by Jessie Cooke
The ride went smoothly, and when Cody turned off the highway into the parking lot of the motel he was happy to see there weren’t many cars in the lot. He saw Stitch’s hog parked in front of room 122 and he parked next to it. Scalper parked on the other side and they both climbed off the bikes. “You want me to wait here?” Scalper asked. He looked pleased when Cody said:
“No, it’s cool. You can come up with me.”
Cody took out his phone and texted Stitch, “We’re here.” He got a text right back that said:
“I know. I’ve got eyes on you.” Cody got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He still didn’t trust Stitch. He wished he knew what the “business” was that he had with Brewster. Stitch wanted to do the meet alone, and once Cody was gone, no telling what would happen in the room, and what either man might report back to Dax. His nerves felt raw as he knocked on the door.
“Come on in.” Cody turned the knob and pushed open the door. The curtains were pulled and the light in the room was dim. He could make out Stitch’s form sitting on the edge of the bed. “Come on, step in and close the door,” he said. Cody stepped inside and Scalper followed him. Cody reached back and closed the door. That was when Stitch stood up and reached over and flipped on the light. Cody was looking at Scalper, whose face went pale at the sight of him.
“What the fuck? You’re supposed to be dead!” Stitch smiled and Scalper looked at Cody. “You set me up? You little fucker!”
“Set you up? No, he just wants to talk to you…” It was at that exact moment that Cody realized just how naïve he was…or stupid, maybe. Stitch was holding a gun and it was pointed right at Scalper’s head. One man was going to blow the other’s head off and Cody was going to be stuck right in the middle of it all, if he lived to tell about it. “You son of a bitch!,” Cody yelled at Stitch. “Put the gun away. You gave me your word…”
Stitch laughed. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, kid.” He looked at Scalper and said, “Why don’t you tell this boy how we know each other?”
“He’s my brother,” Scalper said. “My brother who raped my wife. Fucker’s supposed to be dead. It’s what my mother loves to bitch at me about the one time a year or so that I see her. I pushed her golden boy out of the nest and he never came back.”
“Bullshit. I didn’t rape that bitch and you know it. She told you that shit because you caught us together and she didn’t want you beating her ass. She sat there and watched you cut me. She walked out with you while I was bleeding. You both thought I was dying and you just left me there. I didn’t go back because I couldn’t go back. Fucking look at me! Even the best surgeon couldn’t fix this hole you put in my face. You made sure of that. I was better off disappearing and letting everyone think I was dead. I thought that would make it easier to find you, and kill you. But I didn’t know what name you were using until I heard the kid here say ‘Brew’ had been his cellmate. You not only stole my son; you gave him our grandfather’s name.”
“He was always supposed to be my son and if Granddaddy had lived…things would have been a lot different for me. He wouldn’t have let that hateful old woman beat me and favor you. I gave him Granddaddy’s name out of respect for the only person who ever loved me.”
“Poor little Stephen. Nobody loved him,” Stitch said in a taunting voice. “Everyone picked on him. His mommy was mean. So, he grew up and tried to kill his brother and kidnapped his brother’s son.”
“You raped my wife! You got her pregnant! You deserved to die!”
“Then you should have made sure I was dead. Instead I spent the past twenty-five years in hell on earth. I’d rather be dead than be one of these disgusting bikers. This wasn’t supposed to be my life and you know it. I haven’t even seen my own mother in a quarter of a century!”
“You’re the lucky one, then,” Scalper said. “I just saw our mother yesterday. She’s still a bitch.”
“Stitch, come on, man…” Cody tried again.
“Shut the fuck up, kid!”
“This wasn’t the deal.”
“The deal was I get a face-to-face with this fucker. We never talked about what I’d do with it. Tell me you don’t plan on killing Jimmy when you see him.”
“That’s not the same…Jimmy killed my brother.”
“This motherfucker killed me. I had a life. I had a good life. I wasn’t a piece-of-shit biker like him. I was working for an investment firm. I had a house and money and cars…”
“And my old lady. You always thought you could have any fucking thing you wanted. But I showed you that you were wrong, didn’t I? I took my old lady and the seed you left in her belly and took away that pretty face of yours that you used to seduce her.”
“Seduce her! She was a fucking whore, a club girl. She was there to be fucked and yes, I fucked her. I’d be willing to bet that everyone else in that piece-of-shit club you belonged to at the time had already fucked her before me. The bitch only cried rape when you showed up. You brought that trash into our family home and let her see how much money there was. That’s when she wanted me, she wanted to make sure that at least one of us wanted her. She was so pathetic that she believed one or the other of us would marry her. Then that day you walked in on us, she realized that you were the one she had the most to fear from. She was afraid you’d kill her because she knew what a crazy son of a bitch you were. Where is she now, Brew, huh? Where is that old lady that was worth my life now?”
Scalper smiled then. Cody thought Stitch might be right. The look in Scalper’s eyes at that moment was pure crazy as he said, “Sadly, she didn’t make it through the birth, bled to death right there in that motel we were hiding out in. It was tragic. But the baby was healthy. A bouncing baby boy…he looks just like his daddy too.”
