Sons of Anarchy Bratva

by Christopher Golden

  Jax shrugged. “As long as they pay their taxes, I guess.”

  They had pulled their bikes around the side of the bar. Behind it was a small paved yard enclosed with a chain-link fence, and Jax spotted a restored Ford Mustang, an old white box truck with the bar’s name on the side, and four motorcycles. The eastern sky had continued to brighten, hinting at the approach of dawn and turning much of the sky a rich indigo. They walked toward the heavy old wooden door that, despite its appearance, was used by the charter as a side entrance to their clubhouse, which was in the rear of the building that housed the Tombstone Bar.

  A loud clank echoed across the lot and the door dragged inward. A thin, hawk-nosed face peered out.

  “Morning, Baghead,” Jax said.

  Bag rubbed his eyes as he opened the door further, his suspicion giving way to irritation.

  “‘Morning’? You see any goddamn sunshine out here?”

  Jax kept back from the door, Opie and Chibs following his lead. They were all brothers here, but the charters had their own cultures, their own rules, and their own maniacs. Baghead had earned his name because he was a sociopath with no filter and no shame who’d pick up the homeliest woman in a bar, then make her wear a bag on her head while he fucked her.

  “You sleeping light, or you supposed to be on guard?” Jax asked.

  Bag stepped outside, putting away the gun he’d been hiding behind the door in case of trouble, and stretched tiredly. “Guard what? We’re just sleepin’ off what we finished drinking a couple of hours ago. I’m still fucking drunk.”

  “When aren’t you?” Chibs muttered under his breath, so only Jax and Opie could hear.

  For the first time, the real strangeness of their arrival seemed to hit Baghead, and he blinked, waking up a little.

  “What’s this about, Jax? You don’t show up at asshole o’clock in the morning unless you got pressing business.”

  Jax started toward the door, his patience wearing thin. He needed a piss and a place to put his head down for a few hours.

  “Look, brother, we rode all night because we wanted to get here before the sun came up. I don’t want anyone knowing we’re here, not yet. I’m gonna need to have a talk with Rollie. He wants you and the other guys in that conversation, I’m okay with that, but I need to talk to him.”

  “He ain’t here,” Bag said, as if they might go away.

  Opie grumbled. “You’re not gonna turn your brothers away, are you, Bag? That what Rollie would want?”

  The invocation of Rollie seemed to fully wake Baghead at last. “Nah, of course not, man, it’s just … it’s early.”

  Rubbing at the corner of his eye with a knuckle, he stepped back to let them enter. Before Jax even crossed the threshold, he felt the weight of exhaustion descend on him, like he’d been holding it off until that moment. Opie and Chibs slung their packs off their shoulders and ambled inside, and Bag shut the door behind them.

  “Bathroom’s up toward the bar if you need a piss,” Bag said, pointing past a huge metal door that must have been the beer cooler. Then he gestured the other direction, where another corridor branched off along the back of the building. “Jax, you know where the crash pad is. There’re two empty beds back there but plenty of pillows and shit, and there’s a sofa in the poolroom.”

  “You’re not going back to sleep?” Opie asked him. “You said you haven’t even been down a couple of hours.”

  Something was wrong with Baghead, but nothing that hadn’t been wrong with him for years. He twitched, glancing shyly away as if he was uneasy with anyone expressing concern about him. Sensitive guy for a sociopath, Jax thought.

  “Nah, man,” Bag said. “I’m awake now. Sun’ll rise soon, and once I see the sun, I can’t even take a nap. I’ll clean up the bar. No worries, though. I’ll keep the clatter to a dull roar.”

  He turned and walked past the cooler and the bathroom, headed for the bar, leaving them to their own devices. Now that they were inside and he’d assured himself they posed no threat, Bag apparently felt no inclination toward hospitality.

  Jax headed along the back corridor toward the crash pad. They passed the poolroom, a small space with a sofa, a pool table, and a little bamboo tiki bar that looked like it had been stolen from the courtyard of some Vegas hotel. “I’ll take it,” Chibs said, tilting his head toward the poolroom. “Opie’s too tall, and we can’t have our VP on the couch.”

