Black Dogs

by Jason Buhrmester

  I didn't know what to say.

  “He ever ridden a motorcycle?” he asked me.

  Before I could answer, a wooden snap rang out by the pool table. Rabbit stood with a broken pool cue in his hand. He glared at Frenchy. Alex stood between them with his arms up, asking Rabbit to calm down. At six-foot-something and about 250 pounds, Rabbit could tear Frenchy in half. There was nothing Alex could do about it. Rabbit's chest heaved and he clutched a broken half of a pool cue in each meaty fist.

  There are a few rules to remember when hanging around a motorcycle gang. Never get drunk with them because they will end up kicking the shit out of you. When one of them does finally kick the shit out of you, everyone else in the room will help. And most important, never, ever under any circumstance touch, insult or otherwise disrespect the gang or a gang member's jacket. That'll get you killed.

  Those rules were the farthest thing from Frenchy's mind as he stood on the other side of the table. His sweaty hair flopped around his face and he blinked nervously behind his thick glasses. In his arms he held a death sentence—Rabbit's leather jacket and denim vest. The Holy Ghosts patch wrinkled in his tight grip.

  “Whoa, boys!” Backwoods Billy yelled. “What the hell's going on?”

  “That boy just took my colors!” Rabbit yelled.

  “You better put that down, son,” Backwoods Billy said to Frenchy. “Touching a man's colors can get your fucking skull split.”

  “I won it. Fair and square.”

  Backwoods Billy turned to Rabbit, his face pulsating with rage.

  “You bet your fucking colors on a pool game?”

  “He said he wanted to bet my colors against his fifty grand!” Rabbit explained. “I thought it was a joke! Where's a kid like that gonna get fifty grand?”

  Goddamn it, Frenchy.

  I stepped forward before Frenchy could talk.

  “He was just joking! Everybody calm down. Let's relax. No more pool. Okay, Frenchy?”

  I took the pool cue out of his hand. Frenchy started to say something until I glared at him. Alex pried the jacket from his hands and dropped it on the pool table. The jacket fell with a thud on the green felt.

  “Maybe you boys don't fucking get it,” Billy slurred loudly. “Those colors are not to be fucked with. We've killed guys just for disrespecting 'em.”

  The crowd of Holy Ghosts surrounded us in a tight circle.

  “Maybe we should go?” I said. “My buddy is obviously a bit drunk.”

  “I'm not drunk,” Frenchy protested.

  “Yes, you are,” Alex said.

  He grabbed Frenchy's arm and walked him toward the door.

  Backwoods Billy stood in the middle of the bar thinking. He swayed a bit and mumbled to himself about honor and God. Any second I expected him to give the order for the remaining Holy Ghosts to tear us apart. I pulled a fifty-dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to him.

  “Here. I want to buy you guys some drinks. You know, as a way of saying I'm sorry for the way my friend acted.”

  Billy held the bill up and stared at it. Then he smiled.

  “Well, that's mighty fine of you, Patrick. Listen, you boys are welcome here any time.”

  If I was lucky enough to get out of there alive once, I sure wasn't coming back.

  “Thanks, Billy.”

  “God bless,” he said as I walked away.

  The last I saw of him he stood in the glow of the Budweiser light over the pool table, bandanna over his bandage, waving one arm wildly while preaching to a crowd of dirty bikers with their heads bent down. The safe sat, discarded, in the corner.

  “You didn't have to buy that old bastard a drink,” Alex said as we pulled out of the parking lot.

  “I can afford it,” I grinned. “Besides, it might be his last one for a long fucking time.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  SO MUCH HAWAII FIVE-O A MAN CAN WATCH. KEITH LOOKED LIKE HE'D HIT HIS LIMIT AND CRACKED A BIG GRIN THAT AFTERNOON AS HE WALKED THROUGH THE METAL DOOR AND INTO THE DISCHARGE AREA OF BALTIMORE COUNTY JAIL. HE WORE THE CLOTHES HE HAD ON WHEN THEY ARRESTED HIM: A RATTY BLACK T-SHIRT AND DIRTY JEANS, ONLY NOW THE JEANS SPORTED A GIANT STAIN IN THE FRONT.

  “What happened to your jeans, Keith?” Alex asked as he opened the car door to let Keith into the backseat.

