by Dane, Ryder
He took a quick two hour nap, and woke to the scent of something that made his stomach rumble. Going out to the kitchen, he found her taking a pan of lasagna out of the oven. She must have remembered that her lasagna was his favorite meal while he lived at home. Since he’d left, he avoided the stuff from anywhere else. It was his way of remembering something good from his childhood. The same thing with her Chicken Noodle soup; on a cold day, or when anyone caught a cold, she made soup. He had many people and places tempt him into trying the soups, but it wasn’t his mother’s, so he refused to touch it. I guess I’m more fucked up than I realized.
He watched the nighttime game shows with her and after the ten o’clock news they went to bed. At one in the morning, he tied the box into a trash bag and carried it down the alleyway from his mother’s house. When he was three blocks from her place, he picked out a trashcan that was already half filled, and tossed the bag into it.
It occurred to him the letters his mother claimed to have in a drawer might have addresses to find the bastard on them. He planned while he waited for morning light, making a mental note to call ahead and give Butch the addresses to check out. He hated the idea of Dorsey getting what was coming to him by someone else’s hands, but dead was dead, and he wouldn’t harm anyone else with his cowardice and greed.
Freakshow was on the road by ten a.m. He was going to the crib, dropping off the things he’d found and find out if any more information about Dorsey could be found. He would give it three days, if they hadn’t found anything more, he planned to hit the road and find the bastard.
*****
“You can come with me, we can get the guys or hire someone to pack the house up. I have to be back in court about Kevin, or I’d find a way to stay to help. I want you to come with me.”
They were snuggled together in her big bed, and she had to bite her lip to keep from telling him that she was falling in love with him. He was a grouch, he was oversized and spoiled rotten, and he would always try to be the boss. The only thing holding her back was his lack of offering her anything more than being his fuck buddy, and after their first sexual encounter, it ceased to be casual for her.
She knew he must care something about her because he wouldn’t have driven all this way for a piece of ass. Instead of answering him she snuggled in closer to his warmth. She needed more, she needed all of him.
Chapter Twelve
By the time Big Dog and Larry got home to the compound, Butch had relocated just about every one that normally stayed there over night. He’d announced the club was planning to have an old-fashioned camp out week. Something bikers rarely did anymore. They would all go to Big Dog’s place and take the kids, making it a family affair. He’d caught a lot of shit from some of the old ladies and wives, but they went with it.
The fluffers and easy rides were told to keep their clothes decent, and he got smacked on the arm by one of them called Cherry. “I ain’t no whore that don’t know how to act in public, I got kids of my own you know.” Yeah, he knew that Cherry knew how to act, that was why she was one of the fluffers, she had a way of sucking a man’s cock and balls into tight stiff attention within minutes. She sucked like a vacuum and fucked like a jackhammer. She wanted to be voted in as a house cat, but she had kids, and it wasn’t going to happen. She was now eyeballing Poppa for the slot of her old man.
The tag of Big D, as Larry kept calling him, caught on within hours and he was tired as shit, but he and Crazy Charlie and Poppa and Georgie worked in teams of two sweeping the compound and the buildings for explosives. Larry and two Prospects sat at the gate scanning the trees surrounding the drive. The men didn’t find any explosives. They found where someone had been smoking cigarettes and stomping them out in the dirt. The suspects were not of the adult variety, considering the wrappers and wads of chewed gum that littered the spot.
They ate cold sandwiches for dinner and washed them down with cold beers. When Charlie and Poppa went out to relieve the guards at the gate, they found Larry slumped over in his chair and one of the Prospects was lying in the dirt. They checked on Larry to see if he was dead or not. Luckily enough, the young man had been tapped on the head, instead of shot or knifed. The gate was open and there was a Prospect missing.
