“I ought to slap that smartass smile off of your face, you know?” I grumbled as I poured a shot into the glass that Zane brought me. I was still getting over being awakened in such a rude way, but the scotch helped.
“You mean you’d like to try,” Peach giggled. “You’d really rather slap my ass and call out my name.”
“Humph.” She was right, but I wasn’t going to give in that easy. Well, yeah, actually, I was, but I thought I’d play the game first. I downed another shot. “How was Reno?”
“Same fuckin’ place.”
“Nice ride though, huh?” I commented. “Good chance to stretch that Fat Boy’s legs out in the desert?”
“Ehh,” she frowned. “I’d rather stretch them on the coast highway.”
I downed another shot and then turned to the envelope. I was pretty sure that Peach was on the level, but I didn’t take any chances. A Marine captain by the name of Sylvester Arnold has once told me to “trust, but verify, that’s how you keep your troops honest.” A quick count confirmed that there was no reason to mistrust Peach. I slipped a half dozen hundreds out of one of the stacks and passed them across my desk to her.
“Gracias, amigito.” She tossed back the last of the beer in the mug and stood up. “Pleasure doin’ business with you.”
“Where you goin’ in such a hurry? I still have some business between my legs that needs attending to.”
“You’ll have to discuss that with Rosy,” she grinned and pulled open the office door.
It was an old joke. A date with Rosy Palmer was what guys in the Corps had been calling masturbation for decades.
She turned as she passed through and peeped back at me through the crack. “First, I’m going to go get all soapy in hot shower, then I’m going to rub on some really nice lavender lotion and slip into an oversized t-shirt and just chill.”
“Just the t-shirt?” I asked, already forming an image in my mind.
“Mm hmm,” she nodded, pulling the door closed.
“Was that an invitation?” I shouted at the closed door.
I knew she wouldn’t respond. I took another shot and got back to business. I pulled out a ledger and recorded the transactions, putting “delivery fee,” for the $600 that I had just given to Peach. It was a pretty nice sum of cash for an overnight trip to Reno and back. Of course, all of her expenses had been paid too, so the $600 was pure profit, not even taxed.
I’d been in charge of the Hell Dogs for five years. I’d done my duty to God and country in the Marine Corps, even took part in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which was a total farce. Those ignorant camel jockeys had no idea what freedom was or how to keep it. I’d had about enough of the land of sand and took my out when it was offered to me. Stateside, I had few prospects that appealed to me, so I’d straddled my hog and started off to see America.
With the nickname “Bulldog,” I was destined to be a part of the Hell Dogs. I’d gotten that label when I was in the Corps. I guess that’s what you call a big, beefy guy who stretches the tape to six feet and six inches and weighs close to 300 pounds. Jarheads aren’t exactly known for their creativity when it comes to handing out nicknames. Since the bulldog had been the mascot for the Marine Corps since WWI, I wore the name with pride. In the Hell Dogs, I wore it as the lead dog in a pack of former Marine mongrels.
Bulldogs aren’t known for their grace and gentility, but instead for their tenacity. That is what put me in the position of president of the Golden Coast Hell Dogs Motorcycle Club and that was what had made it increasingly profitable for the club to operate. Under five years of my leadership, the income of the GCHD had doubled, and we were pretty well left alone north of the bay. We’d carved out a niche for ourselves in northern California that stretched into Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and a small corner of Wyoming. It was a sizable chunk of territory and we had some pretty strong allies scattered across it. They were allies because they didn’t dare fuck with us.
Not all Marines were cut out to be Hell Dogs. A lot of them didn’t have the stomach for the kinds of operations that we carried out. If they rode a bike and wanted to be a part of a club, they could always join up with the Devil Dogs or one of the other 99 percent clubs. The Hell Dogs were one percenters, and we were into some rough shit.
