by Layla Wolfe
“What the fuck?” breathed Brick. “Whoever it is, El Viceroy’s going to hear him.”
A sudden idea came to Ormond. He slid his phone from his back pocket and thumbed the speed dial for Rover. Rover answered immediately, the same tailpipe rumble in the background of his phone.
“Where the fuck are you guys? Up on that mesa? I was following you when I heard a fucking explosion.”
“The cook house blew up,” said Ormond. “The hit man has taken Anson prisoner. We were heading down the hill toward where you are, but decided to go back and find my piece. Listen, cut your engine. Now.”
Rover did so without asking questions.
“Now walk uphill. My leg’s busted and I’m with Brick who’s in fucking ankle chains.”
“Holy Jesus on a stick,” said Rover. They continued speaking as Rover trudged up the hill. “How the fuck did Dineyazzie let the cartel get the jump on him?”
“He didn’t. He made a prisoner exchange. Him for us. Anson volunteered.”
“Assmunch. Where’s he got Dineyazzie?”
“They’re in the RV that didn’t blow up.”
“My house,” said Brick.
“Okay,” said Rover. “Stop talking now. Get as close as you can without them seeing or hearing you. If your leg’s honestly busted, you don’t need to be endangering yourself anymore. And Brick can’t run in chains. Let me do the burying. We’ll lure them out and pick off the cartel asshole. What’s that?”
Ormond thumbed the END button on his phone. The trailer door had opened, and Anson was hopping down the metal steps. Ormond and Brick froze. Their heads had barely peeked around the corner of the hill, so Anson didn’t see them.
Anson scanned the ground for an item of some kind. He finally swooped in to nab a heavy double boiler. Ormond had nearly been brained with that thing on its trip back to earth after the explosion. That was when Ormond saw Anson’s hand was bandaged. So much blood had already saturated the makeshift bandage that drips flew in the sunlight when Anson grabbed the pot.
“El Viceroy! This pot is heavy. I could really use help lifting the lid, seeing as how you took away one of my fingers.”
Ormond gasped. What the fuck? Brick’s dark look let Ormond know what had happened to Anson’s hand. Brick’s dark, ugly look also let Ormond know it was okay with him whatever he wanted to do to El Viceroy.
But they had no weapon, and couldn’t move around freely looking for Ormond’s lost piece.
Rover crunched up the pathway behind Ormond. Ormond didn’t want to risk turning his head to look at Rover, and he could feel the sergeant-at-arm’s breath against his neck.
“Assmunch,” Rover whispered. “I’ve got a clear shot if he comes to the door.”
Sure enough, El Viceroy appeared at the top of the stairs, making a lip fart. “Okay. But this better not take long, ese. If I’m not taking you for a ride in my trunk, I want to make it back to Yuma before sunset. They’ve got a nice Homewood Suites there with a fresh salad bar. I’ve got an app to choose my room right here on my phone.”
“Step aside, kid,” Rover advised Brick as he moved to whip his piece from the back of his jeans.
Ormond was faster. He was used to dealing with actors fake fighting on film sets. He’d been in the middle of many a stick fight, jiu-jitsu bout, and MMA beatdown. He’d inadvertently, subconsciously, soaked up hundreds of fight lessons from trained masters. He was quick on the draw, and he whipped Rover’s Ruger from his pants in a flash. The sicario’s stupid powder-blue guayabera shirt presented an easy target with his sweaty pits and pot belly.
Ormond got him right in the heart.
Also like in Hollywood films, the sicario clutched his chest. He did a dramatic spiral down the three metal trailer steps, landing with his legs at impossible angles. His fedora tumbled off his head and rolled, end over end, for about ten feet. The crimson bloom looked quite attractive against the powder blue, and Rover instantly rushed forward. Ormond and Brick had to stagger, of course.
Rover bypassed Anson to fling himself by the fallen body, immediately taking the hit man’s own piece as well as Anson’s off the corpse. Anson bypassed Rover too. As if Rover wasn’t even there, Anson raced like an Olympian straight for Ormond.
It didn’t occur to Ormond until later that it was also like a Hollywood film when Anson flung his arms around Ormond, squeezing him tight to his chest.
