A Gorgeous Mess

by Layla Wolfe

  A waitress refilled Anson’s coffee cup, though he hadn’t asked her to. He touched the hot rim of the cup, his eyes faraway as he envisioned his one memory of his father.

  “He’d brought this witch, a skin walker, with him. We built a fire and the man incanted and sang. I wasn’t familiar with most of what I saw and heard. They dug a hole into which they threw two wooden dolls, one light, and one dark. It wasn’t until they took me back home and I asked around that I realized they’d been performing dark ceremonies, powerful and serious stuff. My mother was currently trying to sue Riker for child support. The dolls were my mother and her lawyer. They were supposed to wind up buried in that hole.”

  “Holy shit,” whispered Ormond. He knew many bikers weren’t good people. That just came with the territory, the people he chose to ride with. But Anson’s own father?

  “If the intended victim found out about it, which we did, the curse would come back onto the person who had requested it. When the judge in our case found out, he didn’t dare serve Riker with any child support papers. But something happened to Riker that no one’s telling me. He hid from me all those times I hitch-hiked out to Rough and Ready. I got to know the men in his club, but never him. He was always conveniently gone when I arrived.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t think so. I think they’d tell me that. No, I’ve got to complete this mission, Ormond. I’ve got to prove I’m one of them, so they finally trust me enough to tell me what the fuck kind of a person my father was. I only know half my clan, Ormond. My mother’s side. To be fully Diné takes decades of speaking Navajo, praying to the Holy People. We need to at least learn our clan stories and come to know the people.”

  “That is beautiful,” Ormond uttered. “I will help you. But you have to tell me which of the options you mentioned you want to choose. We have to discuss it in detail, get the others on board.”

  Anson finally smiled. “Good man.” Then he added as an afterthought, “Good partner.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANSON

  It was a new kind of high riding with my crew.

  I already thought of them as “my crew,” even that day that we rode as one solid unit, rumbling over the bridge on Parker Dam Road.

  The only one I knew from the short pants days was Turk, but I felt I was getting to know the rest of my potential brothers. Twinkletoes was so weak he practically needed belting to his saddle, but he made up for his lack of physical strength by being the most enthusiastic brother ever to rock a white Dyna with “gremlin bells” on the handlebars. The cardiologist, Dr. Thymus Moog, was the son of the famous Moog synthesizer inventor. He was a dark, twisted character. From my associations with fellow mercs and counterinsurgency experts, Dr. Moog could hold his own with the best of them. Dipstick Hunziger had resigned from a decades-long association with the Baal’s Minions, so it was obvious he was capable of mayhem.

  Rover Florkowski, now he had a bone to pick with me. He felt threatened in some way, I could tell. Maybe he thought I was trying to take over his sergeant-at-arms position within the club. That would be the logical thing for me to do, but no one had asked me to. And why was I even thinking along these lines? I had a lucrative job to do in Afghanistan. That was, if my company wanted me back. If I could prove I was no longer shell-shocked.

  I had never been around so many out gay men, not since the one time I’d dared attend some gay pride parade in New York City. The only one missing was Turk’s husband Lock, still on that fugitive tracking mission, and just the idea of Turk even having a husband weirded me out. Of course I’d always known Turk was gay, probably since the day I’d met him. Everyone had known—it was an open secret. But he’d only come out six months ago when it had pretty much been his only option, and he’d founded this club made up almost entirely of out men.

  The thing was, none of them really “seemed” gay. If I just saw them rumbling down the highway, it would never occur to me. There wasn’t a flamer among them, unless you counted the husky bear Hobie with his high lady’s voice. They wore their leathers, their cuts, they had their facial piercings and ink just like every other macho, straight, violent biker. In fact, Dr. Moog looked more like a medic in Afghanistan than an MD in a hospital, what with his pierced eyebrow, his detailed, Asian full sleeve, and his ever-present snarl. I wouldn’t want that guy operating on my heart.

  This helped me feel more at home with them, the fact they were manly. I might be thirty-seven years ancient, but I still wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, admitting my sexual orientation. I would’ve been perfectly, seemingly content staying deep in the closet, searching for a “citizen wife,” if events hadn’t unfolded the way they did.