  Jax gave him a nod of thanks and kept moving. The crash pad was actually two separate bedrooms with a third—a sort of TV room, from the look of it—between them. North Vegas was a tough crew. They’d thrown down with some savage clubs and come out on top, but there was something almost quaint about the setup, as if Rollie and his boys came from an earlier, more innocent era.

  The bedroom on the left stank of stale beer and month-old vomit. He spotted a red-bearded monster in one bed, massive leg thrown over the side, sleeping like he’d been hurled onto the mattress by an angry god. Thor, Jax remembered, still doubtful that it was the big son of a bitch’s real name. There were two other beds in there, one of which was occupied by a little olive-skinned guy called Antonio. The empty one was messed up enough that he figured it had been where Bag had been sleeping before the sound of their snorting Harley engines had woken him.

  The other room had only two beds, one empty and one occupied by a man named Joyce, who had a bull’s-eye of ugly burn scars where a member of the Iron Heart MC had held his face to a stovetop coil. Jax hadn’t intended to involve the charter—that would defeat the whole purpose of their coming down here incognito—but a sense of dread took up residence in his skull like a ghost in an old dark house. He forced himself to shake it off. “Get some rest,” he told Opie.

  He went and dropped his bag beside the empty bed. Then he laid down and closed his eyes. Around the edges of the heavy blackout window shade, he could see the glint of predawn light.

  Despite the long night’s ride, it was quite some time before Jax managed to sleep.

  7

  The next time Jax opened his eyes, the sun was burning around the edges of the blackout window shade and the temperature in the room had gone up twenty degrees. He felt grimy, as if he’d been sweating through the night and it had dried on him, stiffening his clothes. Stretching, he glanced over to see the other bed empty, and he wondered what Joyce had thought when he’d woken to see SAMCRO’s VP sleeping nearby.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and dragged his sneakers on. His wallet chain clinked quietly as he stood and swiped a hand across his tired eyes. With a groan, he shook himself, wet-dog style, and glanced around for a clock but didn’t find one.

  The rest of the crib was abandoned, with no sign of Chibs, Opie, or any of the SAMNOV guys, so Jax returned the way he’d come in the early morning hours. The poolroom sofa was vacant as well, but Joyce stood by the table with a cue stick in one hand, studying the arrangement of the balls. After a moment, he realized that Jax was watching and glanced up.

  “You snore,” Joyce said.

  “We all have our faults,” Jax replied.

  Joyce chuckled, his smile causing his burn scar to stretch grotesquely.

  “What time is it?” Jax asked.

  “Too early to be up and too late to go back to sleep.”

  “Any chance you could be more specific?”

  “Going on 10 a.m. Antonio called Rollie about an hour ago. I haven’t seen him yet, but I’d guess he’s out front already.”

  Jax nodded. “That bacon I smell?”

  “We got a grill in the little kitchen by the bar. Thor likes to cook breakfast.”

  “He any good at it?”

  Joyce gave a small shrug. “Couldn’t make a decent pancake to save his life, but his eggs are fantastic. You’ll see.”

  Jax made his way to the front of the building, stopping only to empty his bladder on the way. The main bar area took up about half of the building itself, mostly oak beams and thick floorboards soaked with decades of
spilled beer and smelling every year of it. There were no shining brass railings in this place and no mirrors on the walls—the clientele the Tombstone Bar drew in weren’t too fond of staring at their own reflections. There were booths and tables with mismatched chairs, simple and to the point. Behind the long bar were racks of alcohol built up like bookends on either side of a huge marble grave marker with Rollie’s full name on it. The damn tombstone was the only thing in the bar that looked like anyone ever bothered to clean it.

  “Morning, Jackson,” Rollie said, rising from a stool near the plate-glass windows at the front of the room. His hair had more salt than pepper these days, and his gut had belled out a bit since Jax had last seen him, but he still exuded the same combination of warmth, intelligence, and mischief as ever.

  “Rollie,” Jax said. “Thanks for the hospitality.”

