Yeah, from what I’ve seen in other chapters, a few more old ladies wouldn’t hurt. Still, I’m not leading from the front on that score. By the look on Patsy’s face, she’d not be particularly enamoured of where I live should I start something with her. Start something?
What the fuck am I thinking?
Patsy might provide me with inspiration for those times I rub one out, but I’ll just have to be content dreaming about what she was hiding under that robe. I like the woman, yes. She comes in a package that attracts me, but she’s certainly not one-night stand material. No, the man who courts and wins her would have to have something to offer, and that man isn’t me.
I’m Lost. I’m not in the market for an old lady, the thought never crossing my mind. I made that mistake once. I’m not going to drag another woman down, nor risk someone making demands on me that take me away from my club.
I heft her case out of the truck and shake my head when she goes to take it from me.
“I got it.” I smile at her. She won’t be carrying bags while I’m around. “It’s not much,” I point to the clubhouse ahead, “but it’s home.”
She laughs softly. “The clubhouse in Colorado is a converted steel mill, it’s not much better. But,” she turns and stares at the sight in front of her, “your views are to die for.”
Perhaps I misread what I thought was a look of distaste. “Doubt if you’ll find much difference inside. Our clubhouse runs much the same as the rest. There’s a bar, a pool table, offices, then the bedrooms are upstairs.”
“Will Dan and I have to share?”
My eyes glaze over for a moment. “No, we’ve lots of spare rooms nowadays.”
Luckily, she doesn’t press or ask why.
Dan’s hoisted his rucksack over one shoulder. I raise my chin and indicate with my head. They fall in behind me.
As I open the door, a blast of welcome cool air escapes. Ushering them inside, I close it behind me, immediately noticing the clubroom is empty except for the prospect behind the bar. I’d told everyone to be ready to have church as soon as I returned from collecting Patsy and Dan, but as I hadn’t arranged a specific time, that’s not the reason why no one’s around. It doesn’t, however, take a genius to work out why the place is deserted.
At the end of the room there’s a new addition that was installed three years back. A stripper pole, which is currently being used by a curvaceous but short black woman. On the ground she is beautiful, but there’s nothing to give away that she’s athletic. On the pole, she’s poetry in motion. So fluid, so lithe as one movement turns into the next.
“She’s incredible,” Patsy breathes, her eyes having locked on the Lycra-clad figure as soon as she entered.
“Wow.” Dan’s voice is full of admiration.
“Get your fuckin’ eyes off my wife,” Dart, having magically appeared, snarls. He waits until Dan’s looking somewhere else, then his face relaxes as he turns to me and explains, “Alex wanted to practice, so I’ve got all the fuckers in church.”
Alex, the VP’s wife, is an amazing pole dancer. She’d had to be to earn money when she’d been on the run from her ex. Her talent had been responsible for originally bringing them together. When Dart had moved from Tucson and accepted his position as VP, certain conditions were attached, one being that we agreed to install a pole for her to practice on. Dart tried to insist we partition off a discrete area in one of the hangars so she could dance without everyone leering at her, but Eva, Cindy, Tits and Pearl wanted to take lessons from her, and the men wanted to watch the sweet butts entertain them with their new skills. So the compromise to having it set up in the clubhouse was that when Alex was using it, every male made themselves scarce—except for the prospects. If they let their eyes stray or had thoughts they shouldn’t about the VP’s woman, well, they wouldn’t be getting their patch.
It wasn’t a hardship. Alex tended to use it during the daytime when normally the majority of members would be at work.
“She’s looking good,” I tell him, softly.
“Huh,” he comments, seeming not to expect a man my age to leer after his wife. “Alex thinks she’s carrying too much weight after the baby and is trying hard to get her figure back.” Dart nods back at Patsy and Dan who’s kept his back turned. “I’ll get her to look after our guests.”
