by Layla Wolfe
“Pippa Lofting,” I said. I’d chosen my last name because I used to love Dr. Doolittle books. And I was hoping to eventually, some day, regain a sense of wonder and childhood.
“Santiago Slayer,” he said smoothly, with a very thick Mexican accent.
Boy, if that wasn’t a cartel name, my name wasn’t Pippa Lofting. I remembered Randy Blankenship’s warning to stay away from known felons.
So now I had to shake the other guy’s hand. A pointless ordeal, since I’d probably never see him again.
“Fox Isherwood.”
Now this guy stunned me to the core. Why, I had to figure out. It was his ice blue eyes, assessing me. He looked at me skeptically, the way people do when they’ve heard something about you, and it’s not quite jibing with what they’re looking at. He had a fine nose, and the very pale skin of the Irish or Scots. Didn’t seem to fit in a biker club.
Fox’s hand gripped mine a fraction of a second longer than was necessary. “You’re some kind of scientist then?”
What? “What?”
He released my hand, and the warmth lingered. “June said you were experimenting with CBD and THC.”
“Oh. Yes.” Pippa Lofting had that plant biology degree. “Right. Plant biology.”
June bubbled. “Can you imagine she was working at our tux rental store? Someone with a plant biology degree is right up our alley!”
Fox dug his fists deeper into his jeans pockets and said, “Yeah, you know what? Maybe I will take you up on that offer, Lytton. Let these gals show me some Mormon Lake sights. Sounds relaxing.”
We were supposed to take this paleface sightseeing? I had no idea how he was connected to the club—he didn’t wear a cut—but I didn’t need any lookie-loo getting in my way. I wanted to impress June with my pot knowledge. It actually wasn’t that extensive, just what I’d found time to study in the Corpus Christi cook house in between making batches of meth. But my science background was solid. I could fake it.
I was saved from playing tour guide when June said, “Well, we’re sort of in a rush, that’s the situation. I wanted to get up there to show her the CBD grow house before it gets dark.”
Fox frowned. “Isn’t there lighting inside it?”
“Well yes, but…”
Lytton stepped in to help his wife. “I get it. You girls are eager to talk shop. That’s June. Once she gets started—”
“Oh, but I love talking shop!” I said. I was just desperate to keep my new job. Blankenship had tentatively approved it, and it was ten times better than the evening wear rental place. And I really did have a great idea about CBD plants. I’d grown a few with an earthy aftertaste and a fruity aroma that was highly effective in masking the pain of a fractured rib from the day I was thrown into that awful warehouse. As a side effect, the burning and tingling in my feet from neuropathy almost vanished when I smoked it. I even had a name for it. Dabba Doo. That’s what I called my dog Monstro who I missed with a passion. The Department of Justice had given her to my sister Shelda, and I wasn’t allowed to know where they were, and so on.
“Yes,” agreed June, her eyes all lit up. “Let’s get going. You got your water? Good. Follow me.”
On the way out the side door, I bumped into a guy who fairly reeked of marijuana. This was going to be a good town for a dispensary, I could tell.
“Well, hello, gorgeous,” said the asswad.
I frowned at him. He was kind of a pudgy guy with frizzy hair cut into a clumsy pompadour. You could tell if he didn’t get it cut all the time, it would bloom into a ’fro. He looked like one of those high school losers who were a member of the student council and the chess club and tried to be cool by wearing Ray-Bans and smoking weed. Well, some things never changed.
“We’re in a rush, Wolf,” called June.
“Say hi to Tracy for me!” Wolf called.
Within ten minutes, we were snaking through a gloriously flaming canyon. The steeply banked walls and narrow road gave the appearance of shooting through an Egyptian temple, where brilliant sandstone obelisks towered above. I could’ve gone on and on there forever, but soon we popped out onto a plateau studded with gnarled Ponderosa pine. As if on a gentle roller coaster, I followed June over softly undulating fields of black-eyed susans.
