by Ron Fisher
Bandana turned to me. “Why don’t you take that beer down the bar and save yourself an ass-whipping?”
I decided to take his advice. It was apparent April Cheney wasn’t going to talk to me here, and just as evident that this guy meant what he was saying. So, I picked up my beer and moved down the bar. When I did, I saw there was something written on the bar napkin.
It said, “I’ll call you.”
I took the bar napkin with me. April had obviously gotten my calls and listened to the messages I left; she just hadn’t returned them—and she definitely didn’t want to be seen talking to me.
Pancho Villa watched me take a stool and set my beer on the bar. He gave me the same unfriendly look he gave me the last time. A bit of trivia popped out of the recesses of my mind about the drooping mustache he wore. These days it was called a “biker mustache.” He looked right at home here.
He flipped up a folding section of the bar and went through it toward the back of the place. He entered a door with a “private” sign. The bar’s office, I guessed. Two minutes later, he came out and went back behind the bar. It might have been my imagination, but he seemed to be deliberately avoiding looking at me now.
I swiveled around with my back to the bar and surveyed the Monday night Tiger’s Tail scene. The booths and tables were only about half-occupied. The bandstand still sat empty, the only change, the homemade sign announced a different band performing on Friday and Saturday nights. This week it was the “Ragin Cajuns.” A couple danced on the small dance floor to a slow, sad song from the jukebox. I glanced up the bar at April Cheney and caught her looking at me. I winked, and she quickly turned away.
I spun my stool back around to face the bar and noticed two guys standing against the wall at the back of the bar, staring at me. It was more than just a casual look, they seemed to be studying me. One had stringy blond hair down to his shoulders and was dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a western shirt. I could see the shiny pearl buttons from where I sat. The other one was bigger, as tall as me probably, but broader in the chest and shoulders like he’d done some lifting. He had long blond hair too, and a beard to go with it. He was in biker garb, and I didn’t remember seeing him from my Dixie Demons encounter. Neither struck me as friendly types.
I met eyes with the cowboy for a moment, then he turned and went through the private door. The other one gave me a last look and followed him in.
I left my beer unfinished on the bar and left. There was something disturbing about the way the two guys were looking at me. If I hadn’t been feeling unwelcome in the Tiger’s Tail before, I did now.
#
I was about five miles gone when my cell phone rang. It was April Cheney.
“Where’s Kelly?” she said. “She was supposed to call me this weekend. She didn’t.”
“So, you recognized me?”
“Of course I recognized you. You’re the boyfriend. Kelly told me about you. Even showed me a picture. And I got the messages you left. I wrote down your number and was going to call you, but not from work. I’m out back on my break now and only have a minute. Now, why am I talking to you and not her? Has something happened?’
“Somebody broke into her house Friday night and badly beat her. She’s in Greenville General hospital in a coma.”
“Oh my God, I was afraid of something like this. Don’t come in here anymore. I’m not saying another word about this, to you or anybody else.”
“Saying a word about what, April? What were you and Kelly talking about?”
“You don’t know? I’m hanging up. Don’t bother me again.”
“Kelly didn’t tell me everything. Now she can’t. You’re going to have to do it.” It was a lie, Kelly hadn’t told me anything. But the last part was true. Kelly couldn’t tell me now, only April could.
I said quickly, “If you hang up on me, I’ll come back there and camp out until you talk to me. I’m not a guy who gives up, believe me.”
She said, “Jesus Christ, you’re going to get me hurt too. After you left, Terrell came over and asked me what you’d said to me. He says you’re a busy-body reporter out to make trouble for the Tiger’s Tail. He told me not to talk to you if you ever came in again.”
The one with the mustache?” I said. How the hell did these guys know me? I wondered.
“Yes, his name is Terrell Dent, and he’s got his nose stuck so far up Sonny Dollar’s butt he can smell his chewing gum. He tells him everything that goes on in there.”