Alex is moving to the music, completely oblivious she’s got company. I don’t want to bring her out of her zone. “No worries,” I tell him, then turn to the prospect behind the bar. “Wrangler. Take Patsy and Dan up to the rooms you got sorted for them.” Then I turn to the pair I just named. “The prospect will make sure you’ve got everything you need.”
Chapter Eleven
Lost
“Thank fuck you’re here,” Grumbler, well, grumbles. “The VP shooed us all out when Alex appeared. Had to leave my fuckin’ beer.”
Ignoring the sergeant-at-arms protest voiced as though it’s the end of the world, I spy an empty chair. “Where’s Blaze?” I ask no one in particular. I notice Token beckoning to Deuce to pass a phone back to him. I recognise it as Jim’s and realise he’s been passing it around.
Dart explains, “He’s doing a full back patch tattoo that he couldn’t walk out on.”
Deuce raises his hand. “I’ve got a delivery coming in. I’d like to get back to it as soon as I can.”
I take my seat. “Thanks for sparing the time today, but I wanted to bring you all up to speed without delay.” I know I sound less like an MC prez and more like a corporate CEO, but it’s not my way to berate people for simply existing.
While we all put the club first, part of that is the businesses we run to keep our stomachs fed, so brothers are right to feel annoyed if they’re called away from their jobs for no reason.
“Yesterday, Patsy Forster called me for help as someone was following her. Dart, Salem, Pennywise, Niran and I had a conversation with that someone,” I start to remind those who know, and tell some who for one reason or another, may not have picked up on what went down. “I heard enough to be concerned, so for their protection, I’ve brought Patsy and her son back to the compound.” I raise my hand to indicate I haven’t finished. “For now, it’s only temporary. How long they stay, or what they do next, will need a club decision. It’s obvious from the information we got out of the stalker we intercepted that they were in danger of being found if I hadn’t done something.” I raise my eyes and let my gaze travel around the table. “It seems likely, Alder’s net is closing in on Dan.”
There are murmurs and shakes of heads, then Token raises his hand. “Want me to give my update?” At my nod, he begins, “I’ve looked at the phone you took from Jimboy, the stalker, yesterday. I found that he’s a member of a WhatsApp group which has about seventy-odd members. It was created about three weeks ago, and its focus seems to be on locating Patsy.”
That timing fits with when she tried to call Beth. Alder must have acted fast and got his ducks in a row. There’s something about Token’s wording that sets off an alarm in my mind, but I can’t bring into focus exactly what or why.
Letting it drop for now, knowing my mind will keep working on the problem in the background, I state, “He’s got seventy people watching out for her?” It’s a lot. If they’re scattered all around San Diego, it was only a matter of time before he located her or Dan. Seventy people all anxious to earn a thousand dollars. “How could he get that organised? Have you found anything out about the group members?”
Token frowns. “Many of them use tag names which are unidentifiable, so I’ve hacked into their accounts. Couldn’t do all seventy in the time I had, but most that I looked into have something in common. They’re all users, or dealers.”
“It makes sense.” Dart raises his chin. “Alder runs drugs. We assumed he acted out of Colorado, but maybe he’s behind some of the drug trade in Southern California as well and tapped into a network he already had in place.”
“We are close to the border,” I agree. “Losing his cross-coun
try routes may mean it’s less risk dropping them here than taking them across states.”
“So what you’re saying, Token, is that there’s another seventy Jims around?” Salem asks.
Token nods. The enforcer’s eyes meet mine and I know he’s also thinking, finding her wasn’t an if but a when.
That bell’s still ringing in my head. Now it jangles something loose. “You said the focus was on finding Patsy. What about Connor? What mention was there of finding him?” I press the computer guy for more.
“None.” Token shakes his head. “The focus is on the woman. Connor isn’t given a mention at all.”
“That makes no sense.” Reboot voices my thoughts. “If that’s who he’s after and he’s got this army of addicts, why not get them looking out for the man himself? If Alder thinks Connor is alive, that’s what I’d expect him to do. If he accepts he’s dead, there’s no reason to go after the woman. If Connor’s dead, then the information he had died with him. A dead man can’t testify or give away anything to hurt him.”
