“Why the hell would these VK guys be following me to deliver a message from Snake Knox?”

Kaiser continues to study the various insignia on the jacket. “In the last couple of years, we’ve started to see a cross-pollination between white supremacist prison gangs and the one-percenter biker gangs. You know what those are?”

I had dealings with one-percenters like the Bandidos MC when I was an assistant district attorney in Houston. “The term comes from Heraclitus, right? ‘In any battle, out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t be there. Eighty are just targets. Nine are good soldiers, and we’re lucky to have them. But one, that one is a warrior, and he will bring the others home.’”

Kaiser’s eyes stay on mine for a few seconds. “I actually found that to be true in Vietnam. The old Greeks knew a thing or two.” The FBI man gets to his feet and walks to the restroom door, then turns, seeming to check the angle of the body.

“That was good shooting, Penn.” He looks back at me. “Are you sure he didn’t tell you what the message was?”

I lied to Kaiser because I didn’t understand the meaning of the message. I mean, I understood it on a literal level, but I also sensed that there was more to it. And to find out if I’m right, I’m going to have to see my father.

“Positive. He could barely talk. All he did was cuss me. Threaten me.”

“Okay.”

“So—Snake Knox and the VK?”

Kaiser taps the palm of his left hand with the back of his right. “I think it’s pretty simple. After Forrest died”—he gives me a quick look to let me know that he knows I killed Forrest Knox—“the Double Eagles began to disintegrate as a criminal organization. I think they relied on crooked cops for muscle, and with Forrest dead, that cadre evaporated. Snake must have had some kind of line into the VK and decided to use them to replace his old muscle. Probably a drug connection, since the biker gangs move a lot of guns and drugs.”

“Where are the VK based?”

“East Texas and Louisiana. They’re not huge, but they’re bleeding-edge violent. Bigger on ideology than most other clubs.” Kaiser points at two Nazi lightning bolts stitched onto the jacket. “SS sig-rune insignia. Typical Aryan bullshit.”

“Why would these guys help Snake, though? Is he paying them?”

“Doubtful. The lightning bolts can mean Klan, as well. The new Klan, of course, not the original. I think it’s the Kennedy angle that gives Snake his cachet.”

“How so?”

Kaiser clucks his tongue as though trying to decide how much to reveal. “I haven’t told you a lot of this . . . you had enough on your plate.”

“Well, I need to know it now.”