“Oh, I have the drugs, my friend.”
“Party on, Wayne.”
“Party on, Garth.”
Johansson was at least relatively sober when he set off to meet with Mehelnechuk that evening. Since he’d been in a plane, he hadn’t been able to bring any weapons with him, so he’d borrowed a .22 and a hunting knife from his new friends in New Hamburg. He was confused when the bikers at the clubhouse told him that Mehelnechuk had already left.
And Johansson was more than a little surprised when the guys he was riding with stopped their car in front of a bar. He was sure he was headed to a clubhouse. “What? Are we stopping for a drink?”
“Kind of, this is where the meeting is.”
“Here? At this place?” Johansson asked of nobody in particular.
“Won’t people get hurt?”
The prospect who was driving the truck looked at him quizzically. “Not unless somebody does something stupid.”
Johansson grunted and went into the bar. He was surprised by what he saw. There was Mehelnechuk at the head of a long table with a bunch of Devil’s Own. They were laughing and having a good time.
Johansson approached him. “Everything okay, boss?”
Mehelnechuk looked at him like he was an idiot. “Hey, Bamm Bamm, tonight’s all about having a good time,” he said. “Why don’t you go up to the bar and tell them I just bought you whatever the hell you want?”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said. Then he brought the big man close and told him: “But don’t get drunk . . . and keep your eye on that big motherfucker by the door.” He motioned toward a 350-pound man with a tattoo on his face.
“Got it.” Johansson noticed that his boss was drinking club soda.
When Leo arrived, he looked like a kid in a candy shop. Ned couldn’t help but be proud. When he opened the door, Leo ran in, almost screaming. Ned managed to calm him down enough to get him to sit in the couch. Throwing a little hardcore porn on the big TV helped.
“So this is all yours?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And I can stay here?”
“Sometimes, I guess; but this is my house man. I’m not living in the fuckin’ apartment with you any more—it’s all yours.”
Leo laughed. “Fuckin’-A! I can’t believe this, you fuckin’ live here . . . wait, is all this stuff yours?”
Ned couldn’t help wonder why Leo hadn’t asked about André. “Yeah . . . I guess so.”
“Well, let’s make the most of it, my friend. Call Kelli. Let’s have a paaaaaaar-tay!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . y’know what, we could have a party,” Leo was like a kid on Christmas morning. “We got the space, we got the drugs . . . we got the drugs, don’t we?”
Ned nodded.
“Then we got the party; you call Kelli, I’ll call Patsy, and we’ll have a good ol’ time.”
Johansson was confused. He simply didn’t understand what had happened in New Hamburg and he wanted to ask the boss what was going on.
“There was a war going on in New Hamburg, right?”
“Sort of, it was kind of what we call a ‘cold war,’ nobody was actually shooting, but the two sides were considered enemies.”
“So you showed up and started buying people drinks and supplying hookers . . .”
“Well, what would you have done?”
Johansson was formulating an answer when there was a knock on the door.
Two bikers escorted Bouchard into the room. Mehelnechuk stood up and greeted his old friend with a hug. He dismissed Johansson with a wave.
“So, how was your trip to New Buttfuck?” asked Bouchard.
“They are on board,” said Mehelnechuk. “As are Harriston, Mount Wayne, and Goresport.”
“And not a single casualty.”
“That’s how I do business, my friend; better to buy your rival a beer than kick his head in.”
“I wish sometimes I was like you, but I find the best way to beat our enemies is to get rid of the troublemakers.”
“You exterminate, I enthrall—it ends up the same.”
“I only know one way to do business.”
“And that’s why you have the job you have. So tell me, what’s going on in Springfield?”
“Well, we had some great success. Because Roberts has a good friend in the Marines, we have managed to gain some eleven pounds of C4 plastic explosives and two LAW rocket launchers.”
“I’m sorry, what? Rocket launchers? What exactly are you trying to accomplish?”
“For us to succeed, the Lawbreakers must be gotten rid of.”
“Or brought to our side.”
“Sometimes that’s not possible.”
“I understand that, that’s why our partnership works so well.”
“And I personally know of at least two Lawbreakers from Springfield who will never be brought to our side; you remember Gabe? Fat blond guy?”
“Yeah, yeah, I used to ride with him back when I was with the Horny Devils.”
“You won’t ride with him anymore.”
“Should I ask why not?”
“Apparently when he turned the key in, his car—the whole thing went up in flames.”
“Sad, very sad,” said Mehelnechuk. “Keep up the good work, my old friend.”
As they were talking, Tim Collier, president of the Springfield Lawbreakers, was putting his kids to bed. He kissed Troy, five, and Tricia, three, good night and headed to his big armchair where he planned to watch SportsCenter. He hadn’t quite gotten to the chair when he heard his doorbell ring. He looked out the narrow window beside the door to see who it was. It was a little guy with glasses, long hair, a pizza box and a baseball cap from a regional pizza chain. Collier hadn’t ordered a pizza, but he had often gotten mail and deliveries for the Guptas at 24 Chateauguay Circle because he lived at 24 Chateauguay Court, about a hundred yards away.
