by Layla Wolfe
Wolf had handed me leggings and a T-shirt, so I put my tank over that and was about halfway dressed. Emerging from the darkened hallway, I peeked around the corner. Even during my hectic, wild modeling years, I’d never been in a biker bar, and it was pretty intimidating. All sorts of men from the wrong side of the tracks wandered about, shooting pool, drinking, playing darts. Some had long ZZ Top beards, some had a myriad of facial piercings, but all wore the leather vest with the club logo on the back, a skull and crossbones, naturally. Their vests said “Tucson Chapter,” making me wonder how many damned chapters there were. I knew my dad lived in Pure and Easy, up north toward Flagstaff. Tracy was playing pool with some of them as though unaware of her surroundings.
And there was my dad. He must’ve been waiting for me because he spied me right away and smiled. He’d been leaning on a pool stick, the only guy in the room not wearing the smelly jacket. Just a regular guy, as he always protested. Just a regular recycling, documentary-watching, Arrested Development-loving sort of guy. It was too bad that this was a huge fantasy. He was as big of a selfish, self-serving asshole as everyone else, men especially. If he’d of wanted a normal, New York Times-reading life, why had he kept working for cartels and now biker gangs? He could have had a regular job where he could support a regular family. I often wondered at how different things would’ve turned out if he had done this. I might’ve even gone to college.
We walked toward each other, and I almost shook hands with him. I did have him to thank for saving my ass, if not my life. If Valentina had sent Armando in there, Lord knows what kind of shit he’d of stirred up. The bikers had been efficient, I had to hand them that. “Hi, dad. Thanks for bailing me out of trouble.”
“Ah, sweetheart, it’s the least I could’ve done.” The dichotomy always struck me, now even more so when Slushy was standing in a clubhouse surrounded by leather-clad outlaws. He had such an aw shucks, sandy-haired look. He wore colorful button-down shirts with loud ties and always looked neat. He had a young look—he’d be forever youthful. I sure hoped that shit rubbed off on me.
“They need my help to figure out who Alcatraz is?”
A shadow of darkness passed over his face. “Well, I’ve got a feeling I already know who it is. And the news isn’t good. But don’t you concern yourself with that.”
Men had gathered around us. Leaning on pool sticks or just plain old looming, they circled us. I wasn’t sure if it was protective or menacing. I stammered, “But it is my concern, dad! This weirdo completely drugged me—I mean, I know I asked for drugs, but what he did went above and beyond giving me some painkillers.”
“He gave you fake Molly,” said Roman. He didn’t have to lean on a stick to loom over everyone—he was that tall. “So many research chemicals are being sold as MDMA these days. Most Molly is chock full of crap like methylone, pentedrone, and MePP. You’re playing Russian roulette with Molly due to how widely it varies from batch to batch.”
Wolf said, “I stole some off the desk to test.”
Roman glared at him. “After I told you not to.”
“No, it’s good that he did,” said Slushy. “This might give us a trail, a scent to go on, so to speak. Find the lowdown assholes who are dealing the fake Molly, find the cartel dealing in humans. Most of the synthetic Molly comes from China.”
“Is this what you took?” a strange man asked me, holding out what looked like a cold capsule. A patch told me he was the President of the Tucson chapter, so I answered him.
“Yes, looks about right. I was nauseas, panic-stricken, but too groggy to move. Wasn’t like any fucking Molly I’d ever done. Tracy, you too?”
Men stepped aside to allow Tracy into the circle. “Exactly, Gudrun. Within minutes I was like totally helpless. There was no way I could fight off those guys.”
“Scumbags.” “Fuckers.” “Greaseballs.”
Men murmured and swore, and I finally got the picture. These men were my protectors, not my enemies. Tracy and I shared a look of certainty, of self-assurance that we were in the right place with the right people.
“Not to mention.” I put my hands on my hips and looked around at my newfound friends. “Where the fuck is our friend Shannon? She—and her car—have completely vanished. Tracy, you heard from her?”
