by Huss, JA
But Drake always pulls into the bay when he comes home, he likes to work on his bike in the evenings or something because he stays late every night. So the bay will open to let the bike in and that will be our window to drive that bot right into his lair, the mechanical hum of the tiny motor covered up by the roaring of the motorcycle.
He’s got quite the setup for a man who came out of nowhere. Warehouse, employees, production schedule, advertising. It’s like he’s got a backer or something. But Ford checked him out. There are no obvious ties and no covert ones either. None Ford can see without taking risks that are not warranted for this particular annoyance.
At least as far as Ronin is concerned. And since Ronin’s the one who has to dig us out if we fuck up, he always gets the final say on shit like that.
The radio in back crackles and then Ashleigh’s voice comes in. “This is Mama Likes a Spankin’, come back good, buddies.”
I look at Ronin. He shakes his head. “You don’t want to know,” he says.
“Go ahead, Red Cheeks,” Ford replies.
“Playtime’s over, time to get busy. ETA”—her voice is drowned out by a loud motorcycle starting up and driving away—“five. Mama out.”
“Someone’s been watching a little too much Dukes of Hazzard.”
Both my partners in crime ignore me now. Figures. I’m always the bored one on these jobs. I never have anything to do unless someone needs to be roughed up. And this guy can’t be roughed up. He’s too close to me. But that guy with Ronnie back at Anna Ameci’s can.
I crack my knuckles and pat my leather jacket until I find the outline of my little Smith and Wesson Bodyguard. Love this little gun. It fits everywhere. In a pocket, in a boot—and shit, my hands are so big, I can probably conceal it in my palm. It’s always there, inside left pocket of the leather, ready to go when I am.
A motorcycle roars by and the van shakes a little from the wind and the rumble.
We watch the bike on the bot cam, then it inches forward into the bay with the bike. “We’re in. Now all I gotta do is find a place to park it.”
“Find that place now, Ford. Else we’re fucking busted.” Ronin says with urgency.
I lean over and watch the feed as Ford tries to maneuver the bot under a tool bench. The little cam picks up the bike and Ford backs the bot up and does a neat little three-point turn until it’s concealed. “One and done,” he says. “Let’s go. I can come back later when the place is locked up to reposition.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I start the van and pull out, taking the long way around the block, and then head up towards Mulberry. Ronin’s truck is parked on Laurel, but I drop Ford off first. Ashleigh is waiting for him at the FoCo Cinema where Rook was watching their kid until her job was done. Rook’s already walking down the road towards the prearranged meeting place for Ronin to pick her up.
After I ditch everyone I park the van in the alley behind Big City Burrito and head back up towards Anna Ameci’s. I enter through the back door where the bathrooms are and sneak up towards the dining room. It’s not a fancy place, just a family restaurant, but that sure the fuck is Veronica having dinner with a dude. And they are both dressed like they work on Wall Street.
I let out a long breath and wait it out, because the waiter just dropped off the check. They get up and the guy puts his hand at the small of her back, guiding her away from a large group who are jostling everyone near the door.
What a player. That’s my move.
I can’t see them after they go through the door, so I slip back out the way I came and walk the wall down the alley that takes me back out to College Ave.
I’m just rounding the corner when the guy slams into me. He backs off, apologizing, then keeps walking. I peek around the corner and catch Veronica getting into her little Mini Cooper parked in front of Sick Boyz Inc., the tattoo shop she runs with her father and brothers. I turn back to the scumbag trying to bag my girl and walk silently down the alley. He’s looking at his phone, standing next to a dark-colored sedan. I slip the gun out of my pocket and walk up behind him and place it against his head.
“Do not move,” I whisper.
He freezes and I pat him down until I find his wallet, and then slip it out. I want to ask him so many questions, but I can’t. Not without risking my identity. I clock him on the head and he crumples against the car and then folds until he’s on the ground. I take his ID and throw the wallet down as he moans and starts checking his head for damage. I walk off, calmly. He never comes after me, but even if he did, he wouldn’t find me. I know this downtown well enough to make it back to the alley behind Big City Burrito without being on the street.