Stitch took a step forward and Cody could see him tightening his grip on the gun. The young man knew he had to do something or within the next twenty-four hours he’d be back in jail…and on his way to prison. He cursed himself for being such a fool. He should never have trusted Stitch. He probably didn’t even know Jimmy O’Toole. Stitch was just about to shove the gun into his brother’s temple—Cody knew it was then, or never. While the other man’s focus was on the man he was about to execute, Cody let fly with the most powerful right hook he’d ever thrown. It caught Stitch on the chin, the gun went up into the air, and simultaneously a bullet went through the roof and Stitch went down and struck the back of his head, hard, on the bedside table.
Cody looked down at the blood already pooling around the man’s head. His eyes were open, but there was no life in them as he stared up at the ceiling. It took Cody just a half a second to realize that Scalper was already out the door and that he’d better move too. He followed Scalper, racing down the stairs and to his bike with everything he had inside of him. He jumped on the bike and before he started it, Scalper was already pulling out of the parking lot. Driving the bike through traffic at crazy speeds was nowhere near the kind of fun that riding in that Mustang with Harley the night before had been. Cody’s heart was hammering against the wall of his chest; he was sweating and he felt like something was squeezing his lungs and not allowing enough air into them to let him to breathe.
He and Scalper rode like the devil himself was chasing them until they were about a mile from the ranch. That was when Scalper pulled his bike off the side of the road. Cody stopped too, unsure of what the other man was doing. He got off his bike just in time to meet Scalper’s fist. He wasn’t expecting it and it knocked him on his ass.
23
“What the fuck was that? I just saved your life.”
“You saved my life? My fucking life wouldn’t have been in jeopardy in the first place if you hadn’t of set me up, you little fucker!”
Cody stayed on the ground, rubbing his jaw. He didn’t want to fight this man. He didn’t want to have to explain to his friend why he kicked his father’s ass. “He wasn’t supposed to kill you. He said you were an old friend and he had some ‘business’
he needed to discuss with you.”
“You are a special kind of stupid, aren’t you? What did he give you in return? Money? Drugs?”
“No. He was supposed to get me a meet with Jimmy O’Toole.”
Scalper suddenly busted out laughing. He laughed so hard that tears began to roll out of his eyes. When he caught his breath Cody said, “What is so damned funny?”
“My brother, getting you a meet with O’Toole, that’s what’s funny. He talked about his perfect life, the one before I caught him fucking my old lady…but the truth is that my dear brother was a hard-core gambler who lost more than he won. O’Toole’s goons beat him so badly once that a priest was called in to give him last rites.”
“He said O’Toole was his uncle.” Cody wouldn’t have words to describe what he was feeling at that moment if he had to. Never in his life had anyone made such a fool of him. That statement only made Scalper laugh harder. This time when he finished laughing as Cody was pulling himself up out of the dirt, the older man said;
“If my son didn’t think of you as a brother, I’d kill your stupid ass right now. I want you to think about that, every day for the rest of your life…which won’t be long if you don’t grow a fucking brain.”
Cody dusted himself off and looked the other man in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
“You fucking should be.” That was all Scalper said before getting back on his bike and once again heading for the ranch. Cody followed him. He had a feeling in his gut this was far from over.
24
Cody had to give Scalper credit. The party was in full swing when they got back and he joined right in, like nothing had ever happened. Cody on the other hand felt like he needed a shower, six shots of whiskey, a big, fat blunt, and maybe a Valium. There were about six guys there from Mayhem. Dax and Liam weren’t in the great room so he assumed they were in a meeting. He wondered how long it was going to take the rest of Stitch’s crew to wonder where he was. Cody was surrounded by ways that this could go so much more wrong than it already had.
He had the club girl tending the bar, line up six shots of whiskey in front of him. He was taking the first one when Jimmy sat down on the stool next to him. “So, I hear you’re getting your prospect patch tonight.” Cody wished that he could be excited about that. All he could think about was leaving Stitch in that motel room in a pool of blood and what the rest of the Mayhem were going to do when they found out. He nodded at Jimmy and said:
“Yep. I hear you’re getting your official patch. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. You know, I hate this.”
Cody took his second shot. “Hate what?”
“You and me, being like this.”
Cody nodded again. He hated it too, most of the time. But he didn’t have the energy or the motivation at that moment to care all that much. “You can’t go back” was what he said as he picked up his third shot. He could see Jimmy looking at him from the corner of his eye as he downed that one.
“Rough day?” Jimmy asked. Cody looked up at the big clock over the bar. It was barely noon. He downed his fourth shot and said:
“Rough enough. How’s the arm and leg?”
“Getting better every day. I want to hurry it. I fucking want to ride so bad. Dax keeps telling me to slow down, that my job’s not going anywhere, but it’s not about that. It’s about being on the back of that bike, you know?”
Cody nodded again. “Yeah, I know.” Cody wished he could go back a couple of weeks to when that was all he really had to worry about.
“Go out back and smoke with me?”
