“We’re outta Sydney.” His voice was quiet, no threat in it. No fear, either. “Don’t know shit about Halifax. Do know you’re not a patch, though. You don’t get in without someone clearing it. You’re gonna stand back there and wait till that happens. That’s the end of it.” He grinned through crumbling tweaker teeth. Club was going to hell. I felt a twitch below my left eye. Always happens.
The key to fighting two guys is to avoid it, walk away. Only sensible approach. If you’re not feeling sensible, strike first. I was too close to sweep the running back’s legs, so I put him down with a driving right elbow. I forgot how much fun it was to beat on a prospect. I didn’t mean to break his nose, not really. He curled up on the ground moaning through his hands. No Emmitt Smith in him at all. I stepped over him toward the tweaker. He raised his talons in surrender and backed away fast.
“Hey, man, wait, okay?” He squealed as he backed into a fast-moving forearm smash. His eyes rolled, and he dropped beside his partner. Gunner stepped past him rubbing his arm.
“Why you being an asshole out here, bro?” he asked as we hugged.
“Old habits,” I said, rubbing my elbow and looking at the two downed prospects.
“You fucking believe that pussy? Didn’t even try you. Pier charter is going to shit in Sydney, man.” Gunner looked past me. I could see worry. He didn’t want a scene. He stepped past the prospects and squared his shoulders to block the view from the front of the house.
“Hey, Babe, go stand by the bikes and look hot,” he said.
A slender brunette with dark skin and deep-set green eyes stepped past the prospects. She was wearing a Stallion support tee shredded just above a diamond-pierced navel. Yoga tights disappeared into thigh-high black suede boots. She flashed a smile as she touched Gunner’s shoulder and moved toward the parked bikes. We both watched her walk away. My throat went dry.
Gunner slapped me in the back of the head. I smiled, realized how comfortable I felt here with him. I wondered what it meant, why it was so easy to slip into the old habits and bitch-slap a prospect for fun.
“Who the hell is that?” I asked as I rubbed my head.
“Cheyenne,” he said.
“Nice.”
“Uh huh.”
If he knew her name, she meant something to him. I stopped staring. We turned to the two prospects as the running back struggled back to his feet. Gunner shoved him back down with a boot.
“That one any use to us?” he asked.
“He was ready. Just slow,” I said.
Gunner moved to the scrawny tweaker and grabbed the right side of his prospect cut. He yanked, and spun him chin down into the ground as he pulled the leather off. He noticed the Sons of Anarchy colours on the fence as he gripped the prospect’s leather. He grabbed the TV patch and tossed it onto the skinny prospect.
“Put that on him and get him the fuck out of here. He just backed his way out of this club.”
The heavyset prospect was on his knees now. Blood leaked below his hand as he gripped the bridge of a shattered nose. His eyes were all over me. I smiled.
“Hey, fuckhead,” Gunner said. “This guy’s my brother; you show him respect.”
“Sorry, man,” he mumbled through his hand.
“He’s also a fucking cop, so don’t say shit around him.”
His eyes widened. Guess the Sydney charter hadn’t told the prospects about the bad seed in Halifax. Gunner and I headed into the house. It was easy being with him. It chilled my anger, made it feel normal. I was surprised at how easy it was to justify the violence with him present. Breaking a man’s nose did feel normal. So did missing my brother. We live in the same city but in different worlds. If there was an upside to MacIntosh’s order, this was it.
Snake was holding court with the patches as we cleared the hallway. He looked past them when we came in. He walked over and grabbed my right hand in a tight grip, pulling me into his chest. We slapped backs and he pulled away.
“Glad to see you in riding gear. Your patch is still out back if you got the balls to put it back on.” His smile was genuine, no malice. Making it clear. I was a retired Stallion today, nothing more.
“I’m here because of the old man’s patch, not mine,” I said.
My arrival marked the end of the meeting as one by one the bros greeted me. My back was sore and my hand was tingling from the impact on so many patches, but it felt good. I looked across the room to Grease. He was tinkering with a twin-cam engine in a cradle. He didn’t look back.
