by Andy Maslen
“Deanna,” he called to a skinny brunette. “Fetch me and my new friend here a couple of beers, will you?”
The woman did as she was asked, pulling open the door to a massive fridge and retrieving two bottle of Budweiser. She sauntered over to their table and clinked the bottles down onto its glass top.
“Thanks, honey. Now scoot.” He slapped her bottom and she squealed in mock protest.
Meeks tipped his bottle towards Gabriel.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
They both took a swig from the bottles then Meeks spoke.
“Tell me something. Gabriel, is it?”
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
“You ever serve?”
“Serve who?”
“Not who, what. You ever serve your country?”
“Yes I did. Ten years.”
“Army?”
“Yes. Parachute Regiment then SAS.”
“SAS, huh? Tough guy. You don’t look the type.”
Gabriel didn’t rise to the bait. He switched the question round to Meeks.
“How about you. Did you serve?”
By way of answer, Meeks offered his left forearm for examination. Halfway up was a tattoo: an American eagle above the stars and stripes. Below it, the motto, THIS WE’LL DEFEND.
“20th Infantry,” Meek said. “Five years. ’Nam, ’67 to ’72.”
“So you’re a tough guy too, then.”
“I survived that hellhole, that’s for sure. Gooks killed my brother, though. Bobby was twenty. Got caught in a mantrap. You know what they used to do?”
Gabriel shook his head. He knew his military history but felt it would go smoother if he let Meeks tell his story until he was ready to talk business.
“Well, they didn’t like to waste bullets so they made all kinds of traps. The favourite was a pit lined with sharpened bamboo spikes. They used to tip ’em with shit, you know that? Animal, human, anything to get the wound infected. Bobby took three days to die. Blood poisoning and gangrene. In the end he was begging them to put a round in his head.”
“I’m sorry. I lost friends too.”
“Yeah, ain’t it a bitch? So, listen, tough guy. You got something for me from Toby Maitland?”
“I do. It’s in the trunk.”
Meeks stood up in a smooth fluid movement.
“So come on then. Let’s get it and bring it in here.”
They walked out of the clubhouse together, over to the Mustang. Gabriel thumbed the remote to open the boot, reached in and pulled the silver suitcase out. He kept his back facing away from Meeks to keep the telltale bulge of the Glock out of his line of sight.
“Give it to me,” Meeks said, holding out a beefy arm, hand extended.
“Sure? It’s heavy.”
Meeks swung the Samsonite like it was a display model full of scrumpled paper as they walked back to the darkness of the clubhouse. He placed it on the coffee table and slid the catches sideways. Flipped the lid over and stared down at the cocaine packages. He reached into a waistcoat pocket and brought out a slim, black cylinder, about six inches long and three-quarters across. He depressed a silver button on one side and a bright steel blade flashed out with a scraping metallic click. Gabriel tensed for a second. But no need. Meeks dug the wickedly pointed blade into one of the packages and scooped out a minute amount on the tip. He licked the index finger of his left hand and dipped it into the powder and then rubbed it along his upper gum. Ran his tongue along under his top lip and waited for a couple of seconds.
“So your boss came through. I was half expecting to find some pathetic street shit in there.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m just here to make the trade.”
“Yeah, whatever. So listen. Make yourself comfortable. I keep the cash in my private office.”
Meeks bent to close the suitcase and reached for the handle. Gabriel surprised him by gently but firmly putting his hand flat on the lid.
“Let me look after it for you, Mr Meeks. There are some dodgy looking characters around. I wouldn’t want you to get mugged.”
For a moment, Gabriel thought he’d overcooked the attitude. Meeks glared at him and kept his hand on the handle of the suitcase. Calculating odds, weighing risks. Gabriel didn’t blink. Stared hard at Meeks’s useless left eye. Then Meeks straightened, took his hand off the handle.
