by Jessie Cooke
“Qui êtes-vous, bordel?” Maz looked toward the voice. The man who had just asked who the fuck they were wore a Jokers vest with a dark orange patch. He didn’t have on a shirt underneath the vest. His belly was round and hairy, and his arms looked like they belonged on an ape. He had graying black hair that hung down his back and a beard that lay down on his chest in front and looked like it might have a few crumbs from lunch stuck in it. Maz had to yell over the noise in the clubhouse.
“We’re here to see Blackheart. He’s expecting us.”
“Fuck me…Zane?”
“Yeah?” Maz had no idea who the man was.
“You motherfucker, you don’t remember me? Le Singe!”
The Monkey! “Oh, shit! Le Singe, damn, I’m sorry, man! It’s been a long time.” The man had aged twenty-five years at least in the dozen or so years since Maz had seen him. He was only a few years older than Maz, but if Maz didn’t know better, he’d guess him at fifty, at least. The big, hairy man grabbed him up in a hug and then looked at Sledge and said:
“Do I know you?” At that point he was speaking English, but Sledge was looking at him like he was an alien. He looked at Maz and Maz tried to keep a straight face as he said:
“Le Singe, this is one of my brothers in the Westside Skulls, this is Sledge.” Sledge started to hold out his hand but the big guy grabbed him up in a hug too. Maz saw Sledge tense up, but he tolerated it. These people were extremely passionate, and for someone like Sledge that might take some getting used to.
“How’s it going?” Sledge said. Then he leaned in close to Maz and said, “Does he speak English?” Maz laughed again…this was going to be interesting.
17
Marissa stood at the gates of the club, waiting for the guy in the little house to tell her if she could go inside or not. She hadn’t heard from Maz in three days. He wasn’t answering his phone, and little as she wanted to look like a pathetic female who was chasing him…she was worried, and she had to see him face to face. She agonized over what that meeting might be like. Obviously if he hadn’t called or texted in three days…and he wasn’t dead or at least in the hospital…he was finished with her. She promised herself when she met him, when she decided to have sex with him, that she wasn’t going to do this…she wasn’t going to fall in love. She wasn’t going to be vulnerable. Yet here she was only a matter of weeks later, hanging onto her sanity, her tears, and the pieces of her heart, all by a thread.
“Miss?” The kid at the gate stepped out. “Ransom is on his way up to talk to you.”
“Okay.” Ransom? Really? Either Maz was sick or hurt…or he was sending his little buddy to do his dirty work. She prayed he wasn’t sick or hurt, but at the same time she thought it might be easier to take than knowing he just didn’t want to face her. She walked over to her car and leaned against the hood. People were pulling in and out of the shop right next to the gates. It was bustling with activity whereas the space next to it would look vacant if you didn’t know better. The cyclone fence around it was adorned only with a big sign that said, “Private Property. No Trespassing.” And right in front of it was the small guard shack.
From where Marissa sat, all she could see was gravel, weeds, and a narrow road that she knew led back to the clubhouse and the small houses and trailers behind that where the guys lived. She focused on that road and within a few minutes she saw Ransom coming toward them in a cloud of dust. He’d come off as a little squirrelly when she first met him, but she’d seen a different side of him the other night when Maz had him drive her home. She’d tried to ask him questions about Maz. She was confused and trying to figure out what was going on. Ransom had only said that all he knew was that Maz asked him to take her home. When she asked another question, he repeated the answer. The guys were so tight-lipped and loyal that she hoped if he was hurt or sick, someone would tell her.
“Hey,” Ransom said, just as he rode up next to her and turned off his bike.
“Hey. I was looking for Maz.”
“Yeah, Greaseball told me.” She frowned, and he said, “That guy, at the gate. Maz isn’t here.”
“Okay…do you know where he is?”
“He’s in Louisiana.”
Marissa felt a knot in her core. He went home…and he didn’t even tell her? She knew they had just started seeing each other, but wasn’t going out of state something you should tell the person you’re seeing? “Oh, um…how long will he be there?”
Ransom shrugged. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. Wolf sent him out there on business, so it just depends on how that goes.”
“I tried calling him…”
“Yeah, he’s been traveling for a few days and where he’s going down there in Louisiana…he might not get a good signal…”
“Ransom, you don’t have to make excuses. I’m a big girl. I just needed to make sure he’s okay. Thanks.”
“Hey, what do you mean, make excuses? Honestly, I wasn’t. Maz is fucking spun over you…surely you know that, right?”
She wanted to believe that, but her mother always said that a person’s actions spoke volumes over their words, and Maz’s actions were not saying “fucking spun over her” right now. “He left without telling me and he hasn’t called or texted in three days, Ransom. I can take a hint, and I’m not here chasing him…I’m not going to make a fool out of myself. Like I said, I just wanted to make sure he’s okay.”
“That night after I took you home, I went over to let him know I got you there safe and I was back, but Wolf was there. The next morning, Maz and Sledge were already gone, headed to Louisiana. Honestly, Marissa, sometimes things just happen so fast around here that there’s no time for even one phone call. The big, grumpy dude is crazy about you, and I’m sure as soon as he’s finished with whatever business he’s handling, the first thing he’ll do is call you.”
