Kade just looked at me like he was bored with the topic, which pissed me off even more.
“The robber probably would have gone for the money if you and Lou hadn’t gotten to him first.”
Kade shook his head. “No.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked, angry at his complete and utter self-confidence.
“Anybody robbing a strip club wouldn’t go for the cash register. He’d go for the strippers, get them to cough up their tips. That close to closing time, you’re talking several hundred bucks minimum per girl. Six strippers, that’s at least 1800, maybe as much as three grand. The register would be minor in comparison.”
“But all the alcohol – ”
“Nobody but Midnight Riders drinks alcohol. Everybody else is getting overpriced Cokes and bottled water. At five dollars a pop, you’re talking several hundred bucks maximum. That’s nothing compared with the haul they could get from the strippers.”
I stared at him.
I hadn’t thought of that…
“Then you’d hit Lou’s office,” Kade continued. “Make him open the safe. Then maybe you go for the cash register, but I’d hit the customers. Make them throw all their wallets in a trash bag. ”
“And cell phones, too,” I suggested. “On the international black market, that could be another – ”
“No.” Kade shook his head. “Not unless they had everybody remove the batteries first. Otherwise law enforcement could track them immediately.”
Damn, this guy knew his shit. Which irritated me even more, seeing as I was a P.I. and hadn’t thought of it.
“Maybe it was a ‘get in and out quick’ kind of thing,” I said.
“If it was that, he would’ve gone just for the strippers.”
“Maybe the robber was an idiot.”
“Yes, but only because he didn’t bring more guys to lock down every corner in the place.”
“Well if it wasn’t a robbery, what was it?”
“A hit. They only wanted it to look like a robbery.”
The world skewed crazily, and I felt unsteady on my feet.
“A hit? You mean, like – they came there to kill somebody?”
He nodded.
I tried to logic my way out of it. It was ridiculous; it was something out of a movie.
“Why would they do a hit in front of thirty witnesses? And with their gang emblems on the back of their jackets?”
Kade shrugged. “To rub it in our face. To start a war.”
“You guys are at war with the Santa Muertes?”
“We have been in the past.”
My stomach turned. “While Jack’s been president?”
Kade shook his head. “No. That was one of the first things he did, was make peace.”
“So why would they start up again?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why bother to make it look like a robbery?”
“I don’t know.”
“And if they really wanted to start a war, why didn’t the entire gang come in and kill every single Midnight Rider in there?”
For the second time that night, I saw an emotion on Kade’s face. It wasn’t confusion this time; more like intense scrutiny. “That’s what I can’t figure out.”
“What can’t you figure out?”
“If they wanted to take over our territory, or start a war, or destroy the club, they had the president, the VP, and me, the Sergeant-at-Arms, all in the same place at the same time. They could have wiped out the top leadership in one blow. But they killed a new member who’d just patched in a year ago. It was pointless.”
“Maybe they were going after him specifically,” I said, finally buying into his conspiracy theory. “Maybe he did something to them.”
“Then they would have killed him outside the club. In his apartment, out on the street.”
“Well, maybe it’s like you said – they wanted to send a message.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of it makes any sense!” I fumed.
“No, it doesn’t.” Kade agreed. “But it wasn’t a robbery.”
14
Jack
I slowed and circled back around to where the gunman was lying on the ground, screaming. His wrecked bike lay further down the road. Small bits of metal littered the highway.
By the time I got to him, the rest of the club had pulled up. Their headlights washed over the gunman in a yellowish haze, showing just how bloody and broken he actually was.
The guy needed a hospital soon, or he’d die without anybody having to lift a finger.
Of course, though, they all wanted to lift a finger.
Eyeball got off his bike, stomped over, and kicked the guy’s ribs savagely.
“GET OFF HIM!” I roared as I stepped off my own bike.
“This fucker shot Benjy!” Eyeball spat, and kicked the gunman again. “Maybe even killed him!”
Without another word, I walked up and laid a right cross into Eyeball’s jaw.
He went down like a sack of cement.
“THAT’S for disobeying me when I told you to pull back,” I said coldly.
Eyeball stumbled to his feet in a daze.
Then I punched him in the gut and sent him sinking to his knees.
“And that’s for disobeying me when I told you to get off him.”
Now the other eight guys behind Eyeball were murmuring angrily.
Just like a lynch mob.
“Now, now,” a devilish voice said. “You all know the punishment for insubordination.”
Lou.
I hadn’t seen his bike catch up with the others.
He strolled over leisurely, his shotgun dangling by his side like a cane. His fancy shoes scuffed on the asphalt with every slow step he took. His Italian suit and black shirt looked out of place among the denim and leather kuttes.
Lou put the shotgun muzzle under Eyeball’s chin and gently lifted his face up to look at him.
No matter how tough Eyeball seemed with that tattooed eye, he was about to piss his pants.
“I like you, kid, but if I were president and you disobeyed me? We’d be burying your body in a shallow grave next to that piece of shit,” Lou said, and jerked his head over at the gunman lying moaning on the ground.