It was starting to feel pretty good, living in Arizona. As long as I didn’t somehow blow it with this dispensary job, which paid about five bucks an hour more than the tuxedo job, I could see having a decent life. For the first time since the warehouse raid in Corpus Christi, things seemed to be on track. As long as I avoided all known felons and kept my head down, things would proceed apace.
I could even see finding a boyfriend. That fucker Russ had been the last one I’d banged, at least voluntarily. The past hundred men I’d been in contact with hadn’t made a good impression on me. There was one Jones affiliate who dropped stuff off at the warehouse. He always looked at me with the pity one reserved for that poor elephant in the zoo, stuck in a cramped enclosure, doomed to roam the same rocks and clumps of grass for all eternity. That guy had probably been decent. We held conversations in rudimentary Spanish. I knew he couldn’t handle coffee, it gave him the jitters. He was single. And he liked chalupas. He brought me some from a roach coach a few times. Then one day I heard rumors of a hijacking of a Jones truck, some couriers murdered. I never saw the guy again.
But I was lonely, and I was straight. I wasn’t about to bitterly turn to women in my rage. My mother had been like that, claiming that all men were worthless idiots, and I was determined not to be like her. Every time I found myself enjoying classical music, eating tofu, or gardening, I had to mentally slap myself. Stop it, stop it. She’d been such a violent, unpredictable, cold bitch. I’d forged a good career for myself just to get away from her. I’d still been paying back student loans when the Joneses nabbed me. Hah. The joke was on them.
Three times in my life, everything had been yanked from under me, my life thrown topsy-turvy on its head. The years when my witch of a mother ruled with an iron, erratic, and crazy fist. I’d gotten out of there age fifteen. The second, when Russ sold me out to the Joneses in exchange for wiping out a drug debt. Yeah, they’d wiped it out all right. A few months after taking me captive, they couldn’t wait to come gloating to me about how they’d popped off Russell, while he was sitting primly in his dress uniform, no less, watching a parade. But they still kept me captive to churn out meth.
The last and most recent upheaval was when the ATF turned me over to the DOJ, who in turn, gave me to the US Marshals Office. I’d had enough turmoil. If I could just keep my head down and not draw any attention to myself, I could hold onto this job and maybe even get a better apartment than the tiny thing over The Bum Steer.
Was that the lake? That puny little pond? Huh. Made me wonder what that alabaster-skinned guy had been so eager to see up here. Having nothing else to think about—the cassette tape deck in the Corolla had been broken when I bought it—I thought of Fox Isherwood. He had very unusually handsome features. A pointed nose, a sly mouth, like he knew something no one else did. Arching eyebrows that told everyone how skeptical he was of them.
He wasn’t dark, but he was tall, with a very arrogant bearing that intrigued me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss him…
What? I was wrenched out of my reverie by the whine of a cop alarm, the flashing of its cherry in my rearview mirror. Good gracious, Ignatius. Of course WITSEC had provided me with all fresh documentation carrying Pippa’s new identity. It was just a major drag to get pulled over. June didn’t even seem to notice and kept on going.
“Shitpickle.” I muttered to myself, but pasted on a smile when the motorcycle cop came to my window.
“License and registration,” he commanded, without telling me what he thought I was doing. Even before my Jones ordeal, I’d had a massive loathing for cops.
Like an asshole, he took my paperwork back to his bike without giving me any more information. I blew a raspberry of exasperat
ion and grabbed my phone to text June.
PIPPA: Just got pulled over, probably for speeding. Don’t worry. I’ll catch up with you.
For lack of anything else to do, I checked other texts. But who other than Emily at the tuxedo store and Madison Illuminati knew my number? I sure did miss getting texts. I had a very active social life back in Corpus Christi. The hours at the Coast Guard base were long as we worked on a very important jet fuel remediation project, so we partied hearty the rest of the time. Pure and Easy was as quiet as a last breath compared to Texas, as I struggled to get a grip on my new identity.
What was taking him so god damned long? I looked in my side view mirror and noticed that another motorcycle had pulled over. Great. Two cops now.
