“I can’t make it jell. I can’t see Hank going against the club like that. Not like that. There’s something missing, and it’s a good thing you guys haven’t been passing it around, because this has the smell of something that will blow up in your face.”
“Smells like shit to me,” Daphne told her.
“At least we agree there,” Cyn reasoned.
“Look, Cyn, Hank is back, and that’s what Derrick has been waiting for. If you’re with him when this comes out, you’re going to be driven off, or worse, just like Hank will be. This is seriously personal to the club and everyone in it, Cyn. It’s a huge open wound that we’ve never been able to heal. Just stay away from him for a few days. Can’t you do that?” Daphne pleaded.
Cynthia was quiet, biting her thumbnail and trying to think, trying to put together Hank on his bike and working for the Orlin Ruiz Cartel, after all they did, after Howey and Margaret. “I just can’t. We’re going up to the club tonight, Daphne. I really pray that if Derrick is there, for your sake, this doesn’t backfire on him.”
“I hope you are alright after, too, cause I really love you as well,” Daphne said, and then ended the call.
Her work day seemed shot for an hour after that phone call. Running drugs for Orlin Ruiz seemed to her to be the ultimate betrayal. Just suggesting to the club, or even just another member, that this was going on could be catastrophic to both parties.
Going through her riding purse that had her basic makeup in it, not that she wore much, she found Hank’s small brown glass vial of cocaine. She looked at the powder inside and wondered briefly if it was from Orlin Ruiz. Then she laid out a line and sent it into her brain. The focusing rush pushed all the worries and confusion aside, and she sat at her laptop, put her hair up in a ponytail, and started working like hellhounds were on her trail.
Eight hours flew by, and she was past the point in the novel that she had planned to be at by Thursday. Forcing herself to close the laptop, she set it on her little desk, then opened it again and set the backup system to run, copying all her work to her cloud drive. Then she walked away quickly and into the shower.
It felt like a battle night was brewing, so she chose jeans and a heavy t-shirt with her leather vest, which remained blank on the back. Her knife went on her left hip for a cross-body draw.
Her father taught her the draw, back when she was twelve, and set her to practicing it every day, over and over. Then she practiced it kneeling, and then on one knee, and then sitting cross legged, and then lying down. Over and over, every day, a hundred a day. Draw-slice-defend. Draw-slice-defend. As she drew the knife, she stepped forward, slashing her attacker with the same movement, and then going into her knife fighting stance, which was loose and easy to move from. Ready for anything, from any direction.
Draw-slice-defend.
She performed the movement now, in her room, with satisfying grace and speed. She sincerely hoped that she would not have to use it tonight, or any other night at the club.
She slipped into her thick riding boots just as a knock came at her door.
“Hank?”
“Yeah!”
“Come in, I’ll be right out,” she called, and then looked at herself in the mirror. She wouldn’t ask. No. If Daphne was wrong, it would be a terrible insult, and they just weren’t ready for a hit like that with them just starting out together. She wasn’t sure when asking such a question wouldn’t be terribly insulting, but she was sure she had never had a relationship that long so far.
“I talked to Daphne,” she started as she came out of her room. “She’s a bit upset, but I think it was more of a shock than an emotional thing.”
“Did she tell you to run as fast as you could?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes. Or that was the meaning, anyway.”
“Are you?”
“I invited you in, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and I withdraw the question as being stupid and perhaps a little childish,” Hank told her.
“She also told me a story about a couple who were in the club? Howey and Margaret?” she said, and she headed for the kitchen with her used coffee cup to wash it out, and to escape if escaping was necessary.
While she was running the water, he said, “It just popped up? The anniversary is not for several months.”
“She just said it was important club lore, and that it would help me understand the club and its actions more clearly,” Cyn lied, and then turned around to leave the kitchen.
“Well, she’s right. It is very important to the club, and Knight has not forgotten, nor forgiven. He won’t, either, until he can figure out a method of reprisal, but even then, it won’t be forgive and forget,” Hank mused, his voice thoughtful but with the hint of a storm.
“I think it was me mentioning the cocaine you left for me that sparked the story,” Cyn told him, and without knowing why, she was certain that this man, the one in her living room right now, would never, ever, work for Orlin Ruiz. “Let’s ride, lover,” she said with a smile, and she took his arm.
He kissed her outside, and it felt smooth and strong and honest. He wasn’t hiding anything from her that he might be ashamed of — nothing.
She decided that Derrick and Daphne simply didn’t see what they thought they saw. She wouldn’t go so far as to say Daphne was making it up, but what they saw simply wasn’t right.
The spring air was a bit chilly, and she was glad she had chosen to wear her thick leather jacket. They rode slightly staggered with Hank in front and her following on the other side of the lane. He rode fast, as if he were riding into something and was going to meet it head on.
