“Seriously, this really matters,” I insist. “Were you there?”
Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got up and walked back to his cell instead of answering me.
Instead, he gives me the slightest of nods.
A door swings open and it’s time for us to go our separate ways. This time, Jamie doesn’t order me to stop digging into what happened to Trent. He knows he can’t stop me anyway, but maybe it’s more than that.
The clock is ticking.
Maybe I can finally show he’s not the killer, without betraying anyone’s trust or getting anyone else killed.
“Don’t tell Mom about my accident,” he says.
His voice sounds funny as he says the word “accident.” I say nothing.
“I’m serious. Don’t tell Mom.”
It’s an order and he expects me to obey.
I nod.
“Thanks,” he says as the guards lead him away.
Mom is coming in to see Jamie just as I’m leaving. She got a ride from a friend or took a cab, I suppose. I also suppose I’ll wait and drive her home. It’s awkward, but we have to reconnect sometime. She’d better not mention Carlito, though.
To keep myself occupied while Mom’s inside, I use my phone to search for more about the Popeyes. Everything I find only confirms what I already knew: that they’re a nasty bunch playing in a far rougher league than the Annihilators and the Spartans.
“What did Jamie tell you?” Mom asks when she’s back and we’re walking toward the car. “What’s that bruise about?”
I tell her that he isn’t giving out details.
“That’s all?”
“He’s coping,” I reply. There’s no sense getting her more upset.
“He told me about the lawyer.” She reaches out and squeezes my shoulder—her way of thanking me, I guess.
I nod. “Seemed okay that he’s getting one but not that excited.”
“Did he say anything about getting away from those guys in the club?”
“No.”
I know what she wants me to say—that Jamie’s vowed to leave the biker life behind—but there’s no point telling a big lie and giving her false hope.
She goes quiet but I can guess what she’s thinking. Her firstborn child is accused of first-degree murder and there isn’t a thing she can do about it. How much lower can we sink?
Chapter
33
For the past few years, football has been my go-to safe place. But gridiron glory isn’t on my mind at all right now. As Jamie watches his back in jail and Ripper recovers in the hospital from a gunshot wound, the thought of people in stretchy pants running up and down a field fighting for control of an inflated leather ball just doesn’t seem like the biggest thing in the world anymore. In fact, it’s hard to think of anything smaller or less important.
I’m also finding it impossible to stop thinking of Brenda. Imagining us together is my new go-to safe place.
“Did you hear about Ripper? I text her. It’s Wednesday night and I’m in my bedroom, back at home with Mom, at least for the time being, and I’m going a little stir-crazy.
Part of me is hoping that Brenda knows more about this than I do. I’m sure she’s been talking with Carlito, and maybe he has let something slip.
She writes back immediately. She must be restless too. Yeah WTF? He was shot??
Gutless drive-by. He’s alive. He was hit in the shoulder and side.
Why?
She seems as puzzled about it as me. If Carlito knows anything, I guess he’s not sharing it with her.
Imagine he angered the big club. Plus pissed off members of the Annihilators and the Spartans who wanted to join Popeyes.
But who would have done it?
The Popeyes could have directed it, I reply. That’s the obvious answer. Would make it easier to absorb the Annihilators.
Yeah, but I don’t see them screwing it up.
Nobody’s perfect.
I meant this as a joke. It’s the kind of joke Ripper himself would make. But she does have a point. The Popeyes are good at this sort of thing, and the last few weeks have shown me it doesn’t take a genius to end a life.
Ripper’s going to be okay? she asks.
Such a hopeful, innocent question.
Looks like it.
Ripper wanted my brother to quit, was pushing Trent to stop cooking. Imagine that—a biker trying to get someone out of the drug business. But Trent kept on doing it, even when the Popeyes shoved their way in. He wanted to buy a house by the lake. Jamie wanted Trent to quit too. He thought Trent was nuts to be greedy. Wanted him to just leave. Thought that would cool things down.
Hands down, it’s the longest text Brenda has ever sent me. I read it twice before replying, to make sure I’m taking it all in. Leave the club? Leave town?
Both.
This is news to me. How do you know that? I ask.
Trent told me. But I didn’t want to move again. I was tired of shuffling around. I’m tired of having to make new friends in school. Now the kids in my grade will be younger than me, which is embarrassing. But I didn’t want to hang him out to dry either.
She’s in a talkative mood tonight, and obviously feeling a lot of guilt, but her brother was a big boy.
Guess we have to wait for Ripper to explain, she adds, before I have a chance to reply. If he recovers. And if he talks.
He’ll recover, I text. But I doubt he’ll talk. Too old-school.
See what you can find out, and maybe call me tomorrow when you get back from the gym?
She knows my gym routine already. Sort of like we are a couple.
Don’t think I’ll go.
Are you hurt?
No.
I haven’t told her about almost being crushed on the bench press the last time I was there. I haven’t told anyone.
More important than ever to go to the gym. Should work out harder, not less.