He swung the door open and started to tell the guy he had the wrong address, when the pizza man dropped the empty pizza box, revealing a sawed-off shotgun. Earl “Geronimo” Hayes pumped two shells directly into Collier’s chest. The big man staggered and fell backwards. Satisfied, Hayes threw the shotgun and the pizza hat into the house and ran.
The following day, the regional media was ablaze with stories about Collier’s death and how it linked to the other Lawbreakers’ murders and disappearances. Jake Levine, a former biker cop turned author, came from Martinsville and was interviewed on both Springfield TV stations. On each he told the same story: Springfield was under the grip of an all-out biker war being directed through the Death Dealers by the man they called the Sons of Satan’s national president—Marvin “Big Mamma” Bouchard.
Two days after Collier’s death, some of the furor created by it had died down. Lara was starting her first solo day as the Silhouette’s crime reporter when she received a phone call from a blocked number. “Springfield Silhouette; Lara Quinn speaking,” she answered.
“This the crime reporter?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I want to report a crime.”
“Oh . . . okay . . . don’t you think you should call the police?”
“That would not be in my best interest.”
“I see,” she said, but really didn’t understand why he had chosen to talk to her instead of the police. “So what would you like to report?”
“Well, I can’t say exactly, but I can tell you that if you look in the back seat of Frank Vanden Boom’s car, you’ll get your story.”
“Who?”
“You sure you’re the crime reporter?”
“Yeah, but I’m new. Can you spell the name?”
The caller did.
“And, can I get an address?”
“No, I’m not gonna do your job for you,” he said, and hung up.
Ned knew Kelli would be excited about the new place. They’d been dating with increasing regularity since she spent the night over at the apartment before Leo moved in. They were s
urprised at how much they had in common and really enjoyed each other’s company. The fact that her parents really hated him impressed her even more.
Patsy, Leo’s girlfriend, arrived before Kelli did. Patsy made Ned more than a little nervous. André had introduced them a few months earlier, and Leo immediately fell for her. She was about fifteen years older than he was gaunt with a leathery, withered face, and had worked as a dancer at a bar André frequented. She made no secret of the fact that she had occasionally worked as an escort—something that instilled great pride in Leo. “It’s like being with a porn star, man,” he said enthusiastically. “She can do things you wouldn’t even imagine.”
As soon as she walked through the door, Leo was all over her. Ned wasn’t crazy about watching them kiss, but when he called her “lover,” it made his skin crawl. He excused himself to get some beers.
Patsy excused herself to the washroom, and Leo went in with her. Ned could hear them laughing and snorting in there. When they came out, they were sniffling and giggling.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Ned said. “Remember what André said about coke.”
“Yeah, so what does André say about it now? André is gone, my friend.”
Patsy giggled.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right . . . I guess I’m the new André.”
“So, boss, what about the coke?”
Ned couldn’t say no to his old friend he’d been through so much with recently. “Sure, okay, but keep it under control. Don’t let anyone else know about it, and pay for it yourself.”
“Yes!”
Patsy giggled again.
When Kelli arrived, she asked why they were meeting at André’s house. She wasn’t crazy about André; he was lascivious and vulgar.
“It’s not André’s house anymore; it’s mine,” Ned told her.
“No way! That’s awesome!” she shouted and kissed him.
“Hey, yo, you two, get a room,” said Leo, laughing. “What do we have planned tonight?”
“Well, I have some DVDs in my backpack, we could make dinner, and watch a movie,” offered Kelli.
“What kind of movie?” asked Patsy.
“A couple of romantic comedies,” Kelli enthused. “I have that new one with Kate Hudson in it.”
“Pass,” Patsy said, and Leo echoed her thoughts with an imitation of a game show buzzer.
“I think we should have a night on the town, and let you two love birds enjoy your new house,” Leo said, getting his coat.
After they left, Kelli and Ned enjoyed a quiet evening. The following morning, when he asked her to move in with him, she enthusiastically agreed.
When Lara mentioned Frank Vanden Boom to her police contact, she was quickly connected to Mike Clegg, Springfield’s ranking biker cop. Clegg told her to tell him everything she knew. After about twenty minutes of negotiation, she got him to agree to let her come along on the call in exchange for her information.
In his car, Clegg explained who Vanden Boom was. “Y ’know the Lawbreakers? The biker gang?”
“Of course,” she said, offended by the idea that she—a crime reporter—hadn’t heard of him.
“Well then, you know about Collier and the other murders?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Well, Vanden Boom is . . . I mean was . . . the ranking member of the Lawbreakers in Springfield,” he said. “I don’t think he had any kind of title or anything, but he was the only one left who had the nuts to take over; the rest of them are idiots or pussies.”
“Why are you using the past tense?”
“He’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, the Sons of Satan pay their members and associates for murders of their enemies,” he said. “But the only way they can get credit for a murder they claim to have committed is through media coverage.”
“So that’s why I got the call, instead of you.”
“Yup, that thing you were supposed to find in Vanden Boom’s backseat is probably Vanden Boom—the murderer called you because he was tired of waiting for someone to stumble upon the body.”