I don’t loiter when I get to the van, just start it up and head back to the shop up in Bellvue.
Fuck, what a night. I palm the guy’s ID and wonder what the hell he’s doing with my Ronnie.
He’s not her type, but she sure didn’t look like my type tonight. Not in that tan skirt-suit and trench coat.
This throws me. Ronnie has never looked the part of tattoo artist. She’s wild and she’s got big hair and bigger boobs, but she has no tats. Not even one. She’s got a severe blood aversion and I’ve always been surprised that she can put up with the little pinpricks of blood that bubble up when she’s working. So maybe a businessman is her type.
I chew on this the whole ride back to Shrike Bikes, my thoughts as twisted and unsettled as the Poudre River that’s raging with an early spring thaw right alongside the road. And when I get home and park the van in a locked building at the back of the property, I come to the conclusion that Ronnie’s type just might be a businessman after all.
But I’m a businessman too. I might not look like one, but I am all fucking business.
And if she wants to play a game to see if I’m serious, well, I can play as well as anyone.
In fact, I’m a damn good player.
I’m the best fucking player this town has ever seen.
So game on.
Chapter Two
I jingle my keys in my hand as I walk back up to the house. I pass by the shop and sigh. We’re moving into town for Shrike Bikes Season Two. Biker Channel has had about enough of Bellvue—too fucking small. And really, this isn’t even Bellvue. I live ten miles north of the intersection that thinks it’s a town.
But I like it out here. It’s quiet. Too quiet for some, but not for me. I spent a lot of time here growing up because this was my gran’s house. So it’s always felt like home.
I brokered a deal with the Biker Channel people though, got them to foot the cost of renovation of the new shop if I bought the building. They do get to put a bunch of promo material in the shop, which is fine, I guess. The more people watching the Biker Channel, the more people watching the Shrike Bikes show. That’s more money for me. Win-win.
Last fall Rook was annihilated in the media when she took her story public and outed a huge human trafficking ring in Chicago. She got a lot of publicity for the show because she’s been part of this project since the beginning. First as my body art model for the Sturgis pilot show, then as the Shrike Bikes receptionist for Season One. But no one knew that Season One would be almost all about her. No one knew all that shit would go down and change the whole production schedule. But the publicity worked in my favor and I renegotiated the contract with the Biker Channel to get the building remodel paid for.
I key in the security code to the house and let myself in the kitchen, throw my keys down on the granite counter top, and open the fridge. Empty.
I haven’t eaten at home in a while. We’ve just been too busy in town getting ready for the new season. In fact, I haven’t even built a bike in over a month. I slam the fridge door closed and open the pantry.
Mac and cheese. And Campbell’s Soup. I’m living like a fourteen-year-old who has no parents.
Fuck. I take the businessman’s ID out of my pocket and study it. He’s got his hair slicked back, and not in that I’m dangerous way like Ford does it. No
. This guy’s hair says I use product. In fact, this asshole’s hair says I have a stylist. Not a barber, a stylist. I bet he gets his fingers done while he’s there. And his toes.
Asshole.
I’m on fucking TV and I don’t even let the makeup girls touch my fucking hair. I just buzz that shit off when it gets too long.
I check him out again. Banker. I bet he’s a fucking banker. He looks like one. Wearing some fancy suit like he’s important. Plus, he’s got beady eyes. Beady brown eyes, says his ID. That’s a sure sign that he’s no good. Every cartoon connoisseur knows that beady eyes are a tell.
I study him for a few more seconds. He’s even got a suit on in his driver’s license photo. I glance over to his name. Carson. What kind of stupid name is Carson?
Last name of Reed—Veronica Reed? Nope. Ronnie Reed? Fuck, that one sounds pretty good. But Veronica Vaughn has always hated the fact that her names start with the same letter.
I happen to like it, myself. And my name is the shit. Spencer Shrike. It’s got a nice ring to it.