I’m not sure what she’s getting at. One day won’t make a difference. I can see that she’s still typing, so I wait for her to finish.
Don’t let people squash your dream. Trent lost his dream of helping our family. Your dream is more solid. Real. It’s clean. Don’t lose it.
Okay coach. Then: What’s your dream? It seems like a fair question. The pause that follows feels awkward. Awkward and intimate.
Doesn’t matter. Can’t turn back the clock.
I don’t know how to reply in a way that won’t seem like I’m prying. So I just stare out my large attic window at the moon and feel not so alone for a while.
Chapter
34
I’m back at the gym the next morning, Jake at my side. I know Brenda will ask me about it, and I want to be able to tell her that I worked out hard. It’s also nice to be hanging out with Jake again.
I’ve tried not to think about it too much, but it feels like kind of a big deal to be back here. The last time I was here, someone tried to seriously harm me, and that someone is still out there. But the gym is my home-away-from-home, and I’m not about to run away.
“Let’s do it,” Jake says with no hint of a smile. He’s looking around the gym floor like a guard dog. Jake’s not used to violence in his life, and there’s been enough of it in mine lately to make him feel nervous. My brother is in jail for murder, a biker war is threatening to break out in our quiet little town, and a guy he knows I know is in the hospital, the victim of a drive-by shooting. No wonder he’s on edge.
There’s no one I’d rather be here with, but it wouldn’t kill him to lighten up a little. When Jake’s not joking or posing you know there’s a problem.
“What’s on the program?” he asks.
“No benches or squats. No heavy stuff.”
“No spotter stuff?”
“Not to
day.”
With Jake, I don’t have to explain. I need to be back in the Zone, where there’s no room for panic. I need to feel at home in this place again, but it’s going to take some work.
My mind is cycling through these thoughts when I notice Dave Hanson, Jamie’s friend from back in the day, on the other side of the room. He’s alone and I wonder, just for a second, if he’s been sent to meet with me on some kind of undercover mission, thinking I might have information about the violence of the past few days. It wouldn’t be the craziest thing to happen this week.
Dave is over at the bench press area when I approach him.
“Want a spot?” I ask.
“Thanks,” he says reflexively. Then he sees my face, smiles, and sits up.
“Josh! It’s been a while. How’s your Mom holding up?”
“Um, as well as can be expected, I guess.”
I’m not going to go into details here.
“Say hi to her for me. And to Jamie.”
I was just a little kid when he and Jamie hung around together. Sometimes Dave would pick me up and tickle me. Even hold me upside down and make me really squeal. Now I outweigh him by probably fifty pounds.
He does a set of ten reps on the bench press, with me helping on the last three.
“There’s something I wanted to ask you about . . . ,” I say, once the bar is safely on the rack.
I can see Dave tense up a bit. Whatever friendship he and Jamie had in the past, Dave’s a cop now and I’m the brother of an accused killer. This is awkward. If he’s working a sting, he’s a really good actor.
“It’s complicated,” I say. “Is there any place . . . ?”
Dave looks around. There are enough people in the weight room that we can’t really speak privately here.
“I’ll meet you in the sauna in ten minutes,” he says.
“Perfect.”
It’s like a scene from some old gangster movie when I step into the hot room in my towel. An older guy is on his way out as Dave comes in a minute or two after me. It’s just us now. I suppose the place could be bugged, but I don’t have time to be paranoid. Besides, I have nothing to hide.
“First of all, let’s be blunt,” I say, trying to sound older and more collected than I am. “I know Jamie didn’t do it.”
“You’re a good brother.”
“Seriously, I know.”
“With all due respect, you can’t know.” Dave runs his fingers through his hair and takes a deep breath before speaking again. “I was his friend. He’s a great guy. But we both know Jamie has a temper.”
I nod. No point arguing the truth.
“It’s nice you believe Jamie is innocent but . . .”
“I know,” I insist. “He wasn’t in town. He was in Guelph. He couldn’t be in two places at the same time.”
“You can prove that?”
“You can.”
I tell him about the meeting between the Spartans and Annihilators, the top-secret effort to block their clubs from folding into the Popeyes.
“If you know so much, why do you need me?” he asks when I’m done.
“I need to be able to confirm it. I need to know if you guys had one of those Stingrays in operation there.”
“Then you don’t really know,” he says, seeing right through the confidence I’d managed to fake up until this point. “You want to believe he was there. I would too, if it were my brother.”
He must see the frustration on my face.
“But you guys can prove it.” I cringe at how shaky my voice sounds, how desperate.
“Us guys?”
“The police . . . with the Stingrays.”
“That’s not me.” He pauses for a moment, then adds: “I have a buddy who deals with that.”
He is thinking hard now; he clearly knows more.
“I’m really not supposed to talk about this stuff,” he says.
“I just need to know if Stingrays were being used in Guelph that night. I don’t need to know exactly what they intercepted. Just if they were operating when Trent was killed in St. Thomas.”
Dave takes a deep breath.
“I just need the truth,” I say. “Nothing more.”
