“Detective Richardson.”
“Detective Richardson,” Pax began, “You could have just called me and asked me to come downtown.” His voice had taken on a somewhat bitter tone. “This is all very stupid. Why risk a possibly violent confrontation when none of this was necessary?”
“Risk to my men is minimal,” the detective answered. “We have overwhelming firepower and a fully armored, tactical response SWAT unit to back us up. Even someone connected to the Mexican drug cartels like yourself wouldn’t stand a chance attempting to resist us.”
“I am a peaceful man who happens to be president of a peaceful group of men and women,” Pax replied. “If I were truly a powerful and dangerous man with access to whatever weaponry money could buy, I would have had marksmen with high-powered rifles covering me from the upstairs windows.”
Pax twice rapidly squeezed his raised right hand into a fist and opened it again. Two small red dots appeared for a brief moment on the detectives chest and then disappeared.
“And if I had the connections to Mexican druglords that you claim I have, I think I’d have something for your trucks too.”
He clenched and unclenched both fists and a slightly larger, green dot appeared briefly on the side of the SWAT team’s vehicle.
“But I am just a peaceful man,” continued Pax calmly, “who has decided to cooperate fully with you and leave without resistance. May I lower my hands?”
“We have more men in standby,” the detective responded flatly. “They are just up the road.”
“And a lot of people would die and the papers would say that no weapons were found and that you over-reacted to having laser pointers beamed at you. Shall we go? Or, are you still intending to attempt to enter the clubhouse?”
The detective answered by raising his arm into the air and making a small circling motion which ended with him pointing out toward the highway. “Get in,” he said gruffly.
As Pax slid into the back seat of the SUV, the detective said glumly, “This wasn’t my idea. The State Police Gang Task Force set everything up. They wanted a show of force to make sure you came in quietly. I’m only following orders. Search warrant for the premises was optional and to be used only if you resisted.”
“Then I apologize for calling you stupid,” Pax replied. “You were only following stupid orders from stupid people.”
The detective said nothing else during the ride to the police station downtown. When they got there, Pax was taken to an interrogation room where he waited alone for several hours. Pax wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed because he spent most of that time leaned back in his chair asleep. He awoke when Detective Richardson and another man entered the room.
Detective Richardson spoke, “Captain Monroe is with the State Gang Task Force. He wants to ask you some questions. He was the one who ordered us to bring you in.”
Captain Monroe smiled across the table at Pax as he searched Pax’s face for response. Pax remained impassive, but his eyes widened slightly as he recognized the man as one of the cops whom El Jefe had called out into the desert to identify Keith as police. “Actually, it was my supervisor who requested the show of force,” the man said in a quiet, but assertive voice. “And my supervisor has a message and a deal for you.”
The innuendo was very clear to Pax. The captain was delivering a message from El Jefe. Part of the message was evidently that El Jefe could use the police at any time to destroy the Knights, but that was not the full message. Pax waited for the captain to give him other details.
The captain slid a yellow pad across the table toward where Pax was seated. “That’s the deal,” he said. “In return, my supervisor wants the names of everyone who would benefit from Long John’s death. He wants the names of the heads of Los Lobos and The Hell’s Marauders and he especially wants to know for sure the name of the permanent leader of the Knights, whoever that may be. The details of the deal are written on that first page. You can take that with you to study it later.”
Pax glanced at the yellow sheet. In small, neatly printed letters it read, “The gringo is stupid, but he is also cunning. It takes a cunning man to use his enemies to remove someone who stands between him and what he wants. It would be very dangerous to me to have such a stupid, disloyal, yet cunning person in charge of an army of men who know my business. If that were to happen, I would have to use my own cunning to eliminate them.”
Pax tore the sheet from the pad and said, “I don’t think I need to write this down. I assume everything in here is being fully recorded.” He pointed up at the three cameras mounted on the walls around them. “I am now the permanent leader of the Camden Knights. Theo Johnson is, as far as I know, still the permanent leader of the Hell’s Marauders, and his brother, Carlos, is still head of Los Lobos.”
He folded his hands on the table in front of him and asked, “Is that all you wanted?”
“That’s all I needed,” the captain said curtly and turned and left the room.
“Am I free to go?” Pax asked.
“Yes, you are free to go.”
As Pax stood up, the detective added softly, “Just so we understand each other, I could have ordered my men to execute the search warrants. I decided that it wasn’t worth the potential bloodshed.”
“And just so we understand each other,” answered Pax. “I could have ordered the marksmen to fire. But I decided that involving the police in gang matters wasn’t the smart thing to do. Not everyone thinks that way, not even big bosses from south of the border.”
Their gaze met for a moment and Pax could see Detective Richardson’s eyes open slightly as what Pax had just told him registered in his mind. “Your girlfriend is waiting for you,” he said. “She rode your bike down here to the station. That’s a lot of bike for a little girl like that.”