“You got a lot of balls, coming here, talking to me like that. One word from me and you’d just disappear. We could chop you up, bury you out back, burn your clothes, grind your bones into powder and cut the coke with it. But,” he paused, “as a courtesy to a fellow soldier, I will overlook your disrespect. Now sit there and don’t move.”
Meeks stalked off towards a door in the back wall. Gabriel leaned back and crossed his feet on the suitcase. Spread his arms out onto the back of the armchair. In enemy territory sometimes it pays to keep your footprint as small as possible. But sometimes it pays to create as big an impression as possible. It’s why dogs’ hackles erect in the presence of a rival, cats puff out their fur, chimpanzees stand upright and bull elephants spread their ears out. The signal was unmistakeable: I’m not scared, I can take you down. Keep your distance. Gabriel’s body language was clear enough: the women stayed out of the way, watching the game of pool. Nobody came near him.
Five minutes passed. Not long if you’re cruising along an interstate, or watching a TV show: an eternity if you’re sitting with your feet up on a suitcase full of cocaine in a Hells Angels hideout fitted out like some latter-day Hole in the Wall. Just when Gabriel was thinking Meeks was going to leave him there all afternoon, he reappeared. He carried a black nylon holdall. Its weight pulled the handles into narrow strings that dug into his meaty fingers. He dumped it next to the Samsonite and stood back.
“Go ahead, check it out. Your boss wouldn’t be pleased if you turned up with a bag full of newspaper.”
Gabriel doubted Meeks would welch on a deal of this size but he went ahead and unzipped the holdall. He pulled it open. It was filled with roughly stacked bundles of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds. More for form than anything else he pulled out a bundle of notes and flipped it across his thumb. Then he dropped it back into the holdall and zipped it closed. He looked at the mottled eyeball again.
“Looks fine.”
“Fine?” Meeks snapped. “Of course it’s fine, you shit-eating English faggot. There’s two hundred Ks in there and I counted every note myself. Now give me my merchandise, take your money and get the fuck out of my clubhouse.”
Gabriel stood, picked up the holdall and left, not looking back, not looking at the Hells Angels playing pool, not looking at anything but the bright rectangle of sunlight he was going to leave through. The woman who’d brought the beers over slapped his bottom and made kissing noises. The other cackled.”
“Maybe he’s a fag, Deanna. Don’t waste your sugar on his sorry ass!”
Gabriel kept walking, ignoring them, and emerged into dazzling sunshine. He headed for the Mustang, nice and easy, not a care in the world. The trunk was still open so he hefted the holdall inside and slammed it shut. He heard a chinking sound and turned to find three burly Angels facing him: the grappler in the centre, two other heavyweights on his right and left. The metallic ringing sound came from the chains looping round the backs of their boot heels like spurs.
The big man in the centre spoke first.
“Maybe you finished your deal with Davis, but you and me, boy, we got unfinished business.”
The two men to his sides were leaning on pool cues. He reached behind him and brought out a weapon Gabriel hadn’t faced in a long time: a steel machete.
“Your choice, boy. You can pay a fine – I’m thinking that fancy little timepiece on your wrist should just about cover it. Or we can take it out of your hide.”
The pool players smirked.
Gabriel’s personal code, refined since leaving the Army, emphasised peace over aggression, talking over fighting.
“I get that you’re angry,” he said. “But do you really want to kick off when I’ve just done a deal with Davis? Why don’t you go in and celebrate. Have a beer? There’s no need for violence.”
They closed in on him.
“I think ‘kicking off’ after the deal is the perfect time to do it,” the grappler said. “And like I told you before, you don’t get to tell me what to do. You little. English. PUSSY!” The last word was shouted and the three men were looking twitchy.
Gabriel’s Army training said to wait, analyse your enemy’s forces and disposition. Plan your attack. Ensure logistical support is in place. Which is fine, in its place. But out here, he knew that wasn’t going to work. The man wasn’t bluffing, and the watch had belonged to his father. So Gabriel didn’t wait. He moved in, striking fast and hard at the grappler. Smashed a fist into his nose, which spurted blood down over his mouth. Twisted the machete out of his hand and brought it down in a swift, short slash across the inside of the man’s wrist. Fine jets of blood hit Gabriel’s sleeve.