Veronica Shrike? Maybe.
Ronnie Shrike. Better.
Ron the Bomb Shrike? I laugh at that. Fucking girl makes me smile even when she’s not here. I sigh. Fucking Ronnie. I fish my phone out of my pocket and flop down on the couch. I press her number in my contacts and wait as the phone rings.
Voicemail. “You’ve reached Ronnie Vaughn. I’m either working or playing. If you need me for either, leave a message and I’ll get back to you!” She makes a slurpy kissing sound and then the beep.
“Hey, Ronnie. You should come over. Call me back.” I sigh again and pocket my phone, but it buzzes an incoming call before I can release it, so I pull it back out. I look at the screen. “Yello, baby! Wanna come over?”
“Oh,” she says. “It’s you. I was expecting a call from the bank. I deleted your number and didn’t recognize it, sorry.”
“What? You deleted my number? For why?” I’m stunned. Like my hand is up in the air and I’m mid-shrug with wide eyes.
“Why? Why? You have some fucking nerve, Spencer. I haven’t talked to you since fucking Halloween!”
She’s on drugs. She might need a blood test. “I took you out for New Year’s, you hot little amnesiac.”
“No, you did not take me out. You saw me at Antoine’s. Dates pick up their girlfriends, Spencer.”
“We ate, we drank, we fucked. How is that not a date?” This is what dates usually entail.
She growls at me though the phone. “The food was free, the drinks were free, and I was too drunk to remember most of the fuck, so it hardly counts. I definitely don’t recall an orgasm.”
“Ha!” I pull the phone away from my ear and find the voice memos, then push play on the one dated New Year’s.
“Ohhhh, Spencer!” Veronica wails in the recording. “Baby, yes!”
My phone does the three-beep thing that says the call ended. I laugh and call her back. It rings through again. “Ronnie, come on! It was funny, you know it was. Since when does this shit piss you off?” I stop talking. And wait. I’m not sure why, it’s a fucking voicemail, she’s not gonna respond. I frown and let out a sigh. “Well, fuck. You’re mad, I guess. Sorry, Rons. Seriously. Call me back, OK?”
I end the call and slump back against the couch. It hasn’t been that long since I saw her, has it? I know we were pretty drunk on New Year’s but I spent the night with her down in Rook’s old garden apartment. What more does she want? She knows I’m busy and I’ve got shit going on. I can’t have her hanging around too much or people will think we’re together.
I can’t have people thinking we’re together.
My phone buzzes in my hand again and I look at the screen with some hope. “Arrrgh. Fucking Ford.” I press his ugly mug to answer the call. “Yeah?”
“Meet me tonight at midnight so we can take the van back over to Fonzie’s and reposition.”
“I don’t wanna go out at midnight. Can’t you just do it?”
“Spencer,” Ford says in that new parenting voice he has. “You’re worse than Kate. You’re the driver in this scheme, so drop your balls and do your job. Pick me up at my place at midnight.”
I get triple beeps again.
“God!” I slam my fist down on the coffee table. I’m just the guy everyone gets to shit on tonight. And I’m starving. I pocket Carson’s ID and get back up, grab my keys, and head outside to my Shrike Bikes truck. Might as well go into town and get something to eat. Then I can stop by Ronnie’s and sweeten her up with some love. She’s so damn excitable. She’s always been like that, from the first moment I saw her.
Not met her. Saw her. Because I saw her weeks before I finally made my move.
I had just started up fall semester at Colorado State after transferring from University of Denver to get away from Ronin senior year. This was after all that shit went down with Mardee and the Boulder asshole ended up dead. Our team was in desperate need of a break. And I was walking by the CSU bookstore heading into Engineering for my mandatory science class, and there she was.
Throwing a fit.
“Who the hell died and made you king?” the bombshell blonde screams at a huge mother all tatted up with dragons down his arms. She pushes him in the chest, straining to make the mountain of a man move. He folds his arms and yawns.
