by Hazel Parker
Well, I tried to avoid criticizing people who had never been in the military.
“Alright, Sensei and BK, stay with me. The rest of you can go home and do whatever the fuck you want until Monday.”
Everyone except Sensei and I rose. Krispy cracked a joke about how Trace should have said “do whoever the fuck you want,” drawing a short chuckle from Sword, but the laughs were much more reserved than if this meeting had taken place on a Wednesday or a Thursday. As soon as everyone else had laughed, I stood and went to the door.
“You spoke more in this meeting than you have all year.”
I paused when Sensei turned to me. As the oldest in the group, he was easily the smartest one there and the one we most often turned to for guidance. If Trace hadn’t been next in line, then Sensei almost certainly would’ve been president. Had he been twenty years younger, he might just have been.
But, then again, if Sensei were twenty years younger, he wouldn’t have the knowledge and wisdom that he did now.
“Yeah,” I said gruffly.
“You know,” Sensei said as soon as he had my attention, “I have a little girl who is going to start kindergarten next fall. She sometimes gets looks from her preschool friends about papa riding a bike everywhere. But you know what she also gets? A lot of envious and jealous looks. A lot of her friends have fathers who are teachers, bankers, producers; you name it. But she’s the only one who has a badass dad, and her friends love it.”
I smirked at that but wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get from it. I made sure to make that obvious as much as I could by shrugging, as if it were nothing more than a cool story.
“What do you think of that?” Sensei said.
Bastard making me speak when I don’t have to, I thought with an internal grin.
“Nice,” I said. “Good you have a good relationship with your daughter.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that, and you know it, BK,” Sensei said, but he wasn’t waiting for me to elaborate on behalf of him any further. “You have people here who want to like the club. I don’t know what you discussed with Megan, but we’re always going to have some bad coverage not because we’re bad people, but because we have a lot of envious people out there. We have the freedom to swear, to drink, to fuck, to do whatever we want. They’re stuck in their cubicles, working jobs that maybe started out good but then slowly dissolved into reality. So of course, if you’re an overweight, married but sexless man who has no prospects and gets paid a middling wage, you’re going to be frustrated when you see us.”
“What does that have to do with your little girl and her friends?” Trace asked.
“Kids never lie about how they feel,” Sensei said. “Sometimes, that gets me in trouble. It certainly makes it hard to date. Well, that and other things. But kids don’t bother to hide their liking of my ride. The other parents try and shame me by being above me, but it doesn’t work.”
Trace snorted.
“I’ll bet those same parents are the ones who wished that they could ride the bike.”
“You’d be amazed how many of them come up to me out of earshot of their spouse and ask me about my ride,” Sensei said with a laugh. “Seriously. But BK, I guess what I’m saying is we do have issues to work on but keep a little optimism. Most people are better than you think at recognizing the reality of things.”
It was nice to hear, not only because it made me realize we had support out there, but also because it reminded me that I had to integrate myself a little more with the local community. I’d been so detached—my only friends were club members, and most of my time otherwise was spent doing chores or at home—that I had hardly ever stepped outside the club walls to engage. If my neighbors hated me or hated the Saints or liked the Saints, I had no idea. Sure, Sam had said some people disliked us, but…
Maybe that was just them feeling like they needed to keep up appearances. It wouldn’t have surprised me if that were the case, anyways.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go clean up the barbershop.”
And so we headed over, wearing our cuts so that all of Green Hills could see that we were helping clean up. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but at first, it wasn’t much. A few vehicles drove by us, slowing down to see what we were doing. Trace encouraged us to wave, which felt silly to me, but I didn’t see much choice in the matter if the president had said it.
But then something interesting started to happen.
People came by and looked at us, almost gawking at us. They couldn’t believe that we were actually doing work—or, they could believe it but couldn’t believe that they were witnessing it. Either way, the expression on their faces was good.
They started taking photos and even videos. A couple of people came up to us and asked us what we were doing. We took the time—and by we, I really mean Trace—to explain that someone had attacked the shop the night before, and while it wasn’t us, we wanted to take care of the community.
I couldn’t exactly blow it up to be some magical moment that it wasn’t. The shop was still damaged, we still had issues outside of Green Hills, and even though a decent clip of people had come, it still probably represented less than one percent of the entire population of Green Hills.
But, as I had learned in Iraq, a single action can compound in pretty unbelievable ways. Start local. Let it go from there.
And things might get better yet.
Chapter 8: Megan
By the time Monday had arrived, I was starting to feel a little better.
I did something on Sunday that I had rarely done before—I went cold turkey on my phone and my computer. I sent out an email Saturday night to everyone advising I was taking the day off and pointing people in the respective directions they needed to go if they needed anything solved. I felt quite nervous, actually; I hadn’t given myself a vacation, let alone a staycation, in years.