Gabriel had seen a couple of suicide attempts in the Army. The depressed wife of a newly promoted major and the anorexic daughter of one of his men. He’d learned from a Medical Officer that a lot of suicide attempts fail because the victims try to cut their arteries left to right, like a bracelet. The blood vessels are elastic, the MO had told him, so when you separate them they recoil up inside the arm like elastic bands. There’s some blood loss but the damage is usually fixable. The body shuts down the supply with a massive squirt of adrenaline – death is rare, Gabriel knew.
With a scream, the man staggered back, clutching his wrist. Gabriel leaned left and kicked his right foot up, catching him high in the throat, just under the jawbone. He dropped with a choking gurgle.
Next he turned to the other two, who’d jumped back as he moved in with the machete. They were both big men and, as a result, suffered from the same delusion: that size is better in a fight. They tended to rely on momentum and brute force. But they weren’t good at fighting. Just at hitting. So stay out of range or inside their reach and they were just slow-moving hunks of meat. They both raised their pool cues and cocked them over their shoulders. Big mistake. That left them exposed.
He dropped into a crouch then scythed his right leg into the left-hand guy’s ankle. As he fell, Gabriel spun and delivered a devastatingly fast kick to the other man’s groin. He howled in pain as Gabriel’s heel smashed into his testicles. The hand-stitched shoes may have lacked the visual threat of the bikers’ boots with their heavy, cleated treads, but the heels were cut to a right-angled edge and concentrated the entire force of his kick into a short, thin space that meant maximum damage – and pain – for whoever was on the other end.
Gabriel stepped back, the machete flung behind him into the tall weeds, and stamped down on the second guy’s right arm. The snap as the humerus divided into two pieces was audible over the noise of the bikes revving in the workshop. The grappler was still writhing on the ground, clutching his throat and gurgling, his useless right hand gloved in blood. His two confederates were rallying, but wary now, looking around for help. Davis Meeks stood in the doorway of the clubhouse, watching the fight develop. A couple of the other Hells Angels looked ready to move in but he laid a restraining hand on one man’s arm and signalled a “no” with his other, shaking it from side to side, palm down. He shouted out a warning.
“That’s enough!”
He stepped off the stoop and walked over to the dusty space where Gabriel stood over the disabled Angels.
“Time for you to be gone, my friend. Get in that pimped up automobile and hightail it out of here. I’m giving you a free pass on account of our shared military background. Plus I liked your fighting style. But if I see you again, you won’t have time for any of that karate shit. I will put you down like a dog.”
With that, he marched off leaving others to carry the wounded Angels inside, the fat man still losing a lot of damson-coloured blood from his right wrist. Gabriel slid gratefully into the driver’s seat of the Mustang. He twisted the key, gunned the motor then hauled the wheel all the way over to the right and slewed the big sports car round in a skidding circle. The rear tyres spun as they lost traction and sprayed dust into the air to drift over the row of parked Harleys, peppering the nearest ones with fine grit. Amid yells of protest, he barrelled out of the compound and back along the blacktopped track and the county road towards Lansing.
His heart racing in a delayed reaction to the encounter with Meeks and his gang, he maintained a careful fifty all the way back to the interstate. He slowed promptly at stoplights, signalled every turn like a probationary driver and generally tried to behave like a good citizen. A good citizen at the wheel of a ridiculously overpowered road-going race car. A good citizen armed with an unlicensed semi-automatic pistol. A good citizen with a couple of hundred thousand dollars in used bills – payment for a drugs deal with Hells Angels – stuffed into a holdall in the trunk.
Chapter 21
Back in Lansing at three in the afternoon, he hoisted the holdall out of the trunk. As he walked into the air-conditioned reception area, his bloody jacket folded lining outwards across his arm, he saw Maitland sitting with Shaun in the bar. Maitland looked up and beckoned him over. Then signalled the barman for a drink for Gabriel.
