“If stupid is funny, then yes.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Why?”
“A friend of mine who just happens to work for the Hamner PD told me that our mutual friend has been talking to the Springfield PD.”
“What? He knows everything about me!”
“Don’t worry. If they wanted you, you’d be behind bars right now,” Steve said. “They want me. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re pretty small-time.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Do I look worried?” Steve laughed. “Listen, I just need you to tell him he’s been sent back to Springfield—that I have a job for him. He’ll believe you.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then you’ve got a job to do.” Steve paused, then laughed. “You always worry, Ned—he’ll believe you. Don’t be such a pussy.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know Adam Stockton?”
“Yeah, he was a year behind me in school. Big guy. Why?”
“Because I’m sending him to Hamner to help you out.”
“He’s one of us?”
Steve nodded, then clapped his hands. “Okay, now that business is over, we can get down to pleasure—which is also my business now.”
Ned paused. “Uh, no thanks, watching other people have sex isn’t really my thing.”
“I thought you’d say that, so I’m offering you a starring role, well, co-starring—I’m the star,” Steve smiled. “I could always use a tag-team partner.”
“I don’t think so. I told you that before.”
“But I have something that might change your mind.”
Steve led Ned into a bedroom, where he fully expected to see Melody or some other attractive girl. Instead, he was shocked to see Kelli. A little thinner, a lot more worn-down looking and with her hair dyed black. They looked at each other for a full minute before anybody said anything.
It was Steve who spoke. “Why don’t I leave you two alone for a few minutes. I’m sure you have plenty to catch up on.”
Kelli got up and hugged Ned. Then she let out a nervous giggle. “Hey, baby, it’s so good to see you,” she said with a smile. “How have you been?”
Ned stammered at first, but finally managed: “Good, good, good, real good—and you?”
She giggled again. It was something she had never really done before, and it annoyed him. “I’m doing great. I share a place with Mal,” she paused. “And I work for Steve now.” Another giggle.
“Dancing?”
“This and that.”
A long pause. “I’m up in Hamner now, managing a bar,” he said. “It’s good, really good.”
“You got a girlfriend?” She giggled.
“Yeah, yeah I do.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” she hugged him again.
Steve walked in. “Time to go to work, Kelli,” he said.
She kissed Ned on the nose and left the room.
Steve looked at Ned. “Are you sure I can’t get you to do a scene or two?” Steve asked. “A quick and dirty thousand bucks.”
“No. I’m cool.”
“You are cool, right? Not upset, I mean.”
“Oh yeah, yeah, I’m fine. That stuff ’s all behind me now, right? That was our deal.”
“Yeah, I want you to know this wasn’t a test—but if it was, you would have passed.”
Feeney knew it was gonna happen, but he was surprised at how quickly it all went down. He was sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching The Usual Suspects when the police knocked on his door. An hour later, he was in an interrogation room with two FBI agents. They both wore cheap suits, but the older one, Quayle, had the gravity to pull it off. The other was a total musclehead, so his clothes had awkward tight spots and he tended to twitch and play with his earring when he wasn’t talking. Feeney could smell his cologne in the small, harshly lit room.
“Okay, so we get a tip this skel at the hotel has two unregistered handguns, and we send a couple of units to pick him up,” Detective-Lieutenant Robert Quayle said with a look of studied and utterly fake astonishment. “And, without any offers or anything from us—really, he didn’t get anything—he offers to tell us all about how he murdered this dude in Webster’s Falls with his—get this—gay lover who just happens to be a full-patch Son of Satan.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do,” Quayle’s partner, Dave Novello, said with a smug grin. “We’ve got times, places, dates, everything—I even know what all of your fuckin’ tattoos look like.”
“So I changed in front of some faggot at the health club; that doesn’t make me a murderer.”