“Ormond, you motherfucker,” Anson sighed.
Anson’s arms were like steel straps, bonds under which Ormond could only squirm. Brick had left his side, going to join Rover to marvel at the dead sicario, probably drinking in the sight. Ormond could only stand there limply in the moment, clinging to Anson, trying to sort out the overwhelming rush of bliss and pain that threatened to sweep him into an unconscious neverland.
“I thought you were a goner,” Anson gasped tightly.
Ormond whispered, “I thought you were a goner. What’d he do to your hand?”
Anson was a marble statue, not even moving to breathe. “You fucker. Elif air ab dinikh.”
Ormond had to smile, knowing now that Anson’s cuss about dicks being in someone’s religion was completely affectionate.
Anson finally pulled back. Ormond only got to look at his achingly handsome face once, though, because suddenly Anson was kissing him. For only the second time in their friendship, Ormond felt Anson’s warm, inviting, open mouth on his. His tongue stroked Ormond’s without any rush as he pressed Ormond back into the earthen wall. Anson’s mouth was hot and sticky and dry but it was the most glorious thing Ormond had ever experienced, even with the pain from his leg threatening to knock him out cold.
Anson finally withdrew, murmuring against Ormond’s mouth, “Never letting you go again.”
Ormond tried to chuckle. Intimacy made him uncomfortable too. He hoped he lived to get used to it. “Even when you trade your life for mine to a fucking cartel hit man?”
That seemed to remind Anson of something. He pulled away farther, looking mildly over to where Rover and Brick stood, hands at their sides, mouths gaping open.
Ormond remembered that Anson wasn’t supposed to be gay. “Oops,” he muttered.
“Well,” Anson said with finality. “Guess the jig is up.” Louder, he yelled, “Let’s clean up this fucking mess, men. I don’t think we need to do much with the pieces of Iceman—”
Rover gaped harder. “Iceman’s history?”
“—but we should decide if we want to make some kind of big statement with our buddy here.” Releasing Ormond, Anson kept one hand on his shoulder pressing him into the wall, to help keep him standing. “I’d like to take Ormond to the nearest hospital. That one in Parker is the closest, Brick?”
“Yeah. La Paz.”
“If you can reach it through all the traffic,” added Rover. “I can see if anyone’s got a spare cage, if they’re not using it for dogs.”
“No mind. I’ll take Ormond on my bitch seat. Can you hang on? Now, it’s up to you guys to decide what to do with Boris here. Zealots aren’t my club. That’s your call.”
Rover came forward as if in a daze. Pistols stuck out every which way from his hands and his jeans. “I think we should leave the sicario here. Make some kind of anonymous call to the Hellfires, tell them their lab exploded.”
Brick chuckled. “Good one. But let me get my stuff from the trailer first, okay?” He started pivoting off on one foot, then froze and looked back at Ormond and Anson. “Since when are you gay?”
Anson chuckled too. “Since I was born, I reckon.”
“Tch.” Brick made the typical Navajo pursing of the lips. “Diné aren’t supposed to be gay. Whatever. See if you can find this shackle key on this guy.” And he continued hobbling off inside the trailer, as though the sprawled hit man was just a doormat.
Rover agreed. “Yeah, you sure had all of us fooled. Normally, I’d use that information to make ruthless fun of you. Of course, the Bent Zealots are a gay club, so I can’t. God dammit.” Rover
truly looked forlorn about the missed opportunity. It made more sense when he added, “If I’d of known you were a fag, I’d of nailed your ass myself. Instead of hating on you and badmouthing you, I’d of gotten a taste of you first.”
Ormond scoffed. “It’s not just a question of who came along first, or who was in the right spot at the right time, dipwad.”
Anson said good-naturedly, “It’s not like I just picked Ormond because he was the only other fag for three hundred miles. He’s my type, Rover.”
Ormond was surprised. “Not really. I don’t speak Arabic. Since when am I your type?”
Anson’s response was to bend low at the knees and scoop Ormond literally off his feet. “Sorry if I’m tweaking your broken bones, buddy.” He started trudging downhill carrying his partner. “It’s better for you than walking back to our rides.”
Rover called out, “My ride is closer than yours. I saw yours at the bottom of the hill. I can bring it up.”
