by Nicole Fox
“With me,” the older of the men says, walking toward the staircase.
I want to run, to fight, and perhaps if I was not holding Jimmy I could find the necessary courage—or foolishness—but with Jimmy’s body pushed against mine, a constant reminder of how vulnerable he is, I can do nothing. We go out into the street and down toward the end of it, round the corner, round another corner, and then down an alleyway where a car waits. Big Loco leans against the back of the car, his hand drooped over the back window. Jackson Caw sits on the hood, smoking a cigarette. As we approach, he flicks it to the ground and immediately lights another one.
“Well done,” Big Loco says, handing the men a bundle of cash each. “You really are as silent as the grave, gentleman.”
“Thanks, sir,” the men say together, and then pull up their masks and disappear from the alleyway.
“I’m sure you’re thinking about running,” Big Loco says, walking over to me. He stands above me, towering, his shadow falling across me. “But that would be a big, big mistake.” He reaches down and tickles Jimmy on the top of the head. The worst part is that Jimmy giggles at his touch. “Hello, Samuel.” He smiles. “I hope this lady is treating you well. Not as well as my wife would have, of course, but well enough?”
“I’m his mother,” I say. “Of course I’m treating him well.”
“Hear that, Jackie?” Big Loco turns to Jackson Caw with a smile on his face. Jackie. At once I get an insight into their relationship. I see them as children, with Big Loco always picking on Jackson, or patronizing him, and Jackson just taking it because he wanted his big brother to like him. “She thinks she’s doing a better job than my wife would’ve done!”
“Can’t we just get on with it?” Jackson strolls around the car and stands next to Big Loco, looking like a child next to a giant. “I’m not in the mood for games.”
Big Loco slaps him heavily on the arm, causing his whole body to jolt forward. “Don’t be so rude, little brother. When have you ever known me to rush things with a lady?” He turns back to me. “I should apologize for him. He feels bad about the whole Jack situation, you see, because he still has some love for the boy. It doesn’t matter that this is the man who’s killed five of our men, no!” He shakes his head, and then takes out a small tube of white powder and shoves all of it up his nose. That’s when I notice his eyes, as wide as saucers, and the way Jackson flinches away from him. And the bruise under Jackson’s left eye. “It doesn’t matter that we had a plan, a plan that we needed to keep secret until it was all done! It doesn’t matter that his one job was to make sure his club still respected him so that he was in a position to end it all cleanly. No, sweet Gloria Griffiths, none of that matters at all. All that matters is that he picked up some messed-up kid and now he wants to develop a conscious. Isn’t that right, Jackie?”
“I didn’t mean to tell him,” Jackson says defensively.
“Didn’t mean to?” Big Loco tuts. “Didn’t mean to? So how’d it happen? Something like that doesn’t just slip out. We had a plan, brother, a plan that was in the works for years, and now you’re telling me you didn’t mean to. I ought to—” He raises his fist, but drops it with a look at Jimmy. “It wouldn’t do for the boy to see a grown man cry.”
Jackson nods, and it’s a tragic nod. The nod of a kid who’s thankful to his bully for giving him a rest.
“Your boyfriend’s becoming a real problem for us, Gloria Griffiths.” Big Loco lays the back of his hand on my arm. He doesn’t apply any pressure, just rests it there to show me his strength. “We gave him a fair chance. We gave him the boy back. All he had to do was leave the state, and that would have been that. But now he wants to play the hero. He thinks he can drive us out.” Big Loco spits at the wall, a yellow ball of phlegm which slides down between two tags of graffiti. “And all because of you, I’d wager. Well, this is how it ends. We’re not going to let him make a fool of us anymore. We’re going to use you to our advantage, and you’re going to do exactly what we say or,” and he leans close to me, staring me straight in the face, straight into my soul, “I will insert a metal spike into that baby’s anus, out of his mouth, and spit-roast him over an open fire in front of you. And then, you troublesome little cunt, I will eat him piece by piece in front of you.” He suddenly stands up straight, laughing. “But I don’t see how there’s any need for that.”
It takes a while for my mouth to work; my lips are trembling so badly. “I will—” I clear my throat and try to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. There’s a lump in my throat the size of a golf ball. “I’ll do whatever you ask,” I tell him. “As long as you don’t hurt my son, I’ll do anything.”
Big Loco claps his meaty hands together. “There we go!” he shouts, turning to Jackson. Jackson hunches down, the same way a battered wife would. “There we have it! Finally, somebody who understands how this business works, right, Jackie?”
“Right,” Jackson says, nodding like a bobble-head. “That’s right, brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fury
“You think you can have a family, really?” Dad beats me with the stick, cackling as he does it. “That seems like a real joke to me, kid, a real stupid fucking joke. You’re dirt, you’ve always been dirt, and you’ll always be dirt. You’re nothing. Less than nothing. I don’t know what you’re thinking. Who do you think you are? You’re the loser, kid, the loser who stands in the corner at school, too nervous to talk to any of the girls. That’s you. The loser who ruined his mom’s dancing career and his dad’s wife. That’s you. You’re worthless. Nobody’ll ever love you. If you had a kid, the kid wouldn’t love you, not once he got old enough to see you for what you are. No damn way.” Again and again, he hits me.
