by Mike Baron
They used the engine bays to work on their bikes and the occasional car. They gutted the office and sat around an old conference table Ed bought from a start-up that went belly-up. The place wasn’t so much decorated as filled with the junk and whimsy of its members. Rat Finks, Hustler spreads, pictures of bikes, newspaper clippings and tiki dolls decorated the walls. The place reeked of beer and cigarette smoke.
Ed knocked up his old lady Beatrice in 1980. Beatrice was inked like a boxcar. She worked in a bar. She was on the heavy side but then so was Ed. Wild Bill was born April 2, 1981. Everyone assumed he’d changed his actual birth date so as to avoid ridicule.
Now Ed was in the earth and Wild Bill led the club. No one knew what happened to Beatrice, not even Wild Bill.
Ed died on June 29, 1997. He crossed the centerline on Illinois State Highway 51 around eleven thirty at night and ran head-on into a Mack truck carrying a load of Leinenkugel. It was ruled a righteous death.
Ed was returning from scouting out a possible charter club in Paducah and had been riding with the Pounders when he got a call from his current old lady Tiffany claiming to be pregnant. Turned out to be a false alarm.
Speed and alcohol may have been involved.
The old days. They had some good times, too. One night they were all sitting around drinking and smoking reefer. The joint passed to Numbnutz, who sat in an old overstuffed chair claimed from Student Moving Days. After awhile Wild Bill looked up and said, “Where the fuck’s that joint?”
Everybody looked at everybody else. “Numbnutz had it last,” Doc said.
Numbnutz looked around in surprise. His hands were empty. The seat cushions began to smoke. The seat cushions burst into flame. Numbnutz rose up and out like a Titan booster. “Fire!” he cried.
Everybody tossed their beers on the chair dousing the fire.
The old days. Doc shook his head.
Wild Bill, Chainsaw and Mad Dog disappeared around a curve and Doc and Curtis instinctively slowed down. They’d always enjoyed riding together. With the others, not so much. Especially when they got to snortin’ and drinkin’. Doc playfully goosed his modified Road King and surged ahead. Curtis was about to do the same when a vibration, the merest flicker of movement, stayed his hand.
A deer bounded from the trees. Curtis automatically squeezed the front brake and pushed the rear brake with superb control so as to avoid locking up, stopping a foot short as the startled creature gave one frightened look and bounded into the trees on the opposite side of the road.
Doc saw it in his rearview and immediately pulled over, shutting off his bike and getting off. He approached Curtis grinning.
“Need to change your underwear Curtis?”
Curtis pulled over and got off. “Motherfucker! I almost T-boned that sumbitch.”
Doc pulled out a cigar. The forest was silent as if the Road Dogs had disappeared into a tunnel. Silent save for the distant rumble of thunder.
“If you had, we’d be eatin’ venison for supper.”
Curtis stomped into the ditch, hands on hips, mad at himself. He gazed into the woods. Old habit. He did not merely gaze, he saw. There was something unnatural about the silhouette of a tree about fifty feet in, as if it were occupied. He parted branches with his hands.
“Where you goin’?” Doc said.
“Back here. I see something.”
Muttering and smoking Doc followed Curtis into the brush. A green curtain of déjà vu settled on his shoulders and he shivered despite the warm weather. He never suffered from PTDS but he knew guys who had. He often dreamed about Nam but not when he was awake. He wasn’t one of those guys who had “flashbacks.”
He was having one now.
That shape, that fucking shape in the tree. He pulled the five-shot.
“What?”
Curtis didn’t answer. He stood stock still staring up. Doc pushed wet branches out of the way and joined Curtis in the clearing. A man hung upside down from a branch to which his ankles had been bound with his own shoelaces. The body faced the tree, lifeless black arms hanging down, upside down Aces of Spade patch. Memphis.
The corpse was headless and a large brown stain covered the ground where it had exsanguinated.
A bare-bones Knucklehead with a rigid frame and bobber fenders lay on its side as if it had been casually tossed there, leather saddlebags partly splayed, clothes and toiletries spreading.
“Terrell,” Curtis said. “I knew this was a bad deal.”