He looks me in the eye, then shifts his gaze up to the ceiling as he lets out a big sigh.
And then he nods his head.
Chapter
35
I call the lawyer the club’s recommended, Elaine Lewis, as soon as I get in the car. Within two hours, I’m sitting in her office on Wellington Road in London. It’s a little bit of a drive, but that’s the last thing on my mind. She’s supposed to be good, and I’ve got to get her going on what I just found out. Her practice is located above the regional headquarters of the Lithuanian-Canadian Association and a cozy restaurant that makes Eastern European comfort food.
Her office is respectable, if less than splashy. There’s no fancy art on the walls or supermodel receptionist, like in the movies and TV shows you see about lawyers, but there is a framed photo of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder, on the wall. It’s signed, “To my good friend, Elaine. Thanks for the good work.” There’s also a photo of a novice kids’ hockey team that includes a smiley girl named Sunny Lewis, presumably Elaine’s daughter.
Elaine is a small woman, probably no more than five foot four. She’s wearing a blue-and-white striped Oxford-cloth shirt and a blue blazer and her black hair is pulled back tight. There’s very little makeup on her face. I don’t know why, but the whole sort of severe look is somehow ultra-feminine.
“I’ll be upfront with you,” Elaine begins, in a matter-of-fact way. I guess she’s not so big on small talk, but that’s okay with me. “This case will take eighteen months minimum, with pre-trial and trial. That’s if we’re lucky. The prosecution doesn’t like to plea bargain on biker cases these days. Bad optics.”
“He’s no Popeye,” I say, feeling the need to put some distance between my brother and the guys this woman is used to defending.
“Yeah. You know that and I know that but they all look and sound the same to everyone else.”
There’s something warm about her even though she’s using her professional voice.
I tell her about my conversation with Dave in the sauna—leaving out his name—and float out the Stingray idea. “Can we do something with that?” I ask.
“You’re the football player, right?”
I’m flattered she knows.
“Yes.”
“I believe there’s a football play called a Hail Mary.”
She’s right. A Hail Mary is a long desperation pass—the play the coach pulls out when you have no other options and are trying to win in one big move.
“Yes.” I’m not feeling encouraged.
“Those Stingrays? That’s Hail Mary stuff. I don’t know if it will work, but we can try to subpoena whatever information the police have. Still, we have to be realistic.”
She’s talking to me like I’m an adult and it’s making me queasy.
“I get it that it’s an intriguing idea,” she continues, and I can hear that warmth creep back into her voice again. “Headlines. Maybe lawsuits. Stirring things up with telecommunications giants who have political connections. Arguments about when the police should be allowed to decrypt private communications. Lawyers love that sort of stuff. But it’s far-fetched too. I’m just telling you that it’s a long shot. It’s a possibility, but I don’t want to stake everything on one flashy move. The prosecution wants this to go to trial. They want to look tough on bikers.”
She sounds like my coach. He’s constantly telling us to do the work. To hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That victory comes from little things. All of that stuff.
Thinking of eighteen months of lawyer fees makes me want to throw up. We can
’t afford that. Not even close. The pressure is on me to help out with the bill—and I can’t do that and play university ball.
I hate Hail Marys. It’s what you do when you’re losing and are almost out of time.
Chapter
36
The call from Ripper’s daughter is unexpected. I answer it in the hallway outside of the lawyer’s office, as I’m waiting for the elevator and trying to figure out how to make all of this work.
“He wants to see you,” she says. “Can you come by tonight?”
Of course I can. I’ll swing by the hospital on the way home.
I meet Frances in a coffee shop in the lobby. We’re lucky to find a table among the scores of other hospital visitors. A family on my left is talking about a sick grandfather. On my right, a group is worrying about a boy who’s getting his tonsils out. They’re all focused on their own problems. I guess the best place to be anonymous is in a crowd.
“He’s only supposed to have visits with family,” she says. Before I can get upset, she adds, “So come with me. We’ll go in together. We’re family today, cousin.”
She has a great smile, just like her dad. I’ve always liked Ripper and this feels special, like I’m getting close to something good. I notice a cop’s eyes on us as we step onto the elevator.
The first person we see when we get off on Ripper’s floor is another cop. She’s sitting on a chair outside his room, and I can see the pistol in her holster. I can also see a mic button in her lapel, I guess in case she needs to call for backup.
Frances nods at her and she nods back.
The cop doesn’t turn her head when Frances breezes by with me, although her eyes do follow me. I don’t think we fooled her.
Ripper appears to be in a state of semi-sleep when we enter the room. There’s a tube coming out of his arm and another particularly nasty-looking one in his nose. His room has an antiseptic smell. It feels so strange to see Ripper in this environment, where he’s not in control. Somehow it’s even more disconcerting to see all of the flowers at his bedside. I’ve never associated Ripper with floral arrangements. There’s also a balloon bouquet and a few get-well cards, ranging from a sentimental one with a sunset on the front to a goofy one of a dog riding a motorcycle that says, “Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of the window.”
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