“But what if you’re wrong?” I whisper. I’m crazy to talk when he’s doing this. I should be counting the cracks. “What if that’s all wrong?”
“Wrong?” He laughs cruelly. “Wrong about you being worthless? Is that a fucking joke? You’re scum, kid, never forget that.”
He’s about to hit me again when the landline rings from upstairs. He grunts, annoyed to be interrupted, and then tosses his stick down and walks up the stairs. The ringing gets louder and louder until it’s in my ears, in my chest, in everything.
Then I open my eyes.
It’s Gloria’s landline, ringing from the entrance area. I stand up and search the apartment for her and Jimmy, but I can find neither of them, nor any sign of where they went. I go to answer the phone, thinking it might be them, but then it cuts off. Instead I go into the bathroom and splash water on my face, the same thing I do after every nightmare, and then splash some more. I look at myself in the mirror, at the man before me, reminding myself that I’m him, him, and not the boy I once was. I have to remind myself, otherwise I’ll slip into a long, miserable mood.
Just when I’ve brought myself back to the present, the phone starts to ring again.
This time I answer it.
“Hello? This is—er—Gloria’s place.”
“It’s me!” Gloria chirps, and then giggles. I wonder if there’s something off about that giggle, something strange. I’ve never heard her laugh like that before. It sounds slightly unhinged, but then have I really spent enough time with her to differentiate between her laughs? I’ve spent enough, time with her to know I care about her, but her different laughs? “Are you there?”
“Yeah, sorry. Feelin’ a little scatterbrained. Where are you?”
“Well, sexy, that’s why I’m calling you.”
Sexy. That’s when it hits me. She sounds like a club girl, the same fake flirting, the same tone of voice designed to seduce me and nothing else.
“Okay …”
“I’m at a hotel,” she says. “I’m at the hotel. You know the one, handsome, where you first took me on that wild ride. Where we first got down and dirty. Do you remember?”
Everything is high-pitched. It’s like she’s reading from a script or speaking a rehearsed speech. But maybe sh
e’s just nervous.
“I remember the hotel, yeah.” I laugh, but it’s just as forced as she sounds. “I wouldn’t forget that night, Gloria.”
“That’s why I’m calling.” She lowers her voice. “I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward or anything, but what I’ve done is taken Jimmy to Alexis’ place so we could have some time alone. And I—well, okay, here we go!—I’ve bought some toys for us to play with!”
“I’m guessing you don’t mean tic-tac-toe, eh?”
“Exactly!” That giggle again. “So what do you think? Shall we take a trip on the wild side?”
“Gloria, are you sure about this?” I ask.
“Of course!”
“Okay, but the only reason I ask is ’cause you don’t sound too sure. I don’t know if you’re doing this because you think it’s what I want, or you wanna make something up to me, or what. But you don’t have to put on a show for me or anything like that. I’ll come to the hotel if that’s what you want me to do, but we don’t need to play any games.”
“But I want to!” she chirps. “I really, really want to!” She lowers her voice again, this time even quieter. “Listen, okay. I was watching you sleep and I was getting really horny and the idea just struck me. I never do crazy stuff like this. I just wanted to go really crazy, you know, really mad—and I wanted to do it big! Is that such a problem?”
“Um, no, I guess not,” I murmur. Something ain’t right about this. My outlaw cogs are turning. But then I’ve never heard her like this before, so maybe I’m just being paranoid. It ain’t easy for a lady to put herself out there like this, I know that for sure, and I could offend her if I keep this up, but … “Crazy,” I repeat. “Big.”
“Yeah,” she says, with a tiny bit more force than before. “Doesn’t that sound really, really fun, Jack?”
“Yeah, sure it does. What room are you in?”
“What room do you think, silly? The same one! I’m waiting for you, and by the way, I’m not wearing any clothes! So don’t take too long!”
She hangs up the phone. I go into the kitchen and make myself some black coffee, replaying the conversation in my head. Now that it’s over, I can’t quite remember if my suspicions had any secure ground or not. I drink the coffee in one tongue-scalding gulp and then happen to glance down into the trashcan. On the top there’s a crumpled-up note. I wouldn’t normally notice it, not if I was just Jack, but I’m Fury now, and when I’m Fury I don’t miss shit like that. I take the note out and flatten it on the counter.
“The fuck …”
This confirms my suspicions, I reckon, or at least confirms that somethin’ strange is going on. Why would she write a note telling me she wants me to be gone by the time she gets back, and then go and buy a bunch of sex toys and tell me to join her at a hotel room? It makes no goddamn sense. I stalk the apartment, looking carefully at everything for details. I ignore the toys and the clutter, the clothes on the floor, until I’m in her bedroom, studying every single object. I glance over the floor, not expecting to find anything, but I do: right there, barely noticeable if I wasn’t looking for it. Three tiny blotches of oil on the rug. I check my boots: no oil. And then I search the rest of the apartment, all of Gloria’s shoes, but none of those have oil either. I guess the shoes she’s wearing now might have oil on them, but I don’t reckon it’s likely.