  Chibs and Opie were seated at the bar with Antonio, Thor, and Baghead, all of them digging into plates of breakfast. Opie raised an eyebrow and gave a nod, silently letting Jax know the food had his seal of approval. Chibs didn’t even look up, and Jax had to smile. It had been a long ride, and his own stomach growled at the fantastic smells coming from the little kitchen.

  Rollie shook Jax’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “If you’d let me know you were coming, I would’ve at least had the boys change the sheets back there,” Rollie said, frowning in disapproval.

  Anyone else, Jax would’ve doubted it, but he took Rollie at his word.

  “I know you would have, brother. Couldn’t do it, though.”

  “Bag said something seemed off,” Rollie noted. “You guys are up at four in the morning, I got to figure there’s trouble. Maybe you ought to lay it out for me.”

  Jax glanced over at Bag and the others. “You want to do that here or in your office?”

  Rollie understood his meaning. “No prospects here this morning. You can consider whatever you say here just as sacrosanct as anything you’d say in chapel.”

  Jax nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure how well Baghead could keep a secret, and he didn’t know Antonio very well, but he trusted Rollie.

  The service door swung open, and Hopper stepped through with a wide plate heaped high with food.

  “Jax, come sit down,” he said. “Thor wants his food eaten hot. He’s been keeping it warm back there, but don’t test his patience.”

  Jax shook his head. Hopper had his hair tied back with a rubber band and his goatee cinched together with a little iron ring.

  “Damn, Hopper. I hope Thor makes a better chef than you do a waitress.”

  “Sit down, asshole,” Hopper growled, sliding his plate none-too-gently onto the bar.

  “Can you talk and eat at the same time?” Rollie asked. If it was a joke, he didn’t let on.

  “I’ll manage,” Jax said, ravenous now.

  He walked to the bar and slid onto a stool, trading nods and greetings with the other men in the room.“You guys eat like this all the time?” he asked, digging his fork into the eggs.

  “Couple times a week, when Thor feels like cooking,” Antonio said.

  “I might never go home,” Chibs said, pushing away his empty plate.

  Jax let business slide for a couple of minutes while he tucked into the plate of food, heaping eggs on top of toast.

  After he’d finished half the plate, Rollie dragged a stool over beside him, a mug of coffee in his hand.

  “All right, man from Charming. Your belly ain’t growlin’ quite so loud now. You want to explain your under-cover-of-night arrival and, more importantly, why you’re not wearing your cuts? If I showed up at your place without mine, I don’t think I’d have received such a warm welcome.”

  Jax wiped crumbs from his mustache, nodding. “It’s appreciated, Rollie.” He turned on the stool, facing Rollie and making sure as many of the other SAMNOV guys could see him as possible. “Short version…”

  And he told them.

  When he’d finished the story, Baghead choked up a mouthful of phlegm. “Goddamn Russkies,” Bag said, and spat the wad into his empty juice glass.

  Rollie laid a hand on his own prodigious gut, brows knitted in contemplation.

  “We try to fly under the radar down here, man,” he said. “You know that. We’ve been in our share of scrapes, but we try to keep business running smoothly, focus on the finer things. But family is family. Until you know your sister’s safe, you’ve got whatever you need from us. Blood, sweat, and tears.”

  Jax leaned in toward Rollie. “Thank you, brother. I know you try to keep things looking legit. We’ll do everything we can to avoid bringing trouble to your door.”

  “Aye,” Chibs agreed.

  Opie had turned to watch the conversation unfold, and he raised a coffee mug to signal his own agreement.

  “What can we do?” Rollie asked.

  Jax inhaled the stale-beer aroma of the bar, the warmth of it, and the camaraderie of the men of the North Vegas charter. These guys had a good thing going, and he didn’t want to blow it for them, especially when things had been so tense in Charming. The last thing he wanted was to drag his shit over someone else’s threshold.

  “Right now, just a place to lay our heads and some information.” He glanced around at Hopper, Antonio, Thor, and Bag. “Anything in the air about rival Bratva factions?”

  A lot of shaking heads.

  Rollie looked thoughtful and then shrugged. “We’ve got connections with the local PD. Cooperative relationships, ya know? And there are guys we could talk to who have deep ties to the old mob powers that still run most of the dark money in Vegas. I don’t know how much help they’re gonna be, but we can give it a shot.”