Anson yelled back, “That’s okay. I can carry him. You get Brick out of here. Let’s go find the others.” Quieter, he said to Ormond, “Never would’ve thought Rover had it bad for me. I guess that’s how he treats the ones he loves.”
“He was your rival, mi amor. Now he knows that he’s not your rival anymore. Because you’re not taking his sergeant-at-arms position, right?”
“Is it being offered to me?”
Did that mean that Anson would take it if it was offered? “But what about your Afghanistan job? Aren’t they going to want you back soon?”
Anson was silent for a few moments, bouncing Ormond down the hill. “Not so sure I want to go back. Maybe I’ll stick around here for a while. It’s sort of nice being around other gay men, if you know what I mean.”
Joy flooded Ormond’s heart. “Yes. I know what you mean.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ANSON
They had me making garlic bread.
I wasn’t known far and wide for my culinary skills, but I wanted to help out at the Lions Club crab feed. The Happy Hour bar and grill had been booked to its maximum allowable four hundred people for this annual event which apparently involved a whole shit ton of drinking, people using open flames to melt their crab butter, and a silent auction where the grand prize was a cruise to Alaska. The Lions were pillars of society, and we were more than happy to be affiliated with them in a positive way.
I just said “we” again. Turk had told me he would sponsor me as a Prospect in The Bent Zealots, and I was still thinking about it. It didn’t bother me thinking I’d have to go through several months at least of watching people’s bikes and changing the toilet paper roll. It was a given that no one could skip over the step of prospecting. It would be insulting to the office and the club as a whole if exceptions were made.
I wondered more what I’d do on a day-to-day basis. A man didn’t just go from tracking down insurgents in a desert to running a laser tag business, one of the Zealots’ going concerns. The club’s lawyer Slushy was a genius at finances and coming up with shell companies and ways to launder money, but laser tag wasn’t really in my wheel house. I’d met Lock Singer, owner of Los Toro Hermanos Bail Bonds, husband of Turk Blackburn, Veep of The Bent Zealots. He’d made me an offer of a partnership in his bounty hunting business. He wanted to stick closer to home now that he was domesticated and running club business, and would send me out on the jobs that might involve an overnighter. That was fine with me, and I was seriously considering it. I could still track humans for a living, although the pay wouldn’t be nearly as good, of course.
I’d also been getting involved in the dog rehoming operation Rover had started to deal with all of those Rez dogs that had been found crammed in the back of that truck. And that work, of course, wasn’t paid at all. Rover was a natural at it. He said in prison, he’d participated in a Puppies Behind Bars program where they matched him with a sweet-natured mutt to train. It gave him a sense of purpose, a reason to get up every day.
“Dineyazzie!” yelled Dipstick Hunziger. A tall cool drink of water, he was the resident chef of the club, a former heroin addict and patch holder of Baal’s Minions MC. He was a task master in the kitchen. “Check that oven! Bread’s been in there too long and I smell it burning.”
Fuck me dry. This kitchen business was nothing to shake a stick at. It was complicated, juggling ten things at once, never getting a cigarette break. I was still learning how to deal with the missing finger. I should’ve volunteered for bartending duty, like Ormond had done. He was suave, blow-dried, and European—just the sort of bartender people liked. I was crude, brutal, and impolite. It was best to stick me in the kitchen.
When I went into the back alley to dump the burned garlic bread, I had a second to check my phone. Sheena had finally answered my fucking email. I was so gratified she’d answered, I had sort of overlooked the impersonal nature of the email. Hi, it read. Got your email. I am fine. Where is your clubhouse, anyway? So I’d told her, and that was our last communication yesterday.
Now she asked me, “Your club is a Lion’s club?” That was it. That was the entire email. She wanted to know if I’d joined the Lions club. What a strange question. I decided maybe she couldn’t type very fast, so her emails would always be short.
I rapidly fingered they keyboard before Dipstick started yelling at me again. We’re just renting it to them for the day for their crab feed. Listen, when can I see you again? When is your baby due? I’m very worried about you. Love, Dad.