But the new guy wasn’t a cop. He was a tall, lanky guy wearing one of those slouch beanies and a black leather jacket, and… Shit on a shingle. It’s Fox Isherwood.
I still didn’t dare get out—cops and their itchy trigger fingers had been all over the news lately—so I watched the scene play out in the mirror.
Fox looked like a hood, but he seemed to be reasoning with the cop. That, or discussing some stupid ballgame. They were laughing and chatting, and Fox even seemed to be handing the cop a business card! What the hell? Was Fox someone important? I knew so little about the outlaw motorcycle club I had inadvertently become entwined with. In fact, if I was Randy Blankenship, I wouldn’t have let me work at the dispensary.
Now Fox was even clapping the cop on the shoulder in a good ol’ boy way! I hit the steering wheel in frustration, my mouth open. What in the name of a Wookie’s bush was going on back there? Exchanging business cards? Throwing back their heads and laughing like a still life of some Police Squad closing credits?
I was pissed, of course. Fox had obviously been following me. He was that desperate for some good scenery he would stalk two women in his friend’s motorcycle club? But when the cop came back and handed me my license and registration, I started having second thoughts about the fair-skinned guy.
“Never mind, Miss Lofting. Just a warning that you’d better get your car registration updated.”
“What?” I looked at the date on the registration. It had expired three weeks ago. I sincerely hadn’t thought about it. “Oh man, I can’t believe I forgot! I’ll take care of it the second I get back home.”
The surly cop was all smiles now. “You can thank Mr. Dover back there. Have a good rest of the day.”
“Mr. Dover” sort of leaned back on the saddle of his Harley with crossed arms, looking supremely arrogant while the cop tooled off. I didn’t get out of the car until the cop was safely out of view. That was when “Mr. Dover” started heading my way.
His long arms dangled at his sides. He didn’t walk, he loped like a graceful animal, all sinew and confidence. Who was this bastard, anyway? And who the fuck was Mr. Dover? My arms were folded and I was practically tapping my shoe with irritation against the asphalt.
I spoke first. “I’m supposed to thank you, and I don’t even know who you are.”
His grin was infectious. Was he a good ole boy, or a stalker? “I used my natural inborn charm to talk him out of a ticket.”
“Why am I skeptical? I saw you handing him a card of some sort. And he’s calling you Mr. Dover.”
He reached for his pocket and I flinched. After the cop had left, I’d seen Fox Isherwood take a gun from his saddlebag and stick it down the back of his pants, like thugs and bikers did. He held his hands up to indicate he wasn’t going for the gun.
“Sorry.” I apologized. “I’m a bit gun-shy.”
“I can understand that.” Now his voice was full of concern. Who the fuck was he?
This time, I tried not to flinch when he withdrew a wallet on a chain and flipped out a business card. I took it like it was a piece of Belgian endive, my most hated vegetable. I looked at it from a distance as though it would infect me.
Benjamin Dover
Attorney-at-Law
500 Camino De La Placita
Taos NM 87571
I kept the card for future reference. “Ben Dover, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
He shrugged. He was so fully in control of himself, his life. I envied people like that. Mine was a train wreck. “Comes in handy in situations like this.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I just told him I was the lawyer for the Bare Bones MC. I don’t know them well, but I figure they have heft. I said I was the new lawyer for the club. And I said you were the new manager over at Triple Exposure Studios.”
My mouth hung low. “Triple Exposure? Thanks a lot!”
The mirth evaporated from his face. “Why? What’s wrong with Triple Exposure? I heard the Prospect at the club tell someone he’d better get over to Triple Exposure Studios, that there was a problem with their sound board.”
Now I laughed. What else could I do? His ruse had worked, that was all that mattered. Getting a ticket might be the kind of jeopardy that could result in Randy putting an end to my Joint System employment. “You didn’t know? Triple Exposure is an adult film studio the club owns.” I’d heard as much from Maddie and June. One of their brothers, Knoxie Hammett, used to work there. I’d checked it out in my spare time at home. As Rex Havoc, Knoxie fucked his way through such gems as A Clockwork Orgy, Ass Ventura: Smut Detective, and my favorite, Genital Hospital, where he got to wear a lab coat and give women exams.
