by CM Genovese
“Seems she’s okay,” Carla said. “In fact, I’d say she’s absolutely glowing.”
Rain and Beezus worked on the lighting fixtures while Slitz applied a coat of lacquer to the finished bar top. The thing was a piece of art and once the clear coat dried over the top, we’d put it in place and half the work would be done. Carla had ordered up a bunch of Irish pub related artwork and memorabilia to decorate with. Oosik had overseen the reupholstering of the stools and booth cushions. Instead of the red they were before, everything was green.
Slitz blasted ‘Jungle’ by X Ambassadors as he stood with his tongue between his teeth, focusing on the job at hand. The man had woodworking skills. If he wasn’t so shy when it came to anything but fighting, he would have made some killer YouTube instructional videos. He loved explaining his craft. Once, he told me he’d tried doing it as a career but lost his love for it when dealing with demanding customers.
It was probably a quarter after two in the morning when the unexpected sound of engines roared to life down the street. I’d just stepped outside to see the progress Slitz was making when I heard it. A line of headlights was headed our way. Not the single bulbs of bikers. These weren’t our friends. They were the lanterns of street punks. All neon and fluorescents. They belonged to cars and trucks that you’d see at a car show.
“Samoans,” I said under my breath.
“Yo! We’ve got company!” Oosik announced.
“They’re being too pretty for a drive-by,” Slitz said.
It was true. The way they were lined up was more like a parade. They were making a show of their arrival. This wasn’t some quick bullet flinging surprise. They were here for a reason. I had a feeling it had something to do with me since I’d plugged one of their buddies and the Russian that night at the motel. I was surprised this hadn’t come about sooner. Even the Russians seemed to be laying low. It wasn’t like them, and I knew they had to be up to something.
“Call Beezus and Rain out here,” I said.
“No need to, brother,” Beezus said as he stepped out of the pub with Rain by his side.
Finn and Tommy, Carla’s two Irish bodyguards, came out of the pub too. Carla stayed inside by the phone. I nodded at her and smiled.
We were five strong, seven if we counted the two Irishmen. BP and the others were back at the clubhouse. Five of us were probably the equivalent of ten of the Samoans. We didn’t back down from a fight. We barked hard and when it was time to bite, we tore into anyone opposing us.
“Be ready,” I said.
Slitz already had his pistol out, cocked it, and held it down at his side.
The first car in the line was a sports car low to the ground, some kind of foreign piece of machinery you’d see in one of those Fast and the Furious movies. The bottom was low to the ground and glowed purple. It parked with its headlights facing the pub. Facing us. The car behind it, a similar make and model but with a red light glowing beneath it and red dancing lights circling the headlights, parked beside it. Two lowrider trucks parked beside them and then four other vehicles parked behind them.
They clearly weren’t experienced in escape tactics. If we opened fire on them now, the four cars in the back row would block the front vehicles from escaping. They’d be, for lack of a better term, sitting ducks.
“Well that’s stupid,” Rain said, obviously seeing the same mistake I did.
“This definitely ain’t the Russians,” Slitz said.
One thing about the Russians was they were smart when it came to attacking their enemies, most of the time anyway. I couldn’t say much for the jackasses who’d hit the pub recently and the ones who’d thrown me through a fucking motel window and tried to ambush me like a bunch of amateurs.
“Those are some girly cars,” Tommy said in a thick Irish accent.
“I don’t know, brother,” Finn replied. “I kind of like them.”
“Exactly,” Tommy said with a laugh. “You like girly things.”
“I’ll show you girly,” Finn replied with a slap to the back of Tommy’s head.
“Guys,” I said. “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Tommy replied then turned to his younger brother and said, “Stop acting like a child.”
The driver’s side door to the car with the purple lights popped open and out stepped a young man with spiked black hair. He wore a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up over his elbows. His arms were covered in tattoos. He kind of bounced as he walked, and I knew right away he was a fighter.
Other guys got out of the other vehicles. They were all dressed like thugs. One of the men carried a shotgun with the barrel rested against his shoulder. A few of the others were armed as well but not all of them.
“Hey, that’s Fetu ‘Two-Punch’ Leota,” Finn said.
“No, it ain’t,” Tommy argued. Then I heard him say, “Holy shit. It is.”
I wasn’t familiar with the name and really didn’t give a shit how many punches the guy threw. He needed to have a real good reason to be rolling up on us like this.
“Who the fuck are you?” Slitz asked before I had the chance to.
He never wasted a lot of time getting down to business. As the club’s enforcer, he chose power over pleasantries. His words didn’t pack the same punch as his trigger finger, so it usually didn’t take long for his gun to start blazing or his blade to go to work.
“Who the fuck are you?” the guy with the shotgun asked.
“What did you say, motherfucker?” Slitz replied and stepped forward.
“Ain’t no need for drama,” the Samoan in the hoodie said. “I’m only here for the coward who shot my cousin.”
“I don’t know about the coward part,” I said, “but I suppose you’re probably looking for me.”
The guy grinned and cocked his head to the side. “Yeah?”
