Читать книгу No Way Out - David Kessler - Страница 14

‘The reason we got a drug problem is ‘cause the man flooded the ghetto with cheap cocaine!’ the black militant shouted into the microphone. ‘And the reason things haven’t changed, brother Elias, is because we’ve still got Uncle Toms like you blaming the brothers for what the white man did to us!’

The audience broke into loud spontaneous applause, especially the large group of the black militant’s own supporters. The white supremacist on the other side of the studio struggled above the roar of approval to make his answer heard.

Elias Claymore was enjoying himself. It was fiery guests like these who made Claymore’s ratings. The militants might get the anger off their chest, but it was Claymore who’d make more money thanks to the syndication deal.

Claymore was just as black as this militant guest of his. Now in his late fifties, tall and broad-shouldered, his colorful life had run the gamut from left-wing radical to Islamic fundamentalist to neo-conservative and born-again Christian.

This was meant to be a three-way debate between secular black militants, Black Muslims and the Ku Klux Klan. But the black militant had turned the debate on conservative blacks, including Claymore himself, and made the white supremacists in the studio – who had raised the drug issue in the first place – largely irrelevant.

‘What they did to us is no excuse for what we’re doing to ourselves, brothers!’ Claymore replied. ‘We have to stop blaming others. We used to be slaves to the white man. Now we’re slaves to the white powder. I say it’s time for us to break the chains and set ourselves free once and for all!’

Again the audience burst into thunderous applause, except the small cadre of militants. Claymore looked around and saw the approval on the faces of most of the audience, black and white. The black militant had almost won them over, but Claymore knew that with a few well-chosen words he had won them back.

Then a man wearing a suit and a bow tie with a crescent on it spoke up. ‘If you think that joining the white establishment is a solution,’ said the besuited man, ‘then you’re as big a fool as he is.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Claymore.

‘I mean you’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. You’ve betrayed your people twice over.’

He was a tall, slim, dapper figure and he was known to be Claymore’s arch enemy. The man was a leading member of the Nation of Islam. Claymore had once belonged to his sect, but had later become disillusioned with it.

‘Would you care to elaborate?’ Claymore challenged.

‘I’m talking about Islam, the religion of the black man, the religion you turned your back on when you became an apostate.’

‘An apostate to Islam or an apostate to the Nation of Islam? The two are not the same. Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam but never turned his back on Islam. Yet that didn’t save him from getting murdered.’

This was one of his favorite challenges to his former sect. Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam in disillusion both at its policy of separatism and at the practices of its leader.

But the well-dressed man in the audience was not going to be drawn into a debate about who killed Malcolm X. The Nation of Islam had subsequently re-adopted their former enemy and tried to distance themselves from his assassination.

‘You’re not like Brother Malcolm, Claymore, and you never will be! Brother Malcolm never did what you did.’

There was wild applause at that one. Everyone knew that Elias Claymore was not quite as respectable as he had now become. But Claymore was prepared for this.

‘It’s precisely because of my own guilt that I must speak out,’ said Claymore, casting a professional eye at the studio clock. ‘As a sinner, I have a duty not to remain silent. In the meantime, let’s all say a loud “Thank God” that we’re living in a country where no one has to be a slave unless he chooses to be. Thank you all, good afternoon and God Bless America.’

There was thunderous applause. The show was over.

As one of the cameras pulled back to let him pass, Claymore walked away, talking to various eager members of the audience and shaking hands with some of them.

He left the set to be confronted by two uniformed policemen and a female detective who couldn’t have been more than thirty, if that. But what frightened him most was the implacable look on their faces. He didn’t know what was going on, but sensed that it was something serious. The faces of the TV staff hovering around them looked tense. The detective stepped forwards and flashed her shield at Claymore.

‘Elias Claymore?’

‘Yes?’ replied Claymore, slightly nervously.

‘Detective Riley. I have a warrant for your arrest.’

‘What for?’

‘Rape.’

Claymore shot a look of panic at the producer and swallowed. ‘Call Alex Sedaka. Now!’