Clegg went over to the Silhouette’s office and picked Lara up. They drove to Vanden Boom’s address. Clegg parked in front of Vanden Boom’s house and went around back to the garage. There was a black Lincoln inside. Lara looked in the back window. There was something large covered with a blanket. She nodded to Clegg. She tried the back door; it was unlocked. As it swung open, a sawed-off shotgun fell onto her feet. The smell of rotting flesh was strong enough to push her back a few feet. “Whoa!” was all she could say.
Clegg laughed. “Delvecchio puked when he saw his first body . . . and his second and third; I think he fainted on the fourth,” he said. “See that shotgun—that’s a Sons of Satan touch—they always leave the weapon at the scene.”
“Why?”
“None of the weapons are ever registered to them, and there’s very little chance of getting fingerprints off them, so they’re not very meaningful as evidence,” he told her. “But if they got caught with a weapon—especially one that could be linked to a hit—after a crime, they’d go down for good guaranteed.”
Chapter 6
Ned’s cell phone was ringing. Kelli was getting ready to go to her parent’s house and Ned was in the shower, so she picked it up.
After she said hello, a voice on the other side asked: “Who the fuck are you?”
Taken aback, she stammered: “I’m Kelli . . . Ned’s girlfriend.”
“Put him on.”
She went into the washroom and handed Ned the phone. She went back into the bedroom, but she could still hear him apologizing for letting her answer the phone and promising never to let it happen again.
After he was finished berating Ned, Steve told him he had a job to do. After Ned took over André’s position, he learned about a few complications. André wasn’t just a drug dealer. He was a biker. In fact, he was what’s called a prospect for Steve’s gang, the Death Dealers. A prospect, Ned found out, is someone who works with or for the gang, but is not yet a full member. André had been a full member of another motorcycle gang, the Chain Masters, but was bumped down to prospect status when they were taken over by the Death Dealers.
That didn’t just mean Ned got a leather jacket with a patch on the back. He also had to learn to ride the Harley. Little John told him that the motorcycles were more than just a symbol; they also made the Death Dealers a legitimate common-interest club and much harder to prosecute under organized-crime legislation.
It also allowed him access to the Death Dealers clubhouse, except during some meetings. And when they were on, he and the other prospects were expected to stand guard outside the building no matter what the weather.
Officially, Death Dealers prospects are required to do anything a full member asks them—no matter how stupid, dangerous or, paltry—but they usually took it easy on Ned. A few of them had him go to the store for them late at night and other little jobs like that, but nothing major.
But they leaned heavily on Leo. They used him as muscle, they used him as an errand boy, and they used him for entertainment. The irony was that he didn’t know he was doing the work for nothing. Unlike a prospect like Ned, the Death Dealers had already labeled Leo as a “hangaround”—what the cops, lawyers, and media call an “associate.” He was considered someone useful to the gang who technically could become a prospect. But in reality, he had little if any chance of ever becoming a member.
That didn’t dampen Leo’s enthusiasm. He carried out every task the members asked of him, often for little pay and sometimes for none. He specialized in using his strength or gun to intimidate debtors and witnesses.
So when Steve gave Ned a job that required muscle, he suggested he take Leo along. The premise was simple. There was a witness that needed intimidating. And to make it easier, it was a woman in her early thirties who lived alone with her great-grandmother in a big house in what was beginning to become something of an iffy neigh
borhood.
Ned didn’t have a choice. He picked up Leo and drove to the address. Leo had tried to dress like what he thought a “normal guy” looked like, but Ned found his attempt comical, so he decided that he’d take over the initial part of the operation. They walked up to the house. Leo hid on the veranda while Ned knocked on the door. A young woman who matched the picture he’d been given answered. Without an explanation, Ned shoved the door open and barged inside. Leo followed.
Ned held the startled woman up against the wall by putting his meaty forearm against her neck. Leo, wild-eyed and ridiculously dressed, sized her up. “Guess what?” he said. The victim didn’t answer. He continued: “No . . . guess.”
She stammered.
“No, no, no, you can do better than that.”
She began sobbing uncontrollably.
“Don’t take it like that—it’s nothing personal; all we have to agree on is that you won’t testify.”
She closed her eyes.
“No, we need a deal here,” Leo continued. “I need to know that you will not testify.”
She nodded.
“I mean it,” he said. “Because if you testify, things could get very, very bad . . . not just for you, but for your whole family . . . you know what I mean?”
She nodded again.
“Okay, glad we could reach an agreement.”
Ned lowered his arm. Free, the woman ran into another room.
“Let’s go,” Ned told Leo.
“Not yet,” his friend said, just before throwing a lamp at a mirror that was hanging on the wall.
“We gotta get out of here,” Ned said seriously.
“Almost, almost . . .“ Leo said as he started looking through the room. After a brief search, he found a little stereo, grabbed it, and ran out the front door. Ned ran after him. He noticed Leo was laughing. “That was pretty fuckin’ easy,” he said.
Lara was shocked at how many people were at Siobhan O’Farrell’s wedding. Tate had sent her there because Siobhan was the only daughter of Gerard “Big Gerry” O’Farrell, last remaining star from Springfield’s branch of the Irish mafia.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 10