I opened the floor safe under my desk, took out the receipts of the Hot Hound from the day before, added some of what Peach had just brought me to that sum and filled out a deposit slip. For anyone who might be tracking deposits, the Hot Hound had had one hell of a Tuesday. The other cash would be distributed for various “delivery,” “advertising,” “storage,” “stocking” and “consulting” expenses.
My mind wandered to the two hotties I had been entertained by the night before. Every guy enjoyed a good threesome, especially with two girls who were as eager to please each other as they were to please me, but they didn’t hold a candle to Peach. All by herself, she was hotter than the two of them and another pair combined. She had an energy and a vibe that would make a porn star envious. She worked a tease better than anyone I had ever known. That little episode at the office door was just a tiny sample, but it was already doing its job.
I downed one more shot, stuffed the deposit into an envelope, made sure that the safe, with the other cash in it, was closed and locked and then left the office. I strolled down the hall, stopping off at the head for a quick drain, and then started for the front door.
“I’m outta here, Zane,” I called out.
“Comin’ back?” he asked.
“Nope,” I responded as I pulled the door open. “Got a date.”
A date wasn’t exactly the right term for what was going to happen, but it was the appropriate way of putting it. I was going to get my ashes hauled in a big way. I swung a leg over my Road King, fired it up and listened to it rumble a minute before goosing the throttle and hearing that guttural roar as I pulled away from the Hot Hound.
Chapter Four Peach:
I tended not to frequent the casinos in Reno whenever I went there on a job. First of all, it was Reno and I didn’t particularly care for the place. Second, I always tried to keep a low profile and not be seen too frequently in any one place. There didn’t need to be any connection drawn between me and what I did for Bulldog and the Hell Dogs. Third, it was my job to get in, get the cash and get out.
On my last trip, I had decided, just for grins, to check out one of the casinos. While I was doing that, I caught sight of something that I wanted. That something was in the form of a good-looking, sharp-dressing and buff gambler with a dangerous look to him. I’d heard everyone call him TNT and later discovered that it went with his initials, Trevor Thomas. He was a delicious hunk with dark hair, blue eyes and a smile that he knew how to use. He was a high roller who bought rounds for everybody, and people tended to follow him wherever he went. To say that he intrigued me would be an understatement.
While I squeezed out a palmful of shampoo, my mind was visualizing the smile on the sculpted face of that gambler. I didn’t get all out of control, but I did recapture that moment when he happened to look up and in my direction perfectly. It was fixed like a snapshot in my mind, and it came to me as vividly as if he was standing right in front of me. I was still kicking myself for looking away. It was a natural reaction that happened whenever someone caught a person staring. When I’d looked back, he was occupied with someone else.
“He’s probably not worth the effort,” I’d told myself several times on my ride back from Reno. It was really just an excuse for having not made a move. In reality, however, I’d just been too chicken, and that bothered me even more. No one had ever accused me of being a wallflower. I was pretty much the opposite. I was a guy on the inside. When I set my mind to something, I made a plan for getting it done, carried out that plan and got what I wanted. I was just as aggressive and focused on making a conquest as any guy; I just happened to also have tits, a pussy, a nice ass and a gorgeous smile.
I pushed thoughts of TNT out of my mind, finishe
d washing my hair and got out of the shower. Just as I promised Bulldog, I rubbed some very expensive lavender-scented lotion into my skin. It wasn’t for Bulldog’s benefit, but because I was, after all, a woman and didn’t intend to let myself rot because of dry skin and old age.
The bath had done wonders for my mood, and I was feeling a little bit better. I was pretty sure that Bulldog would not pass up the opportunity to come by for a booty call. I hadn’t dropped the hint for no reason, but I was starting to wish that I hadn’t. After my bath and the image of that hot gambler, I’d had a sudden snapshot of what my own life had come to, and I wasn’t altogether pleased with how it was turning out.