That right there is the niggling thought that had been trying to come to the front of my mind, maybe tardy as I didn’t want to even think it. That even if Dan disappeared out of state, she’d remain in danger. But what the hell can she have that Alder wants?
Could Alder be so deranged as to want his revenge on Connor’s mother? At the time of his ‘death’, they’d been estranged. It doesn’t make sense, unless he wants her for another reason. Unless I’ve been working on the wrong assumption all along, and there’s someone else gunning for her and not Alder. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d made a costly mistake.
“It may not be Alder who’s after her.” If so, it’s imperative I have that conversation with her. But who else would have a team of addicts at his fingertips?
“It is,” Token states. “His name was mentioned in the chain of messages. There’s no doubt, it was ‘find her for Alder.’”
Well, it’s somewhat of a relief that the tree I was barking up did indeed hold the squirrel. But why?
“She’s an attractive woman,” I find myself saying, resulting in dubious looks being sent my way, everyone having seen the photo that Jim had carried around. Well, except from Smoker, Snips and Grumbler who are in the same age bracket as myself, and who, I notice, are nodding appreciatively. With the clean out of the club when Snake was dispatched to meet Satan, we lost a lot of the older members, the remainder all being in their early thirties or less. Reboot, now he’s only twenty. I’ve no doubt most of them don’t view Patsy the same way I do, to them she’s probably maternal. To me, she’s a mature woman, pretty, nice figure, but doesn’t pretend to be more or less than she is. But I’ll be first to admit, she’s not someone you’d expect to be on the arm of a boy toy.
“To an old man like you, I s’pect she looks fit, maybe even to this Alder. But, Prez, I find it hard to believe someone would go to all this trouble just to fuck her.”
I have to concede Brakes has got a point. Mind you, running our strip club he’s quite a connoisseur of women’s bodies and what appeals to men of various ages.
I’m not the only one to think it, as Dusty says with a wink toward his brother, “You would know.”
“It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it,” Kink offers. “Maybe she’s into shit we don’t know about. Older women can be fun to top, or bottom for if that’s your taste.”
And that’s where I’m going to draw a line under this particular part of the discussion. With a glare toward Kink—whether she’s into the kind of shit he is or not, I’m determined he’ll never know—I move this on. Tapping my head, I attempt to put my thoughts into words. “If it’s not her body, it’s either revenge, which doesn’t make sense, or info she could have that Alder doesn’t want to get out.”
“Take us back a bit, Prez.” Salem waggles his hand. “As I understand it, Connor, or Dan as he should be known, is dead and buried. He was moved under WitSec, so no one accidentally saw his face, and kept under wraps in case he was needed to testify when the feds finally catch up with Alder. His mother, Patsy, moved with him at the same time, as she wanted to be with her son.”
“Because she wanted to make sure he kept on the straight and narrow,” I explain. “So yes, she came too.”
“And,” the enforcer continues, “Token says this druggie squad isn’t on the lookout for Dan, which means we’re wrong to assume Alder knows his death was a sham.” He waits for Token’s chin lift, then resumes, “Patsy’s disappearance was straight after her son was buried. What if Alder thinks that wasn’t a coincidence? Could he think Patsy knows something, maybe some message Connor left, and that she was moved by WitSec on her own merits? What if she either does, or he just thinks she has something to tell?”
I don’t immediately reject that notion, but I don’t buy it. I give it a moment’s thought, then shake my head. “I don’t see how she could know anything. The story as I know it is Connor was trying to hide ten kilos of drugs. He was living with his dad and wanted nothing to do with Patsy at the time, but unbeknownst to her, he stored the drugs in her house. When it came to light, she was pretty shocked by all accounts.”
“She was married to Connor’s dad. Maybe she’s got information from when they were together? Something that could bring Alder down.”