“Who’s Sonny Dollar?”
“He’s the manager of the place. Look, I can’t talk no more, I’ve got to get back in before Sonny comes looking for me.”
“Then meet me somewhere, tell me everything, and then I’ll leave you alone.”
It was a while before she spoke. “Call me in the morning. But not too early. I sleep late. I’ll meet you somewhere, Then you leave me alone.”
#
When I pulled into the drive at Still Hollow, I was surprised to see a single headlight follow me in, accompanied by the growl of a motorcycle. I got out to meet it. The rider stopped ten feet away and sat straddling the chopper, his feet bracing the bike. I could hardly see him, the bike’s headlight in my eyes. All I could make out was that he wore what looked like one of those black beanie helmets and had a scarf or something wrapped around his lower face.
“What do you want?” I asked loudly enough for him to hear me over the idling engine.
The rider didn’t speak. He pointed a finger at me, thumb cocked like the hammer of a pistol, and mock-shot me with it. Then he slowly raised his arm and made the same motion directed somewhere above me. I looked up to see my sister Eloise standing at her bedroom window, looking down at us.
The guy slowly turned the motorcycle and rode off back down the driveway. I stood and listened as the sound of it faded down Highway 178 to the south.
Eloise was waiting for me downstairs when I went in. I lied to her, telling her the motorcycle rider was just some lost drunk who had shown up at the wrong address. If she bought that, I didn’t know. At least it momentarily dispelled any fear she had that we might be in some kind of danger, and she went back to bed.
I turned in and lay in bed, replaying the night’s events. Had this guy followed me home from the Tiger’s Tail, or was he at Still Hollow waiting for me? Either way, someone knew me, where I could be found, and that I had a family. What was I up against here?
I'd proven Hound-dog’s and the other seven Dixie Demons innocence in assaulting Kelly. Were there other ones in town that I didn’t know about? Who was the biker-looking guy at the Tiger’s Tail with the cowboy, watching me?
There was a lot I needed to ask April Cheney tomorrow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tuesday morning, I broke my promise not to call April Cheney too early and rang her up first thing. She answered with a sleepy growl and agreed to meet me somewhere for breakfast. She picked the place, a Waffle House in the town of Easley. It would be about a thirty-minute drive for me, a twenty-minute drive for her, and a safe bet we wouldn't run into anybody who would know either of us.
I declined the breakfast Eloise was making and told her I was going to check on Kelly and would be into work afterward. I didn’t tell her I was having breakfast with April Cheney.
I found April sitting in a booth by the window, and I almost didn’t recognize her. She wore none of the heavy makeup she’d worn at the bar, had her long blonde hair pulled into a pony-tail stuck through the back strap of a Harley-Davidson cap, and wore shades. She was drinking a cup of coffee and watching me approach, unsmiling. I took the bench seat across from her.
“I hope you’re not going to get me killed for this,” she said.
“How about some breakfast?” I asked, spotting a waitress making her way toward us.
“Just don’t make it my last meal,” April said, and ordered a waffle with bacon.
I ordered bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, and hash-browns, scattered, smothered, and co
vered. The waitress topped off April’s coffee, sat a cup down and poured me one too.
“Tell me about you and Kelly, and I’ll be out of your life,” I said, when the waitress left with our orders.
“She came to me about my sister May’s death. Kelly had already written about her, but she wanted to know more—like what kind of drugs May was taking when she overdosed, and where she was getting them. Kelly wanted to know if they were from a doctor, and I told her they weren’t. Her doctor stopped prescribing them to her, and she was getting them from somewhere else.”
“Was the doctor Michael Stefans?”
“Yes,” April said.
So this was the reason Kelly had paid him a visit. She was asking him about May Burgess.
April said, “I think Doctor Stefans saw that May was getting addicted and cut her off. She didn’t mean to get hooked; she was just constantly in pain from a bad car wreck a year back that injured her spine. It killed her husband, Bobby, so she was messed up both physically and in her head. None of this was normal for her. May was the good sister, church-going and all that. I was always the no-good one. The black sheep of the family.”