Marissa smiled at the young man who was desperately defending his friend. “Thank you, Ransom. I appreciate that. I’m going to go. I have to get ready for my shift at work.” She didn’t really have to work, but suddenly she just needed to be away from there…far away.
“Okay. If I hear from Maz…” he started.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. She didn’t want someone reminding him to call her. If he wanted to talk to her, he knew where she was. “See ya, Ransom.”
“Yeah,” he said, sadly. “See ya too.” She walked over to her car and as she backed out onto the street she could see Ransom and the guy in the guard shack watching her. She knew she was being stupid because she was at least fifty feet away, but she thought she could see pity in their eyes. What was she thinking? Maz was a big, burly biker with access to just about any size, shape, and color of woman he wanted, right at his fingertips. What made her think she was special enough to hold his attention? As she got on the freeway she pressed the button on the steering wheel for her Bluetooth and said:
“Call Charity.” A few seconds later it was ringing and a second after that, her friend’s voice floated into the car,
“Well, well…she lives…”
“I need you to not be a bitch today.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. You coming here or should I come to you?”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.” Charity lived in a big-ass house in the bluffs, far north of where Marissa had grown up.
“I’ll have Linda make us some lunch.”
“I’m not hungry,” Marissa said. “Have her make margaritas instead.” Linda had been Charity’s nanny when she was a little girl. She became like part of the family, so Charity’s parents kept her on. She had taken on a role as Charity’s personal assistant since the girl grew up, and it seemed to work for both of them.
“She’s on it,” Charity said. “Hey, girl, I love you.” And that was exactly why Marissa had been friends with her for so long.
“Louisiana? What kind of business does a motorcycle gang have in Louisiana?”
Marissa took a sip of her peach margarita and then said, “It’s a club, no
t a gang, and they have legitimate businesses.”
Charity smiled. “You’re defending him, so you’re not that mad.”
“I’m not mad at all…I’m confused. Everything was going so well, or it seemed to be…I don’t know what happened.”
“So, what happened the last time you saw him? Give me a blow-by-blow.” Marissa had a memory of what they’d been doing that evening and before she even felt the heat in her face Charity said, “Oh, snap! You were getting busy, weren’t you?”
“Shut up.”
Charity laughed. “I will not! I’ve waited years to hear about you getting down and dirty. So…how is he?”
Marissa drank another few sips of her margarita, looking for courage in the sweet, frothy drink, before she said, “Amazing.”
“Hot damn! Is he hung?’
“Charity!” Marissa was laughing. “I’m not quite drunk enough for this conversation.”
“Then drink fast and tell me. What does that biker willy look like?”
Marissa was laughing so much that she spat her drink out all over the table in front of her. That just made her laugh harder. This was what she needed, not the cry she would have undoubtedly had if she’d gone home, alone. Once she’d cleaned up the table with the napkin Linda had left for her and wiped her mouth she said, “He’s huge,” in a whisper. Charity cracked up at that.
“Why are you whispering?”
Marissa looked around. “I don’t know. What if Linda or one of your parents walks in?”
“Mom and Dad are at work, big case…they’re living at the office these days. And Linda knows to give us our privacy until I call her, so tell me more…and don’t whisper!”
Her face was burning up, but Marissa wanted to talk about Maz, so she did. She didn’t tell Charity everything, but she did tell her how good he made her feel and how good she thought they were together. And then suddenly, without thinking, she said, “We had sex in the bathroom of the teppanyaki place.”
It was Charity’s turn to spit her drink out, but hers came out through her nose. It took her several minutes to compose herself before she said, “Oh my God! You did not!”
Giggling, Marissa nodded and said, “We did…it was even my idea.”
“You slut!”
“I know, right?” The two girls got lost in their giggles again and when they settled down, Marissa told Charity the rest of the story, ending with telling the woman and the waiter that he was having a diabetic crisis.
“Wait…he’s diabetic, like your mom?”
“Yeah, Type 1, just like Mom.”
“Wow, that’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Marissa shrugged. “I guess…it’s not that uncommon, though.”
“I guess…so let’s get back to the last time you saw him, what happened?”
Marissa told her, leaving out the part about them filming their sex. “We were lying there, happy and then my phone rang. It was this attorney’s office, looking for Mom. They asked for Ronnie Lane, which was weird, because I haven’t heard that name for so long. But anyway, while I was on the phone, Maz got up and actually ran into the bathroom, or kind of stumbled in there. I found him sitting on the floor. He was all shaky and sweaty and he looked like he was going to throw up. I asked him what was wrong, and he just told me he didn’t feel good and I should go. He even called one of his friends to take me home. I was so confused…it was like he just suddenly wanted to be rid of me.”
“Okay, well…let’s think best-case scenario here rather than worst. Maybe it was his diabetes. Maybe his blood sugar plummeted from all that exercise,” Charity said with a wink. “And maybe, being a tough guy, he didn’t want you to see him like that.”