  Before reaching Parker, it was agreed we’d have a little pit stop at the BlueWater Resort and Casino. Hobie wanted to take a sauna, and Mayo Snodgrass wanted to check out Wakeboard Island. Mayo raced motorcycles—rice rockets, of course—on the weekend. Turk nixed all of these ideas, only allowing us to eat in the café. I wouldn’t have minded gambling, but I reported to Turk, for the moment. And I was always the first one to say we needed to keep our eye on the prize.

  I sat as far away at the table from Ormond as I could get. He was a handsome bastard, eyeballed about equally by women and men, but it put the fear of a skinwalker into me, the idea that anyone would think we were anything but business partners. I sat in between Turk, who was married, and Hobie, who was living with a lawyer. I had noticed the ridiculously hot, blow-dried racer Mayo eyebanging me. I wanted the world to know I was straight, straight, straight. It was the conflict of the society I’d grown up in. Sure, tradition said that Diné had some effeminate nadleeh who embraced their feminine side and cross-dressed. But that wasn’t me. Nadleeh cared for children and cooked. That really wasn’t me. And these transvestites had died out, become part of the oral tradition. Homosexuality simply wasn’t discussed in Diné culture. There was a feeling that gay men were “less” than straight men. There was nowhere for a macho, buff guy who played sports yet liked banging men.

  There still wasn’t. I owned a house in Winslow, two hours from where I’d grown up in Fort Defiance. I hadn’t made it very far from the Rez. And I still hadn’t found a way to come to terms with my sexuality.

  “I can’t thank you enough for getting that work back, Anson,” Turk said. He was talking about the weed. Drugs were often termed “work,” especially in public.

  I swallowed my bite of French toast. “No trouble at all. I’m telling you, there’s something about that Brick kid that really rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, I know lots of Rez kids have to stoop to some pretty damned shitty jobs. Lots work as spotters and spitters for low-level drug dealers. But keeping a kid confined to a cook house round the clock? He couldn’t have even been twenty-one.”

  “The thing is,” said Turk, “they’ll protest if you try to give them a better job because it’s all about the benjamins.”

  “Right,” I said, echoing what Iceman had snapped at me. “It’s more than they make on welfare.”

  “We always need truck drivers,” said Turk, “and no one’s been able to find a fucking satisfactory Prospect so far.”

  “I brought in a Prospect,” said Hobie, who had obviously been eavesdropping. “But no one liked him.”

  Rover had been listening in, too. “That fucking flamer who didn’t know the difference between a revolver and a pistol? Not only was he mincing along with limp wrists, I saw him watching a Gwyneth Paltrow movie while cleaning our scoots.”

  Hobie said tersely, “I’ll thank you not to use stereotypes.”

  Rover guffawed. “What stereotype? He was watching a Gwyneth Paltrow movie.”

  Dr. Moog added, “And he was useless as Matthew McConaughey’s shirts at cleaning our hardware for us. That’s the main thing. He didn’t know a trigger from a safety.”

  Rover said, “And he wore guyliner. We don’t need to draw any more attention to ourselves, Hobie. It’s bad enough just being bikers. Being gay bik
ers is just asking for it.”

  Dr. Moog said, “And being a gay biker who has a pair of fuzzy pink dice on his handlebars is inexcusable.”

  Twinkletoes butted in. “Mine are Harley Davidson gremlin bells.”

  Rover said, “He was talking about that Prospect’s pink fuzzy dice. Remember that kid?”

  Twinkletoes said, “Oh, boy, do I. I asked him to go get me my Ruger, and he came back with Dipstick’s Smith and Wesson. Besides, no one says a new Prospect has to be gay. You might forget that I’m not. It’s not in our by-laws.”

  Rover actually smiled as he elbowed Twinkletoes with his hand that held a giant overstuffed burger. “How could we forget that you’re not? You’re the only one who gets all the gashes always hanging around us. You clean up being around us.”