***
CHAPTER 20
Snake Bit
Rolling thunder approached. The boys had noticed Doc’s and Curtis’ absence and had turned around to find them. Seeing Doc’s and Curtis’ bikes by the side of the road they pulled over and headed into the brush.
Wild Bill was the first to step into the clearing, eyes sweeping past the headless corpse and doing a massive double-take.
“Is that our ice?” he asked
“That’s Terrell,” Curtis said with finality.
Chainsaw and Mad Dog entered the clearing and stood as if in awe of an original Robert Williams painting. Mad Dog had a sickly little smile on his face.
“Well did anybody search his saddlebags for the ice?” Wild Bill asked as if lecturing stupid children. Doc and Curtis looked at one another.
Chainsaw strode to the downed cycle and rummaged through the saddlebags throwing out underwear, a box of condoms, a rain parka, energy bars, a copy of Tits and a tin of Altoids. The other saddlebag held nothing of interest.
Wild Bill turned back to the corpse which hung from the limb like a ghastly piñata. “It might still be on him. I mean, this is obviously that motherfucker’s work and he doesn’t look like a gangbanger to me. I’m betting he doesn’t give a shit about dope. All he cares about is lopping off heads.”
“Why do you suppose he spared us back at the Klub?” Doc said.
Wild Bill rounded on him. “How the fuck should I know? Maybe he didn’t want to get his ass blown off. There were five of us not counting the cop.”
“Useless as tits on a boar,” Mad Dog brayed. No one laughed.
“You saw what good Fred’s shotgun did,” Doc said. “Seems to me he wasn’t afraid of us. Curtis, you think he was afraid of us?”
“Can’t say as I do.”
Wild Bill snorted in contempt. He ran a fat finger under his nose. “Mad Dog, get your ass up there and cut him down.”
Mad Dog looked at the corpse with disgust, back to Wild Bill and leaped for a low hanging branch from which he swung his legs over, pulled himself up branch by branch until he was adjacent with the corpse’s ankles about ten feet above the ground. He whipped out his balisong with an added fillip and sawed through the shoelaces. The corpse fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Doc looked at Curtis. That was unfortunate. They should have caught the corpse. It brought back unpleasant memories.
Mad Dog hung from a branch like an ape and dropped, springing up with a grin.
Wild Bill pointed with his chin. “Search him.”
Mad Dog’s grin evaporated but he knelt without hesitation and went through the corpse’s vest finding two cell phones and some change. Mad Dog reached across to search Terrell’s left front pants pocket and jerked back screaming, hand trailing a foot long gray/green snake with a moiré pattern.
Mad Dog whipped his arm wildly trying to snap the snake loose to no avail. Its fangs sunk deeply into the meat of Mad Dog’s palm. He danced around swinging his arm.
“FUCK! FUCK! GET IT OFF!”
Sighing, Doc walked over and shoved Mad Dog to the ground. He landed on his seat. Curtis came over and put his hands on Mad Dog’s shoulders. Doc pinned Mad Dog’s hand to the ground, withdrew his Kershaw which opened with a flick and sawed off the serpent’s head. The snake body thrashed for an instant and then was still.
Doc pried the snake’s jaws apart and removed it from Mad Dog’s hand like pins from a cushion. He squeezed the palm to force out more blood. “Suck on it,” he said.<
br />
“That’s what I told her,” Chainsaw said.
Mad Dog was crying and snot poured from his nose. “FUCK! AM I GONNA DIE?”
“Eventually,” Curtis said.
“Not likely,” Doc said. “That there’s a grass snake. They don’t usually bite people ‘less you’re stupid enough to put your hand on ’em. Now if that had been a copperhead might be a different story.”
“I feel dizzy,” Mad Dog said.
“Maybe you shouldn’ta drank five beers and snorted all that meth,” Curtis said.
Mad Dog looked set to spit but Wild Bill was within striking distance.
“Quit acting like a little bitch,” Wild Bill said. “Fuckin’ snake bite won’t kill ya.”
“Hell,” Doc said. “Curtis and me used to eat snake in the bush.”