“That’s what I told myself that night when I got home. But when he didn’t call that night, or the next day…and then he didn’t answer my texts or calls for the next two days…I started thinking something was wrong with him. Now that I know he’s fine physically, Charity…the only thing left to think is that for whatever reason, he decided he didn’t want me.” Her voice cracked on the last word and that realization seemed to finally settle in her chest. He didn’t want her…but she still wanted him, so badly that it hurt. She lost her battle with the tears she’d been holding back all day and Charity stepped up again and held her and let her cry…and a few times muttered something about tracking him down and kicking his ass. Marissa loved her bitchy friend.
18
Blackheart was the president of the Jefferson Parish Jokers. He was unlike any man that Maz had ever met. When he was a kid, Maz thought Blackheart was some kind of superhero. He looked the part with his jet-black hair, mustache, and goatee…and light blue eyes that were almost translucent. He was an average-sized guy, but his personality was bigger than life. He was also the toughest motherfucker that Maz had ever encountered. He was a black belt in karate and he could snap a man in two with his bare hands. Maz had never actually seen him do it, but he’d heard the stories and where he came from, that was good enough. Blackheart was at least twenty years older than Maz too…but he looked like he stopped aging somewhere around thirty-five. Maz tried not to look like he was in awe, just from being there, like a kid coming face-to-face with Spider-Man. He glanced over at Sledge at one point and that did it. The look on Sledge’s face, completely lost, made him want to smile instead.
“You need to talk to Pops,” Blackheart said when he wrapped up his long story that mostly had nothing to do with what they were there for. Maz had asked him if they’d seen any signs of Jammer, or any man who might possibly be Jammer, maybe living off the land in the swamps. Dax was worried about him. Apparently he had some issues with PTSD that were under control…at least until the night he removed the three gangbangers who hurt his girl from the face of the earth. The fact that he disappeared into thin air had Dax worried about him, but he didn’t have time himself to dedicate to looking for him since things were heating up for the club.
He’d put Hunter on it, but once Hunter tracked Jammer’s mostly invisible movements as far as the bayou, he decided he was going to need help. These people were good at heart, but they were different, especially to someone who was born and raised in Boston, or New York, like Sledge. Hunter was having trouble communicating with them mostly, and had suggested they send Maz almost as soon as he’d gotten off the phone with him that night. Maz wasn’t offended by the fact that it was probably because Hunter had as much trouble understanding him as he did the people in the bayou. Dax had immediately called Wolf that night and that was what led Wolf to his door and Maz to Louisiana. He hadn’t even called Marissa and while he couldn’t completely get her off his mind, he was glad for the distractions that kept him from obsessing over it.
“Pops?” He really hoped he had heard that wrong, but knowing his people the way he did, he was sure he hadn’t. “He’s still alive?”
Blackheart laughed. “He’s never going to die, Zane, you know.”
That’s exactly what bothered him about Pops. Where Blackheart was a superhero to him, Pops was…the epitome of what people thought of when they imagined New Orleans, and black magic…voodoo. Pops was the scariest man Maz had ever met and he had no desire to see him again, much less actually talk to him. The fact that he was still alive…and still knew things…gave Maz the creeps. “You think Pops knows where he is?”
“You know, Zane, as well as I do, that nothing happens in the city or even in the parish that Pops doesn’t know.”
Maz spent a big part of his childhood trying not to believe that, even though everyone else did, even Elise. She was a firm believer in Pops and his “magical” abilities, but she was also wary of what she called his “dark aura.” When Maz was a kid she ordered him to stay away from the old man. That only made Maz more curious and when he was about eight, he decided to take it upon himself and find out more. Of course, he took a friend. Nobody went to see Pops alone…at least no one who was still around to talk about it. He had gone to the place where Pops lived, an apartme
nt in an old converted bar on the corner of Bourbon Street and Canal. It was late at night and he and his friend had snuck out and walked the three miles to Pops’ apartment. All the way there his friend talked about the black curtains Pops had on his windows. He kept saying they were wasting their time, they’d never see anything.
Surprisingly, however, when they got there, the curtains to one of the rooms were wide open and the two little boys crouched outside the window and looked inside. The room was big and there was no furniture in it, just a lot of throw rugs and pillows on the floor. Candles burned everywhere and from the ceiling hung chickens with their heads cut off, and the blood drained out on the floor. Something that looked like the head of a goat sat in the corner of the room and Maz was ready to run when he saw all of that. But the horror of that night only got worse when suddenly, out of nowhere, Pops appeared in the window. He seemed to be looking right at Maz, and in a voice that rumbled through the glass he said, “Zane Zimmerman, your mother is looking for you.” Maz and his friend ran for three miles without stopping until they got to Maz’s house. They were screaming most of the way. When Elise found him, crying, and he told her what the old man said, she was so angry…but not with Pops, with him, for defying her. After that, Maz listened a little better to what she said, and he also kept his distance from Pops. The last thing he wanted to do was go to that old man’s house and ask him about Jammer.