We are. We are riding into something, and I’m going with him.
CHAPTER TEN
Cyn was surprised at the number of members in attendance for a Monday evening. The group wasn’t anything like Friday night or Saturday, but it was still more than Cyn expected. There were at least fifty bikes out front and a group of perhaps ten more on the side. This, with the fifteen or so cars and trucks in the lot, suggested to Cyn that something was going on. Granted, she had never been to the club on a Monday before, so perhaps this was a normal crowd. But as soon as she and Hank crossed the threshold, the air of expectancy was too thick to ignore. The crowd had a purpose for being here, and their attention was determinately focused on Hank, and on her, since she was with Hank.
She looked up at Hank, who appeared not to notice the tension in the room at all. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and then said, “I’ll be right back. I have to drop in on Knight for a moment.” He took the stairs and she could feel the crowd watch him go.
The expectancy remained the same as their eyes followed him through the room. She could tell where he was by the feeling of everyone’s focus.
She smiled at this, told herself she was getting paranoid, and went to the bar area. Spotting Larry, she gave him a wave and he motioned to the stool beside him.
Conversations were picking back up around the room as she sat down next to Larry.
“It’s not usually this crowded on a Monday night, is it?” she asked casually.
“Perceptive as always, my dear,” Larry agreed.
“What is going on?” she asked him.
“I believe the technical term is ‘witch hunt,’ where Hank is the witch and Derrick has been promoting himself as the man with the burning oil.”
“No peep as to what he’s going to drop?” she asked.
“Not a word, but he has made it sound like it is on the level of pureeing live babies,” Larry told her.
“Oh, shit,” she hissed.
“You know something?”
“Not really, but I feel something, and I’m thinking this could get ugly,” she murmured, and she signaled for a beer.
Hank came down the stairs. The focus of the crowd once again moved with him while he moved unhindered and went to the middle of the bar, ignoring her waved invitation.
He ordered a beer and left cash on the bar for fut
ure drinks, letting everyone know that he planned on staying for a while tonight.
Then Derrick was behind him, but distant enough for polite conversation.
“Eight months this time, Hank. That’s a long time,” Derrick began.
Hank turned slowly and leaned casually back on the bar with his elbow. “You’ve got something to say, Derrick, and most of these folks are here for the show, probably at your invite. So, just say it so I can get some dinner and these folks can get back to real life.”
“I know what you’ve been doing,” Derrick said. “You’ve been running drugs.”
“And?” Hank said, extremely bored.
Cyn tensed up. “Oh shit,” she hissed.
Derrick smiled. “You’ve been running them for Orlin Ruiz.”
The bar was suddenly as still as a morgue.
Hank set his bottle down and took out his phone. He speed dialed a number. “Yes, it’s me. You were right all along. I never saw this one coming, but it’s deranged, even for him. I’m asking for tribunal.”
Hank nodded his head twice, listening, and then hung up the phone.
The room was even quieter than before.
“You deny it?” Derrick said, but there was a hint of insecurity in his voice.
“Not only that, Derrick, but I’m saying you are seriously twisted to even think of using that subject for your own petty problem with me.”
“I saw you in daylight at his house!” Derrick swore.
“I don’t know what you saw, and I don’t care. You’re so fucking deranged you could have seen Bugs fucking Bunny there and decided it was me,” Hank said, his body language calm, easy, and completely cool.
“Take hold of the accused,” Knight’s voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs, and the crowd parted for him.
Three men stepped forward and took hold of Derrick. “What the fuck? Let go of me! He’s in bed with god, damn, fucking, Ruiz!”
Knight walked up to Derrick as he struggled. “I don’t care about your current derangements. I have enough, ten times over, to take your patch. You have brought police investigations to this club, to me, to other members. You have incited brother against brother, tearing at the fabric which holds us together. More than once I have heard you say — and I have it on police transcript as well — Fuck the bros. Well, Mr. Unger, I say, fuck you.”
Knight turned to the crowd. “I need two officers willing to stand with me.”
“I will,” said Larry, and he rose from his stool beside Cyn.
“I will,” said Ben, the VP, and he came over from the staircase.
“Will anyone stand for the accused?” Knight said, and he waited. Many shuffled their feet, but no one moved. “No one? No patch holder will stand? Larry, doesn’t there need to be at least one to stand with him?”
Halo stepped forward. “Only to serve the purpose of the tribunal, I’ll stand with him.”
Knight nodded. “Then it’s as you say, and do what you can.”
“Yes sir,” Halo said, though obviously not happy about the request.
“Knight, I saw him!” Derrick pleaded. “So did Daphne. Tell them, Daphne!”
Cyn looked for Daphne, who was standing more or less alone behind the gathering crowd with her fists pressed to her mouth as she bawled. Cyn got up from the stool and went to her. She was in so much pain, she couldn’t ignore her, not with this going on.