“It depends. Are we talkin’ about the Samoan hero wearing a mask who came to this pub and held an innocent woman at gunpoint? Then was accidentally shot by one of his own friends? A fuckin’ Russian friend at that? Or are we talkin’ about the Samoan hero who shoved me through a fuckin’ motel window, again with some Russian friends, to try and kill the same innocent woman they tried robbing?”
The young brawler didn’t have much to say. He stood staring at me with his head cocked.
“Your cousin died because he didn’t believe in Paddy’s curse,” I continued. “Everybody who tries robbing this place ends up dead.”
“Bullshit,” one of the Samoans said.
I didn’t really give a fuck what that asshole thought so I continued addressing the guy who was apparently their leader. “Why are your people hangin’ around with Russians anyway? What do y’all have goin’ on?”
“That’s… that’s none of your business,” the young Samoan, Fetu, said.
“You don’t even know, do you?” Rain asked, and I’d been thinking the same thing. It was clear from the way he stuttered he had no idea why his people were working with the Russians.
“You know who I am?” Fetu asked, ignoring the question altogether.
“I don’t give a fuck who you are,” I replied.
“If you don’t know who I am, then you don’t know what I’m capable of.”
My upper lip twitched as I thought back to the night Holly was taken from me. To the two men I beat to death with a hammer. This guy had no idea what I was capable of. He had no clue about my past with his Samoan gangbanger family.
I hocked up a loogie and spit it at his feet. “That’s what I think of all you’re capable of, homie.”
He was fast as he leapt across the small space between us and tried delivering a superman punch at my face. The distance was greater than he measured, and I was easily able to move out of his way. My punch came across my body and blasted him on the jaw. He took a step to the right and absorbed my hit like a pro, unleashing one of his own next that connected with the side of my head, just below the ear.
My eyes blurred. It was a hell of a punch, but I wo
uldn’t go down that easily. He’d need to work a little harder at it. His kick was unexpected, but I was able to get my elbow up quickly enough to block it. He was a fighter, and I instantly knew where the Irishmen knew him from.
“Stop!” Carla yelled as she stepped out of the pub and fired her pistol into the sky.
The Samoan I’d been fighting, Fetu, hissed at me through gritted teeth. He held both his hands out, opened up MMA style.
“That’s what you’re capable of?” I goaded him. “I’m not impressed.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ motherfucker,” he replied. “You think you’re so bad? Thursday night then. In the ring.”
“I don’t fight in the ring,” I said. “You’re standin’ in my ring.”
“I said stop, Pipe,” Carla said. “There’s been enough bloodshed.”
“There hasn’t been nearly enough,” Fetu said.
He glanced past me and over at Carla. He took a few steps to his right with his hands on his hips. He seemed to be surveying the work we’d done with the pub.
“Looks like this place is coming along nicely,” he said. Then he walked back to me and pointed a finger in my face. “You. Thursday night. You fight me in the ring, or we come back here and burn this place to the ground.”
“You fuckin’ try it!” Slitz yelled as he pointed his gun at the big guy with the shotgun.
Guns clicked from both sides as every man in the parking lot pulled his weapon and aimed at someone across the way.
“Pipe,” Carla squeaked out behind me.
“Thursday night?” I asked. “You got it.”
Behind me, I heard Finn mutter, “Are you crazy?”
“I look forward to our fight,” Fetu said as he walked nonchalantly toward his car. “You might want to work on that right hand of yours. You hit like a bitch.”
His buddies started hooting and hollering before I could say something cool in return. I hated not having the last word. As the Samoans got into their vehicles and drove away, Tommy said, “He’s a helluva fighter. This could be a mistake.”
I ignored him and walked away, but I heard Slitz say, “You want to suck the Samoan’s cock a little more, Irishman?”
Tommy didn’t reply and that was a smart thing.
“You sure about this, brother?” Rain asked as I made my way into the pub.
“Fuck no,” I said. “I haven’t fought in a ring in a long time. Probably not since BP was training me back in the day.”
“A bit rusty then?”
“We’ll find out Thursday.”
BP was well-versed in a lot of different types of martial arts. He threw punches like a boxer, knees like a Muay Thai fighter, kicks like a Karate expert, blocks like a Krav Maga practitioner, and had the ground game of a Jiu Jitsu specialist. And he was my teacher, trainer, and sparring partner. We had some work to do.
12
As if I didn’t have enough problems, Tayla called me the next afternoon, right while I was in the middle of sparring with BP. I was in the process of getting out of his triangle choke when my phone rang. It was her ringtone. ‘Cold Hard Bitch’ by Jet played as I tried like hell to keep from passing out.
“I need to get that,” I managed to wheeze out.
“Get out of it first,” BP demanded.
“Could be an emergency.”
“Who’s the cold hard bitch?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
I didn’t want to tell him anything about her and my situation. They called him Bi-Polar Bear for a reason. He was huge and could switch from hot to cold in no time at all. He could either take the news that I’d knocked up Cubby’s daughter with total ease, or he could totally flip his shit because not only had I done something so reckless and stupid, but I’d also kept it a secret all these years.
“Get out of it,” BP repeated.
He squeezed me tighter until I felt like my head was about to pop off.