Yes, perhaps it was bad to admit, but even on Sundays, I usually worked. The time off was wonderful, and it gave me the opportunity to go hiking nearby.
Along the steep hills, the intense angles, and the California sun, I found myself being a lot more compassionate to myself than I had been in the days before. Whatever Jose was planning to do with his business was his right—I was sure that he had a reason that he wasn’t telling me. That was fine; it wasn’t my place to tell him how to run his business, nor could I expect him to tell me things. He had trade secrets like everyone else.
And as for BK…
Right before I logged off all of my electronics around ten at night Saturday, I began to notice something local trending—the Savage Saints had begun to make efforts to lend a helping hand to a nearby barbershop.
It being the internet, some of the remarks were of a snarky nature, joking that they had blown it up only to work on it for the sake of a good image. Some asked if they would do such a thing for North Hollywood, while others wondered if they’d be as considerate on their bikes. Some were just nasty, the types of things a teenager would say in the locker room.
But when I detached, I realized most of the people were in praise of it. Most were grateful. And a surprising number were defending the Saints not just for their actions, but for their reputation. They wanted to hammer home that these were not just men who had cleaned up shattered glass and bricks; these were men who protected their community and kept the bad element out.
Perhaps I had misjudged BK and the rest of his club. Perhaps I had fallen into the same stereotypes everyone else had because of the way he had crashed my meeting. In my defense, it was my job to portray him and the club as enemies for the sake of the city.
But that was only a temporary solution, anyways, and I had long ago handed off the project with the city to some of my more junior employees.
In any case, though, it didn’t matter, because I couldn’t imagine how I would see BK again. I had admittedly been cold to him when I went to his clubhouse and had only given scant advice, in part because I hadn’t done any research, but partially
because, on a subconscious level, those same stereotypes were playing out in my head. I wished I had the chance to apologize to him and give him a real, full hour of my time, but if I reached out now, I would justifiably just get grief from him.
Oh well. Maybe we’ll bump into each other at some point, BK. It may not have been a pleasure, but I’d like to make it so. I’d like to get to know you a little better.
You are a little bit mysterious. It’s kind of… interesting.
But then Monday came with its usual fires we had to put out, and by the mid-afternoon, my mind very rarely went to BK and the Saints. It popped up from time to time, sure, but more as a bit of trivia, as in “man, I can’t believe I met a biker last Friday night and almost got caught in gunfire!” I did some work for Sea Sailor Whiskey, locating potential shops that could sell the whiskey and trying to come up with compelling pitches for them.
I just couldn’t see how it would work. I still willingly charged ahead as Jose had requested, but if I were a part of his actual company… well, my firm was getting paid, so in any case, all was fine.
All was fine, that was, until about eight in the evening.
I had already eaten dinner by that point and was just wrapping up some last-minute work before heading home. I didn’t have anything major or of particular interest to finish up; I just had some last-minute emails to send off to different locations in North Hollywood and to some of the politicians I had made connections with to see about zoning laws and where alcohol could and could not be sold. MWM Solution’s building was pretty quiet, only the static buzzing of the overhead lights providing any noise.
Then I heard the very faint sound of a glass shattering.
Curious, I looked up from my desk, but I didn’t hear anything else for several seconds, so I turned my attention back to my work. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had happened. Who was going to drop a glass of water at this hour?
Someone had done something. I didn’t think that it was likely, I was on a relatively safe part of Sunset Boulevard, and the homeless usually weren’t violent enough to break glass. But the chance was definitely there so we hired an afterhours security company to patrol the exterior building every hour after our security guy left for the day.
Reluctantly, I stood up and opened my door to the third floor, which then opened up to a giant atrium down below. I didn’t see anything, but then I heard what sounded like spray-paint going off.
I gulped. I didn’t want to call the police if this was a false alarm, and yet I wasn’t exactly trained in the ways of fighting; I knew how to kick groins, but that was about it.
I decided to go downstairs.
When I got to the first floor, there wasn’t anyone there. But there were certainly signs that someone had been.
The front entrance had a brick with shattered glass littering the inside. From there, the door had been propped open, allowing whoever had broken in to enter. Then, several computers and work stations had been either severely damaged or vandalized—the Savage Saints logo that I recognized from BK’s jacket was all over them.
Immediately, I wondered if this was revenge for walking out on him. My heartbeat began to rise, and I felt my cool starting to go. But then I remembered that the same thing had happened to the barbershop—it wasn’t anything that BK had done, and it wasn’t anyone in the Saints that had done it. If it was, then they weren’t going to be Saints much longer.
I reached for my phone and started to dial 911.
And that’s when I heard two people talking, and I quickly hid under the desk of a cubicle.
“… pretty damn fucking good job, wouldn’t you say?”
The voice had a Mexican accent to it. Unfortunately, from my position, I couldn’t see anything else. All I could see was the desk across from me.