I didn’t tell April that her mother had already told me that.
I said, “So, she began getting her drugs off the street when the doctor cut her off.”
“Yeah, and I was shocked. May wouldn’t know where to find a drug dealer if her life depended on it, and I don’t think she was friends with anyone who would. All the people she knew were Bible thumpers and goody-two-shoes housewives. I asked her about that. She said a guy came to her. Approached her in the Ingles parking lot. It was like he knew she had run through her prescription meds and was waiting there just for her. His name's Doughboy, and he gave her a number to call when she wanted more. After that, she would meet him in the same Ingles lot to get more pills.”
I said, “Doughboy? Did she describe what he looks like or tell you if she ever learned where he could be found?
“Here’s the weird part. May didn’t have to, I know him. He comes in the Tiger’s Tail all the time. I’d only heard he deals drugs, and all I know for sure is he’s an asshole.”
“Does he know who you are? That you and May Burgess were sisters?”
“He knows me, obviously. I serve him drinks. But I don’t think anyone in the Tiger’s Tail knows that May and I were sisters. I never talked about her. And May swore to me she didn’t tell Doughboy. I believed her.”
“Describe him.”
“He’s kind of fat. A biker type, but no beard. Shaved head. He’s one of those white guys who try to talk black. Like that makes him a cool dude or whatever.”
I entered Doughboy’s name and description on my phone.
I asked April, “What about a guy with long blond hair, dresses like a cowboy? He was with another guy with a beard and long blond hair too. Big guy. Looked like a biker. Do you know these guys?”
“Oh, my God. Did they say something to you?”
“No, I just saw them and wondered who they were. They went through that door beyond the bar. I took it to be the bar’s office.”
I wasn’t about to tell her about the biker who followed me home. April was scared enough already.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The Dollar brothers, Laverne and Sonny. They run the place. Laverne is the one with the cowboy clothes and is what I call a scary-bad-ass. He’s the big boss. Sonny is the younger brother and just your average bad-ass. He’s the day-to-day manager I mentioned on the phone. If they know who you are and saw me talking to you, I’m fucked.”
“What about the drugs? You said this Doughboy is a regular in there. Are the Dollar brothers involved in that?”
After a moment she said, “The brothers know it’s going on. They’re tight with Doughboy. So is Terrell. I guess I can’t prove they’re involved directly, but even if they aren’t, they’re turning a blind eye to it.”
Her thoughtfulness impressed me. She was believable. She made a good confidential informant, and I could see why Kelly was talking to her.
“They have anything to do with the Dixie Demons?” I asked.
“I don’t know. They’re awfully friendly with them, and I know that one of them had a couple of closed-door meetings in the office with Sonny and Laverne. So maybe there is something there. Sonny is a biker. He rides a Harley. I’ve never seen him wearing Dixie Demon colors. I don’t know about Laverne. Most of the bikers who come into the Tail don’t belong to anything. Some of them are just barely members of the human race. They just want to ride bikes, drink beer, and raise hell. Pretend Hell’s Angels, I call them.”
“When was the last time you talked to Kelly?” I asked.
“Last Thursday night, when she came into the bar. It was the first time she’d ever done that. We had a deal to always to meet somewhere else, or talk on the phone, and even then, just when I was at home. But she came in that night to talk to Terrell, not me. We only spoke for a minute or two. It was kinda’ funny. One of the Dixie Demon bikers hit on her and she put him in his place in a second. She was a tough one.”
“Why would she talk to Terrell?”
“She wanted to ask him about who owns the Tiger’s Tail. She’d asked me first, but all I could tell her is it’s some company called the OMSK Corporation. It’s on our paychecks. I used to think that Laverne Dollar owned it, but Terrell told me once that it was one of them parent companies that own bars and restaurants. I couldn’t ask Terrell any more about it. He’d want to know why it was any of my business and get suspicious. I didn’t want to risk that, and neither did Kelly. So she decided to go in there and ask him herself. She was protecting me.”