“Fuck,” I yelled as I brought my right leg up into a crouching stance and quickly threw my left leg over his stomach, twisted his legs open, and wrenched his right leg back so I had him in a knee lock.
The song stopped playing as I threw him away without waiting for him to tap out. He wouldn’t. BP always had a way of getting out of submissions.
“Damn, she hung up,” I complained as I picked up my phone.
I dialed her back and she answered but didn’t say hello. Instead, in the background, I heard Captain John yell out, “What are you gonna do, call your dirtbag biker boy toy? What do you really think he’s gonna do for you? Save you? Save Caleb? That rotten little shit can get the fuck out of here and take your whore ass with him. You’re both lucky I haven’t beaten the shit out of you and thrown you in the fuckin’ gutter with the other rats and roaches. Worthless pieces of shit.”
The phone hung up, but I’d heard all I needed to hear. I was going to kill an Air Force captain if I got my hands on him.
I yanked my jeans on over my shorts, pulled a hoodie on, tossed my kutte over my shoulders, and snatched up my keys as I headed for the door.
“You care to explain?” BP asked.
“Fuck, Pres. I’ll tell you all about it later. I promise, brother. But I need to take care of this shit right now before it gets outta hand.”
“Cubby’s daughter, ain’t it?”
I cocked my head to the side. I wasn’t ready to give up any information. He’d have to spill what he knew first.
“The married one,” he added.
Busted. You are so fucking busted.
“You think I don’t know what the fuck’s goin’ on with my guys?” he asked.
“Pres.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”
“The kid’s yours, ain’t he?”
“How do you know about—”
“You were sneakin’ around, doing weird shit at odd hours, and I was afraid you were getting’ into some kind of trouble. I followed you one time and saw you take that chick to a hotel. This was years ago. Then about a year ago I saw you go to the park to meet her with her kids.”
I couldn’t say a word. He knew, and all this time I’d thought I was keeping secrets.
“If Cubby finds out—” he started.
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
“You love this chick?”
When I didn’t answer, BP shook his head and chuckled. He said, “Boy, you done got yourself in some deep water, didn’t you?”
“I’ve been tryin’ to wade through it. Treading it is more like it.”
“Then you best get to swimmin’.”
“She needs my help. Can we talk more about it later?”
“I reckon we will,” he said.
My bike could barely keep up with the pace of my heart and the speed of the adrenaline racing through my veins. I’d been waiting for a reason to beat the shit out of Tayla’s husband. He was one of those assholes who simply had it coming. Out of respect for her and the fact that my son was living under his roof, I never crossed that line, but now all bets were off. Not only had he threatened her, he’d threatened my boy.
You’re both lucky I haven’t beaten the shit out of you and thrown you in the fuckin’ gutter with the other rats and roaches. Worthless pieces of shit.
Those were his words, and I was going to shove every fucking one of them down his damn throat.
Anchorage PD was pretty good about catching speeders, especially ones zipping in and out of the suburban neighborhoods, but I managed to dodge them this time. Nothing stood in my way of getting to Tayla’s house. If her husband had chosen to live on base, I would have been screwed, but Tayla had begged him to rent a place outside the base. That way her dad could come visit whenever he wanted to without the hassle of going through the base visitor center each time he wanted to stop by.
When her house came into view, only her blue Dodge Grand Caravan was parked in the driveway. The asshole had fled. He probably figured I was on my
way and took off before I could arrive. I was fuming when I parked my bike at the curb and stepped to the doorway. I slapped my palm against the door a couple of times.
Tayla answered with Caleb standing behind her.
“Uncle Pipe!” he yelled. “You want to see my room?”
It was the first time I’d ever visited at the actual house, but I knew the exterior well. A few times I’d stopped by just to check on them, to watch and make sure I didn’t hear any ruckus from the inside. Now, thinking back, it was kind of a stalker move, but I only wanted to make sure they were safe. I’d never trusted Tayla’s asshole husband.
“Hey, buddy,” I replied. “Of course. Give me just a second.”
“Why don’t you go up there and make sure your room is actually clean first?” Tayla suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” he said, “‘cause it’s kinda not.”
“I figured as much,” she replied. “Help your sister straighten hers too, okay?”
“OK, Mom,” he said as his tiny feet shuffled toward the stairs.
“Everything’s fine,” Tayla said.
The darkness of the living room hid her face. When I put my hand on her cheek, she closed her eyes like she was savoring my touch. Even with them shut I sensed a sadness in them. She wasn’t happy with life.
“Everything ain’t fine,” I said. “I heard him over the phone, threatening you and Caleb.”
“He left,” she said. “Said he was going to spend the night at a friend’s house. His sister’s coming to pick up the kids.”
“His sister?”
“She’s more like mine. Has been from the beginning. She knows what kind of monster he is and is always here when I need her. I just don’t want the kids to be here when he gets back. He was drinking and…”
My thumb touched the spot below her eye, and she winced, sucking a breath through her teeth.
“And he hit you again,” I said.
She pursed her lips, and they began to tremble. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“No,” I agreed, “it wasn’t.”
Her forehead moved over to meet mine and we stayed like that for a moment, face to face, forehead to forehead, in total silence.