  “I guess I must have pissed myself when they busted me,” Keith shrugged. He stared at the stain for a second. “That just sucks.”

  Not even a piss stain could ruin Keith's mood. He glowed in the backseat of my car as we pulled away even if he couldn't figure out why they'd let him go.

  While I drove to Frenchy's, Alex filled Keith in on everything that went down while he was locked up. The trip to New York, the empty safe deposit box, Danny pulling the gun and our getaway. We didn't mention the money.

  Frenchy sat in his basement playing guitar. He'd bought a case of beer and a pizza for Keith's welcome-home bash. We wanted to keep it low-key. Frenchy hugged Keith and handed him a bottle of Miller High Life and we all squeezed onto the tattered couch to eat. Neil Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere played on the turntable.

  “Shit, man,” Keith said between bites. “Not to be a dick but you guys could have thrown a better party than this. This sorta sucks. Alex got a big-ass bash with chicks and everything. I got pizza, High Life and some Canadian asshole singing about a river or something.”

  “Next time, serve eight months instead of three days,” Alex joked. “Besides, we got a surprise for you.”

  Keith jumped up from the couch.

  “Holy shit! I knew it. You hired strippers! I fucking love you guys.”

  “Keith! Pay attention. This is important. And you can't tell anyone. Got it?”

  “Yeah.” Keith nodded.

  “I'm serious. You cannot tell anyone. Not one single person.”

  Keith realized Alex was serious. He dropped back down onto the couch then bit into another piece of pizza.

  “Keith. Look at me and tell me you won't say anything about this to anyone.”

  “Fuck. All right. I won't tell anyone.”

  “Go ahead and show him, Frenchy,” I said.

  Frenchy ran up the basement stairs and locked the door. The last thing we needed was his mom seeing the money. He came back, crouched on his knees and pulled the guitar case out from under his sofa. A steel chain rattled beneath the sofa and the guitar case jerked to a halt.

  “Oops,” Frenchy said. “Forgot I chained it up.”

  He fished a small key out of his pocket then unlocked the padlock and lugged the case to the middle of the room. We all stared at the case as Frenchy lifted the lid. I'd seen the pile of cash a dozen times and it still made my heart pound. This time I watched Keith's reaction. It hit him slowly then his eyes bugged out and he leapt off the couch.

  “Oh my God! Holy shit! How much is there?”

  “Two hundred thousand,” I said.

  “Where did you guys get that? You told me you didn't get nothing off Zeppelin.”

  “We didn't. Frenchy did. He thought he was stealing one of Jimmy's guitars. Turns out he hit the motherload.”

  “Shit, man. You guys are fucking rich.”

  Alex threw his arm around Keith.

  “No, man. We're all rich. We're each taking fifty thousand. That includes you.”

  “Me? What the fuck did I do? I wasn't even there.”

  “You helped,” I said. “We couldn't have gotten into Jimmy Page's room without that Les Paul. You helped us get it.”

  “And besides,” Frenchy added, “if you hadn't been busted that night at the carnival the rest of us might not have gotten away.”

  “You guys are the fucking best,” Keith said, hugging each of us.

  We spent the rest of the night getting drunk and stoned and talking about what we were going to buy. Everything from El Caminos to rare comic books to a pet Chihuahua. Keith talked about wanting to play the stock market. He just had to figure out what it was first.

  A few days la
ter the cops raided Indian Winds trailer park. Real SWAT-team military-style. They came in early, kicked open trailer doors and caught most of the gang asleep next to their old ladies. Every Holy Ghost went down. Backwoods Billy, Rabbit, Whitey, Sonny and a paddy wagon full of others. The papers said the cops found barrels of pills and an arsenal filled with everything from AK-47s to tear-gas grenades. They also confiscated a crate of Bibles.

  Backwoods Billy went nuts. Tore up two holding cells and an interrogation room before they calmed him down. He couldn't figure what went wrong and how his protection fell through. He left Cooper a streak of threats about releasing the tapes. Finally, he got wise and called his wife. She loaded the tapes into their reel-to-reel player and found what I'd recorded over them. I hope she liked Black Sabbath.