“You coming back to the house after the ride?” Gunner asked.
“Yeah, I got an ol’ lady with me if that’s cool.”
“She a cop?” Sharp, my brother.
“More scientist, but, yeah, she has a badge. She’s okay.” I wouldn’t lie to Gunner or anyone in the club about something that serious. My standing only carried so much weight.
“We’ll talk it over,” he said, nodding to Snake. “Go see the prospect out back while we do that. And brother.” He grabbed my arm. Hard. “You have a problem with the shit went down at The Bank last night, you deal with it on your own time, not here, not now. Fair?”
So Gunner knew about the beating. I held his gaze, couldn’t read it. At least I knew where Jimmy Williams was. I couldn’t figure why Gunner wanted me to go see the little fuck.
I stepped through the door and stopped in front of a wall-mounted glass case. It looked like a high-school trophy case. No football, basketball, or swim team medals, though. Instead, it held the cuts of the dead or jailed. They were opened and pinned to the back of the case so the full Stallion back patch and the members’ personal colours showed. Personal colours run down the front of a Stallion cut.
They show rank and accomplishments. My father’s topped the small pyramid of leather, still leading the ride. His President and red demon’s head patches showing. Mine at the bottom, alone. The prodigal patch. I wasn’t sure if it meant I was still good to come back or I was dead to the club. Guess it didn’t really matter. I saw Williams at the bank of security monitors past the lockers. My locker sits next to Gunner’s. It had been taken over by someone else. Guess they weren’t holding their breath.
Williams turned as he heard me approach. Phil Murphy stood to one side. I walked up to Murphy, pushed into his space. “Hear you like to throw those fists.”
He looked down at his shoes and backed into the wall. He wouldn’t take the bait here in the clubhouse.
“That fucking Indian started it,” Williams said.
I slapped him in the side of the head with a backhand. He stumbled out of the chair onto the floor. “Open your mouth again, prospect,” I warned, “and the fist will be closed.”
Murphy inched from the wall. I looked hard into those dead eyes. He backed away again. He was big enough to hurt me. I was fast enough to kill him. Hard to say if power or speed would win. The time would come.
Williams rubbed his head as he returned to the chair. His tiny fists clenched harder than Murphy’s, the knuckles yellow.
“Look, man, you can’t call me prospect and slap me around. You’re not in this club anymore.”
I kicked Williams’s leg as he turned in the seat. It would leave a mark, but it wasn’t even close to the kick I wanted to deliver.
“That better, prospect?”
“Okay, okay. Look I just want to show you something. That okay?” Swallowing his pride now, like a good prospect. Too bad.
Williams turned back in the chair, and grabbed a wireless mouse, clicked it, and the bottom screen changed. I watched a blurred image of a small SUV roll into the frame from the left and turn into the parking lot across the street. The security tape. MacIntosh was getting what he wanted.
“Is that a Jeep, one of those Suzukis maybe?” I asked.
“Man, I don’t know cars,” he said.
Brake lights flared as
the SUV slowed and began to climb the gravel road where Sandy Gardner was found. Williams clicked the mouse again. The screen went blank.
“That it? Doesn’t it come out?” I leaned closer to the monitor.
“Yeah, hang on.” He worked the keys. The image distorted as the timer on the screen raced forward. It slowed as a set of headlights came back down the hill and into the parking lot across the street. It turned away from the clubhouse and disappeared out of frame.
“It’s all we got. You want a copy?” I could see it hurt him to ask; he was now a rat. Snake was no fool.
“Yes, I do. You sure that’s all of it?”
“You want to sit here and watch, go ahead. Couple of hours of nothing till your crew arrives,” he said.
“Fine, shut it off and burn me a disc,” I said. “Make sure it includes the time stamp.”
There was no point in watching the rest. If there was anything Snake hadn’t wanted me to see, it was already gone. At least we had something the techs could work with. Maybe even enhance it enough to see what make the vehicle was. Williams handed me a plastic case with a DVD inside. All wrapped and ready to go.