Daphne was shaking her head violently from side to side and pressing her fists so hard into her teeth when Cyn got there that she was afraid the woman might draw blood.
Knight’s eyes met Cyn’s as she put an arm around Daphne and held her. Was that a look of warning? Of anger? She didn’t know, and at this moment, she didn’t care. Daphne did have someone to stand for her, and Cyn wasn’t leaving her side.
“Derrick,” Knight said. “You fail to understand so many things. They are right in front of you and you fail to see them. All you see is your hate. You have no sense of brotherhood at all.”
Then Hank lifted his voice so that everyone could clearly hear him. “I know exactly what you saw, Derrick. The middle of the day, the possible bag of coke. Orlin on the other side of the motorcycle. I will address this once. Only once, and I will hear no more of it! Not only do I know about it, I was there! So was Ben! We watched our plan to gather information. Hank did what he did because I told him to do it.”
Knight sighed. “As it happened, the plan was a failure, and I have apologized to Hank several times for putting him through that with nothing to show for it except opening the wound he carries — like all of us — for Howey and Margaret.
“But for you, Derrick, that wasn’t even a possibility. No. All you saw was a chance to hurt your brother. All you saw was a way to cause more pain and more strife. So I will hear nothing about what you saw, from anybody, ever again. That is my shame, not Hank’s. And if any of you hold Howey and Margaret’s memory dear, then you will not speak of this to anyone, not even amongst ourselves, for fear or loosing another chance at reprisal.”
Nods and voiced promises came from around the room.
“Good. Now, Halo, I believe it is your turn,” Knight said, and stepped back.
Halo stepped forward, his face a mask of concentration, and Cyn could see his fingers were shaking slightly. From the look in his eyes, they were probably shaking with rage.
When his voice came though, it was clear, and even passionate. And Cyn realized that he really was going to give his position his best shot.
“Derrick has spoken out in the past. Yes. Normally when he’s emotionally charged. He has said some hurtful things at these times — but who hasn’t? Who, in this room, while enraged, or in pain, or hurt the way only love can hurt, has not lashed out and said something they knew they shouldn’t have?”
Derrick eyed the room, and he boldly looked at the trio. “No one? Not a single man or woman in this room has done exactly what we are bringing to Derrick’s door?”
Halo paused, and took a breath. “Because the truth is, Derrick has broken no code. The truth is, he is an asshole, and since coming out of prison, he’s been a serious asshole, but never has he broken a single code. Not once! I defy anyone to name a code that Derrick has broken!”
Again he searched the room and boldly met the tribunal’s eyes. “Again? No one? This man, our brother, is being held like an animal, and he’s broken no code, and though an asshole, who probably needs some serious help, has done nothing more than anyone else in this room has admittedly done.”
Halo finished, and then he turned away from everyone and walked out into the night, and he stood there in the cold air.
“Hang on, baby,” Cyn said, squeezing Daphne a little with her arm.
Daphne shook her head. “It’s not over,” she whimpered.
Knight nodded his head and stepped forward again. With a further nod he said, “No, Derrick never mentioned any names. So, he never actually broke the word of the code. He said, ‘My partner in this crime is tall, with brown hair, green eyes, a stupid spider tat on the side of his neck, rides a blue Lowrider, and he hangs out in a club bar, in rural Lakeside.’ But, no, he used no name.”
Chuckles and laugher broke out throughout the room.
“When he was told that his lawyer was there to sit with him during questioning, he said, ‘Makes a better fence.’ Result? Larry faced possible disbarment for nine months during an investigation which tore his life apart for that whole period of time. But Derrick did not mention his name.
“Derrick did not mention the name of this club bar, but they didn’t seem to need to know the name. They came here, and for almost a year, they harassed, prodded, and searched everything they could. I personally was investigated by the alcohol bureau commission. My liquor license was nearly lost, which would have been a cost to the club of more than the million invested in that one piece of paper. But, Derrick broke no word of code.”
Knight took a few pacing steps, and then said, “Halo asked very good questions, and did
a fine job for Derrick. When Halo looked me in the eye and asked me his questions, I felt doubt. I really did. I began to wonder at the trueness of this tribunal, and at the trueness of my own motivations over the last few years to push Hank to have it.”
He stopped his pacing and looked around. “Yes, I too have bad days, and yes, I too have said things in anger, or in pain, or in emotional turmoil, that have hurt and even maimed my brothers and sisters in this club. But afterward, when I recognized what I did, I said I was sorry, and I sought to make amends. Whether those amends were a beer at the bar and a few moments of time to assure my brother or sister than I really did not mean to harm them, or to be there when that brother faced a dark mile so I could ride with him, I did my best to earn back his respect.
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