They carried Larry into the main building and yelled for Big Dog and Georgie. They saw what was happening, and ran outside to bring the kid inside. They dropped the boy for Charlie and Poppa to deal with, and went behind the bar to access the small arsenal in a large floor locker. Georgie handed a sawed off twelve gauge pump action to Charlie, and an identical one to Poppa, before arming himself with a double barrel sawed off and a mini Mac with conversion to full auto, with four clips, five if he wanted to include the clip that he’d slapped up into the handle of the gun. Big Dog helped himself to the guns and chose a 1911 colt, and an MP-5 with a night scope, a pistol grip, and collapsible stock, two thirty round clips, and he slapped the locker lid down.
“I’m going out through the flop room window, if it’s Dorsey, he’ll be expecting us to go out the back or front. He’s such a lazy fucker, he won’t move far from his rat’s nest. I would tell you guys to go to ground in the basement, but you’re grown damn men and I want to say, it’s been a damn good fuckin’ ride. If I don’t see you later, I’ll see you on the other side with a cold beer waiting for you.”
He rolled out onto the grass through the ground level window. It had been a while since the flop rooms were used that most people had forgotten them. They were originally designed for quick exits during the biker wars back in the Fifty’s and Sixty’s. He stayed on his stomach as he crawled through the grass keeping the night vision scope to his eye and his finger ready to squeeze the trigger. A bike started up in the front and he cautiously looked around the corner of the building.
Three more bikes were at the gate ready to leave, and it puzzled him to see an unfamiliar patch on the back of one of the men trying to hotwire the rat bike. None of the four had a Bastards’ personal ride. The bikes had to have been rolled out of the shed in the back. He caught the face of the missing Prospect in the scope, and almost laughed. The little fuckers were trying to start their own group. The patches were crudely drawn, with daggers and guns crossed in the center.
He didn’t give a shit about the ragged out bikes, but he couldn’t stand a turncoat motherfucker who’d steal from his club. He took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. He watched as the front tire blew and the boys heard the shot. They all ducked and covered their heads. The next shot kicked up the dirt next to two of them, and the boys crawled into the woods.
“You boys can leave under your own steam or you can leave in a box, make your choice, and hurry up about it. My damn finger is getting twitchy.” He laid down twenty shots around the spot they were attempting to hide. The boys in the woods were hiding behind trees, but a shot by their side still got them to understand he wasn’t fucking with them. A shot came back to his left, and since the boys didn’t appear to be armed, he swung the MP-5 toward the direction the shot came from. He saw someone running through the woods, trying to avoid his sights. He tracked the figure, waiting for the man to stop and attempt another shot. The only time the figure hesitated, it was to look over his shoulder, and Big Dog got a clear view of Reeker’s desperate face. By the time he turned back to see what the stooges were doing, three bikes were gone and the one with the flat tire sat where it was dropped.
Chances were the only one of the bikes that would start and run for any length of time was the one he’d heard. They used the rat bikes to blow off steam, and fuck around the back field. Most of the tires were bald, and few had front brakes. Those boys might break their own necks, but the theft would still have to be taken seriously. Tiny would have the Prospect’s name and home address, or next of kin.
He went to the front door and yelled to the occupants. “Coming in, I need a cold one.” He still stayed on the jam side of the door when he turned the knob, just in case one of the men was trigger happy or nervous.
“Hey, baby, I’m home,” he announced, and walked in the door.
Georgie was laughing so hard, he sounded like he would cough up a lung. Poppa just shook his head and sneered, trying to keep himself from laughing out loud, but the image in his brain from Big Dog’s descriptive narration of the skinny assed stooges running down the drive pushing bikes that would cost more to fix than to replace, made him give it up and rumbles of laughter came out of his mouth.
Charlie had no problem picturing the boys hitting the dirt and even speculated whether they had pissed themselves or not when the bullets skimmed the ground around them. Larry was mad and wanted blood. Nothing the men said would console the young man. The twenty-year-old Prospect was awake and had a headache. Every time they laughed he held his head and cringed.