“Oh don’t worry, we know you didn’t shoot anyone—Ronnie’s copped to all that—as long as the ballistics back up what he says, we know he pulled the trigger,” said Quayle. “But we do have you as the driver, and even if you get off, a lot of embarrassing stuff will come out that could, let’s say, endanger your standing in the club.”
Feeney sighed. He knew they had him. “So what do you want?”
“We’ll drop the charges against you and keep your name out of Ronnie’s trial,” said Novello, “if you’ll agree to wear a recording device.”
It was exactly what Feeney had feared the most. But he knew he had no choice.
Novello dropped the tiny recorder on the table.
Feeney looked at it. “What’s that there?” he asked. He pointed at a few spots of caked blood on some of the white tape that was stuck to the recorder.
Quayle sighed. “Jesus, Dave, you could have cleaned it off before you brought it out.”
About a week after he was released from jail, Bouchard threw a small party. He had lots to celebrate. His accuser, a former part-time stripper he met through Steve, decided against pressing charges. She didn’t give her lawyer a reason why. Bouchard was released that day. Three of Vandersloot’s men followed her around for a while. One of them saw her riding on the back of Moe Gannon’s Harley. Two days later, her nude body was found bound and gagged in a trash receptacle behind a supermarket in the city’s north end.
Two days after that, one of Mehelnechuk’s most carefully thought-out plans went into effect. He paid dearly to bring in two members of the Sons of Satan from a chapter in Oregon. He specifically wanted them because he recalled meeting them at a party and they struck him as looking less like bikers than they did officer workers. He also hired Darryl, the guy who looked after Mehelnechuk’s cars, because he knew the Lawbreakers believed the Sons of Satan never did business with black people.
Their job was to deliver a big-screen TV to the Lawbreakers’ clubhouse in Springfield. Two of Steve’s men had stolen a van from a local electronics retailer and had a pair of uniforms made up for Darryl and the guys from Oregon. When they got to the clubhouse, they told the prospect at the door that the TV was a gift from the main office to reward the Springfield chapter for standing up to the Sons of Satan. Since there were no full members in the clubhouse, the prospect checked the papers. The names and addresses matched, so he told the guys to bring it in.
The three workers placed it where the prospect wanted it. He told them to take it out of the box and set it up. The two guys from Oregon looked at each other. One of them said: “No way, man; we get paid to drive, not to assemble.”
The prospect offered them fifty dollars. They declined. Darryl said he’d do it for fifty dollars. Peter, one of the guys from Oregon remembered that Darryl hadn’t been let in on the plan. As far as he knew, he was just delivering a TV. He didn’t even know that Mehelnechuk or Bouchard were bikers.
Peter put his hand on Darryl’s shoulder. “You can’t do it, man, union rules.”
“Fuck that? Who’s gonna know?”
Peter walked over to the Lawbreakers prospect in charge and put his arm around him. He whispered into his ear. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but Darryl has a learning disability,” he said. “If you wan
t your TV all fucked up, by all means, let him assemble it.”
The prospect told Peter he understood and turned to Darryl. “Thanks, but no thanks, man. I have some people here who can handle it.”
Darryl looked over at Peter. “Fuck you, you racist bastard.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Peter said. “Tell me all about it on the ride home.”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
The three of them left the clubhouse, and got into the van. Peter stomped on the gas, and Darryl, who was riding in the back, tumbled all the way back to the rear doors. “What the fuck?” he yelled.
Then they heard the blast. It was so huge that the windows on buildings three blocks away shattered. Smoke billowed from the Lawbreakers’ clubhouse. As soon as the prospect and a hangaround lifted the screen from the box, it triggered the roughly nine pounds of C4 plastic explosive inside. Four men within viewing distance of the TV were obliterated. Two others died from flying debris. Another lost an arm. No full-patch members were present, but the Lawbreakers’ farm team had taken a huge hit, and the clubhouse was rendered useless.
Inside the van, Darryl patted Peter on the back and thanked him.