“That’s a lot of girl,” Pax replied. Then his voice became like steel. “Have the captain tell his supervisor that the little girl is off-limits. If anything happens to her, I stop being a peaceful man.”
Again the detective’s eyes widened slightly as he understood the import of Pax’s message. “I’ll tell him,” he answered, and then he turned and left the room.
CHAPTER TEN
Sammie was waiting for Pax as he stepped out of the police station into the early afternoon sun. “Are we going home now?” she asked.
“No,” Pax replied. “I have some serious thinking to do and I want to be alone with you for a while.”
He took his phone out of his pocket and made a quick call to Short John. “Everything is cool,” he said. “No charges, no hassle. They just wanted to know who was leading the Knights these days. I’m going to go up into the mountains for a while to think. I’ll be back at the clubhouse before dark. ... No, you don’t need to join me. Sammie and I need to talk and I want to be alone with her for awhile. ... Yeah, that’s where I’m going. If I don’t come back on time, start with the fire trail by Squaw Tit Peak we were on the other day.”
Pax kissed Sammie lightly on the lips and said, “Let’s go. I have something I want to show you.”
Twenty minutes later they were standing in a large grassy area looking across a shallow valley at the bare rocks of the teat-shaped mountain peak. Pax unfolded a blanket from his saddlebags and they sat down together.
“You know they don’t call it that anymore?” Sammie said.
“What?” answered Pax.
“Squaw Tit Peak. They renamed it Piestewa Peak in honor of the first Native-American woman to be killed in combat. The old-time locals never really liked the name and would have preferred to go back to the old Spanish or Indian name, but Piestewa is acceptable.”
“So you are telling me not to call it Squaw Tit?” Pax responded.
“Not unless you want to upset most of the women of the area, and all of the local women with old-line, mixed Hispanic ancestry.” She smiled, “... like me.”
He grinned. “Piestewa it is.”
He leaned over to give her a light kiss on her cheek, but she turned her
head so that their lips met. She pushed her face against his, her tongue sliding out to slip between his lips. His mind told him to push her away and say, No, we need to talk, but his body acted on its own and his arms pulled her closer against himself.
Sammie was still wearing what she had hurriedly thrown on that morning when they had rushed downstairs to quell Keith’s attempt at insurrection—a light peasant blouse and jeans with nothing beneath them. In her hurry to get downtown to Pax, she hadn’t even changed out of her sandals before roaring off on his bike.
Pax’s hand slid up under her blouse and found her breasts swollen from excitement and need. Her nipples poked at the soft fabric. She moaned as his hands stroked her breasts and the movement of his hands caused the fabric to slide across her engorged nipples.
“We need to talk,” Pax gasped out.
“Talk later,” Sammie replied and covered his mouth with her own, pushing him backward onto the blanket and lying across his chest. Pax’s hands moved to her back beneath the blouse and began stroking her firmly, sliding from the top of her shoulders to where her jeans hung at the beginning of the curve of her ass. Pax slid the jeans down Sammie’s legs and reached up with his foot to push them clear of her feet. His hands now roamed from her shoulders to the fullness of her ass cheeks.
Sammie pushed herself against Pax’s hip, grinding against him as he kneaded her buttocks. His hands moved upward taking the peasant blouse with it. She arched her back and raised her arms so that he could slide the flimsy garment from her body.
Sammie could feel the slightly cool mountain breeze across her skin. She knew that if there were hikers up on Piestewa Peak she could be seen, but rather than inhibiting her, it excited her further.
It felt so primal to be naked outdoors and even more so to be naked while Pax was still fully clothed. It was almost as if she were a dancer seducing the chief in front of the whole tribe gathered in front of the evening fire. But it was day, she wasn’t dancing, and they were in the middle of a state park.
She opened Pax’s shirt. The buttons were held taut by her weight against his chest and her fingers fumbled to release them. Pax rolled her over onto her back and raised himself slightly above her. The buttons came undone and the shirt soon hung free from his muscular chest. She pushed it over his shoulders and he completed the task of sliding it from his body.
Sammie opened Pax’s belt and then the fly of his jeans. He stood for just a moment to slide the jeans from his legs. Like Sammie, he had not had time to bother with underwear that morning. Sammie thought to herself, When did he take off his boots? as he lowered himself back to the blanket.
There was a tremendous need in both of them, but it was a need that drove them in two opposite directions at the same time. Part of that need said, “Bring yourself totally together, now!” And part of that need said, “Make this last as long as possible. This could be your last time together.”
The result was that both Pax and Sammie rapidly drove each other to the heights of passion, but both held back completing the act until neither could continue to restrain themselves. When that final moment arrived, Pax suddenly drove himself into Sammie as she thrust upward against him. She immediately began a loud keening wail which could probably be heard throughout the valley. Pax pumped only a few times and then fell heavily across her body. Both clutched each other tightly to themselves.
