Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle

by Jerry Langton

  The man said that he was in charge and that it was against store policy to put wanted posters up. Bad for business, he maintained. Made it look like it was a hangout for criminals.

  Weise politely smiled, calmly told the man that he'd be back when the manager was in, and asked when that would be. The man hemmed and hawed then said he didn't know. Weise asked for the manager's name. After a pause, the man behind the counter told him that he did not know the manager's name and that if he wasn't going to order anything he was going to have to ask him to leave.

  Shocked, Weise stepped aside and then left the building. An older woman, obese and riding a Rascal mobility scooter followed him out. “Son! Son! Over here!” she shouted. “Lemme see that picture. I spend a lot of time in Gibby's and I see lots of people and lots of things. I see everything.”

  He handed her the poster. She didn't need to study it for long. “Yeah, that's him, I know that boy,” she said. “Comes in about once a week, just hangs out, reads the newspaper, doesn't eat much, just drinks coffee and hangs out. Talks to people occasionally, mostly young people. Lots of women.”

  “Really? Do you actually know this man? Have you spoken with him?”

  “Nah, he's not interested in me,” she said laughing. “But he is popular, makes me wonder what business he's in. How he can afford to sit around doing nothing all day. He must be on disability like me—though I don't see anything wrong with him.”

  Weise was shocked and delighted. “Excuse me, Ms. . . . Ms. . . .”

  “Heinz, like the ketchup,” she piped up brightly. “But there's only one variety of me.”

  “Excuse me, Ms. Heinz,” he said warmly. “What you have here—what you have seen, what you know is very important to us. I'm going to have to call my associate, Agent Tovar, about this right away. Would you have time for a formal interview?”

  “I've got nothing but time,” she smiled.

  * * *

  As he rounded the corner to get to Dave's, Ned was surprised to see Hector, the manager, outside. It was incredibly hot outside, and he could see that Hector was sweltering and truly uncomfortable. Ned waved at him and found a parking spot. Hector started to jog over to the Jaguar even before Ned came to a complete stop. Ned lowered the driver's side window.

  “Don't come in,” Hector told him through the window. “Just keep driving.”

  “Why? What's going on?”

  “Two guys from the FBI—the fuckin' FBI, man—came here looking for you.”

  “What? No way.”

  “Yeah, man.” Hector's eyes were still very wide. “They left behind a poster with your picture on it, man. It says you are a very sick man and you need your medicine.”

  “Shit, what name was on it.”

  “Edward Nelson Aiken,” Hector told him. “But it also said you might be known by a bunch of other names; since one of them was ‘Crash,' I knew it had to be you.”

  “Did you say anything? Did anyone?”

  Hector scanned the area. “Of course not,” he said. “But you gotta get lost right away. I don't want to have to go back to Tamaulipas, man. I got some problems down there.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I understand.” Ned thanked Hector, closed the window and drove north out of the city. He didn't stop until he got to a small coffee shop in Tortolita. In the parking lot behind the restaurant, he dialed Weasel's number.

  “I've been waiting for you to call,” Weasel said instead of hello.

  “So you know, then?”

  “Of course I do,” Weasel said with obvious frustration. “Yours is the twelfth call about those fuckin' FBI agents already this morning.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We?” Weasel laughed. “I'm fine, but I think you're about done here . . . gonna have to get scarce pretty soon.”

  “Pretty soon? I'm leaving now.”

  “No you aren't,” Weasel told him. “You still gotta make the big drop tomorrow.”

  “What? No way!”

  “No, man, this has to happen,” Weasel told him. “I just got off the phone with Frankie X—he's a new big man down there—and he knows of the situation and has told me that it absolutely, positively has to be you who makes the drop.”

  “And if I don't?”

  “It's one thing to have the FBI after you. They might put you behind bars,” Weasel said, the concern in his voice obvious. “But these guys in Mexico will not rest until they find you then torture you to death if you don't do what they say. Don't be an idiot. Just make the drop and then disappear. I've already talked about it with Frankie; he said everything would be fine.”