“Nobody’s burying anybody in a shallow grave,” I said loudly.
Lou looked over his shoulder at me and smiled. “Of course not.” He removed the shotgun from under Eyeball’s chin and let the gun dangle loosely at his side again.
Of course not.
All I could hear, though, was Stop being a pussy and be a goddamn man for once, Jack!
He’d said it in front of Kade and Eddie, and not the rest of the crew… and he’d just given his little warning to Eyeball. Maybe he was going to back me up.
Maybe.
But I still wasn’t going to trust him any farther than I could throw him.
“He deserves a bullet in his head!” somebody yelled, and the entire group murmured in agreement.
Lou just watched in amused silence.
“This guy’s going to jail,” I shouted at them. “He’s going to do 20 to life for accessory to murder. That’s good enough.”
“He shot one of ours!” Chuck shouted. “He’s DEAD FUCKIN’ MEAT!”
The angry murmurs turned to shouts.
“We got out of that life three years ago!” I roared back. “This isn’t some goddamn Charles Bronson movie! This isn’t fuckin’ Sons Of Anarchy! We’re clean now. We’re not murdering some scumbag in cold blood on the side of the road. Yeah, he deserves to die – but we’re not giving up three long, hard years on account of him. We’re not sacrificing all of that. Not after all we’ve been through.”
The group was silent. I could tell they hated me for not giving in to their desire for vengeance, but at least they were standing still and not tearing the guy apart piece by piece.
Lou rubbed his beard with his free hand. “That was a good speech, Jack.”
As I turned to look at him, Lou raised the shotgun up about eight inches and shot the gunman in the chest.
15
I stumbled back in shock, my ears ringing with the blast.
Then I looked up at Lou, who was wearing the same mild look on his face as two seconds ago.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I roared, and punched Lou squarely in the jaw.
Probably not the smartest thing to do to a man holding a shotgun, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Lou staggered back, but kept his feet.
The entire MC roared – some in disapproval, some in shock, some in rage.
My guess was that they were siding with Lou.
I wasn’t worried about that at the moment, though.
I was worried about the shotgun.
I lunged forward and tore it out of his grasp, keeping the barrel pointed away from me or anyone else.
Lou let go of it easily – too easily. Not because he was stunned, but because he was giving in.
I’m LETTING you do this, he might as well have said.
Which infuriated me even more.
Now that I had the shotgun, I drove the wooden stock into his gut.
He doubled over and crouched on the ground.
The group was about to lose their minds.
Eyeball and Chuck stepped forward –
Without looking up, Lou stretched out his hand from where he knelt on the ground.
Eyeball and Chuck stopped immediately.
“Now, now,” Lou said mildly. “We all know the punishment for insubordination.”
The entire group was silent as Lou stood up gingerly and winced. “God damn, Jack, did you have to hit me that hard?” he asked good-naturedly.
I stood there in silence. There was nothing I could say; he’d taken me by surprise, and now I’d been outmaneuvered. Anything I said, I would have to back up immediately.
But the entire motorcycle club was a powder keg waiting to explode. Lou had only done what they’d wanted to do. He was their hero right now. If I were to take another go at him, I’d probably end up just like the gunman – except not at Lou’s hands, but at the club members’.
Maybe on Lou’s orders, though.
Definitely with his approval.
So I stayed quiet and just glared at him.
Lou turned and addressed the rest of the MC. “What’s done is done. The motherfucker’s dead. No use arguing anymore. Eyeball, Chuck, Bug, Wild Bill – grab an arm or a leg and take this cocksucker out in the desert a good five miles. Don’t drag him, carry him. I don’t want to see any drag marks. And don’t bury him. Don’t make the coyotes and buzzards work harder than they have to.
“Cowboy, call up Al and get him – not one of his idiot employees, but tell Al to get his ass out of bed and come get this guy’s bike and haul it to the junkyard. Tell him to put it in the crusher immediately. Tell him I said so.
“Dan – go back to the club, ask Shelley for the lye. That’s L-Y-E, not L-I-E, dumbass. We keep it in the back with the cleaning supplies. Don’t get any on you, and if you do, don’t wash it off with water or you’ll be wishing you were dead two seconds later. Every bit of blood this motherfucker laid down on the road, you pour that lye all over it, you hear me? Destroy the DNA evidence. Not that we’ll need to. I’ll make the call to Dan Peters just to give him a heads-up that he doesn’t need to send a patrol car out this way for a good couple of weeks.”
Dan Peters was the town police chief. He’d served in that position for over ten years, and had been a bought-and-paid employee of the Midnight Riders back in the old days. Now that we’d gone legit, he still turned a blind eye, for a fee… but a blind eye to the marijuana business. Not to murder.
He’d had plenty of practice doing it in the past, though.
“The rest of you fuckers, pick up every piece of metal and plastic you can find and toss it out in the desert. And for god’s sake, don’t get your fuckin’ prints all over it,” Lou shouted.
The group broke up and went about their tasks. As they did, Lou turned to me. “You can go on home, Jack,” he said with a smile. “I know you’ve got that pretty little piece of ass waiting for you. I can take it from here.”