It was weird typing love, Dad to someone I barely knew. But I reckoned it was my time to step up to the plate. Sheena was only eighteen and had just lost the mother she’d been dependent on her entire life. How the hell was she getting money aside from me? Someone had vaguely suggested prostitution, and of course I didn’t want to entertain that notion. It was bad enough having to admit she was a meth addict.
“Hey, cumon, you buffalo jockey.” It was the club lawyer himself, Slushy, wearing a white chef’s apron, standing in the alley door. Slushy was the kind of guy who could get away with mild ethnic slurs like that and make them seem affectionate. Slushy was always calling himself a Heeb or a Red Sea Pedestrian, even though he’d admitted many times he’d only pretended to be Jewish to make himself seem like a better lawyer. He was actually Irish. I had known Slushy when he started working for The Bare Bones over in Pure and Easy. The Zealots loved him so much he spent half his time here now, too. “I’ve got salad coming out my ears, but the requests are slowing down now that they’ve started serving the actual crab. Did you hear that entire fucking hall just now? Sounded like something out of King Arthur’s days with everyone pounding on the picnic tables yelling ‘Crab! Crab! Crab!’”
I grinned after hitting “send” on the email. “I’ve developed a dislike for garlic bread, too. Wouldn’t mind some crab, though.”
“There’ll be plenty left over. If these guys keep hitting the martinis and gimlets like Ormond said they’re doing, they won’t be able to fit any more crab down their gullets. They’re already so wasted, I’m far outbid on that rock climbing lesson I wanted. Well, all the more crab for us. Dipstick said he can make a giant crab corn chowder tomorrow.”
I grinned, patting my stomach, which was growling. “Really? I wonder if I’m outbid on that case of wine.”
“You bid on that wine too? That’s from the Napa Valley. What’d you bid?”
I didn’t tell him. There was still time to sneak back and raise my bid, unless some adláanii had drunkenly written down two thousand dollars. “Slushy. You’ve probably heard about my daughter. There’s a pretty strong consensus that she’s a meth addict over in Gallup, and she’s about to give birth. Is there anything I can legally do to, like, maybe snatch her away from that lifestyle?”
Slushy didn’t answer immediately. Squinting, he looked distantly down the alley in the direction of the setting sun. It gave me time to wonder why this particular subject made him so pensive. “Delinquent daughters are worse than delinquent sons. So
ns, you kind of expect that sort of thing from. You can claim they’re just rebelling, or acting out, or being youthful. But when daughters fall by the wayside and live with low types, it only reflects on your bad parenting.” Snapping out of it, Slushy asked, “How old is she?”
“She just turned eighteen.”
Slushy’s response was immediate. “There’s nothing you can do. If you go and try to force her back with you, that’s kidnapping—the unlawful taking away or transportation of a person against that person’s will. A few years ago when interventions were popular, there was a lot of that clogging the court system. That’s partially why interventions have fallen out of favor. That, and people realized you can’t get someone to quit something by force.”
That sounded like what Lytton had said to me back in Pure and Easy, what now seemed like a year ago. “Right. The person has to want to quit.”
Slushy shaped his hand into a gun. “You got it, lover boy.” I was “lover boy” because Slushy had stumbled upon me and Ormond making out a week ago. Slushy hadn’t suspected I was gay, either. Unlike Turk, I had done a very good job hiding it. I still wasn’t comfortable being “out” in front of anyone other than other Zealots, but that might come a bit at a time. “Heard your ex-wife or babymama just died of a drug-related illness, too. I’m surprised that wasn’t enough to scare your daughter straight.”
“Apparently not,” I said darkly.
Twinkletoes shoved Slushy out of the way in order to unload a giant tub of crab shells into a dumpster. “Those guys are monsters, I’m telling you! Absolute fucking animals! They say bikers are pigs? I’ve never seen any bikers tear through a thirty-foot-long table full of crab like that. I’m like sliding around in bowls of melted butter coated with Caesar’s salad.”
Slushy pointed his finger gun. “They’re throwing my salad around? Where’s the fucking respect these days?”
I joined Twinkletoes and the lawyer on our way back into the Third Circle of Hell. “Anyone seen Turk?” It had been agreed Turk would just oversee everything in general. As a business owner, he already knew a lot of these Lions.