The leather chairs in the bar bore a striking resemblance to the one he had been sitting in an hour or so earlier, navy rather than burgundy and a little better looked after, but still the same model. Maybe the Angels used the same furniture supply company as the owners of the hotel. He sank into one opposite Maitland and leaned back, grateful to be back among the regular citizens of Lansing and their business acquaintances.
“Well, Gabriel,” said Maitland, a sly grin sliding across his face as he peered at the blood spots on Gabriel’s shirt cuff. “And how was Davis Meeks?”
Gabriel paused before answering to let the barman place a cold glass of Californian chardonnay on a cocktail napkin in front of him. The napkin said George Washington Hotel, Lansing, MI on it in a serif font, impressed into the puffy paper. He muttered “thanks” and took a sip of the pale gold liquid. The chardonnay smelled good – not too oaky. Clearly someone at the hotel knew their way around wine. The drops of condensation on the outside of the glass wetted his fingertips. It tasted of vanilla, apples and tropical fruit. He let the cold wine slide down his throat, savouring the hit from the alcohol, then slowly replaced the glass on the napkin.
“Fine. We talked about our military service. Did the deal, then I put three of his guys in the hospital.”
“Really? Which ones?”
“What, you know them?”
“Well, not personally, of course. They’re a little outside my normal social round. But I’ve met Davis a few times.”
“A huge, fat guy, like an old-time wrestler, and a couple of general-purpose hulks. I’d guess their combined IQ was less than their poundage. The fat one had an SS tattoo. The others, I couldn’t really say.”
Maitland said, “Oh, that would be Brandon Webb. Did you also catch his Aryan Nations tattoo?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Brandon’s an interesting character. He led a Nations gang while he was incarcerated in a Supermax prison down in San Antonio. He and his brothers murdered three Mexican restaurant workers in an altercation over a bill. I believe they returned after the restaurant had closed and used machetes on them.”
Gabriel could tell Maitland wanted to get a reaction out of him but this was kindergarten-level provocation and he merely took another sip of the wine. He glanced at Shaun, who sat watching them sparring, or perhaps fencing would be a better word, drinking from his long-necked bottle of Bud.
Shaun looked at Gabriel’s cuff, where the spattered blood droplets had dried to a dark brown, then spoke; his Southern tones were a flat contrast to the British officer-class inflections of the other two men.
“So, what did you do to him?”
“He’
ll be fine. But I don’t think he’ll be twisting the throttle on his Harley for a while. Tendon trouble.”
“And Meeks just let you walk out of there?”
“He pulled the brothers in arms bit. Plus he had to, didn’t he? He had the … merchandise, and I guess he didn’t want Sir Toby pissed off over a deal gone bad.”
Maitland spoke, “So he told you about his military career, did he?”
There was something about his tone of voice. A knowingness that made Gabriel uneasy.
“He told me he was in Vietnam.”
“Oh, he was in Vietnam all right. Did he tell you his regiment?”
Gabriel sensed something coming, a punchline of some kind. He was uneasy, felt his pulse picking up.
“Yes, 20th Infantry. He said he was there from ’67 to ’72.” The foreboding grew stronger. Something about those dates.
“That’s right. He was there then. In March ’68, specifically. Does that ring any bells for you, Gabriel? I should imagine they still teach officers about conduct of war.”
“My Lai.”
“Exactly. Davis Randall Meeks was part of Charlie Company. Nobody knows exactly how many Vietnamese civilians they massacred that day, and I’m sure Meeks did his fair share of the killing. You might have noticed he has a, shall we say, volatile temper?”
“Was he punished?”
“No. Given that Lieutenant Calley only served three years under house arrest I don’t suppose they chased grunts like Meeks with much vigour, do you?”
Shaun was staring hard at Maitland. He spoke now.