Things were very different at Buster’s once Sharpe was gone. Adam Stockton, the new guy Steve sent down, was completely different from his predecessor. Not only was he a friendly, amiable guy, but he worked. Stockton hauled beer, chased away troublemakers, and even took a few shifts behind the bar. He kept his hands off the dancers, helped Ned negotiate deals, and kept everyone who worked at the bar loose.
Things were so much better that Ned found himself incredibly relaxed. But he couldn’t say the same for Daniela, who was working as hard and as many hours as she had before. She had softened her tone towards Ned, and he had grown quite fond of her. He’d been attracted to her looks and natural grace from the moment he’d met her, but now he’d come to appreciate—even anticipate—her witty comments.
He found himself wanting to make her happy. So while they were sitting together in his office, he interrupted her story about how stupid the beer delivery guy was to suggest she take a break.
“You’ve been working so hard, why don’t you take a few days off—just go enjoy yourself.”
She was suspicious. “Why? What have I done?” she asked.
“I’m not punishing you, Dani,” Ned said. “I’m rewarding you . . . take a vacation.”
She folded her arms in front of her chest. She liked that he called her Dani. It was the first time she’d been called that by anyone in years. “Bar would fall apart, crumble to pieces without me here.”
“Look, I understand that you have trust issues and all that, but we can struggle by for two or three days. Believe it or not, Adam is actually competent. I can help more than usual and Liliya has been talking about how much she wants to be a bouncer—we’ll be fine.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Carter knew that being high all the time was making him reckless, but Steve kept giving him more and more coke—and it certainly made doing his job easier. Since the Eggs O’Lent diner incident, Carter had shot six more men associated with the High Rollers, killing five of them.
He’d even joined in the crowd of onlookers after one of his murders, and nobody recognized him. Although he knew better than to get too cocky, he was feeling pretty close to invincible. And that’s why he was thinking big. He was tired of offing drug dealers in their shitty apartments or run-down bars. He wanted to make a real score. Not for the money, but for the prestige.
He decided on a target on his own. Declan Allenson was considered an up-and-comer in Springfield. He’d been a Death Dealers prospect (and a good friend of André’s), but he couldn’t take the disorganization and leadership failings and changed allegiances to the Lawbreakers. He was not only a powerful drug dealer, but he was also running a very lucrative car theft business in which stolen luxury cars were reduced to parts that were then shipped to China for reassembly.
Carter knew that Allenson owned a legit used car lot and spent a lot of time there. But he was never alone—he employed some pretty tough characters and had a pair of Rottweilers roaming around the place. When he arrived at Dexy’s Used Cars, Carter walked by both growling dogs and a mean-looking guy who was trying to shine up an old Buick. He went into the trailer that served as an office, and walked right up to Allenson. “I’m interested in that old Audi A4 you’ve got out there,” Carter said. He was holding an ad Allenson had put in a local paper. “Does it really have just fifty-four thousand miles on it?”
Allenson smiled broadly. “Would I lie?”
“I don’t know,” Carter said. “You are a used-car salesman.”
“Get a load of the balls on this guy,” Allenson laughed. The other two salesmen in the trailer laughed along with him
“Lemme take this guy,” one of them offered.
Allenson shook his head. “No, he amuses me. Besides, I have a feeling we can get this guy to pay full price and then grab his address and get the car back by morning.”
His employee laughed.
“Okay, okay, why don’t we go take a look at the car then?” Allenson said to Carter.
“Great.”
“Just lemme see your driver’s license first,” Allenson looked the document over. “Thank you, Mr. Marino; hey, are you related to the Marinos who live on Queenston Road?”
“No, I’m not from here,” said Carter.
Inside the Audi, they talked about the car’s features and how well it handled in the snow. Carter asked if he could take it on the highway. Allenson said it was okay, as long as they got back to the dealership soon. But Carter missed the on-ramp and went down a country road instead. “Just to test it out,” he said. “If it can handle these dirt roads, I’ll know it can handle anything.”
