Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle

by Jerry Langton

  His greatest threat at this point was actually boredom. He called Steve. “You need something to do?” He laughed. “You’re a full member now; you have people to do things for you.”

  “Yeah, so I just get money for sitting on my ass?”

  “Essentially, although it’s likely the club will have some duties for you. Of course, there are always ways to make more money. . . . What you should do is set up a legitimate business so that you can pay taxes, maybe get a mortgage, or whatever—keep you out of jail.”

  “Makes sense, but I only know one business.”

  Steve laughed again. “You can do anything. You don’t even have to be involved, just hire some kid with skills. But stay away from escorts and strippers—they are mine and mine alone.”

  “I could do something connected to that, something that helps us both—what about Internet porn?”

  “You could, I suppose, but nobody’s making any money on it anymore, too many people giving it away for free—besides, the feds are all over that shit. One wrong step and it’s just too much liability.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know what you could do, though. You could start a dating website.”

  “I don’t know anything about the Internet.”

  “You don’t have to. One of Joel’s friends is a web designer; he knows all that shit. I can give him to you.”

  “Sounds cool.”

  “Yeah, and we could put a couple of my girls up there looking for ‘dates’ . . . that should get the ball rolling; come by the clubhouse and we’ll set you up.”

  Ray “Toots” Vandersloot walked into Mehelnechuk’s office. The boss was inside talking with Bouchard. Normally, he knew better than to disturb them, but this was a time of war and he thought they would welcome any news. “You hear they burned down Matt ’s?” he asked.

  Matt’s was actually Madd Dogg’s Tattoos and Body Piercing, a downtown shop owned by Sons of Satan associate Matt Ireson, and frequented by many bikers.

  “Anybody hurt?” asked Mehelnechuk.

  “No, but the place is totally gone, and I’m not sure what kind of insurance he had.”

  “Shit, y’know what? I’m getting pretty fuckin’ sick of this. It’s only a matter of time until somebody important gets killed.”

  “So what’s your plan?” asked Bouchard.

  “Stay in here for this, man,” Mehelnechuk said to Vandersloot. “I want you and everyone else to know that I am putting Bouchard in charge of rooting out these girls—these so-called High Rollers—from our midst, and if a few innocent drug dealers get hurt along the way, that’s just too fuckin’ bad.”

  “I thought you were all about bringing other clubs into our organization.”

  “This is no ordinary club,” Mehelnechuk told him. “These guys were put together to go to war with us; so we have no choice but to go to war with them.”

  It was Ned’s first time alone with Lessard, and he didn’t like it at all. Of all the Death Dealers he knew, Lessard was the only one who actually scared him. Ned intellectually acknowledged that any of them could be violent if provoked, but only Lessard seemed like he could go off at anyone at any time. And he had a reputation for being hard on prospects. Ned wanted to leave, but couldn’t. He had a meeting with Steve, and knew better than to miss it. It was supposed to have happened by now, but Steve’s door remained closed. Ned could feel his hands and arms get light, just on the verge of trembling when he heard Lessard bellow.

  “Prospect!” he shouted. “Get me another god-damned beer!”

  Ned got up from his seat at the bar, went into the fridge, and grabbed a bottle for Lessard. He opened it, and brought it to his table. Lessard stared at him in the eyes unblinkingly, but his mood seemed to soften a little. He laughed without mirth. “I guess I shouldn’t call you ‘prospect’ any more, now you’re a member,” he said. “What should I call you?”

  “Well, my name is Ned, and Steve calls me ‘Crash’ for some reason.”

  “Why don’t I call you what you really are . . . cop?”

  “What?”

  Lessard stood up. “I know you’re a fuckin’ cop,” he said. “Look at you, you walk in here all clean . . . no tats until Steve forced you to get one, no piercings . . . nobody knows you but André, nobody deals with you but André . . . then we find out André’s been talking to the cops to save his own worthless ass.”

  By this time he had backed Ned up against the bar.