  “I have to think about it.”

  “No you don't. It's not just $18 million; it's your life now. My life. Everyone's. You absolutely have to do this,” Weasel said. “Especially since your friend got popped.”

  “My friend?”

  “Yeah, the Clown,” he said. “Federales filled him full of holes yesterday—or didn't your New York Times report that?” It had, but Ned hadn't read it yet. He had planned to over lunch in Dave's.

  “Poco Loco is dead?” he asked. “Who's in charge now then?”

  “Some guy they call ‘El Cubano,' I don't know anything about him,” he said. “But if he says you gotta go, you gotta go.”

  “Yeah,” Ned said. He hung up and started driving aimlessly before he realized he was deep in the desert, and that if he ran out of gas, he was a goner.

  * * *

  Unlike most of his cousins south of the border, Speedy had never shot a man. He carried a gun with him most of the time, and had pulled it once at a face-off with some teenage Hells Angels supporters, who slunk away the second they saw the guns.

  But he felt like he could kill that day. This Crash guy had brought nothing good with him and he had led to the breakup of the Cossacks, he thought to himself. And, with him out of the way, he and the Cossacks would be free to run things in southeastern Arizona.

  Speedy packed an AR-15 and a couple of extra clips in his bag, added a Glock on each hip and put on a Kevlar vest. He knew where Crash lived and, realizing his Harley would draw too much attention, drove his brother's car to the house. After driving around it twice to get a better idea of whether or not anyone was inside, he parked in the alley way behind the yard and jumped the fence. Getting in the back door was no big deal. In fact, Speedy was surprised how little security Crash had on his place.

  Once inside, he looked around, determining that he was indeed alone. He shut all the lights off, except the one in the front hallway that had been on when he arrived, and took some night-vision goggles out of the bag with the AR-15. He sat and waited for Ned to come home.

  * * *

  Stew Bob didn't recognize the man who came into his shop, but was always happy to make new customers. The man, ordinary-looking, wearing jeans, a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt and boots seemed to be checking out the WASR-10s—civilian copies of the AK-47 that were popular in the area. Stew Bob knew that a lot of Americans were being bribed by Mexicans to buy powerful guns for them; in fact, just a week ago one kid bought eight WASR-10s from him, paying almost $3,000 in cash. Stew Bob had a very clear idea as to where the guns were going and what they were being used for, but it wasn't his problem.

  He approached the guy. “That's a pretty nice gun you're looking at there,” he said. “If you're after an AK-47 copy, I have these guys from Romania, or I can move you up to an Arsenal, assembled in the U.S. from Russian and Bulgarian parts. But if you want to go cheap, you're better off over at Mickey's up the road. I don't carry any of that Chinese shit.”

  The man shrugged. Then he pulled out a Glock handgun and shot Stew Bob three times in the face.

  His body fell forward so quickly that Big Red had to step out of the way to avoid being hit by it.

  Weasel had been at his desk back in the clubhouse when he heard the shots. He heard shots in the building all the time—Stew Bob had a firing range in the basement—but these sounded different, as though they came from within the
shop. Normally, he wouldn't even have noticed, but all of his senses had been on high alert since Scruffy's body had been discovered. He grabbed his own pistol and went out to investigate.

  As quietly as he could, Weasel approached the door to the shop. He grabbed the knob, and as slowly and quietly as possible, he turned it with his left hand. Before applying any pressure to the door, he lifted his right hand, holding his loaded gun, and pointed it at heart level. He opened the door a crack. A shaft of light shot in. “Stew Bob?” he shouted. No answer. “Stew Bob, you in there?” Again nothing.