“No. But I looked out the window. It wasn’t Shannon who drove off. Someone dumped her body in the back of her car, and one of those gangsters drove off with her.”
Roman sliced the air with his hand. “That’s what we’re here to find out, Gudrun. Your Alcatraz seemed to know the Prez of our Pure and Easy chapter, so we’re about to call him. Don’t go away.”
As the president set up a smart phone on the bar and motioned at everyone to shut the fuck up, Slushy said,
“Yeah. And I’ve got a creeping feeling exactly who this Alcatraz is.”
“We’re about to find out,” said Roman, crossing his arms and looking down at me.
I had never felt so protected, so safe. But the Alcatraz saga was only just beginning.
CHAPTER SIX
ROMAN
Roman hadn’t felt this alive in years. This was the way he used to feel at the start of a tour, or before the first day recording an album in the studio. Powerful, pumped up with life, just bursting with possibilities.
He had assured Fred Birdseye and Slushy that he’d buried the guy known as Alcatraz—some asswipe Slushy thought he knew from another lifetime, some former Boner from Pure and Easy who had left in bad standing. He felt manlier than ever facing Gudrun, knowing that she knew that he’d taken out the guy who had assaulted her. This new macho essence seemed to imbue every corpuscle in his being. He even felt attracted to Gudrun, though it seemed slightly wrong.
Hell, she was a good-looking twat, as his brothers often called chicks. Hadn’t she been a model in her teens? She must’ve gained some weight since then, but it looked good on her, making her bouncy and shapely. Just sitting next to her in his little cell in the back, Jesus Criminy, her creamy white side boob glimpsed through the arm hole of her tank top was enough to get his prick hard. He thanked his lucky stars she was Slushy’s daughter. She was voluptuous enough to make him break his fast, his celibacy.
For now, he was happy he’d be put on the track of this fake Molly, figuring out which club or cartel had been behind the doping and the kidnapping of Gudrun’s friend. Ford Illuminati, Prez of the Pure and Easy mother chapter, answered his phone.
“You’re on speaker. The whole club’s here,” Birdseye warned his fellow Prez.
“That’s fine,” said Ford. “I’ve got a feeling I know what this is about.”
Birdseye was understandably confused. “Oh, yeah? And what might that be?”
“Check this out. I’ll send this to your Veep’s phone.”
Roman could hear clicking around on a keyboard. Everyone looked quizzically at each other while Shady Osborne glanced at his phone. When it dinged, Shady put it on the bar next to Birdseye’s phone and pressed the play button on the video.
Holy shit on a sandwich. It was one of the fucking videos those chollos had taken of Roman stalking down the street in the barrio carrying the limp Gudrun!
Every last man jack looked at Roman. A wide variety of emotions were expressed in their eyes. Almost all of Roman’s confidence immediately went out the window as he tried to read their expressions. Were they proud of him, in awe? Was he a hero? Or had he blown it for the club? The video was basically enough police evidence to convict him of murder, and chances were it had gone viral already. There he was displaying his colors proudly for the entire fucking world to see, walking away from a scummy trap house with four dead bodies inside.
“I see,” Birdseye told Ford cautiously. “And who exactly sent you this fucking video?”
“I’ve got Tobiah working on that right now. Naturally it was sent from a burner phone. Point is, well aside from the fact that we’ve got to be extra careful because there are amateur filmmakers everywhere these days, whoever was bu
ried now knows exactly who did the burying, and I can’t exactly figure out yet if that’s good or bad.”
Birdseye sighed heavily. “Yeah. Well, it’s a done deal now, so we’ve got to accept the blowback. Now Slushy here thinks he knows the identity of the guy Manhole ended.”
Manhole. This day just kept getting better and better. Roman snuck a look at Gudrun to gauge her reaction. She definitely snickered a little bit at the name. The bruise that was blooming on her cheekbone made him feel protective. He wanted to put an arm around her and draw her close.
“Right,” Slushy chimed in. “My stepson here told me that the fucker said ‘say hello to Ford Illuminati’ right as he was about to bury our Prospect. And how many other scummy, grimy assholes like that are hanging around named Alcatraz?”