“Just don’t get it dirty,” Allenson laughed.
Carter stopped the car and looked out the passenger window past Allenson. “Hey,” he said. “Is that girl naked?”
Allenson turned to look. “Where?” he said.
Carter took a .44 Magnum out of his jacket and shot Allenson in the back of the head. The bullet came out his mouth and shattered the passenger window.
“Aw, shit,” Carter said, and put his head in his hands laughing. He reached over Allenson’s body and opened the passenger door. He put his back against his own door and kicked Allenson’s body out. It wasn’t easy. Allenson weighed about a hundred pounds more than Carter. When the body was finally out of the car, Carter wiped the gun down, threw it away in a field, and drove back to the city.
Chapter 15
Feeney didn’t like where they put the recorder. Not only was it uncomfortable on his sternum, he thought it stood out. He thought that it was obvious, and that he’d be killed the second he showed up at the clubhouse. So he took the long way there, along the lake, just to clear his head.
He knew what the Sons did to snitches. He was there when they caught one. A cop who owed Vandersloot some money told him that Sam Cain had been collaborating with the ATF on an investigation that involved Bouchard. That night, Vandersloot invited Cain to dinner. Cain got in his car and started driving for Vandersloot’s place in the country. About halfway there, a minivan blocked his way. It wouldn’t move. Then a pickup truck pulled up behind him. Cain started to turn into the oncoming lane to get around the minivan, but the pickup truck rammed his car. Three masked men with guns leapt out of the minivan. The first opened Cain’s passenger-side door and said in a familiar voice, “Give us all your money and nobody gets hurt.”
A police bug caught the hijacking on tape to just after Cain blurted out, “What the fuck, Petey, why are you . . .” The last sounds on the tape were four gunshots, some laughing, and the squeal of tires.
Feeney was there and he had heard the story a number of times. Not only did the guys involved like to tell the story, but the ranking members encouraged its retelling to remind the prospects what happens to snitches.
Of course, Feeney thought
to himself that this was all Ronnie’s fault. Asshole wannabe-cop-turned-wannabe-gangster proved too stupid to do either job. It infuriated Feeney that Ronnie gave him up to the cops so easily. And that he was too stupid to even get himself off for it. They wouldn’t have even known about the McAfee job unless he blabbed. The cops thought it was hilarious. They brought the fat fuck in for a misdemeanor and, with no urging, he admits to a murder and sells out a full-patch Son of Satan who, the cops are delighted to learn, is also his homo boyfriend.
The problem was that Ronnie wanted to be a big shot. He’d tell anyone what they wanted to hear, even if it meant prison time. He just wanted the cops to like him, to listen to him; he didn’t think about the consequences.
If only he had been a few minutes earlier, Feeney thought to himself. The cops would be investigating an armed robbery gone wrong. Ronnie would have been silenced forever.
But it didn’t go down that way. And now the cops owned him. They wanted him to record conversations with Bouchard, Rose, Vandersloot, or any other big guy. It wouldn’t be too hard. Guys talked about deals with him all the time. They trusted him. He’d done his time in the club—and in prison. They knew he’d never be a rat.
Feeney thought about how much Ronnie’d say before they finally killed him—there was no way he’d last very long in prison. And Feeney thought about his daughters Sydney and Britny, whom he’d had with his high school girlfriend Josie before he became a biker. He slowed his car down and eventually stopped at the beach. There was nobody there because it was too cold, and the waves were big because of the wind. He walked out onto the sand, then onto an old concrete pier. He unbuttoned his shirt, took off the recorder, and threw it as far as he could into the water. He laughed. Then he sat down on the pier, pulled his gun out, put the barrel in his mouth, and gently pulled the trigger.
An off-duty cop passed Carter on the highway. The cop wondered what a high-end car with dealer plates was doing on a road miles from a dealership, the sale price still scrawled across the windscreen, it’s passenger window open on a chilly day like this. Instinctively, he reached for his cellphone.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 20