  Weasel opened the door wide. Scanning the room, he saw that the front door was characteristically left open; then he saw Stew Bob's giant corpse facedown in the middle of the shop. Instinctively, he ran to his fallen friend. Big Red, who had been hiding behind the back door, popped out and sent four shells searing through Weasel's back. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Without emotion, Big Red stepped over the dead bodies, shut and locked the door, and turned the “Open” sign on the shop window to “Closed.” He then dragged the bodies behind the counter, shut off the lights, and went into the clubhouse to wait.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ned woke up the next morning in the front seat of the Jaguar. He was parked behind a Taco Bell in some suburb he barely recognized and his fitful sleep had been shattered by the clatter of metal and plastic bins thanks to the guy who carried out the restaurant's garbage. Without thinking, Ned put the key in the ignition and began to drive back to Tucson. He was headed home until he looked to see what time it was. He knew he had to get started on the trip to Coronado soon, so he had better get back to the clubhouse. If it came down to it, he knew he could shower and change there if necessary.

  It took him quite a while to get back to the city. A combination of early-morning commuter traffic and his new adherence to speed limits and other traffic laws ensured a slow ride in. The amount of time he took made him even more nervous. But when he finally arrived, he felt a bolt of much-needed confidence when he saw Stew Bob's gigantic Harley and Weasel's truck parked together.

  If he had gone around the front, he may have noticed that the store was closed, something that virtually never happened at this time of day. And if he had peeked in the window, he would have seen a pool of blood trailing to a place behind the counter.

  But he didn't. Fearing he was late and knowing he had an all-important job to do, Ned went in the back entrance. The lights were off. He shouted for Weasel and Stew Bob, but got no answer. Thinking he may have read his car's clock incorrectly and been early, Ned headed back toward the room with the cot and the shower. He wasn't sure if he'd sleep or shower, but he knew he couldn't just sit around and wait. He was just too stressed.

  As he passed through the office, he was stunned by the sight of Big Red sitting behind Weasel's desk and pointing his Glock at Ned's head. “How's it going, Mr. Aiken?”

  “Who the . . . Aiken?” Ned shook his head. “Who are you?”

  “Just a friend,” he said. “Now drop your weapons.”

  Ned did as he was told, took the gun out of his bag, and placed it on the desk. “That's the only one,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “Why did you call me Aiken?”

  “Well, the FBI has been putting these posters of your face up all over the place, and since we all like to share information, I thought I'd find out a little bit more about you,” he said. “Let's see now, my friends over at the FBI say you were with the Springfield Sons of Satan, ratted them all out, went into rat's protection under the name Eric Steadman then fled after murdering an FBI agent for reasons unknown. That about it? Or is there something you've done here that I should know about?”

  “Murder? FBI agent? I never . . .” Ned realized that the man in the chair was probably talking about Dave, his primary FBI contact, whose body he had found back in Delaware. It was actually a professional assassin from the Russian mafia who'd killed the man, but Ned knew he didn't have time to explain what had really happened. He also knew nobody would believe him, so there was no point denying it. “So you're a cop?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you're arresting me?”

  “Well, if I arrest you, I'll get a very pretty ribbon, maybe a raise, and perhaps a promotion some time down the road,” he smiled. “I'd much rather have the $18 million.”

  “I see.”

  “So where is it?”

  “I don't know.”

  “What do you mean you don't know?”

  “I really don't know,” he said. “You don't think they'd trust me with that kind of information do you? My instructions were to wait here until my contact told me where it was. Weasel and I are going to take it to Coronado, hook up with some couriers, load the truck, and bring it back here.”

  Big Red laughed. “Okay, so we wait,” he said. “First things first, though. You're going to have to put this on.” Then he threw him a small electronic device attached to a flexible strap.

  “What's this?”

  “We call it a tether; it's an ankle monitor,” he told him. “It sends radio signals over cellular phone lines to tell me exactly where you are all the time.”

  Ned held the device and scoffed. “Don't you need a court order for something like that? Aren't these ankle bracelets all monitored by some kind of central command?”

  “Court order? Central command? I'm stealing $18 million, asshole, not putting you in jail—unless you refuse to cooperate,” Big Red laughed. “This is just an evaluation device anyway; the only one who will see your comings and goings will be me on my laptop here. Hey, I can see you now.” He laughed and pointed at the screen. “Put it on and walk over here so I can make sure it's locked,” he said. “And don't worry about Weasel.”

