André laughed. “Not Winston from Canada?”
“Yeah,” Willie said. “And that makes him a priority customer.”
“What? That fat Jamaican asshole? I’ve known you longer and bought you more product—and he gets priority?”
“Yup, he gets priority because he lives on the other side of your border,” Willie said. “See, on this side of your border, guns are easy to get—and on his side, they are much, much harder to get.”
“And since the reserve is on both sides of our border—which you don’t recognize . . .”
“Well, let’s put it this way,” Willie said. “What would you give me for a ten-year-old Makarov that may or may not have been used in an incident in West Palm Beach?”
“I’d kick your ass for such an insult.”
“Really? Because that fat Jamaican fuck in Toronto will give me eight hundred bucks.”
“And the cops don’t get on you?”
“Not really,” Willie said, smiling. “ The cops on this side are happy to see the guns go and the Canadian cops know they won’t be staying in their neighborhood; they’re going to Montreal or Toronto or Vancouver. They’re all like ‘fuck it, let those guys deal with ’em.’ ”
“Well, never let it be said that I stood in the way of free enterprise,” André said. “And say ‘hi’ to Winston.”
Willie snickered and shook his head. Then he told the kid with the rifle, “Look, call Winston back and tell him I’ll be free in an hour . . . and tell him Dré says ‘hi.’”
As the younger man left, Willie turned back to André, and said, “Okay, you have my undivided attention.”
“Good,” André said. “They will need good products, something that will work when asked to do so and not fail,” he said. “And, since they live on the sugar-coated side of the border, they will have to be clean.”
That meant that the guns André was hoping to buy for the boys could not have been linked with any crime in the U.S. That cut the choices down considerably and jacked up the price accordingly.
Willie didn’t take time to think. “I have two you’ll like,” he told André. “They fit your description—and they are nice products.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, one of them is el Glocko and the other has been provided by my good friends—Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson,” he said. “You will like them—really, really like them.”
“Careful what you say,” André shot a look at Ned and Leo, then sighed. “And you’re sure they’re clean?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Aggressively and repeatedly . . .” André paused. “. . . but never about product. You honest injun.”
“Jesus, Dré, knock off all that Indian stuff,” Willie sighed.
“Okay, okay, okay, can we get back to business?” André asked. “Are you absolutely sure we can talk here?”
“We are in the middle of a fuckin’ Indian reservation!” Willie said. “It would be an act of war to bug my house.” He walked over to the door, opened it, and shouted: “My name is Willie Wilson and I sell drugs!” It was immediately followed by hoots of approval and a few shots in the air by the young men outside. He grinned and returned to the table. “I got a Glock 17 and a very nice Smith & Wesson SW1911; I like the Smith. The Glock looks a bit coppish to me,” he said. “They are both slightly used, but in pristine condition.”
“Sounds awesome, can we see ’em?” André asked.
Willie mumbled something in a language none of the guests understood. Debbie groaned a mild protest, but got up from the couch, walked into a bedroom, and brought back a hockey bag with a Boston Bruins logo on it. She put it on the floor between Willie and André. Ned and Leo got up from their chairs.
Willie unzipped the bag. In among some pants, sweaters, and T-shirts, there were two cardboard boxes. Willie picked up one, and André picked up the other. From a lining of foam pellets, they both pulled out black automatic-style handguns. Ned couldn’t see much difference between them, but he could tell that Willie and André could.
“I see what you mean; this is a nice piece of iron,” André said. “Don’t get me wrong, the Glock is a quality product, but the Smithie has a much nicer design.” He handed the gun to Ned, who almost dropped it because he didn’t realize how heavy it would be.
Ned stood up and posed with the gun. He was careful not to point it at anyone. As he held it, he began to understand why some guys really, really liked guns. He looked at Leo and said, “Dibs.”
Leo protested with a half-whined, half-shouted stream of invective.
Willie silenced him. “You gotta pay for quality like that,” he said as he handed the Glock to Leo. “It’s a prettier gun, it don’t work any better, don’t kill no quicker, it’s just prettier; and—as people who look like Dré learn to understand—you gotta pay for pretty.”
André chuckled. “That’s true, that’s true. If I didn’t have lots of cash, I’d never get laid,” he said. “So how much of the pretty stuff are we actually talking about?”
“Well, the Glock retails for five-something, so that’s a bill,” Willie told him. “And the Smithie retails for seven-fifty or eight, so I’ll do fourteen for it—but only ’cause I like you.”
“Twenty-four hundred for two lousy used and abused popguns? I have half a mind to take my business elsewhere,” André exaggerated taking offense. “Will, Willie, William, can we come to some kind of civilized deal?”
Willie pointed to Ned and Leo, who were posing with their guns in the living room. Debbie had wisely vacated the house. “You gonna say no to them?”
André shrugged. “But Willie, I’m your drug dealer—to you people, that’s like family.”
“Twenty-five hundred,” Willie said, then chuckled. “Dré, Dré, Dré, what am I gonna do with you? Okay, okay, it’s a rare win for the French—for you, two bills and I am literally cutting my own throat on this one.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Probably cost you about $25 for the pair,” André said. “But you got ’em and I want ’em—so what will it be, cash or product?”