The knowledge that Reeker was trying to start his own club was slightly sobering. Big Dog snapped his fingers and grabbed his phone.
“This is Big Dog, put Wolfman on.” He grinned at the men staring open mouthed and bursting to laugh out, but they had to keep quiet. Charlie couldn’t help himself, he hit the door running, and the other’s followed him, narrowly missing his bent figure as he tried to catch his breath between bursts of laughter. Wolfman was going to have to deal with his former member, and they enjoyed the idea.
They brought the bike back through the gate and padlocked the opening for the night. Poppa and Georgie took the first watch. It was doubtful they would return, but so far they hadn’t displayed a great deal of intelligence, so anything was possible.
*****
Freakshow got to the crib before noon. He found Big D in the dining room eating a huge plate of scrambled eggs. He grinned at the man who had become his friend. “You’ve got Larry in the kitchen right? He cooks a mean egg, but don’t let him near a chicken, trust me.”
He went to the coffeemaker and poured a cup of the grayish black liquid that no amount of creamer would lighten the color. He walked back to the table and started talking. The big man only interrupted to make certain points clear in his understanding before nodding for him to continue. He was more interested in the notebooks than the bag of gold. The solution of tossing the trophy box was a good one and Big D told him so. “I told my mom to go visit my aunt, Stephanie, in Florida for the winter. I stayed the extra hours to make sure she got on that plane. I bought her a new cell phone with a new number, and gave her a few dollars to play with at the reservation casinos while she’s there.
“I want to have permission to hunt Dorsey. I let him go once, it wasn’t on purpose, but still, someone has to take care of business. If he finds out that Future isn’t dead. He will be back. Her reappearance fucked up his world. Those notebooks would make some good blackmail. You do what you want with them. I would burn them, at least the ones that pertain to the Bastards. I have a few leads, and I know what he looks like without the scruff and bike. I can keep in touch, but I want sanctioned in case I get the opportunity.”
Big D told him to get some shuteye. “I need to think about this for a bit. I’ll let you know what my decision is tonight.” With nothing else to say to convince the man, he followed the order to get some sleep.
*****
Future stared at the detective. “You found what? I’m sorry, I must be dreaming. Did you really say that you found four bodies in the walls of the tunnel?”
Three days after the fire she’d been called into the police station to give her statement formally. Everything seemed routine until a guy who introduced himself as Lt. Vince Bellows asked her to step into this room. It was such a small room that she wondered what the hell was going on and started to ask him what this was about, when he ordered her to sit down. Before she knew what was happening, she was sitting and the detective was asking her who the bodies in the tunnel were.
“No, Miss Smith, I assure you I am not joking, and you’re not dreaming. The Fire Marshall was determining the cause of the explosion, and found two bodies. Didn’t you notice the heavy equipment digging around in the parking lot between the bar and your residence? So far there have been four bodies and we anticipate there will be more. Since you have been the owner of record for almost three years, and you told the officer on duty the night of the explosion that you had gone through the tunnel minutes before the place blew up, I’m sure you can understand why I have to ask you these questions.”
“I bought a place with dead bodies buried in concrete walls? Mr. Brennbury never disclosed he had dead people in the walls. He said he needed to retire because he was tired of the cold winters and he wanted to travel to Florida and Arizona in the wintertime. He is such a nice old man. He accepted my offer even though it was really low, and he even holds the mortgage. Why would he do that if he was a murderer? I send him the payments every month.” She looked at the detective and shook her head. This could not be happening. “I have no idea what to say to this. I get my building blown up, and if that’s not bad enough, I have four or more bodies that are dead, and what am I supposed to do with dead people? The insurance company is already giving me shit about paying to rebuild. My mother is supposed to be coming to stay with me because she’s tired of her old man’s shit and…damn, just damn.”