I figure this is her boyfriend so I stop dead in my tracks to see if the guy makes a move to hit her back. She’s irate, he’s calm. No one’s paying any attention to them whatsoever. In fact, even though it’s between classes and there are probably more than a hundred people walking the path with me, these two have a nice big circle of space around them.
And being the smart motherfucker that I am, I deduce that’s because these two have a reputation.
So I cop a seat on a cement planter and pull out a smoke. She pushes him at least a half dozen more times, she yells at him. Some professor comes over and tries to intervene and the bombshell whirls around so fast the poor nerd has to step back from her fury.
The campus police show up after that and break it up, but then Bomb and Tat guy walk away—together, how ridiculous is that after all her stomping—and I notice they have the same logo on the backs of their shirts.
Sick Boyz Inc.
A tattoo shop on College in downtown Fort Collins.
I had one tattoo back then. And it was fucked up. I told Bobby Choo down at Choo’s Tattoos in Capitol Hill in Denver I wanted a raven on my back. He gave me a hula girl.
I beat the everliving shit out of Bobby Choo. I tattooed his eyes up black and blue.
Hey, I rhymed.
So I was looking for an artist and I figured that if this bombshell worked at Sick Boyz, I needed to check that out because I could certainly enjoy her hands all over my back a helluva lot more than fucking Bobby Black and Blue Eyes. I stalked her good. I’m an accomplished stalker. Recon is part of my team job. Ford does the virtual things, but I’m the guy on the ground.
So I reconned Bombshell. She was an art major, senior year like me. She had four brothers, all of whom worked at Sick Boyz, and she had just started out there as well. I learned that from the website. They have a bio on all the artists online and a fifty-year history of the shop from the time her gramps started it in the sixties.
And the website gave me another vital piece of information. That guy she was yelling at was her brother.
Game on.
I liked the Bombshell immediately. Her hair was long, so blonde it was almost golden, and her eyes were big and blue. She did wear a lot of make-up, but I’m not one of those guys who thinks that’s a bad thing. I like fuck-me eyes and her lips could be green for all I cared back then. And the Spencer Shrike of today knows damn well those lips are magical.
And from the second I walked into Sick Boyz to check her out in person, I knew.
I wanted her. Bad.
Chapter Three
Sick Boys Inc., Three years ago
The Stray Cats blares out of hidden speakers as I
push through the entrance to Sick Boyz and the sounds of downtown Fort Collins are muffled once the door swings closed behind me. Bombshell is at the register, ringing up some guy who has a small square of red-speckled white gauze covering the top of his left wrist. He’s got full sleeves, so this is acceptable in my opinion. The wrist is not something you do alone if you’re a guy.
The guy pays, tips, flirts, and leaves as I peruse the art on the wall. There’s a lot of pictures of Bombshell in here too. Starting with her in bouncy blonde pigtails looking to be about six. I laugh a little just as the music is turned off.
“Something funny?” Bombshell asks from behind the register.
I turn and watch her shuffle though the day’s receipts. It’s late, just about closing time, so I’m not here for a tattoo. I’m here for a date. Otherwise known as an appointment.
“This you in the picture?” I ask, using my polite Catholic-school manners.
“Yeah,” she replies, not looking up at me. “That’s me. All twenty-seven pictures of the little blonde girl on that wall are me. Can I help you with something? I’m just about to lock up.”
I walk over to her and lean down on the glass counter, checking out the aftercare products they have for sale. “I’ve got some fucked-up work I need fixed.” I stand up straight and look down at her. She’s not short—average height, really. Maybe five six or seven. But I’m tall, so I tower over her. She looks up at me and this makes her big blues look even bigger. God, this girl is like a pin-up from the good ol’ days. Her tits are like melons. Big, round melons that are practically begging for my giant hands to manhandle them.
“Eyes up, perv,” she says dryly as she traces a line from her cleavage to her chin. “I’m up here, big boy.”
I grab the hem of my t-shirt and slowly drag it up my body, exposing my chest, then pull it forward over my head.