  Someone coughed at the back of the bar, and they all turned to see that Joyce had entered the room. How long he’d been listening, Jax couldn’t be sure.

  “Bag, you gonna tell them about the Birdman’s place?” Joyce asked, the bull’s-eye scar on his cheek gleaming angrily in the daylight filtering in front of the bar.

  Baghead frowned, hands fluttering toward his face as if he felt some insect harrying him and wanted to swat it away. He twitched, sniffed, and then nodded swiftly.

  “Right, right, Harry,” Bag said, one side of his mouth lifting in a smile. “Stupid of me, yeah? Should’ve thought of that without you making me think of it.”

  Harry Joyce. Jax had forgotten the guy’s first name.

  “Who’s the Birdman?” Opie asked.

  Bag flinched toward him as if he’d forgotten Opie had a voice. “Guy likes old jazz, plus he keeps a bunch of parakeets in the club. Strip club, called Birdland. People think the name comes from the girls, ‘birds,’ like they’d call ’em in London or whatever, but it’s the jazz connection. Famous club in New York has the same name, but not the naked titties and definitely not the parakeets.”

  Chibs leaned back against the bar and crossed his arms. “I’m lost. How is this relevant?”

  Jax glanced at Joyce, hoping for a rescue, and he wasn’t disappointed.

  “Birdland’s always got a few Russian Mafia guys hanging around,” Joyce said. “You wanna find out what the Bratva are up to in Vegas right now, that’s the place to start.”

  “Got a contact at the club?” Jax asked, turning to Rollie. “Someone who can point us the right way?”

  Rollie clapped him on the shoulder. “We can do better than a contact. Wait till tonight, and Joyce’ll go with you. He’ll know the faces and the names.”

  “I’m in,” Joyce agreed. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  Jax nodded his thanks. He turned toward Opie, saw relief in his expression and a dark purpose in his eyes, and knew they reflected his own. They’d come to visit the Tombstone Bar expecting not much more than a place to crash. People so rarely exceeded his expectations that Jax found himself very happy when they did.

  He looked at Joyce. “Thanks, man.”

  Bag snorted something back into his nose, then scoffed. “That’s Harry Joyce. Never could r
esist a damsel in distress.”

  Chibs laughed softly. “Ah, well, it’s clear you’ve never met Jax’s lovely sister.” He turned on the stool and looked around the bar. “Trust me, fellas … Trinity Ashby’s not some swooning girl. She’s nobody’s bloody damsel in distress.”

  * * *

  Trinity had never been the sort of girl who cried. To hear her mother tell it, she’d wailed like a banshee as an infant, screeching to wake the dead. Her mother’s friend Kiera had once said baby Trinity’s crying could have driven Christ off the cross, and Trinity had been perversely proud of that. But once she’d been able to crawl—to move without her mother lugging her around—her tears had ended. Oh, she’d wept at a funeral or two, but that was the sum of it. Romantic movies made her roll her eyes, and even in her teen years there had never been a boy who’d made her cry … though she’d bloodied a few of their noses.

  This morning she was furious with herself for the tears she had shed last night. Feliks had died, and they’d buried him—grief was only natural—but she knew that she needed to be harder than that. She needed to be able to turn off the pain inside, to go numb, or she might not survive all of this.

  For it’s sure Feliks won’t be the last to die.

  Steeling herself for the blast of cold, she stepped into the shower. The desert morning was cool and the water much chillier than that. Gavril and Kirill had managed to get the well pump that served the motel—and the oil-stinking generator—running easily enough, but the furnace was broken, so there’d be no hot water. Still, the water sluiced the night’s sweat and the previous day’s dust off her body, and that part felt wonderful.

  Trinity shivered as she ran the soap over her body, hurrying as best she could. Gooseflesh prickled her skin.

  Feliks had been a good man, but in her experience the death of good men had always been one of life’s few guarantees.

  Not Oleg, she thought. She would not lose him. Oleg was a good man. Trinity feared that he might need to become a bad man to survive, but if that was what it took for her to be able to keep him, then so be it.