“Mundus wanted us to make this place look like a Saints hit job. I’d say we did a pretty good damn job of tearing it up.”
Mundus?
Like a Saints job?
“Should we take anything else? This place is desolate, man. We could have whatever we want!”
“Except this place is all locked and all tech. Not like we can hack a computer by breaking it.”
“Yeah, but surely, someone must’ve been dumb and left a company credit card lying around or some shit.”
Please don’t. Please, please don’t take anything.
“Waste of time. Mundus is going to pay us well for this job. We can move on and call it a day.”
“Shit, this is almost too easy of a job. Just break in, vandalize some desks, and that’s it? I could’ve paid a homeless person to do this.”
“You want to fight the Saints with our numbers right now? You go right the fuck on ahead and see how that works out for you.”
The first person just scoffed, mumbled something I couldn’t hear, and then kicked a desk probably two cubicles down from me hard.
“I’m so fucking sick of sitting back and playing these mind games with the goddamn Saints!” he roared. “North Hollywood, that was some fucking cool shit.”
“And we almost lost all of the team, and now we have the California State Police on our ass,” the second man said. “This is why you don’t get to do anything, Prospect. You want to kill everyone without thinking that maybe you should protect that fucking skull of yours first. Course, with you, I somehow doubt you got a goddamn brain worth a shit in there.”
“Fuck you, Grease.”
Prospect? Grease?
What the fuck is going on here?
I sat back in silence, trying my best not to so much as make a breath sound. I didn’t want to have this vandalizing suddenly turn into a hostage situation, especially since whoever this “Prospect” guy was, he didn’t seem like the most stable individual in the barn.
Then I heard footsteps coming closer.
At that moment, I was in a very uncomfortable position. My legs were crunched up against me, my back was arched forward, and my neck was at an awkward side angle to try and hear what was going on. I was going to be so stiff and sore in the morning, but that was the fucking least of my concerns right now.
“Fuck me all you want, Prospect, but it’s not changing the rules,” Grease said. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll fuck you up alright, Grease.”
“Keep in mind you’re just a prospect, Prospect. You’re not guaranteed admission into the Mercs just because you’ve done a few rides with us.”
“Whatever, you guys need the… you can’t do…”
And then, just like that, they were fully out of earshot, out the door. I sat there in silence for what felt like an eternity, fearful that all they had done was play a game to trick me into thinking they had left, only for them to suddenly appear from out of nowhere and then ambush me. It may have been delusional, but this was the first time I’d ever experienced something like this.
What the hell did I get myself into? And for that matter… why am I still in it?
This wasn’t the Saints. I know that from what I had just heard. So it’s… it’s the Mercs?
If they’re going to start coming for me and they’re still around, the cops can’t do enough. I hate to say it, but the cops need probable cause and a strong reason to storm their base. They can’t do everything. I need to call them, but… I…
I need BK.
Goddamnit.
Then, just seconds before I was preparing to head out, I heard two motorcycles revving their engines loudly, the put-put-put picking up speed as the two bandits hauled out of some nearby area. I saw their headlights shoot by the front door, a blur that was just barely visible for only a few seconds before they were gone, the sound of their bikes ancient history.
Finally, I crawled out of my little hole, stretching as I surveyed the damage.
Besides the front door, about a dozen cubicles were damaged. The Saints logo was sprayed all over; the work was sloppy, but it was obvious enough what the Mercs or whatever they were had tried to do. I needed to call�
�
I needed to call 9-1-1 first. No, I didn’t think that the cops could properly protect us, but if it came out that I hadn’t followed my own protocol for the company and had called in a biker to protect me, the grief would be justifiably unending. I needed to follow standard procedure first… and then call BK.
I brought my phone out of my pocket, my hand shaking, and I dialed the emergency number.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
The woman on the other end of the line sounded almost… disinterested. It was like she had taken a dozen calls in the last half hour alone and just couldn’t be bothered to deal with yet another one.
“My name is Megan Walker, and I’m the CEO of MWM Solutions. My workplace just got broken into and vandalized.”
“OK, ma’am, are you OK? Did you see who might have entered? Is anyone still there?”
“I…”
I hesitated. I probably needed to mention that whoever had done this was not the Saints, but on the other hand, this call was going to leak sooner or later. When it did, everyone would be paying attention to what I said. I had to play it dumb, to some extent. Whatever connection I now had to the Saints had to be on the quiet side.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t,” I said, my hesitation having only lasted a couple of beats. “I was working on the third floor when I heard them enter. I thought I saw them from above, but I only saw two men before they left. I’m fine now, though.”
“That’s better than nothing,” the woman said, again not particularly empathic or kind. “And how were they dressed?”
“It’s hard to say. Black sweater, black hoods… I’m not sure.”
“OK, ma’am, we’ll have police out there within five minutes. Please remain where you are; we’ll have someone over to help shortly.”