The detective got up and left the room, and Future took the time to compose her thoughts. She had been tested many times. The miserable childhood with Merlin, her disastrous marriage to Bert. The three weeks of torture and years of feeling so broken she often wondered why she hadn’t given up. The humiliation of showing her scars to six men. The certainty the old President of the Chiefs was, in all probability, her sperm donor, the worry for her mother, the building blowing up, and now dead people?
The detective came back into the room and handed her a bottle of water. “I have to tell you, I don’t believe you are a murderess. The thing is, we have to find your Mr. Brennbury. We need any information that you can give us, and I don’t want to give you even more grief, but you might as well hear it now. We have to take the house down to make sure all of the bodies have been found. I asked the captain, and he said you can have three days to get your personal stuff and any furnishings that you think you might need to furnish another place to live.”
“There’s no way I can get everything out of that house in three days. I don’t have a place to put it, and it is the only home I have, how can you expect me to just leave all of those antiques? If I lose the bar and the house, I’ll still owe the mortgage and I’ll probably have to sell the furniture to pay the payments. The insurance company won’t pay for another house if you tear mine down, dammit. I need to call a lawyer.”
She was still muttering about credit scores and insurance companies when he escorted her out of the building.
That night, she took the Heritage out and burned a tank of gas trying to clear her head. She kept thinking about the things she’d said to the detective and cringed. She had sounded like a brainless fool. To be fair, she’d felt that way at the time too. She needed help, and while she hated to admit it, she needed to hear Hugh’s voice. Maybe he could offer some advice, or one of those big shoulders to rest her head on. It would be nice to have someone to care once in a while. Always being strong when you know you’re not as tough as you act got old quick.
It was almost midnight when she called to tell him what happened. She did her best to keep the rising panic from choking her as she spoke. “They acted like I was the one that buried the damn bodies in concrete.”
He snapped at her, “What the fuck, Future, why didn’t you call Hall and Early? They would be right there, and you never go back into that place without an attorney with you again. You call them in the morning, or I will if you need me to.” She began to feel better. A bit dumbassed for not remembering the law firm’s name the Bastards used when they needed representation.
“Hugh, I have had it up to my eyeballs in bullshit here. Now I have three days to clean the house out before they begin to tear it down. You’ve been here, the place is filled with antiques from the last hundred years or more. Detective Bellow
s told me to take what I needed if I couldn’t get everything out in the three days. They handed me a court order on my way out of the police station.
“So unless the lawyers have a house for me to furnish with Italian vases and massive pieces of furniture like my bed, they can’t help me with that. I have racked my brain to try to figure out why Mr. Brennbury left all of this stuff behind. He told me that he didn’t need it, and that it was mine to deal with now on the night he came and showed me the tunnel.
“The truth is that I have no idea if I should call an antiques dealer, or a moving company. I don’t know many people around here, I’ve been too damn busy for morning coffee with the neighbors. Sorry to be unloading all of my shit on you like this, I guess I just needed to vent, to tell someone who might give a damn, you know? Since you’ve been here I mean.” She had to get her head on straight or she was going to break down and beg him to come and help her. She wasn’t sure either of them was ready for that. He hadn’t seemed to have any problem riding off and away from her, and she wasn’t wired to beg him to stay if he didn’t want to be there.
His, “Alright, this is what I think you should do. In the morning at nine o’clock, call Hall and Early, I’ll text you their number. Start packing up what you can, and I’ll send a few people to help move the heavy stuff. You can store it at the farmhouse, there’s almost no furniture in it yet, and the place is massive, so you can stay there too. It will give you time to decide what you want to do, without a specific timetable.”
He promised to talk to her mother, “Although Merlin has been pretty scarce lately. He was telling Georgie that he was thinking about heading to Colorado. They’ve legalized weed there and anyone that knows him knows he would be all over that. So she might not have to leave the cabin if she doesn’t want to. She’s been a big help to me with Kevin, he told me she said he could call her Nana, like a real grandma, without all the messy family stuff.”