I was intelligent and ambitious, but I’d allowed myself to become too comfortable with my life and my lifestyle. I was making enough money to pay for a decent house as a freelance engineer working out of my home, made a healthy supplement as a courier for Bulldog and could pretty much go anywhere and do anything that I wanted, but when it got right down to it, I really had nothing to show for the efforts that I’d made. I was far short of “being all that I could be.”
In a lot of ways, Bulldog pissed me off. He was a good guy underneath that bad boy, outlaw exterior. He treated me decently, though I knew that he fucked around all the time. But we got along well together, and I’d gotten used to being what bikers called higher-ranking women in the club: his mama. However, he was essentially an idiot who had taken advantage of his size to intimidate and manipulate himself into a position that was way over his head and well beyond his intelligence or skill set. Ironically, however, he had something to show for his efforts and I didn’t.
When that after-shower epiphany hit me, I had another snapshot in my mind that I didn’t like. It was one that showed me as a weak pansy next to that idiot, Bulldog. “It ought to be the other way around,” I muttered to Mr. Wrinkles, my Canadian Sphinx cat, as I scratched him behind his ears. He’d jumped up onto the sofa when I sat down with a tortilla wrap that I’d picked up on my way home. I gave him a nibble or two of the chicken and then picked up the phone.
“’Sup, girly girl?” Dish answered after a couple of rings. She’d been calling me that since we were in basic. It didn’t bother me, because my name for her was worse.
“Hey, cupcake.”
“How was the trip to Reno?”
“The trip and Reno sucked as usual,” I started in. “Well, except for one brief moment in the Reno Gold.”
“You actually went out?” Dish changed her tone to one of overly dramatic shock. “What the hell?”
“Hey, I like to try new things,” I laughed.
“Like root canals, a glaucoma test and passing a kidney stone.” she replied.
“Glaucoma tests aren’t that bad,” I countered. “Besides, it was worth it.”
“I’ve been telling you that for years. Reno isn’t that bad.”
“I’d like to inform you that Reno still sucks, but there was a hot hunk in the Reno Gold who improved the scenery.”
“Wow. Not only did you go out, but you met a guy?”
“I didn’t meet him,” I sighed. “I just happened to see him.”
“So, what was the problem?”
“No problem,” I responded. “I just saw him.”
“He was with somebody else.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Why?”
“Because the Peach that I know goes after whatever she wants.”
“So, why would I let something like a girlfriend or a wife get in my way, then?” I asked, just to be difficult, mostly. There were lines that I didn’t cross.
“So, tell me about this guy that you stayed away from, then.” She knew better than to get into a pissing match with me.
“Dark hair, blue eyes, straight teeth and cut like Captain America.” Captain America was the nickname that we ladies had given to a particularly well-developed Marine lieutenant who was greatly admired when we were stationed in Okinawa. From that point forward, he had been the standard against which the physique of all other men were compared. Captain America forever remained a mystery to all of them, however, because he was married and had two of the cutest little girls.
“And you just walked away?”
“Eh. I don’t need a man like that.”
“And you need a 300 pound monster?” She had often told me that I could do better than Bulldog. Secretly, I think she wanted him for herself, but was too polite to just come right out and tell me. I’d have let her have him, too.
I didn’t respond for several seconds, and she read my thoughts during that pause. It wasn’t anything new for Dish to intuit what I was thinking. She’d been doing that for almost as long as I’d known her.
“I’d assume that you are tired from your trip, but I’m getting a feeling that there is something else stirring in that head of yours.”
“It just hit me a few minutes ago that I don’t have anything to show for myself,” I admitted.
“Jesus, what the hell happened in Reno?”
“Nothing happened. I got out of the shower a few minutes ago and it just happened to hit me.” I really hadn’t figured out how to put what I was feeling into any words beyond what I had just said.
“Kind of deep for just getting out of the shower.”
“I’m probably just tired,” I said, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t up for a conversation about my inadequate life. “Bulldog is here,” I lied, using the excuse to hang up the phone. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Talk to you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah.”