“Do you know what he said to her?”
“I couldn’t hear, but he called her a nosy bitch behind her back when she left, and asked if I knew her. I lied and said no, it was the first time I’d ever seen her. He said for me not to talk to her, if she came in again, if I wanted to keep my job. He said she was a nosy newspaper reporter trying to make trouble for the Tiger’s Tail. Then he went into the office to see Sonny. My guess is he told him about her.”
“Did you tell Kelly that?”
“I was going to, but I didn’t get a chance to call her. Then, since Saturday morning, she ain’t been answering my calls. I guess I know why, now.”
If Kelly wanted to find out about the OMSK Corporation, I thought, why wouldn’t she just get on the internet and Google it? The only reason I could come up with was that it was a shell corporation, heavily layered and protected, and the web gave her nothing.
“Why have you been doing this?” I asked. “Working with Kelly? You had to know it could be dangerous.”
She said without hesitation, “My sister May is dead, and she didn’t deserve it. I want every son-of-a-bitch that had anything to do with it to get what’s coming to them, and I thought I could help a little.”
April was wrong about herself, and so was her mother. There was a lot of good in April Cheney. I found myself liking her, and I had to be careful not to get her into more trouble than she might already be in.
I caught her staring at me, deep in some thought. I could almost see wheels turning behind that red hair.
“Kelly was attacked Friday night,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
She gave that some thought, biting on her lower lip. “I want to see whoever’s responsible for May’s death get what they got coming and burn in hell for it, but I don’t know if there’s anything else I can do to help. I hope Kelly gets better—I really do. But what happened to her ain’t happening to me. Whatever is going on here, I can’t be a part of it anymore. Somebody else stronger than me needs to do it from here on out.”
She grabbed her purse off the seat and stood up. “I’ve got a friend who runs a bar in Key West who’s been wanting me to come down and work with her. I’m going to think very hard about doing that.”
She nodded and left. I watched out the window as she got into
a little blue compact car and drove away. I wouldn’t blame her if she got out of town, as much as I would like her to stay and to continue feeding information to me. But she was right, she had done about all she could do. And from what I could see, she had helped scrape the top off the iceberg that was probably the opioid problem in Pickens County. I didn’t want to see her get hurt over what she and Kelly had started. I didn’t think that the violence would end if I continued to follow in Kelly's footsteps. With the biker showing up at Still Hollow last night, it appeared that I had now brought the enemy into my family’s house. The problem was, I still didn’t know who this enemy was—the Dixie Demons, the Dollar brothers, or the OMSK Corporation. Perhaps they were all the same.
The thing I did know was that I was in over my head. I took out my phone and punched in the Chicago number of Alvin “Big Hurt” Brown.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Alvin Brown got the nickname “Big Hurt,” just like the one that belonged to Frank Thomas, the White Sox homerun-hitting Hall of Famer—not because he hit baseballs, but because he hit people with baseball bats. In his younger days growing up on the streets of Southside Chicago, he’d been a gang-banger in one of the most violent street gangs in America, the Gangster Disciples, and was known for his proficiency with a Louisville Slugger.
After Alvin outgrew the gang thing, he’d been a cage fighter for a while, trained for several years in the Orient, and was now a martial arts expert who owned a chain of Chicago dojos. He could probably take out most of the Tiger’s Tail Saturday night crowd with one finger.
I’d met Alvin a year ago. He was the cousin of Taylor Johnson, an old college football teammate and friend of mine. Taylor had suffered a terrible injury our senior season which left him a bed-bound paraplegic, and me with the guilt that I was to blame. I’d thrown the wayward pass that caused Taylor to leap for it and expose his blind side to a defensive back who hit him with the crushing blow, breaking his neck.