  “Exactly my point,” said the former Prospect. “That’d be a selling point to any potential grunt. Tell them how much twat they get hanging around you guys. Talk about the leftovers.”

  “All right,” Turk said to me in a lower voice. “I’ll only give the order to hit the cook house once we’re sure that kid is out of there.”

  I nodded. “I’d be obliged. There was another kid with him too when we gave chase.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Turk agreed.

  We had sort of a scorched earth policy about the cook house. If Iceman was in there, determined to make a last stand, we were just going to shoot the shit out of the shack. More than likely, with all those volatile compounds under pressure, this would result in an explosion. If not, Dipstick had brought along a few IEDs to speed up the process. We were pretty well covered. Iceman could wear a bulletproof vest like so many traffickers did these days but that wouldn’t stop all those volatile organic compounds from enveloping him and igniting.

  We weren’t too upset over this possibility.

  Leaving the restaurant, Ormond casually started walking at my side. I felt like a fucking nozzle for having ignored him—after all, we had been partners working on this case up until now. We had found the pot and had the sit-down with Iceman. We worked well together. I liked Ormond’s style. I was just so deathly afraid that someone, Rover probably, would be able to tell by the way we looked at each other. “Ormond had sucked Anson’s prick. And more than once.” After all. I was a military man with a take-charge attitude. Exactly Ormond’s type.

  “After this job, are you coming to sleep in my guest room again?”

  Terror struck at my heart. I glanced around to see who had heard Ormond’s words. “No. Don’t talk to me. I’ll finish up this job and go home.”

  I strode to my bike even faster, but as usual, Ormond kept a dogged pace with me. “I thought we had a lot of fun together in our future, Anson.”

  Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Eyreh be afass seder emmak.” My dick in your mother’s rib cage. I stopped walking to explain to him. “Look, buddy. We had some laughs and that’s it. I didn’t think you were the kind of guy who wanted anything more, anyway. You seriously need to get some self-respect and stop putting out for just any Tom, Dick, and Sergeant Harry who drives along in a patrol car. In the straight biker world, no one wants an old lady who has been fender fluff for every brother in his club. No one wants a sweetbutt who has been a pass-around. She’ll never be anyone’s old lady. You recognize?”

  The hurt, stunned look in his eyes shocked me into wakefulness. My jaw dropped and I automatically raised my hands to take him by the shoulders. His injured expression had almost made me forget where I was. Almost.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said in his thick, lilting Spanish accent. “I’m sorry you think I’m as disposable as every other lay you’ve ever had in a back fucking alley in Afghanistan or Iraq. And for your fucking information. I haven’t hooked up with any brother in any club. My wish is for upstanding, moral men who wear uniforms. And I thought you were one.”

  I was so fucking shocked, it was Ormond who stalked away angrily first. A couple brothers looked sideways at us, but everyone was dead set on the mission, so no one stopped.

  I straddled my ride in a daze. How the fuck did Ormond come to know about back alleys in Afghanistan? He was probably just assuming that. It was obvious to any cocksucker that I’d been around the proverbial block when it came to, well, having my dick sucked. It pissed me off that I was so easy to read. Ormond had made my eyes cross with lust, he’d played me like a fiddle, and now I was putting up a wall to shut him out. I was just surprised that he wanted more from me. I didn’t see a bottom like him ever wanting more than a brief, hot hookup. Guys like him lived for the temporary thrill of Grindr, the hot, bruising fucks in anonymous apartments. Why? What was it about me that broke Ormond’s mold?

  I rode sweep along with Turk and Dipstick. The tail gunner was usually the most experienced rider, but for once Rover didn’t try to make a damned point about how great and experienced he was, and he rode point with Ormond.

  As it turned out, there wasn’t much time to ponder what had just happened with Ormond. We ran into a massive traffic jam when we were barely a few dozen yards south on ninety-five. I mean, no one was moving at all. There was nothing out here. A small private airport to our left and I thought a Walmart on our right was coming up in a bit, but why the fuck this gridlock in the middle of nowhere?

  People were getting out of their cages, checking their devices, talking to each other. I motioned to Turk, and we all pulled over to the shoulder. The people in cages who had been behind us on the highway were already dead stopped.