“That’s right,” Curtis said. “You fry them suckers up in a little sesame oil and some mama-san chilies, mmm-mm. Them’s good eatin’.”
Mad Dog hyperventilated. “Shit! Now my pants are wet.”
Doc watched Curtis stifle himself and grinned. Curtis wasn’t a loudmouth like Mad Dog. Never had been. One of the reasons Doc and Curtis got along so well is they could keep each other’s company for hours without saying a word.
“If you’re through crying like a baby,” Wild Bill said, “go on and finish searching the dude.”
“He ain’t got no wallet, Bill,” Mad Dog said.
“Look around. Maybe he dropped it.”
“He didn’t drop it,” Curtis said. “Terrell kept it chained to his belt like y’all.”
Mad Dog looked again. “Pant loop been ripped out.”
“So he wants the heads and the wallets.”
“He didn’t want Larry’s wallet,” Doc said. “Cop had that when he came in the Klub.”
Chainsaw stared at the headless stump. “What you think was in that helmet bag he was carrying. And now he’s got Terrell’s. What’s he doing with all these heads?”
“Heads, wallets and ice,” Wild Bill said. “Maybe this spook ain’t no spook at all. Maybe he’s one fucking smooth operator.”
Doc barked.
Wild Bill ignored him. “Maybe this is all a front for him taking over the meth trade around here.”
Doc puffed his stogie until it was the brightest thing in the world, clamped in a big grin. “Five minutes ago you were telling us he wasn’t interested in the ice.”
“Yeah?” Mad Dog snarled. “He ain’t no spook! He’s just some fuckin’ jamoke in body armor! Drill him through the helmet see how he survives!”
“Now there’s an idea,” Wild Bill said. “But first we have to find him. Fred said he lived somewhere in the hollow. We keep lookin’ until we find him.”
Curtis shook his head and looked at the ground. “I got a bad feeling about this.”
Wild Bill snucked and ran a finger under his nose. “You and Doc been acting like a couple of blue-haired old ladies since we got down here. My advice to you is to stop whining and grow a set.”
“Man up!” Mad Dog jeered.
Doc’s pupils contracted behind his tinted glasses. He slowly stepped in front of Wild Bill and looked up. “Excuse me?”
Wild Bill breathed stankbreath on Doc. “You heard me.”
“Night comin’ on, tornado weather, we’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off.…”
“Exactly,” Chainsaw said.
“BUK BUK BUK!” Mad Dog clucked at Doc.
Wild Bill and Doc stared it down.
“Chill,” Curtis said. “We’re gonna need every hand if we’re gonna beat this thing.”
Wild Bill looked up. “So you in?”
Curtis nodded. Doc mouthed what the fuck.
“We took an oath, Doc. Terrell was a friend of mine.”
“Okay,” Wild Bill announced. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna slow way down and scan both sides of the road. Every time we see a gate or a dirt road we’re gonna stop and check it out. He’s gotta be in the Hollow.”
“Hollow’s nine miles long,” Chainsaw said.
“What else we got to do?” Wild Bill said. “You guys are always braggin’ on how bad you are. Now’s are chance to prove it. Now’s our chance to write the Road Dogs into his-store—ee. Let’s go.”
***
CHAPTER 21
Nazis
Fagan showered in Fred’s old rust-stained stall with a chip of soap and a mini shampoo from Best Western. He dried himself with a Harley towel. He went into the bar owner’s bedroom and took a clean T-shirt from Fred’s highboy. It said, “STURGIS, ’96” and showed an Indian chief with an extravagant bonnet riding a chopper through the Black Hills. Fagan looked at himself in the tarnished mirror above the dresser. His short hair looked like a Brillo pad. He had a goose egg that looked like an eggplant emerging above his left eye.
Fagan stood in the doorway and scanned the room as he’d been trained to do.
Sooner or later he would have to go through it searching for any evidence related to Helmet Head. But now was not the proper time. He quietly shut the door and returned to the bar in control of himself. Macy had backed her chair into a corner, sitting with her arms and legs crossed as if trying to take up as little space as possible.
She must have felt it, too, Fagan realized; a crimson tide rising up his neck.