I stare at Grumbler, then, again, dismiss it. “But if he knows the feds moved her, he would expect her already to have told everything she knew.”
“Unless as Salem said, he thinks she’ll appear as a witness, or, it’s knowledge she doesn’t know she possesses,” Pennywise says enigmatically. “It could also be he thinks she’s helping them build a case against him, pinning the murder of her son on him.”
It’s a good point. I’d been focused on what everyone else was thinking, that Alder believed Connor was still alive and wanted revenge, using Patsy only to find him. Was Patsy the target herself? It’s certainly starting to look like it.
Could Pennywise have a point? Could Salem?
“Does Alder know the feds moved her?” Dart’s frowning now. “How could he? She had no contact with them as far as he knew, but she has gone into hiding. Could he just be worried as to the reason she’s gone? He may think as Connor is dead, it’s fuckin’ strange Patsy rode off into the sunset and left her only remaining family, her daughter, behind.”
It was when Patsy had to reassure herself Beth was happy and alive that kicked off Alder’s search for her, or as far as we know.
I stare at my VP while thinking we have nothing to go on. “All we know is that Alder is pretty desperate to find her. I need to talk to them both,” I decide. “Look, I know you’ve all got better things to do, so I’ll cut to the chase now. If they stay and we have their backs, it could bring Alder down on us, and right now I can’t give a measure as to how much danger we could be exposed to. He’s got spies, for want of a better word—any addict or dealer. They could be anywhere for all we know.”
“Not in the club,” Grumbler puts in fast, looking at each man around this table.
“Definitely not,” I agree. It’s taken a long time for the club to fully come together and trust one another again. You don’t have nine of your brothers betray you without keeping an eye on the ones who are left. But we’ve got there now. Nonetheless, drugs and dealing are dirty words around this table.
“I think what Lost is getting at is that if we extend our hospitality to Patsy, it could bring heat down on the club. I for one vote to protect her.” My VP stares me in the eye as others look incredulous.
“Is there any fuckin’ doubt?” Smoker’s shaking his head. It’s the first time he’s spoken all meeting, and it triggers a coughing fit now.
My head likewise moves side to side as comments fly from all around me, including Scribe noting things have been far too quiet and boring lately, and taking on a drug lord could make life more exciting. I simultaneously shake my head and roll my eyes.
“Is Dan working?” my VP queries.
; He is. I hadn’t thought about that. “As a security guard at a mall.”
“He’ll have to give that up. For now.”
He will. But I doubt it was a vocation.
“I can find work for idle hands,” Salem offers.
I raise my chin in appreciation. That’s better than having the kid just hanging around. “I’ll talk to him.”
Bones clears his throat. “Is it a coincidence that Shark’s reappeared now?”
At the mention of the name, I’m half surprised men don’t make the sign of the cross. Their expressions, though, speak volumes. While I hate the name being brought up, Bones had been right to suggest it. After the initial impact of the reminder of the time we’d all prefer to forget, the men’s faces turn from angry to contemplative.
“Drugs being the connection?” Scribe looks particularly thoughtful.
I rest my hands on the table. “Shark’s got reason to hate us. He’s a man adrift without a club and he could very well blame us rather than himself. I don’t like that he’s surfaced right now, but the only thing about it is timing. I can’t see how he could be in with this Alder.”
“Worth bearing in mind though, Prez.” Dart waves toward Bones, acknowledging that he raised the issue. “Can’t disregard anything.”
“I’ll note it.” Scribe picks up his pen.
“I’ll kill him if I see him again,” Smoker murmurs.
“Not too fast,” Salem amends. “We’ll need to question him first.”
“Another thought, Prez?” Bones raises his chin. “We’ve seen Shark, what if he’s regrouped with the other six of them? What if we’ve got more than just Alder coming for us?”
Grumbler’s hand smashes down onto the table. “They show their fuckin’ faces and I’m with Smoker, they’re fuckin’ dead.”
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