  “What the fuck?” asked Dipstick.

  Taking off his lid, Turk said, “The road comes to a T up there. To the right’s a bridge that goes to California. The left goes to Parker and Stumpy’s ranch. Must be some pretty fucking big wreck to cause everyone to stop dead like this.”

  Dipstick said, “I’ll google the traffic report.”

  Our brothers who had been riding point were already popping U-ies to head back our way. My phone had been vibrating hell out of my ass for the past few minutes. I had nothing better to do than check it.

  A text. A text that said nothing, but there was a photo. I had to spread my fingers on the tiny screen to enlarge it, and even then I had to remove my wrap-around shades to squint at the tiny thing.

  Strange. It looked like a photo of the truss bridge Turk had just mentioned, the one coming up that led to California. Only, there was some dark blob pasted to one of the bridge girders. I was trying to zoom in closer when Ormond’s distinctive syrupy tones came from close by.

  “What the…”

  His quiet voice dripped with horror as he looked at his device screen, and I could tell instantly we were both looking at the same thing.

  A body hung from the bridge.

  The way Ormond and I locked gazes must have caught Turk’s attention. He strode over, sticking out a palm, demanding my phone. I simply handed it over, wordless. Ormond dismounted his saddle and came over to me.

  “I presume you got the same text.”

  I nodded curtly. “I did. Country code tells me it’s from Mexico. Twinkletoes, you’re going to want to see this.”

  “What the fuck?” Turk was saying. “Does this fucking explain this massive traffic jam? Everyone rubbernecking at this body? But then why the fuck…” A look of realization flooded his face. No coincidence that it had been simultaneously texted to both me and Ormond.

  “It’s Brick,” breathed Ormond.

  I didn’t need to say that Brick had been killed because of us, because he had told us where the stolen weed was hidden. The dark looks everyone shared were enough. We all knew Brick had been my contact. I had held a gun to his skull until he’d spilled the weed location. The cartel had gotten wind that he’d squealed and, in usual dramatic cartel fashion, had used his body to make a giant statement.

  Turk handed my phone back to me, but I just wanted to smash it on the ground. I finally found my tongue. I spoke with authority to the crew that had gathered around me.

  “That bod
y is probably already gone from the bridge. That’s not what’s backing everyone up.” My voice fell a few decibels now. “It’s ch’iidii.”

  Rover wasn’t so reverent. He blared, “What the fuck is cheendee?”

  I did not repeat the word. No Diné would, especially not in the middle of the day. “At death, a person’s ghost leaves the body but lingers around for a few days. It’s the blend of every evil in a person’s life that is suddenly released. Whoever touches the corpse can be cursed. Our hogans—our houses—soak up a person’s ghost if they die inside it. You just have to abandon the house, there’s no other choice.”

  Turk nodded. “So no one will drive past the bridge where the body was hanging?”

  “Exactly. Could’ve been, they intended to make a big statement to us to watch out, and preventing us from reaching their cook house was just a secondary benefit. I’ve seen hospitals where a child died on an operating table. No matter how sick the patients were, they all got out of their hospital beds and wandered off, refusing to stay, even jumping out of windows.”

  Rover made a lip fart. “Fucking inconvenient, if you ask me. So no one winds up going to any hospital, anywhere, for anything?”

  “The ghost goes away after a few days,” I said, “but depending on where Brick was killed, they might have to shut down their fucking cook house too. Whatever Diné are left on the cook crew, I’d be hugely surprised if they continued to cook.”

  “Unless under duress,” Ormond added.

  “Well, yeah,” agreed Rover. “I have lots of cartel experience, and believe you me, they’re not above putting ankle chains on anyone to keep them from running. To keep them doing whatever job they need them to do. They threaten to kill your relatives, chop off body parts, anything that’s necessary.”

  I hadn’t really thought of that. Rover was not my best fucking friend by far, but he did make some good points. I said, “In any event, we’re not getting past Parker anytime in the near future. I imagine all kinds of trucks full of alfalfa, chickens, and goats are stuck between us and Stumpy’s turnoff.”