The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

“Don’t you worry about me,” I says. “And don’t you worry about the boy. If he’s alive and the Klan have him — why — I’ll get him back to you in jig time; and no mistake about that.”

Was I blowing a bit? Oh, I don’t know. I’d said the same thing before and... well... I made good.

So the curtain goes up; he was to go back to Clinton that night and I was to follow in a day or two.

That night I trot down the avenue looking for some dope on this same Ku Klux Klan. I’d read a lot about it in the papers, but I didn’t take much stock in it — mostly newspaper talk, it struck me.

It was in Mike Clancy’s gin mill that I decided to get my information, for Mike belonged to every order under the sun.

But Mike shook his head:

“So you’ve fell for the lure, too?” he says sadly. “All the boys are crossing the river or going south to join the Klan — there’s money in it and no mistake.”

“Are you a member?” I ask him again.

“Not me.” He shakes his head. “When it first hit the city I spoke to Sergeant Kelly about it. B-r-r-r-r-r! It ain’t no order for an Irishman. Sure, it’s the A.P.A. and worse. But if you must know about it, why, ask Dumb Rogers over there.”

And he jerked his thumb toward a little dip what was sitting alone at a table in the corner.

And this same Rogers sure did give me an earful; that’s how he got his name Dumb — he talked so much.

“The Klan?” he starts in. “I should say I did know about it. The boys is leaving the avenue by the carloads. You see they go south or west and join the Klan; then when there is a raid on and some lad is to be beat up, why the boys clean up a bit on the side. Suppose a jeweler is to leave town and don’t and the Klan get after him — see the game — a ring or two is nothing to grab. And he dassen’t say nothing — you write him a threatening letter or telephone him is better.”

He paused a moment and looked at me.

“Don’t tell me about the Klan — I know — I was a member and I was well on the road to making my fortune when they got on to me. They expelled me; threw me out like I wasn’t no gentleman — that’s what they done. And for why — just for going through a guy. Now, what do you think of that?” he demanded indignantly.

“That’s tough, Rogers — tell me — how do you join?”

“Well, you got’a be white and an American and a Protestant — and you got’a have ten dollars — though if you’ve got the ten the rest of it can be straightened out. Yes, they got my ten, and what’s more they got six-fifty for the old white robe — sixteen-fifty all together and they chucked me out — not so much as—”

But I interrupted him. I was after the passwords of the Klan and their greetings.

After a few more drinks he sure did open up; what with The Exalted Cyclops, Klaliff, Klokard, Kludd, Kligrapp, Klabee, Kladd, Klexter, Klolkann, Kloran and a host of others I didn’t know where I stood and had to call a halt. But I got the grip out of him, which was a shake with the left hand. Then he give me the salute which I take careful note of. It was copped from the Confederate Army and is made by placing the right hand over the right eye and then turning the hand so that the palm is in front.

“But remember the one important thing.” Dumb Rogers points a boney finger at me. “When you meet another Klansman you always say, ‘AYAK,’ meaning, ‘Are you a Klansman?’ If you ever hear a lad pull that on you — you answer, ‘AKIA’ — ‘A Klansman I am.’ The rest of it is a lot of junk and most of the boys can’t remember it — but them’s the two principal things.”

Then he showed me a cheap little celluloid button which he wore wrong end out in the lapel of his coat. When he turned it about I seen the letters KOTOP, which he explained meant “Knights of the Open Palm.”

Do you get it — why it looked like they were stealing the waiter’s stuff. That order certainly must have been started by a dish carrier. But I took a good look at the back of that button — you couldn’t tell nothing from it, but I sure would keep my eyes open when I seen a lad sporting a decoration that way.

Three days later finds me in Clinton, a little burg of three or four thousand and the county seat. But don’t get the idea that it was a one-horse town; even the farmers went about in flivvers and some of the people went about in real sporty cars. You’d never take it for a town that was in the grip of some half-baked organization.

The hotel, though, was the regular thing; I guess it had stood the same way for twenty-five years; it was called the Clinton House, which don’t show much originality.

And with all my plans for my work being secret I wasn’t there above half an hour when Earnest Thompson blows in. He was all excited; the Klan had come out in the paper that they had nothing to do with the disappearance of Willie Thompson and those who thought different had better hold their tongues. He showed me the clipping and sure enough it was a direct threat at the whole town.