC-g, a Cobray M-ii, a used AR-I5, a canister of pepper spray and several boxes of ammo.

Chub preferred gun shows over gun stores because, thanks to the National Rifle Association, gun shows remained exempt from practically every state and federal firearms regulation. It had been Chub's idea to browse at the one in Fort Lauderdale. However, he'd had strong reservations about paying for such flashy weapons with a stolen credit card, which he thought was risky to the point of stupid.

Again Bode Gazzer had put his friend's mind at ease. He'd explained to Chub that many gun-show dealers were actually undercover ATF agents, and that the use of a phony bank card would send the bully lawmen on a frantic futile search for "J. L. Lucks" and his newly purchased arsenal.

"So they're off on a goose chase," Bode had said, "instead of hassling law-abiding Americans all day long."

His second reason for using a stolen Visa was more pragmatic than political: They had no cash. But Bode had agreed with Chub that they ought to throw away the credit card after the gun show, in case the Chase Bank started checking up.

Chub was about to remind his partner of that plan when an exceptionally long-legged waitress appeared and whisked the Visa card off the table.

Bode rubbed his hands together, reverently. "Thatis what we're fightin' for, my friend. Anytime you start to doubt our cause, think a that young sweet thing and the 'Merica she deserves."

"A-fucking-men," Chub said with a bleary snort.

The waitress reminded him strikingly of his beloved Kim Basinger: fair skin, sinful lips, yellow hair. Chub was electrified. He wondered if the waitress had a boyfriend, and if she let him take topless photos. Chub considered inviting her to sit and have a beer, but then Bode Gazzer loomed into focus, reminding Chub what they both must look like: Bode, in his camo and cowboy boots, his face welted and bitch-bitten; Chub, gouged and puffy, his mangled left eyelid concealed behind a homemade patch.

The girl'd have to be blind or crazy to show an interest. When she returned to the table, Chub boldly asked her name. She said it was Amber.

"OK, Amber, if I might ast – you ever heard a the White Rebel Brotherhood?"

"Sure," the waitress said. "They opened for the Geto Boys last summer."

Bode, who was signing the Visa receipt, glanced up and said: "You are seriously mistaken, sugar."

"I don't think so, sir. I got a T-shirt at the concert."

Bode frowned. Chub twirled his ponytail and whooped. "Ain't that a kick in the nuts!"

Amber picked up the credit-card slip, which included a hundred-dollar tip, and rewarded them with a blush and her very warmest smile, at which time Chub dropped to one knee and begged permission to purchase her orange shorts as a keepsake of the afternoon. Two Hispanic bouncers materialized to escort the militiamen out of the restaurant.

Later, sitting in the truck among their new guns, Chub was chuckling. "So much for your White Rebel Brotherhood."

"Shut up," Bode Gazzer slurred, " 'fore I puke on your shoes."

"Go right ahead, brother. I'm in love."

"Like hell."

"I'm in love, and I got a mission."

"Don't you start!"

"No," Chub said, "don't youtry and stop me."

To find out if the waitress was right about the militia's name, they stopped at a music store in a Kendall mall. Drowsily Bode pawed through the racks until he came across proof: A compact disc called Nocturnal Omission,recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, by the White Rebel Brotherhood. Bode was aghast to see that three of the five band members were Negroes. Even Chub said: "That ain't funny."

Bode shoplifted a half dozen of the CDs, which he shot up good with the TEC-9 after they returned to Chub's trailer. They arranged it like a skeet range, Chub tossing the discs high in the air while Bode blasted away. They quit when the gun jammed. Chub unfolded a pair of frayed lawn chairs and made a fire in a rusty oil drum. Bode complained that his beer buzz was wearing off, so Chub opened a bottle of cheap vodka, which they passed back and forth while the stars came out.

Eventually Chub said, "I b'lieve our militia needs a new name."

"I'm way ahead a you." Bode cocked the bottle to his lips. "The White Clarion Aryans. It just now come to me."

"Well, I like it," said Chub, although he wasn't certain what "clarion" meant. He believed it was mentioned in a Christmas song, perhaps in connection with angels.

"Can we call us the WC ... ," and then he faltered, trying to recall if Aryan was spelled with an Eor an A.

Bode Gazzer said, "WCA. Don't see why not."

"Because otherwise it's kind of a mouthful."

"No more 'n the first one."

"But hey, that's cool," Chub said.

White Clarion Aryans.He sure hoped no smart-ass rock bands or rappers or other patriot tribes had already thought of the name.

From the lawn chair Bode rose in his rumpled camos and lifted the now-empty vodka bottle to the sky. "Here's to the motherfuckin' WCA. Ready, locked and loaded."

"Damn right," said Chub. "The WCA."

At that moment the young man called Shiner, glazed by Valium, was admiring the letters W.R.B.that were freshly tattooed in Iron Cross – style script across his left biceps. Etched below the initials was a screaming eagle with a blazing rifle locked in its talons.

The tattoo artist worked out of a Harley joint in Vero Beach, Shiner's first stop on his way south to Florida City, where he planned to hook up with his new white brothers. He had quit the Grab N'Go, leaving on a high note – Mr. Singh, the owner, demanding to know why Shiner's Impala was moored in the store's only handicap space. And Shiner, standing tall behind the counter: "I got me a permit."

"Yes, but I do not understand."

"Right there on the rearview. See?"

"Yes, yes, but you are not crippled. The police will come."

Shiner, coughing theatrically: "I got a bad lung."

"You are not crippled."

"Disabled is what I am. They's a difference. From the army is where I hurt my lung."

And Mr. Singh, waving his slender brown arms, hurrying outside to more closely inspect the wheelchair insignia, piping: "Where you get that? How? Tell me right now please."

Shiner beaming, the little man's reaction being a testament to Chub's skill as a forger.

Saying to Mr. Singh: "It's the real deal, boss."

"Yes, yes, but how? You are not crippled or disabled or nothing, and don't lie to me nonsense. Now move the car."

And Shiner replying: "That's how you treat a handicap? Then I quit, raghead."

Grabbing three hundred-dollar bills from the register, then elbowing his way past Mr. Singh, who was protesting: "You, boy, put the money back! Put the money back!"

Yammering about the videotape Shiner had swiped, on Bodean Gazzer's instruction, from the store's slow-speed security camera – in case (Bode explained) the cassette hadn't yet rewound and taped over the surveillance video from November 25, the date JoLayne Lucks bought her lottery numbers.