“Product,” he said. “School’s starting up again, that’s the hot season for weed.”
“Hey, assholes,” André shouted. Ned and Leo put their guns down and fell silent. “This is coming out of your allowance.”
He was serious. André would connect the boys with Willie, negotiate the deal, and front them the money, but they would pay him back. In full. With interest.
“Okay, put those tools away and get to work,” André ordered. “Get the stuff out of the truck and bring it in here.” He threw the keys to Ned.
André had a false floor put into the bed of his pickup. It was shallow enough to make it hard to detect, but generally held enough to make a single trip worth the gas money. Ned opened it and the herd of young armed men who were surrounding the truck marveled. It was the most drugs any of them had ever seen. A few of them offered to help Ned and Leo carry it into the house, but the boys politely refused.
When they got inside, they saw André counting a large amount of cash. When he was done, he shook Willie’s hand. As he headed out, the guys outside crowded around him. “Hey Santy Claus,” the most stoned-looking one said. “What did ya bring us?”
“Be a good boy, and you’ll find out,” André said, to a smattering of laughter. He and the boys got back in the truck and headed for home.
About fifteen minutes into the trip back, André smacked himself in the forehead. “Jesus, Leo, you don’t even work for me, do you?”
“Nope,” he said. “I work for him.” He pointed at Ned.
André laughed. “He doesn’t have enough to pay for your piece and his own,” he said. “From now on, you work for me.”
“Awesome.”
“What can you do besides smoke up and look stupid?”
“Pretty good at video games.”
“Okay, okay, can you carry a small package to a hotel bar once a week,” André asked.
“How small?”
Leo got serious very quickly. “Of course, sure.”
“Okay then, I want you to take a small bag to a friend of mine at a hotel bar once a week,” André said. “You can’t get caught, you can’t fuck up, and you can’t steal from me.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll pay you one hundred dollars a week,” he said. “But to make up for the gun, it’ll be seventy a week for the first year.”
Leo didn’t bother to do the math. He agreed.
“Can he still work for me?” Ned asked.
“Not a problem,” André grinned.
Chapter 4
Daniel “Bamm Bamm” Johansson was falling asleep in Ivan Mehelnechuk’s hot tub. Who could blame him? He’d been drinking scotch-and-waters like they were Kool-Aid for four hours. As he grew less and less conscious, his grip on the glass holding the expensive Glamorgan scotch and water grew less and less firm. As he finally gave in to sleep, the heavy glass dropped to the deck and smashed into millions of tiny shards.
This presented a couple of problems. Mehelnechuk didn’t like to waste anything. And while the glass was still in the air, he saw it falling and instinctively calculated the value of what was about to be wasted. The glass: $41.99. Two ounces of Glamorgan: approximately nineteen dollars.
Crash!
The second problem was that there were now millions of shards of broken glass on the deck. Johansson dogmatically knew he had to clean it up. He also knew he was far too drunk to do a decent job.
The third, and most important, problem was that Johansson had fallen asleep while Mehelnechuk was talking to him.
Their relationship had begun about four years earlier. Mehelnechuk arrived at the only strip joint in Stormy Bay. He made an impressive entrance. Even though he was small and not very muscular, he commanded respect as soon as he walked in the room. While a big part of that could be attributed to his full Sons of Satan gear—the gang was widely known and feared—his bizarre facial scar and his obviously malicious demeanor completed the package.
He sat alone at a table near the stage, but cast only a cursory glance at the girls. He ordered a club soda from the waitress without looking at her or even allowing her to speak. Then he called her back and told her to get everyone in the bar whatever they wanted . . . on him.
It took Johansson—a foot taller and full of muscles—about a half hour to work up the nerve to approach him. He sat at a table next to Mehelnechuk’s, close enough so that they could talk. “Buy you a drink?” he asked.
Mehelnechuk chuckled. “I seem to have one already,” he paused and when Johansson could offer no retort, continued. “You important around here?”
“You might say so.”
“Is it safe to talk here?”
“Three years in business, no arrests.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mehlenechuk acknowledged. “You had a little bit of trouble when you ran with the South Main boys, though, didn’t you?”
Johansson was too stunned to react. After a moment, he looked down and mumbled, “Yeah.”
“Well, I’m happy to hear things are going better now,” Mehenechuk said, grinning. “Let me buy you a drink; then we can talk business—you have a place?”
“Yeah,” Johansson said and went over to have a short conversation with the bartender. After a few nods, Johansson smiled and called Mehelnechuk over. Mehelnechuk pretended he didn’t see him. Johansson then walked over to the biker chieftain and invited him into a private room behind the bar.
It was a fairly lush office by Stormy Bay standards. Johansson sat in a leather swivel chair behind a big wooden desk. He was surprised to see that Mehelnechuk didn’t sit in the chair opposite him, but rather on the couch a few feet away. Johansson awkwardly rolled his chair over so that he could face him.
“So, what goes on around here?” Mehelnechuk asked.
The waitress knocked before entering. Before she could speak, Johansson asked for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, then motioned towards Mehelnechuk who indicated he didn’t want a drink.