“Does that old pick-up out back run?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where the keys are?”
“Should be behind the bar.”
“Can you find them for me? There’s no reason for us to hang around here.”
Macy got up and went behind the bar. She opened cupboards beneath the bar and rummaged. Fagan heard pots and glasses banging and clinking, shoe boxes filled with junk being shuffled. She stood, opened the cash register with a ding and removed the change tray. She picked the heavy register up by one side and peered underneath.
The bar didn’t even have an electronic credit card scanner. It had one of those old-fashioned slide operators.
She turned around and faced the bar. A series of small drawers ran the length beneath the marble top and above the open shelving holding bottles of liquor. Macy went through them methodically from left to right. Fagan watched her every move, throat dry from the sight of her shifting glutes.
Stop it, he told himself.
How unprofessional can you get? Had he learned nothing from his mistakes?
On a night like this the rule book was out the window. He felt as if he’d left Planet Earth for an unknown dimension. He chuckled.
Macy looked at him in the mirror and smiled. “What?”
The smile transformed her like sun breaking through clouds.
Fagan hummed the theme to The Twilight Zone. “Do do do do … do do do do.”
“Peter Fagan, a sheriff’s deputy in the Southern Illinois,” Macy said in a surprisingly deep baritone, “with no more sense than a tripping gerbil, thinks he’s on the verge of a big meth bust when he is really about to enter the Twilight Zone.…”
They laughed. Macy continued looking. After a few minutes she threw her hands up in despair. “It could be anywhere. Maybe it’s in his shop or his bedroom.”
“I’ll do it,” Fagan said out of long habit. Technically the whole bar was a crime scene and if the room was to be searched he preferred to do it as he’d been taught.
Macy headed for the old sofa in the corner. “I’m going to lie down.”
Fagan eased himself upright feeling the tape tug at him and returned to Fred’s bedroom. There was an unframed poster of a hot chick straddling a chopper on the wall next to a similarly themed calendar, which was stuck on March two years ago. Telling himself he was only searching for the truck keys Fagan went through the clutter atop Fred’s bureau: an overstyled knife, a black leather Harley wallet attached to a chain containing forty-eight dollars in cash and one Citibank credit card. Fred’s license was up to date in Bullard County. A peeling jewelry box held a selection of cheap gaud
y biker jewelry: sterling silver skull rings, a couple of earrings. Brass knuckles.
Fagan couldn’t remember if Fred wore earrings. He hadn’t been paying attention. He should have noticed.
Fagan quickly went through the dresser drawers finding women’s lingerie and a snub-nosed .38 in a cigar box with a box of Federal cartridges. Was there anyone at the Kongo Klub who wasn’t packing?
Maybe Macy.
In the bottom drawer beneath neatly folded T-shirts lay an old spiral notebook. Fagan pulled it out and opened it. Fred wrote in block letters like a child.
June 20. Stuck in the fuckin’ ER at Bullard County Med Center. Right leg fucked all to hell. I told the ambulanse peeple I hit a deer cause I tell them the truth they mite try lock me up. I was riding thru Milton’s Hollow 9:30 last night when I saw a big red headlight in my mirror. Before I knew it this freak was rite next to me trying to chop at me with a fucking sword. I knew who it was. I heard them rumors but I never beleeved them. I beleev them now. Helmet Head is real. I hit the ditch to avoyd getting chopped and that’s how I broke my leg. He woulda come back too excep right then a car came by and they phoned the hospital.
That was the only entry. Fagan closed the spiral pad and replaced it in the bottom drawer. He opened the closet and found a complete set of leathers, chaps, vests, blue workshirts, jeans and a collection of boots. Fred had been a surprisingly neat housekeeper for a bachelor. There was a worn gray sports jacket. Fagan methodically went through all the pockets picking up another five bucks in change but nothing of interest.
He sat on the double-sized bed. The night stand held an ashtray, and a stack of magazines: The Horse, Hustler, Back Yard Choppers, Tits and Ass and a lone copy of National Geographic featuring “Miscellaneous Marsupials Indigenous to Outer Australia.”