“Listen,” I said. “Now that you’re a rat and all, do you want some money? I could maybe get you registered as an informant.”
He stood and moved on me, fists clenched, showing attitude. I looked at Murphy as I shot the left fist out from my side, catching Williams square with a short jab. He dropped back to the floor.
“Clean that up,” I said as I walked away.
I had what I’d come for. The smart thing now would be to skip the ride and head back to the major-crime office. See if I could get back into the case. That would be the smart thing, but I had to ride along and corner Gunner when the time was right. I had to know if the club had sanctioned the beating on Blair, and if it did, why. He’d have to know there’d be payback for the two fools behind me.
I looked to my right, where Carla was inches away on that green bobber. Her left hand feathered the clutch lever as her right wrapped around the brake. A tiny smile showed on her lips, but her eyes were all concentration. Group riding Stallion style is somewhere between a thrill ride and a death wish. We run side by side and tight, with less than a bike length between the front tire of one bike and the rear of the bike ahead. You can reach out and touch the rider beside you. The road captain rolled up beside us and nodded to me as he continued along outside the formation, policing the gaps. If you couldn’t keep it tight, he’d order you out of the formation and then hit you with a fine at the end of the run. We were okay. Carla could have ridden back with the RUB clubs who run a looser and safer staggered line, but she insisted on riding beside me in the Stallion formation. She was doing it perfectly. Locking her eyes on the bikes five rows ahead, where trouble starts. If they hit the brake, you hit the brake. If you watch the bike in front of you, there just isn’t enough time to react. I could hear the rhythm of her engine matching mine perfectly, could almost feel it. The roar around us was deafening. We rolled through the tight turns along Highway 333.
The memorial run takes only an hour, but by the end everyone is ready for a breather. I could see the turnoff to Peggys Cove ahead and began to relax in the saddle. Carla glanced over at me, and I could see her posture relax as well. Suddenly, the line slowed and we both grabbed the brake levers. I felt the front forks on my bike bottom out as the nose plunged down. I heard the deep whine as the rear tire on Carla’s bobber locked up and slid. She recovered quickly, and we both paid attention to the bikes ahead as we approached the turnoff. We rolled into Peggys Cove and parked in a lot behind the restaurant and gift shop near the famed lighthouse. We stepped off our bikes as the line of RUB clubs slowly filed into the lot behind us.
My eyes squinted against the salt sting in the sea air as I watched Bobby Simms pull Greg into the open back of a pickup truck. Bobby, the ubiquitous Christian soldier. The small truck was parked at the lower end of the lot.
Beyond it, I could see explosions of white where waves crashed into the rocky shoreline. One of the RUB clubs had brought the truck and a small sound system for Greg. There had to be three-hundred people huddled in groups around the lot, most not looking at him. Members of the three Christian clubs attending the run formed a semicircle behind the truck, ready for the blessing. Bobby had never made the cut as a Stallion; now he rode with a Christ image on his back. One of the saved. At least I knew where he was.
Carla and I stood to the side, near a winding stone walkway that led to the lighthouse standing over the rolling sea. The light spun slowly inside the red-topped white tower that once guided the fleet through stormy seas to the safety of the harbour below. Satellite guidance had killed coastal lighthouses years ago. This one served now as a beacon to guide tourists to the cove. It worked.
You don’t need the weather channel to know when plywood sheets are being pried off the windows in Florida, Georgia, or the Carolinas. Just stand here in Peggys Cove and feel five-storey waves slam the massive granite point beyond the lighthouse. There is no more powerful force on earth than a storm-riled sea. Its mountains of water race forward for days, looking for a place to unleash the fury of the wind and rain that woke them. Peggys Cove is a favourite target. When they hit, the rumble rolls under the soles of your feet. It feels like distant mortar fire. Just more powerful. Most hurricanes hook a hard right and head back to sea when they find the cooler waters this far north. They brush the coast with gales and rolling seas that keep the fishing boats behind the breakwaters and fill the rocks of Peggys Cove with stupid tourists and dumber locals.