  “I’m not a cop, I swear it,” Ned said. He could hear his voice shake.

  “How do I know that? You never buy meth from me. Everyone buys meth from me. Only a cop wouldn’t buy meth from me—I got the best meth.”

  “I buy from Steve; he’d get pissed off if I bought from you too.”

  “Steve doesn’t have to know.”

  Ned regained some courage and slipped out from between Lessard and the bar. “Is that what this is about?” He said. “You’re calling me a cop so I’ll buy from you? Pretty fuckin’ lame sales pitch.”

  “What? Are you doubting me?” Lessard’s eyes were totally out of focus now. Ned could tell he was losing control, and he genuinely feared for his life.

  Lessard backed him up again, this time against a wall. Then he put his beefy forearm under his chin and pressed against his throat. “If you want to leave this room alive, you’ll prove to me you’re no cop,” he shouted inches away from Ned’s face, showering it in saliva. “Sit down.”

  Ned sat in the chair Lessard indicated. Lessard pulled out his gun and placed it on a chair beside his own. Then he pulled out a bag full of methamphetamine crystals and a hunting knife with a blade as long as his hand. He dumped a few of the transparent shards onto the table and started grinding them down into a white powder with his knife.

  “An undercover cop can do a lot of things, a lot of illegal things even,” Lessard, much calmer since he sat down, said to Ned. “But he can’t take meth—not only are they forbidden by their bosses to take meth because they say it’s so damn addictive, but any testimony they give after they have taken meth ain’t worth shit . . .”

  Ned watched as Lessard expertly ground the meth.

  “. . . so if you are a cop, you won’t take the meth and I’ll have to kill you, or you could be a cop, you take the meth and then your word ain’t worth shit in court; or you aren’t a cop and you just take the fuckin’ hit and we are square—no matter what happens, I win.”

  “I suppose I have no choice.”

  “You have no choice,” Lessard said as he arranged the meth in a tidy line on Ned’s side of the table. He also handed Ned a straw.

  Ned took a deep breath and leaned over the table. He was putting the straw into his right nostril when Steve’s door opened. Everyone paused.

  Steve got an angry look on his face, and shouted: “Fuck, Ned! I told you to stay off the shit!”

  Gagliano, who had been in the office with Steve, started laughing.

  “But, but, but . . .” Ned stammered.

  “But-but-but, you sound like a fuckin’ motorboat, just get that fuckin’ straw outta your nose and get in my office,” he ordered. “And if I catch you playing around with that shit again, I will personally see to it that you will work as a jizzmopper at the skankiest strip joint in the whole fuckin’ Midwest for the rest of your useless life.”

  Ned smiled and got up from the table. His eyes caught Lessard’s. “This is not over,” the big man told him.

  “Yes it is, you stupid fuck,” Steve yelled. “Put your gun away, put your knife away, put your drugs away, and do your fuckin’ job.”

  Lessard sullenly packed up his stuff.

  “Hey,” Gagliano piped in. “How come the Lizard can do meth, and me and Crash can’t?”

  “Because he was a total fuck-up even before I inherited him,” Schultz shot back. “You two have futures.”

  Lessard angrily kicked a chair over as Gagliano grabbed himself a beer, and Ned followed Steve into his office.

  Once the door was
closed, Steve told Ned: “Don’t worry about him; he’s all noise.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Ned said with an involuntary shudder. “He thought I was a cop.”

  “Well, he is nuts, but who can blame him?” Steve said. “You don’t look like a biker and nobody knew fuck all about you before I grabbed you.”

  “And he said something about André going to the cops.”

  “Meth makes people paranoid,” Steve assured him. “That was his paranoia talking—he sees a cop behind every tree and Lawbreakers under his bed when he isn’t seeing imaginary bugs crawling on his skin.”

  “So André wasn’t killed for being a rat?”

  Steve laughed derisively. “No way. André had no reason to go to the cops. His business—as you now know first hand—was booming,” he said. “André was killed by the Lawbreakers, our enemies, the ones who want to take over our territory, our business.”