Fox looked perplexed. “Oh. Well, the thing that actually did the trick was when I told him I’m the club’s new lawyer. Then he really got friendly. Said it was about time some guy named Slushy got disbarred, and he welcomed me to town.”
Slushy? Why did that name sound familiar? I recalled Lytton saying he’d named a pot brownie after Slushy, and something about the archery range. “And he believed a ‘lawyer’ wearing a slouch beanie.”
Without hesitation, Fox reached up and whipped his beanie off. I expected to see some patches of male pattern baldness, but he was just hiding a head of thick, glossy, copper-colored hair.
It was a gorgeous sight to behold, especially shining in the sun like that, the close-cropped waves of coppery wine color, glittering like he was some well-built King Henry the Eighth. I was aware that I was more than a little disappointed he wasn’t my tall, dark, handsome knight come to sweep me away on his scoot. My fantasy had never involved a tall, ginger, handsome knight.
“I have to thank you, then.” As a gesture of goodwill, I held out my hand to shake again. Again, his hand lingered a split second too long for propriety’s sake. “But what were you doing up here? There isn’t much in the way of scenery.”
He took a step closer to me, still holding my hand. The thin, skin-tight T-shirt he wore did nothing to stop the heat wave emanating from him. He was on fire in more ways than one. “Someone was following you.” Again with the ice blue, pinpoint eyes.
My heart flip-flopped with sudden fear. I believed him instantly, I really did. But I had to pretend that I didn’t. So I scoffed. “Me? Who would bother following me?”
“That was my first question. Why would someone be following you?”
“What did he look like?”
“Mexican. Short, of course. In his twenties. I noticed him in the side lot of The Bum Steer. He was watching both of you, then took off in his Impala when you pulled onto Bargain Boulevard.”
That pretty much described everyone in the Jones cartel. But I didn’t need this lawyer knowing that. I was starting to panic, and I had to deflect his suspicion. “Maybe he was following June. Maybe he wanted to go steal some pot from her farm.”
He finally let go of my hand. “Let me go ahead now and find him. I memorized the plate of the Impala. I took a photo of him in front of the club. See?”
Of course I didn’t recognize the guy in the IPhone photo he showed me. By that time Fox was already loping back to his Harley.
“Hey!” I called out. “You’re pretty organized and daring for a lawyer.”
He�
�d already strapped on his brain bucket, and now he pushed the engine button. Over the rumble of his pipes, he called out jovially, “Because I’m not a lawyer.”
“What are you, then?” I yelled.
His jaw was set firm, and there was fire in his eyes. “I’m a sicario.”
And he took off past me without even glancing at me.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOX
I can’t remember when I decided not to bury her. Was it when she laughed at my fake lawyer name, Ben Dover? I carried those cards, which had a fake name but my old real address in case my body was found headless in a ravine, or lashed to a bridge over the Santa Cruz River. Or was it when I imagined her acting in a Triple Exposure film? It doesn’t really matter, I guess. The whole storyline of my life changed irrevocably from the moment I decided not to ice Flavia Brooks, the snitch to the Jones cartel. I was no longer just the tale of an extraordinary, scarred warrior whose measly shot at happiness was eclipsed by his own fate. No, by deciding to spare her life, I was also screwing up mine. Now our fates were intertwined.
I headed up Mormon Mountain, confident I could find the beaner. Who could miss that metallic green ’92 lowrider Impala? Whoever the hair-netted cholo was, whether he was Presención, Ochoa, or Jones, he’d chosen a very stupid cage for an undercover op. When I had to drive a cage, I drove a beater Toyota that blended in, or my late model Caddy. The road was straight as we climbed, but pines crowded the shoulders. The lowrider could’ve taken any one of these little turnoffs, but I felt confident as I slowed down to go through Happy Jack that he was still on the main drag.