Sonny extended his hand gingerly, half expecting to be cut for a blood oath or branded with some secret insignia. But Frank dropped something heavy and cool into his palm. Sonny saw the flash of gold.

“What the hell?” he asked, recognizing the coin. “Is that a twenty-dollar gold piece?”

“That it is,” said Frank. “A Double Eagle.”

Sonny whistled with awe. “Haven’t seen one of these since my granddaddy showed me one.”

“Look at the year it was minted.”

He squinted at the coin. “Nineteen twenty-eight?”

“Can you think of anything special about that year?”

“The year of the big flood?” Morehouse guessed, blinking at the gleaming coin.

Frank snorted with contempt. “The flood was in twenty-seven, lug nut.”

“I was born in twenty-eight,” Sonny said, realizing Frank’s intent.

Frank nodded. “That’s your dog tag now. Everybody in the unit’s gonna carry one. No robes, no masks, no bullshit—just a gold piece. Your gold piece.” He fished in his pocket, then held out a second Double Eagle to Morehouse.

The giant took the gold coin almost greedily, then held it up in the sun and eyed it like a child examining a rare marble. “Nineteen twenty-seven,” he confirmed, grinning. “Damn, that’s neat.”

“They stopped minting these a long time back, didn’t they?” asked Sonny.

“Nineteen thirty-three,” Frank replied.

“So nobody younger than … Bucky Jarrett gets in?”

“That’s right. Except for my little brother. Snake wasn’t born until thirty-four, but we need that crazy son of a bitch. There’s times when crazy is just what the doctor ordered.”

Frank’s younger brother had volunteered for Korea at seventeen, lying about his age to get early enlistment. Snake had been in the thick of the fighting for most of the war, and he’d learned a lot. Sonny had a feeling that whatever Snake was doing down at the Chevy was designed to prove that to them.

“What are we gonna do first?” Morehouse asked.

“I know what we ain’t gonna do,” Sonny muttered. “We ain’t gonna do a lot of gabblin’ and then go home drunk like a bunch of broke-dicks.”

“That’s a stone-cold fact,” Frank said, his voice crackling like a live wire.

“We gonna waste somebody?” Sonny asked.

Frank nodded.

“Who?” asked Morehouse. “How ’bout that biggity nigger who works out at Armstrong, that George Metcalfe? Sonny says he’s gonna be president of the Natchez NAACP.”

Frank shook his head. “We’re not going to waste time killing tire builders and handymen. That’s for the clowns in the white hoods, if they ever get their nerve up.”

“Who, then?” asked Sonny, trying to think like Frank. As soon as he did, a revelation struck him. “Jesus. You’re thinking about wasting white guys. Aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Frank conceded, his eyes twinkling.

“What?” Morehouse asked.

“Informants,” Sonny explained. “Like Jerry Dugan, out at the plant.”