  Ned sighed.

  “Now that’s out of the way, we can get to business,” Steve said. “Now that you’re a full-patch member, you’re going to have to be introduced around to prevent people from thinking the wrong things about you—think of it as a coming-out party.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Well, you have to dress like a biker for a change; fly the colors, wear your Death Dealers jacket and try to look the part,” he said. “Then get on the Harley I gave you and ride with us up to Burgessville.”

  “Then what?”

  “You’re so suspicious you sound like that gorilla outside. Jesus, Ned, calm down,” Steve said. “It’s a party—all you do is have fun, meet a few people—it’ll be great, a chance to blow off some steam.”

  “What about Lessard? Will he be there?”

  Steve laughed.

  “Don’t you worry about him,” he said with a smile. “He’s getting a new assignment; he might not be able to make the party.”

  When he saw Steve stand up, Ned followed suit. When Steve opened the door, Ned walked out and over to where Gagliano was sitting at the bar. He tried not to look at Lessard.

  “Lessard, get your sorry ass in here!” Steve shouted.

  As Lessard got up and started walking to the office, Ned stared at him. He marveled at how malevolent he looked even while just walking away.

  “Boo!” Gagliano shouted, and Ned jumped, dropping his beer bottle. Gagliano laughed like a teenager.

  Dave “Apache” Carter arrived at the Death Dealers’ clubhouse and presented himself to Steve. “Hi,” he said. “Mike Rose sent me down from Martinsville to take care of your little problem.”

  “So you’re the exterminator?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sloppy told me all about you,” Steve smiled. “Welcome to Springfield. I’ll set you up.”

  They sat in the bar and drank and talked. Steve had one of the prospects go out for Chinese food. Before it arrived, Ned did.

  “Ned ‘Crash’ Aiken, just the man I wanted to see,” Steve said. “My friend Dave here is new in town and will need to crash at your place until we get him a decent place to stay.”

  Ned didn’t like the idea, but agreed anyway. The three of them sat and ate the Chinese food and discussed sports, the weather, and everything but business. After about an hour and a half, Steve told the other two he had to go.

  “But what about my idea?”

  “What idea?”

  “The dating site.”

  “Yeah, sure, sounds great. I’ll send Joel’s pal over to your place tomorrow.”

  “Great.”

  Ned was not at all happy that he had to take this scruffy little dude home and let him sleep in the guestroom. But it was a direct order from Steve; there was no room for negotiation.

  Lara was feeling a little envious. It’s not like she wanted to see all the shootings, arsons, and bombings that had occurred in Martinsville happen in Springfield; she just wanted something interesting to report on. For the past few weeks, it had been nothing more than drunk driving, kids stealing each other’s iPods, and one poor bastard who was caught on video stealing the donations box for a children’s hospital off the counter of a convenience store. So she called biker expert Jake Levine to talk about what was happening in Martinsville.

  “Looks like you have a war going on up there,” she said.

  “Really? A few drug dealers die and a few bars happen to catch fire and that’s a war?” he said, condescendingly. “Drug dealers die; that’s an occupational hazard. Fires happen when people want insurance money.”

  “But my sources say that all of the deaths were dealers associated with the Sons of Satan,” she persevered, “and all of the businesses targeted were also associated with the Sons.Don’t you think that’s just a bit too coincidental?”

  “Not at all. The Sons run organized crime in this city,” he replied. “I think it would be hard to find a dealer or a bar that did not have some association with them.”

  “But there must be other criminals out there,” Lara pressed on, “the Italians, the rest of the Lawbreakers, dealers who don’t want to play ball with the Sons, bikers they rejected for membership or they kicked out. My sources tell me . . .”

  “Your sources? You’re the crime reporter in Springfield, and you’re trying to tell me what’s happening in Martinsville?” Levine spouted back. “I’m sure you are trying very hard, but Martinsville is a big city, much more complicated than Springfield . . .”