“I should kill you for that shit you just pulled.”
“But that would make you a hypocrite and disrupt your whole New World Order, wouldn’t it?”
“Then I should turn you in.”
“To the cops?” He laughed. “Not that I couldn’t buy my way out of it, but… you’d turn me in for killing a shitheel – a fucking Santa Muerte, no less – who murdered one of our own? Seriously?”
“I think there should be some punishment to fit the crime. What was that bullshit you told Eyeball about disobeying the president and getting buried in a shallow grave?”
“Oh, it wasn’t bullshit. I thoroughly believe it. But if you’ll recall, I said if I was president. I’m not; you are. But you’re not me… are you, Jack?”
He smiled again, but it did nothing to hide the malice and contempt in his eyes.
And the smug sense of victory.
I turned around, got on my bike, and headed home.
16
Fiona
Just as I was about to go crazy staring at Kade in unending silence, we heard the sound of a Harley pull up in the driveway.
There was the faintest spark of alarm in Kade’s face.
“Jack?!” I cried out as I turned.
Kade’s massive hand grabbed my arm and pinned it to the kitchen island.
“Hey!” I snapped.
The Viking put one finger to his lips in a silent Shhhh. Then he scooped his .45 off the counter, let go of my arm, and prowled through the kitchen and into the front of the house.
I watched with my heart in my throat as he pulled back the curtains the tiniest bit –
“It’s him,” Kade confirmed.
I raced to the front door and flung it open.
Jack was trudging wearily up the front walk. I bounded down the steps, into his arms, and buried my head in the crook of his neck. All I could smell was leather, gunpowder, and the coppery scent of blood.
It took everything inside me not to start crying.
Jack put his arms around me and held me close without saying anything for a very long time. When he finally spoke, he pulled back so he could look into my eyes.
“You okay?” he asked tenderly.
I nodded. “Are you?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Can we move this inside?” Kade asked from where he stood in the doorway, gun at the ready and scanning the darkness.
“Good idea.” Jack hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me towards the front door. “Thanks for bringing her here. You have any problems?”
Kade stepped aside so we could enter the house. “No.”
“Good. That makes one of us.”
17
I made us a pot of coffee while Jack showered and changed into a new wifebeater and jeans. When he strode back into the kitchen… I know it was fucked up, considering all the violence that had happened that night… but I so wanted to just pull him into the bedroom and feel him inside me.
I wanted to feel safe again.
I wanted to feel something besides this fear, this dread.
But I pushed all ideas of his naked body aside as I poured three cups of coffee. “What happened?”
Kade’s eyes flickered up at his boss. A warning.
“Give me a break – I was there,” I seethed. “You either saved the gunman’s life, or Lou killed him.”
“Maybe he got away,” Jack suggested before he took a drink.
“I doubt that.”
“Maybe the cops caught him. Maybe he’s in custody right now, awaiting his bail hearing.”
“Yeah, I doubt that, too.”
Jack looked amused. “And why would you doubt that?”
I wanted to say, Because I know how the police around here work. They shut down murder investigations when it suits
somebody in your gang.
But I didn’t say it, obviously.
“Because Lou was hell-bent on revenge, and I don’t see him just turning over the guy to the cops.”
Jack cocked his head the tiniest bit to the right, like You have a point. “You understand I can’t say anything around you that would make you a witness, right?”
“I’m not going to say anything to anybody, ever,” I protested.
Jack stared at me, his eyes suddenly hard. “Why not?”
Because I came here to find my cousin’s killer, not dime out Lou for killing a guy who probably deserved it.
Unless Lou killed Ali, too.
“As far as I’m concerned, that guy deserved anything he got tonight,” I said, and meant it.
Jack looked at Kade like Well, well, well. “Maybe she should be hanging with Lou instead of us.”
“That’s not fair,” I snapped. “It was a hit! What, I’m supposed to hope a hired killer who might have gunned us down – ”
Jack’s face lit up in alarm. “Who said it was a hit?”
“Kade did!”
Jack looked at his subordinate in disgust.
Kade didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed. He did give a little shrug, though. “I was just pointing out the obvious.”
“Maybe it’s not her I should be worried about talking too much,” Jack growled.
“She was there. She saw it go down.”
“Yeah. I saw it go down,” I insisted.
Jack looked at me, amused again. Like Simmer down, Annie Oakley. “Speaking of which, we need to get you to the cops so you can make a statement. I would prefer if you would avoid terms like ‘hit’ when you do it. Also, skip anything regarding what Lou might or might not have done after the shooting.”
My guts suddenly went cold with fear.
“Uh… do I have to?” I asked, my voice barely a peep.
Jack frowned. “Why the hell wouldn’t you?”
Why the hell WOULDN’T I, exactly?
“I, uh… I have sort of a checkered past with law enforcement,” I said meekly.
Not true at all, and not a lie I could back up, but I was in way over my head here. Time to get creative.
Midnight Lust: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 2 Page 4