After she left, Johansson stretched to show his massive, tattooed biceps and replied, “I’m pretty much it around here—weed, meth, coke, H, ladies, you name it.”
His guest chuckled. “From what I hear, you sell a little hash when you can get your hands on it and farm out a couple of local sluts part-time,” Mehelnechuk said. “The rest is fencing, muscle for hire, and the occasional B and E.”
Johansson realized later that he probably should have laughed or said something clever, but at the time he tensed up and said nothing.
“But that’s why I’m here,” Mehelnechuk continued. “I can get you all of those things and more.”
“Yeah?”
“You can distribute ’em in the area for me—make some real money.”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. In fact, the opposite of a catch—an opportunity?”
Johansson looked puzzled.
“If you do a good job, bring in some cash, stay quiet, I may have some work for you with me in Martinsville and on the road—you interested?”
“Who wouldn’t want to work for the Sons of Satan?” Johansson said. “It’s like going up to the big leagues.”
Mehelnechuk was true to his word. Starting the following weekend, a Martinsville College sophomore took a train to Springfield and showed up at Johansson’s apartment. She didn’t look like anyone who’d ever knocked on his door before. A little blonde with a high ponytail that never seemed to stop moving, she looked more like a cheerleader than a drug mule. She had a backpack full of weed and a manila envelope containing some small plastic bags full of cocaine. Johansson invited her in, but was disappointed when she made it clear she had no interest in him.
Her name was Ellie, and she came back again two weeks later with another backpack full of drugs. Before she would give it to him, she wanted Mehelnechuk’s money. “You owe the boss $6,550,” she said. “You want drugs, you better have the fuckin’ money.” She was tiny and he hated being pushed around (especially by a woman), but Johansson knew better than to cross Mehelnechuk. And he actually did have the money. He managed to sell every leaf of weed and every granule of coke—except that which he had taken for personal use. In fact, he had more money than he had ever seen in his life. So he counted out the $6,550 and handed it to the girl. Then she emptied the backpack.
It went on like that for a few months, and Johansson later recalled that he had never been happier. Not only did he have more money (and drugs) than he had ever dreamed about, he had the respect of his community. He was the man in Stormy Bay. He bought himself a jacked-up Jeep—one so high, he had to help most passengers get in—and a Harley.
He’d never had an interest in motorcycles beyond riding his cousin’s dirt bike when he was young, but after Mehelnechuk’s visit, he felt it appropriate to buy one. Mehelnechuk had never given him any kind of patch or anything, so Johansson went ahead and made his own.
He knew a guy, Randy something, who was an artist. Years ago, Randy had airbrushed a mural on the side of his stepdad’s van. Johansson hadn’t seen him in years, but knew he could track him down at the flea market where he sold romance novels along with his original artworks. Not only was Randy willing to make a patch for Johansson’s jacket, he was delighted.
About two weeks later, Johansson was adding a running board to his Jeep when he was approached by two men in Sons of Satan jackets. The first asked him: “You Johansson?”
“Yup.”
“Boss wants you in Martinsville.”
“That’s great, but I got a lot of work to do here.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“What?”
“We’re gonna run this town while you’re gone.”
“What?”
“Jesus, man, you’re going to Martinsville to see the boss, until you get back, we run this town; it’s not rocket sci
ence.”
Johansson knew better than to argue. He finished his job and exchanged pleasantries with his visitors. He was instructed to show them who his contacts in town were and to pack his bags. They also handed him five hundred dollars “for his trouble.”
As Johansson put his jacket on, one of the Sons of Satan asked: “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That, on the back of your jacket—the Mad Vikings.”
“It’s not the Mad Vikings, it’s the Mad Viking—that’s who I am, the Mad Viking.”
“So . . . your patch is all about yourself ?”
“Yeah.”
“So your club is the Mad Vikings and . . . you are the only member?” They both broke into gales of laughter.
Johansson seethed, but said nothing.
Since he didn’t have a job, Ned couldn’t qualify for a loan. So when he replaced the Hor-ni, he had to pay cash. But business had been so good that he could buy a pretty decent ride anyway. When he saw the bright yellow, four-year-old Chevy SSR pickup on a lot, he was shocked by how little they wanted for it. It was a V8, a pickup and a convertible. He bought it without negotiating.
The following day, he and Leo went out collecting. Leo quietly wondered why, but didn’t say anything. After all, it was Tuesday, and they never went collecting on Tuesday.
Thirty minutes into the trip, Leo realized where they were going. “You sure?” he asked Ned.
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Should be fun.”
Leo laughed.
They pulled up to Torchy’s at about three, exactly when Pat and Pete would be setting up the bar.
Ned kicked in the door. “Hey Pat!” he shouted.
Pat, who was wiping down the bar, dropped his rag and started laughing. He walked right up to Ned and said: “Hey Pete, lookit what the cat threw up.”
Ned bashed him in the face with his gun, breaking his nose.
As Pat was rolling around on the floor in pain, Leo ran up to Mulligan and twisted his arm around his back so violently it fractured in two places. He marched him over to Ned. Ned looked at the scared man and said: “He’s yours, Leo, do what you want.”
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 7