“Does sound fishy,” Ford agreed. “Is your daughter there?”
Slushy started to say, “Yeah, she’s standing—” but Gudrun took charge.
“I’m here,” she asserted. When she jammed her hands on her hips with authority, her elbow touched Roman’s ribs. The touch sent a shiver directly to his dick, stiffening it uncomfortably inside his 501s.
Ford asked, “Can you give me any details of the fucker? Height, weight, hair?”
“Maybe five foot ten, not very tall.” Average weight, on the thin side. Just a very smelly, vile guy, long wiry brown hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in ten years. Oh, and he had a urethral sounding in his pocket, if that helps. Not many men run around with that sort of thing.”
Slushy looked grim, his mouth a thin line. “Now, dear, I’m not going to ask what he did or how you know what that object was.”
Roman didn’t even know what it was, but from the way some of his brothers were elbowing each other knowingly or with disgust, he had a vague idea. The word “urethral” gave it away.
“I am a nurse’s assistant,” Gudrun told her father.
Ford Illuminati sighed. “It’s him, without a fucking doubt. Listen, Gudrun? I’m sending Shady another picture. Can you look at it for me?”
“Sure.”
Shady handed Gudrun his phone so she could bring it closer to view. The expression on her face was enough when she thumbed the photo Ford sent. She looked as though she’d just stepped in dogshit, and Slushy reached to take the phone from her.
“That’s him, all right. Fuck! We’ve been wondering where this guy—Riker—has been. He was last seen delivering A-1 Sinaloan White to a bunch of religious loonies in the mountains near Pure and Easy. Took out at least one of the other Presención drivers along with our dearly beloved brother, Ziggy Fulton.”
“Long may he live,” echoed Birdseye. Many of the brothers crossed themselves.
“I took a shot at Riker,” said Ford, “but it hit the truck he was stealing. He got the fuck away, and since then it’s been nothing but rumors.”
Slushy put the phone gingerly back onto the bar, as though the photo would infect him. “This guy’s been a loose cannon for years, man. He was the sergeant-at-arms for the old Pure and Easy Prez, Ford’s dad. They were inseparable.”
Everyone nodded knowingly. It was legendary, the story of Ford Illuminati burying his dad in the desert near Nogales. The club had been tarnished with Cropper’s inexcusable behavior for years if not decades. Roman wasn’t up on the particulars, but he thought it had something to do with Cropper overstepping his boundaries with Ford’s old lady, Madison. The writing had been on the wall. Ford had taken matters into his own hands.
But Riker had gotten away, to live again only to poison people with this horrible heroin that high schoolers were overdosing on. They hadn’t even gotten his cut back from him, much less burned off his backpack, as they should have done to any member who was out bad.
“Okay, look,” said Ford, “Tobiah is buzzing me on the other line. Maybe he’s come up with something. Let me call you back, Birdseye. Stay vertical.”
“Stay vertical,” Birdseye vowed.
A collective sigh of relief swept the room as the offensive photo of Riker went black on the screen. The bartending Prospect named Sock Monkey went to the back door to receive a shipment of something, and everyone else went to the can or back to their pool game.
Roman conglomerated into a smaller group with Gudrun, Slushy, Wolf, and Tracy. He said to Slushy, “So I buried a fellow Bare Boner?”
“One who was extremely ‘out bad.’ You’ll be a hero, son, mark my words.” Roman sure wished Slushy would stop calling him “son” in front of Gudrun. “He was a major liability. You did the world a favor. He’s one of those guys who is so deeply disturbed it goes back to a cellular level. He probably fell and hit his head when he was a kid or something, but Riker was always imbalanced.”
Wolf asked, “You gonna keep these ladies here at the clubhouse? I’m thinking now that the entire world knows you offed Riker, they might be safer in, say, a safe house. Like mine.”