  “So you’re saying there’s no crime organization fighting against the Sons of Satan in Martinsville?”

  “Exactly, there just isn’t anyone left to fight them . . . nobody who matters anyway.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “One last thing, what can you tell me about Ivan Mehelnechuk?”

  “Yeah, isn’t he the little wee guy with the funny face?” he said. “From Springfield, I think.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Small-timer, has a lot of patches on his jacket, but never been arrested, never been seen with any of the big guys,” he answered. “It seems that whenever anything big goes down, he’s never around.”

  “Like Clark Kent.”

  “Oh, I think your hometown pride is running away with you on that one; Mehelnechuk is little more than an errand boy who’s managed to gain membership by keeping his mouth shut and staying out of trouble.”

  “I see.”

  After a few moments of awkward silence, Levine asked, “Whatever happened to Delvecchio? I liked him; he always asked me the right questions.”

  “Oh, Johnny, he’s moved up in the world,” she said cheerfully. “No more crime. He’s our religion reporter now.”

  Levine laughed. “That sounds about right for him.”

  Ned didn’t want to talk, but he could tell his passenger did. Carter was nervous, playing with every knob and switch in the SSR, adjusting the fan speed and temperature no fewer than two dozen times in the first mile. Assuming that conversation would help calm him down, Ned asked him what he was doing in Springfield.

  “So you don’t know who I am then?”

  “Well, I know your name.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Okay, I don’t.”

  “You should, I am the best at what I do.”

  Ned chuckled. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “I’m a killer.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Do you remember when the Sons were getting rid of the Lawbreakers in Martinsville?”

  “You did that, did you?”

  “Most of it.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me, but I just don’t think you look like a killer.”

  Carter laughed. “I get that a lot,” he said. “But I only have one talent and I gotta keep a roof over my head.”

  “I see, survival of the fittest, is that it?”

  Carter laughed and slapped his knee. “Survival of the fittest my ass!” he shouted. “Look at me, I’m tiny, I’m a drug addict, I’m old, I’m in awful shape; look, I have the arms of a nine-year-old girl. It
is not survival of the fittest, my friend; but survival of the baddest, the meanest, the craziest,” he continued. “You don’t need muscles to kill someone, just a reason . . . and one of these.”

  As he looked over to see Carter’s rather cheap and workmanlike gun, he noticed he had a “Dirty Dog” patch on his jacket. The Sons of Satan and affiliated clubs only give those to members who have killed for the club. Steve halfheartedly offered one to Ned after the Tyler incident, but Ned refused it on the grounds that it was an accident and it hadn’t helped the club at all.

  “Yeah,” Ned said. “I’d be lost without mine.”

  Carter snickered. “You’re no killer,” he said.

  Bouchard was having a few beers with Vandersloot at a Martinsville strip joint they operated when Lawrence “Picasso” Parisi came running in. He was excited and out of breath. Bouchard and Vandersloot took him into the office and sat him down.

  “Big news,” he began as soon as he could. “Two girls—Denton and Watson—were seen with Spangler downtown.” Spangler, he had no need to remind them, was a former Sons of Satan prospect who was a good earner, but was kicked out for stealing from the club. He later formed his own gang, the Lone Wolves, with a couple of high school buddies, but they disbanded after one of them ran into some Lawbreakers at a bar and had his jaw broken.

  “They were all wearing jackets with the name ‘High Rollers’ on the back,” Parisi reported.

  “Excellent work, my friend,” Bouchard said. “Please give this man $500, Toots. Where did you see them?”

  “Coming out of the Wentworth,” he said. That made perfect sense to Bouchard. Mario DeVolo had operated Martinsville’s Italian mafia out of the Wentworth for years. He’d been a major drug supplier for the Sons for as long as Bouchard could remember and he had also hired the club’s members and prospects to pressure debtors and intimidate witnesses. One of Bouchard’s first jobs—breaking the knees of a recalcitrant gambler who owed one of DeVolo’s sons twelve thousand bucks—was conducted in a back room at the Wentworth.