Chapter Five: Bulldog
“Did you handle things with that mechanic?” I asked immediately after noticing that the call on my cell phone was coming from TNT and connecting the call.
“I put him on an installment plan,” he responded.
I knew that the installment plan meant that we were taking over the business with 50 percent interest and that Arty would probably never be able to crawl out of the hole that he was in. I’d rather have had the cash, but in the long run we’d make ten times more out of the deal than what we had sold the parts for in the first place. “How’d he take the news?”
“He wasn’t saying much when I left.”
I was pretty sure that TNT hadn’t killed him. He might have beat him unconscious and left him lying on the floor, but he was still alive if he was on the installment plan, so I wasn’t really concerned with why Arty wasn’t speaking when TNT left him. “What was his excuse this time?”
“Business has been bad,” TNT replied. “The same typical shit.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered.
“He offered a little cash, trying to save his bacon.”
“You take it?” I asked.
“Nah,” he replied. “I decided to give him a little hope. See if he wants to straighten up and fly right.”
There wasn’t really much hope, but getting the cash for those parts and keeping a steady supply flowing into his shop was still a better option for us. The mess that we would have to go through to take over the shop, sell everything off and get our money—though it was more money—was an enormous pain in the ass. “Probably better that way. So, why hadn’t that other dumb-fuck been able to make that arrangement?”
I’d sent “Squeezer” out to handle collecting the payment, but he hadn’t come back with anything, even an installment plan. I was beginning to get the feeling that Squeezer was losing his nerve. It was probably time to reassign him to something else.
“I guess he didn’t ask nicely enough,” TNT answered.
“I have my doubts that you asked nicely.”
“There are different gradients of nice.”
One of the reasons that I had been so impressed with TNT in Baghdad, and the primary reason that I wanted him doing the job that I had him doing, was that he was a coolheaded mother with plenty of grit.
The Marines in Baghdad had a saying about TNT: “Not only can he
defuse an IED, but he can make the thing like it.” The saying, like so many that jarheads come up with, made absolutely no logical sense, but after getting to know how smooth he was at operating, I had begun to understand why they’d come up with it.
TNT could go from one extreme to the other. He could be the smooth, easy-going, life of the party who you loved in one moment and the most dangerous motherfucker on the planet in the next. The combination, in my mind, was almost schizophrenic in nature, but he was far from being crazy. It was a rare combination of qualities that no other person I knew possessed. It had made him perfect for the role that he played in the Hell Dogs.
“I’ve got something that might not be quite as nice,” I replied after several minutes, returning to the conversation, but changing the subject.
“Alright,” he grunted.
“This one may take a little less nice and a lot more force,” I replied.
“Denny?” he asked, reading my mind.
“Denny,” I replied.
“How far you wanna go?”
“Use your judgment, but I think Denny is to the point where he can be shut down.”
“Are you shutting him down?”
“You know I’d rather keep him open,” I said.
“But…”
“I don’t think Denny wants to stay open.”
“Does he know it?”
“I think he does,” I responded. I wasn’t necessarily ordering a hit, but I wasn’t against it if things turned out that way. Hits were messy. There had to be a lot of scrambling done to cover them up. Whenever you were trying to stay under the radar of the law enforcement community, messy didn’t really help.
“He didn’t seem to agree with the rather persuasive argument that I presented last time.”
Denny had gotten a pretty good look at TNT’s nasty side. My understanding was that Denny spent a week in the hospital and a couple more waddling around the house after he got out. After having been given such a very direct warning, Denny still hadn’t gotten the message. The stubborn bastard considered himself to be a badass. That had worked out well for a while and been useful to us, but it didn’t work well when he turned it back toward the Hell Dogs. He would be on his toes and loaded for bear on TNT’s next visit.
AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN FICTION: BWWM ROMANCE: Billionaire Baby Daddy (Billionaire Secret Baby Pregnancy Romance) (Multicultural & Interracial Romance Short Stories) Page 15