And there was her warning—and now I’m sure it was a warning—about being crazy, mad, and big. Crazy, mad: Loco. Big: big. Big Loco.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
I don’t mean to drop like a goddamn rock to the floor, but my legs just go. I slam against the wall and lean my head back, my hands shaking, everything shaking. I shouldn’t have come here, dammit, dammit, I shouldn’t have come here! I was doing well at keeping them safe, by keeping myself away, but then I had to go and get selfish, go and think I could have a slice of—what? Attention? Maybe my old man was right. Maybe I’ll always be a fuck-up kid.
I sit like that for way too long, at least five minutes, trying to get myself under control. I remind myself that I need to be sharp and ready to go to war. I need to be ready to fight. When I’ve finally calmed down, I call Butcher.
“Boss?” he says.
I explain the situation to him. “I’m walking into a trap,” I finish.
“Fuck,” Butcher says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. And you’ve gotta get them.” It’s not a question. “All right. Let me gather the troops, boss. How many do you want? A strike team or the full force?”
“If I’m walking into a trap, I reckon they’ve only got a few fellas there.” But then I remember the warehouse, the room full of Lady’s Death. “But I’m not gonna take that chance. Get all the boys and meet me at the tracks. We’ll ride in together. Those bastards won’t know what hit ’em.”
I put my jacket on over my bare torso and run down into the street, to my bike which I drunkenly left-leaned up against the wall, scratching the handlebars. Then I ride toward the tracks, but as I ride I can’t get his voice out of my head. I’m usually pretty good at beating it down but now it’s in my ears, even louder than the roar of my bike engine.
“You’ve killed her,” he says. I see his eyes, his hateful eyes. “That poor girl, she never knew what hit her, did she, that night in the hotel? Imagine if she knew, you worthless piece of scum. What do you think she would’ve done? Don’t answer. I’ve got the answer. I know exactly what she would’ve done. She would’ve run, Jack. She would’ve run as far and as fast as she could, because she’d have known that you were dirt. A lady as clean as her don’t need a piece of dirt like you.”
“I wish I aborted you,” Mom says, and now this is a memory; I’m on the rack and she’s kneeling down next to me, sneering in my face. “It was a mistake, having you, the worst mistake of my life. I regret it every second of every day. I was a fool, a real moron. I should’ve done it myself, reached up inside and dragged you out, smashed your head against the curb. You waste!”
I force the memories away as I approach the tracks, but it’s not so easy. They don’t disappear, only settle at the back of my head. I step from my bike and Butcher and the Kid approach me, with the rest of the fellas standing a ways off, talking quietly, smoking, checking their weapons.
“Are you okay, boss?” Butcher asks.
“I …”
He nods at the Kid. “Give us a minute.” When the Kid leaves, he steps close to me. “What is it?”
“I’ve fuckin’ killed her,” I whisper. “Goddamn it, Butch, I was supposed to keep ’em safe but now that fuck has both of them.”
“We’ll get them back,” Butcher says. “You know we will.”
“But what if we don’t?”
He squares up to me, staring me in the eyes. There’s no pity there, no weakness. “You better shut your fucking mouth right now, boss, right fucking now.”
“What? Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”
“Have you forgotten who you are?” Butcher shoots back. “You’re Fury, yeah, but you’re also the leader of this club now. The men don’t wanna ride to war with their leader not sure of what he’s doing, not sure of himself. If you’re gonna lead this club, fuckin’ lead, otherwise step down and let someone with some balls do it.”
I grab him by the jacket, lift him nearly off his feet, growling in his face. “I can fuckin’ lead!” I roar, shoving him away.
He falls back, dusting his jacket off. And smiles. “I believe you,” he says with a short nod.
“Fuckin’ bastard,” I mutter. But he’s done the trick. The doubt is gone. The men are watching.
I stand in front of them with my thumbs looped through my belt.
“A lot of you have bled for this war,” I say. I don’t raise my voice. Let them huddle closer if they want to hear. “A lot of you’ve lost brothers. A lot of you have lived to see our clubhouse burnt to the goddamn ground. A lot of you know fellas who deserted when they found out what Jackson really was. Well, fellas, this is it. This is the day al
l of that shit stops. This is the day we kill Big Loco, and …” I swallow, because even now the words hurt me to say. “And Jackson Caw.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gloria
They have me tied to a chair in the middle of the room, Jackson sitting near the window smoking cigarette after cigarette. And Big Loco on the edge of the couch with Jimmy in his arms, being far kinder than he has any right to be. Jimmy loves it when the big man smiles down at him, feeling completely at home in his arms. It makes me sick. Four other men stand in the room, hands over their weapons, glancing continually at the door.
“Where is he?” Jackson finally breaks out. “Where the fuck is he?”