After several minutes, their breathing began to return to normal and Pax moved off of Sammie to lie beside her on the blanket.
“Do you think anyone heard me?” she asked.
“In the park or in town?” Pax asked back.
Sammie blushed. The redness deepened the color of her light brown skin.
Pax fingered a thread of her hair and kissed her softly. “You’re beautiful when you blush. Has anyone ever told you that?.
“And did you know that you are very handsome when you say stupid things like that?” she answered.
“I’m a Knight. Aren’t knights supposed to be handsome and say stupid things like that?” They both laughed. Then the laughter died on Pax’s face and his voice became serious. “What I brought you up here for... I mean, the primary reason we came up here was so we could talk with absolutely no one else around. Right now, I am not totally sure who I can trust and who I can’t.”
Sammie looked at him with many questions in her eyes. He explained, “That fiasco this morning with the police was orchestrated by El Jefe to show me that he could use the police to destroy me at any time. But I think there’s more to it than that. El Jefe thought Keith might have been successful in taking the Knights from me and through Captain Monroe, made it clear to me that he felt that the Knights would be too much of a danger to his operations under Keith’s leadership.”
Pax reached over to his shirt and pulled a folded piece of yellow paper from the pocket. He showed it to Sammie and said, “El Jefe also gave me a message. Keith was the one behind whatever it was that got Long John killed. And he warned me that Keith would try to eliminate me. Keith has a lot of possible support within the Knights. It could be very dangerous for you to move in with me. Do you still want to do it?”
Sammie pulled Pax over and gave him a strong kiss directly on his lips. “I love you,” she said firmly. “I want to live with you, and if necessary I am willing to die with you.”
“Let’s hope it never comes to that,” answered Pax. Then he slipped his shirt over his shoulders and reached for his jeans. As he picked up the jeans, the phone in his pocket began ringing. There were already two missed calls. He answered the phone…
… and the voice of Short John burst forth from the speaker, “Jesus! Pax! Am I glad to hear your voice.”
“What’s up?”
“Double D’s police scanners picked up a report that a body in a Camden Knights jacket was found next to the highway. It was right were Long John went off into the trees. There was half of a Lobos vest thrown on top of the body. Looks like a retaliation hit from the Lobos. The other half of the vest was buried with whoever it was the Lobos lost.”
“Where’s Keith?” Pax asked.
There was a long pause and finally, Short John’s voice came shaking through the speaker. “Keith is the body. At least that’s what the scanners say. Looks like we are at war with the Lobos.”
“Don’t do anything, and I mean anything, until I get there.” Pax said loudly into the phone. “And make sure that everyone knows no action. No retaliation, no provocation, nothing. This may be a setup. Make sure that we don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be there in about a half hour.”
“Does this mean war?” asked Sammie. The fear and concern was evident on her face.
“Not if I can stop it,” answered Pax grimly. “Not if I can stop it.” He paused and blew out a deep breath. “Let’s get back.”
***
When they rode into the parking lot of the clubhouse, most of the Knights had already gathered. There were several angry shouts of “What are we going to do to those bastards?” as Pax walked into the club.
Other angry shouts filled the air. Several of the Knights were holding automatic weapons. Pax raised his hands into the air and signaled for silence. “First,” he said, “we have to make sure which bastards actually did this, and why. Then we plan things very carefully and make sure that whatever we do doesn’t get us all killed for nothing.”
The murmuring of the crowd was suddenly silenced as Double D shouted from his corner. “Marauder coming in loud and fast. He’s alone.”
Everyone except Double D rushed out onto the parking lot. The roar of a motorcycle could be heard clearly reverberating through the air. It was definitely a hog, but it sounded like the mufflers had been totally removed for some reason. Whoever it was roared into the parking lot without slowing and then snapped the bike into a sliding U turn, holding it up with one leg as it slid around spewing dust and gravel in all directions. It was a classic, chopped Hog, and the man riding it had streaks of gray in the long hair which flowed out be
hind him and in the beard which covered his face. As soon as the bike came to rest, the rider laid it carefully on the ground and then walked with measured pace to stand directly in front of Pax.
Pax stood impassive as Theo Johnson’s eyes met his own. Then Theo said quietly, “We have to talk.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For the first time in the twenty-three years of her life, Sammie Johnson felt like she was going to faint. Too much had been packed into this one day and the flow of events was threatening to overwhelm her. Her emotions had been taken from top to bottom to top again when Pax had been arrested and then released. Then, on top of everything else which had occurred in the day, Keith, Pax’s rival for leadership within the Knights, was found dead, evidently the victim of a retaliation attack by members of Los Lobos.
She and Pax had hurried back to the clubhouse to prevent the Knights from recklessly rushing into anything and to prepare for possible war with Los Lobos… and perhaps even war with the Hell’s Marauders, which her father Theo was the president of.
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