  Ned did as he was instructed. “So what's your plan?”

  “We wait for your phone call, you go get the cash, you bring it to me, and we part company,” Big Red said. “Where you go after that doesn't really matter to me. Even though you are an inveterate rat, I know you can't rat on me because if you did you would be facing the gas chamber . . . no, wait, it's lethal injection in Delaware, isn't it? You don't have any friends left with the Mexicans. The bikers are out for your head. You'd be better off just disappearing. What the hell, maybe I'll give you a few bucks to help that along a little. No, actually, I don't think I will.”

  The two men sat together in silence on opposite sides of the desk, waiting for Ned's phone to ring. Finally, Big Red broke the tension. “You must be a hell of a lot smarter than you look, getting away with all this for so long,” he said. “I mean, I wasn't even looking for you. I just happened to be here in Tucson when I saw your picture in the window of a fast-food place.”

  Ned sighed. “You're from the Tortured Souls, right?”

  “President of the Tortured Souls, my friend.”

  “Weasel should be back soon,” Ned said. “That could be a problem for you.”

  “Don't worry about Weasel.”

  “Don't tell me he's in on this, too.”

  “I'd like to, but he isn't.”

  Ned's phone rang. When Ned brought it to his ear, Big Red leaned in close so he could hear, digging the barrel of his gun between two of Ned's ribs.

  “Yeah,” Ned answered.

  “Espagueti, it's me, El Martillo.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What's the code word?”

  “Pozole.”

  El Martillo's sigh was audible. “Good, good, man, just had to make sure it was you.”

  “It is.”

  “You sound strange, Espagueti, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, just nerves.”

  “Don't worry, man, it gets easier. After a couple of times, you barely even think about it anymore. Just relax. It will all be over soon.”

  “Yeah, thanks, man. So where do I go?”

  “There's a little shop on the south side at 51 South Sunset called Maria's. Go there and ask for Abuelita. She's a tiny old lady, but everyone
listens to her because they are totally into the Santa Muerte.”

  “Santa Muerte?”

  “You know, Saint Death, the cult with the skeleton angel?”

  “You mean that Grim Reaper thing you see everywhere in Sonora?”

  “Don't scoff, man. It's a religion to a lot of people down here and even some up there. Treat it with nothing but the greatest respect around those people or they will leave your dried-up bones in the desert—and only if they want them to be found.”

  “Understood. Do I have a password when I get there?”

  “Nope, just ask for Abuelita.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good luck, Espagueti.”

  “Thanks.” Ned hung up.

  Big Red went back around his desk. “Okay, I wrote everything down and I've found the address on Google Maps,” he said. “If I see you go anywhere other than this Maria's place or if the tether tells me you've tried to take it off, then you are a dead man. I have people—some from the local cops, others from the ATF, and others who just want to be Tortured Souls—all over the city and the highway who know who you are. On my word, they might just arrest you for the murders of Stewart Robert “Stew Bob” Wisniewski and Edgar “Weasel” Ortiz and bring you back to me, or they might just shoot you on sight. It kind of depends on who it is.”

  Learning that both Stew Bob and Weasel had been murdered sent a lighting strike of fear through Ned, but the possibility that he might be framed for the killings didn't bother him at all. He was beyond that by this point.

  “Why don't you just come along with me?”

  “You think I trust those people? Besides, don't you think the president of the Tortured Souls being seen with a member of the Cossacks might raise a few eyebrows?” Big Red laughed. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  Ned did as he was told. He really didn't like the idea of going to the drop without a gun and contemplated going home to pick one up. He never kept a gun in the car in case he was stopped by cops and searched, and was starting to regret that decision. But he remembered what Big Red had said about deviating from the path, and if he really did have people everywhere, he certainly would have at least one at his house. It was a stupid idea. He would have to go to the pickup on the south side unarmed.