Roman was pissed that Wolf had come up with a good idea. Roman had sold his house when he’d quit his band. Since then he’d been living in the little hovel in the back of the clubhouse. Since he hadn’t planned on bedding any twats, he didn’t need a nicer place. Now, though, it just looked embarrassing. A fucking Prospect who still worked at Home Depot had a house, and he didn’t.
Slushy squinted at Wolf. “You got surveillance cameras? I’m not going to trust my daughter anywhere that doesn’t have proper security.”
“Oh, dad,” said Gudrun, and Roman could see her blushing.
“I’m not kidding,” said Slushy. “This is my little girl. I may have done a lousy job of being a father before, but I’m stepping up to the plate now, I’m telling you. I’d even say come and stay with me up in P&E, but if they’ve figured out you’re my daughter, there won’t be safe either.”
“Let’s go for Wolf’s house,” said Tracy. “It’ll be just like in the movies, going underground, hiding from the bad guys.”
“And just as boring,” said Gudrun, but she was distracted by some pizza boxes Sock Monkey carried to a central table.
Pool games disintegrated as men drifted toward the delicious-smelling boxes, but something didn’t sit right with Roman. No one had ordered pizza. They didn’t normally order pizza just because they didn’t trust strange boxes entering their clubhouse. But to order pizza when they were basically on lockdown, when they were trying to track down who their enemies were?
Instinctively, Roman drew his Glock from the waistband of his jeans, pointing it at the pizza boxes. “Don’t touch them!” he barked.
A few men laughed, but overall the room went still.
“Evacuate!” Roman bellowed. “Let’s all get the fuck out of here! Thing’s probably on a remote timer—go, go! Head for the front exit!”
Once again, Roman was shamed that Wolf and Slushy were able to grab the girls and hustle them out the door. But since Roman had been the one suspicious of the pizza boxes in the first place, it was his duty to be the last man out. If someone was sitting down the street with an eye on the clubhouse and a detonator in his hand, he’d of already seen the people pouring out by now. In fact, Roman was the last out the door when the pizza box exploded.
It was like in the movies. The pressure wave of the blast hit Roman in the back just as he cleared the front doorway, propelling him through the air several yards. He wound up slamming face-first into one of those fucking Redbox video rental kiosks, hellaway on the other side of the street in front of a liquor store.
His velocity propelled him into the red metal stand. His face smashed into the display section where posters of current movies were shown. Roman bounced off the display like a bug with many limbs, sprawling and flying, his face having taken the brunt of the impact.
Next thing he knew, he was on his back in the street again, crap raining down on him. Heavy clods of what seemed like dirt fell loudly. Roman must have been stunned, blood from his nose pouring hotly into his mouth and down his neck, but he didn’t move until something sharp flung itself at his k
nee. A brick, or piece of the clubhouse ceiling, but Roman finally rolled and took cover. Soon two brothers who had been in hiding ran out to accompany him back to the safety of an alley.
“Look around,” Roman panted, wiping the blood off on the back of his hand. “See if you see any fucktards liable to have been holding the detonator. Someone’s going to be watching, reporting back to his boss.”
“I saw a Chinese guy parked a couple blocks down,” said Shady Osborne. “Not the sort of guy you normally see around Tucson. He was in a Caddy, too.”
“Chinese,” echoed Roman, thinking of what Slushy had said about the fake Molly being sold by Chinese. It was a sight to behold, pieces of the club’s roof still raining down on parked cars like some kind of slo-mo explosion. Roman didn’t know the liability factor involved in something like this, but would their insurance pay for the innocent bystander’s parked cars? It wouldn’t be an “act of God” if a rival’s bomb had caused it. Or would it?
“We can rebuild,” opined Sock Monkey. “Looks like just the roof that blew off.”
Roman punched the Prospect in the arm. “Yeah, and everything inside the fucking club, you submoron. Where’s Gudrun?”
Shady pointed. “I saw them take cover inside that hair salon.”
The worst of the debris had finished raining down, so Roman took off. He mentally ticked off each brother he saw. Birdseye was fine, sheltering under a restaurant’s awning, already with a beer in his hand.