More than a million people walk the rolling rock outcropping to take pictures and marvel at the sea here every year. Most leave with little more than a cool wet status update on a Facebook page. But when a storm slips past offshore, Peggys Cove shifts from postcard pretty to killer coastline. This was one of those days. I watched dozens of tourists clamour past the warning signs and point cellphone cameras as waves pounded the rocks. The whitewater clouds jumped hundreds of metres into the air. The bigger the waves, the bigger the crowd of fools. I always wonder if those same people arrived at Busch Gardens when the big cats were being fed whether they’d want to climb the fence to get a good close-up.
Every year, on days like this, the sea claims one or two tourists for its own. The lucky ones get smashed into the rocks. Most get pulled out to sea where they die of acute stupidity, cold and alone, with land in sight and terror in their hearts.
Salt and drizzle slapped my face in a blast of wind, the warmth of the sun on my skin replaced by a sudden chill.
“You realize someone will have to wash this off my bike.” Carla rubbed a tube across her lips to fight the salt as we watched Greg lead a prayer from his Chevy pulpit. The lot was crammed with bikes. The salt was coating all of them.
“Sorry. Bike-washing is women’s work, and there is salt on my ride, too,” I told her. “There will be a bikini bike wash back at the compound. Money goes to charity.”
I hoped none of the women caught the daggers she threw my way. Definitely not ol’ lady like.
“I was thinking of someone soaping a gas tank not a tank top.” She reached over, took my hand in hers. Back in character.
“They don’t wear any. You could probably join. Did I mention it’s for charity?”
She turned away from Greg and nodded toward a small group of women watching him from a short distance away. She placed her hand gently on my chest and smiled.
“Maybe you can find a volunteer over there,” she said. “This ol’ lady doesn’t wash bikes. This ol’ lady carries a gun.”
“Point taken. Bring your bike to my place in the morning and I’ll wash both. Just promise not to tell them.”
The women were no longer watching Greg; they were watching us. Carla must have noticed. She traced her fingers along my cheek.
“Promise not to tell the other detectives, and
it might be at your place in the morning anyway.” She stood on her toes and kissed my cheek where her hand had just been. She was selling it well. I just wasn’t sure who she was selling it to.
“Speaking of the other detectives, you have the video. How much longer do we have to play biker and property of?” Carla turned back to face Greg, gripping my hand.
“We still have work to do,” I said. “I need to corner Gunner. Find out if the club sanctioned the beating on Blair, and why. That dancer could be performing at the clubhouse when we get back. If she is, you’re going to buy me a lap dance and we’re going to have a chat with her.”
“You enjoying this?” She let go of my hand and looked at me, same look she showed when she saw the patch on the wall in my garage.
“Look. MacIntosh forced this on me. I just know how to work it, okay?”
I looked past her. Greg was blessing four urns, the newest members of the honour roll. He handed them one by one to a pastor from one of the Christian clubs, who handed them to the riders closest to the truck, the ones who had brought them on their last ride. Bobby was no longer in the truck with Greg. I tried to spot him in the crowd.
With the prayers over, it was time to pour the ashes into the ocean. With the waves pounding, the clubs would do it in the lee of the massive rocks, at the wharf down in the village. Bikers are big on pointless gestures, and no one would leave without a moment or two at the water’s edge. Some would toss flowers into the sea to remember those who died in years past. Snake would pour a bottle of Jack for the old man and the other dead Stallion brothers. I knew Gunner would stay up here with the bikes. Neither one of us cared much for pointless gestures or for the old man. I needed to keep our little brother with us. Gunner wasn’t going on some graveside run with Greg, and I didn’t have time, either. I’d feel guilty if we didn’t give him some of the brotherly bonding time he seemed to want. Priests are big on pointless gestures too, and I had to find him before he headed down to the wharf.
Disposable Souls Page 23