Cody was about to take his fifth shot. He looked at Jimmy and thought about what he had just done once again. What would Jimmy think of him if he knew? Would he still want to try to reconcile their friendship, or would he think that Cody was as big an idiot as Scalper did? He glanced over at his friend Brew, who was in an animated conversation about hogs with a few of the Irish Mayhem guys. What would he think if he knew Cody tried to set up his dad? Cody almost laughed at that thought. He knew exactly what Brew would think and do. He’d kill him, without batting an eyelash. Ironically, family meant everything to the man who had been raised by his uncle who had stolen him from his father who had stolen his mother from his brother. What a fucking mess. “Sure,” he finally said to Jimmy.
When he stood up off the stool, the whiskey went straight to his head and he stumbled a little. Jimmy put out his good arm to catch him and Cody brushed him off. He could feel Jimmy watching him as he tried not to weave his way to the back door. As soon as he pushed through it and hit the air, he felt sick. The world was spinning and he was afraid he was about to make a fool of himself once more and pass out. “Sit down, Cody.” He almost stayed upright, just to prove to Jimmy that he could. But he wasn’t sure about that, so he dropped down into the lawn chair and leaned forward slightly, putting his head in his hands. He felt Jimmy sit down in the chair next to him. He stayed in that position as he listened to Jimmy lighting the blunt and inhaling a long drag. It was only when the smoke hit his nostrils that he looked up. Jimmy’s dark eyes were on his face and it was almost like none of the years had passed between them. Jimmy was his friend again in that moment, and Cody desperately needed one.
“I fucked up…again” was what he said, before taking the joint out of Jimmy’s fingers and taking his own hit from it.
“What happened?”
“I think I killed a man…again.”
Jimmy looked around them, something Cody had failed to do before he started talking. When Jimmy was sure there was no one out back with them he said, “When? Where?”
“Just a while ago at the Roadside Inn.”
“Jesus. Who, Cody? Were there any witnesses? Where’s the body?”
“Shit! One question at a time. My fucking head is spinning.”
“First thing you need to learn if you’re going to make it out here is never, ever get drunk until you’ve got all the details of something like this worked out.”
“I’m not drunk. I just don’t fucking know what to do. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Cody started talking. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was just that it was Jimmy and there had been a time when he could tell him anything, but he began at the beginning and told him everything. When he got to the part where Scalper told him he wasn’t going to kill him, he stopped talking and waited for Jimmy to tell him what an idiot he was. They’d almost finished the blunt and Jimmy took one long, last hit before asking him, “Who saw you leave the motel room?”
“Nobody…that I know of.”
“Did you touch anything in the room?”
Cody thought about it. Did he touch anything? He closed his eyes for a second and pictured it. He saw Scalper follow him through the door and then he saw himself reach back and close it. “The door handle, inside the room.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that was it.”
“Okay. When they come here, asking you questions, you tell them you were with me. We were over in the shop working on your bike. I was talking you through tuning up an engine and keeping it running smoothly. Then we came back over to the clubhouse and had a few drinks, came out here for a smoke, and then you go from there. Do not admit that you were ever in that room. If they get enough of a print to know that you were, it won’t hold up in court. It’s a motel room that they rent by the hour. You could have left that print anytime.” Cody felt numb. He nodded again. “Cody, I need to make sure you’re hearing me. When they come asking questions, what will you tell them?”
“I was in the shop with you, learning how to tune my bike. I won’t admit that I’ve ever been to that motel.”
“Good. You think Scalper will keep his mouth shut?”
Cody nodded. He’d been thinking about that and he was starting to believe Scalper wasn’t avoiding telling Brew to spare his feelings, he was avoiding telling Brew because he didn’t want his “son” to find ou
t he was really his nephew. “I don’t think he’ll say anything.”
“Good. Cody, you have to tell Dax.”
“What? No. No fucking way.”
“Listen, man, if the cops come busting in here, you need Dax on your side. Besides, if they come here he’ll want answers then and it’ll be worse than if you told him now. He’s going to need to be prepared when they show up.”
“He’s going to think I’m a fucking idiot.”
Jimmy looked like he was trying not to smile as he said, “Maybe, but it’s better than him killing you later for not telling him what was happening. You want to be a member of Dax’s crew, you have to stop going Lone Ranger, Cody. That’s not how this works. You have to trust Dax and trust the rest of your brothers.” Just as with a lot of other things, Cody wasn’t sure he knew how to trust anyone. There were only a handful of people left on earth that he really trusted. Dax was one of them, the main one, but Cody was mighty afraid each time he screwed up was going to be the last fuck-up that Dax was willing to tolerate and he’d have to leave. He talked a big game when he first got out about going to California, but he honestly didn’t have any desire to do that. He wanted to be in Massachusetts, on the south side…he wanted to be a Southside Skull, as much or more than he had wanted it when he was just a little boy.
Dax wasn’t happy when Jimmy found him and told him that he and Cody had to speak to him alone, now. He didn’t like demands and least of all from what he considered kids in the middle of an important meeting.