  They sent Backwoods Billy to the same joint as Danny. The Maryland authorities dragged Danny back from New York and charged him with felony weapons possession and a parole violation. They dropped the robbery charges when they couldn't prove he stole anything from Led Zeppelin. The judge gave him five years. He'd be out in two.

  Every newspaper in New York ran a major story on Led Zeppelin being ripped off. The headline read LED ZEPPELIN ROBBED OF 203G. The band stayed in New York an extra day to deal with everything and Zeppelin's manager held a press conference. They even called in the FBI.

  The investigation went nowhere, probably because the band insisted the money was stolen from the safe deposit box. I couldn't figure out why they didn't tell the cops the cash was really in Jimmy's guitar case. It made sense later when I read about Zeppelin suing the hotel and winning a settlement.

  My luck in Maryland was running out. I could feel it. And I knew a few of the lesser Holy Ghosts would be back on the street soon. I didn't want to be around when it happened. I went back to New York City. The new punk rock bands like the Ramones, the Dead Boys and the New York Dolls were taking off. I bought a nice camera with part of the money and took a few photos. Frenchy started a band. They weren't very good but now and then they played New York City.

  Emily visited a lot. She was saving money and planned to move to New York City and take classes at NYU. She wanted to be a lawyer, just in case I ever needed one. I thought that was a great idea.

  I didn't think about the robbery much. Just sort of pushed it to the back of my mind until one day, when I was shopping at a record store in the Village. Led Zeppelin's “Whole Lotta Love” played on the stereo. An older black man with a stack of blues records under his arm walked up to the counter.

  “What the heck is this noise?” he asked, pointing toward the turntable. “What you need to do is play the originals.”

  “What do you mean?” the young clerk mumbled. He sounded incredibly stoned.

  “The guys that Zeppelin stole these songs from. You know, Willie Dixon, Sleepy John Estes, Howlin' Wolf, Bukka White …”

  “I don't know what you're talking about, buddy. This is Zeppelin.”

  The old man sighed. He'd obviously gone over this before.

  “Someday, somebody's gonna clean these British boys out for what they've done,” he said. Then he was gone.

  I grinned and walked toward the register, Black Sabbath's new album under my arm and a fat wad of cash in my hand.

  Thanks to:

  My girl Mel Gorski for understanding all those late nights of loud music, clanging beer bottles, and being woken up at 4 a.m. to be asked, “Does this suck?” I love you madly.

  Tammy Buhrmester for tolerating decades of my ramblings, tantrums, craziness and “weird” music.

  Ryan Lodge for creating so many of the riduculous situations in this dumb little book and for being my brother forever.

  Kevin White for damn near everything. But mostly for understanding the utter fucking importance of Metallica.

  Jesse Howard for all the shit talking and Wild Turkey. You're proof that nice boys really don't play rock ‘n’ roll.

  Raquel Lauren and Bradley Peterson for that one perfect trip to Coney Island in a ′71 Dodge.

  And, of course, Nico for sitting on my lap the entire time and being the original black dog. You're the best friend a guy could ever ask for.

  Special thanks to Matt “Kid Legs” Render, Kevin Schulz, Erik “Dry Gulch” Byrne, “Lil” Kenny Coulman, Rob Loudon, Wil “I'm Damaged” O'Neal, Zach Medearis, Matt Bertz, Ben Poskins, Alex “Axe Man” Luna, Bryan Joseph, and anyone else who's lunatic behavior may have found its way into these pages somehow. You all need professional help.

  JASON BUHRMESTER was born in Kankakee, Illinois, which was voted the “Worst City in North America” by The Places Rated Almanac. Jason started his writing career in the customer service department at Playboy magazine and has since contributed to Playboy, Maxim, Spin, Village Voice, Wired, Giant, FHM, Penthouse and other publications. He is currently editor at Inked magazine and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Melissa, and black pug, Nico. He feels that “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” is Black Sabbath's best song. Visit jasonbuhrmester.com to disagree with him.

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND

  INCIDENTS EITHER ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION

  OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS,

  LIVING OR DEAD, EVENTS, OR LOCALES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

  COPYRIGHT © 2009 BY JASON BUHRMESTER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES BY THREE RIVERS PRESS, AN

  IMPRINT OF THE CROWN PUBLISHING GROUP, A DIVISION OF RANDOM

  HOUSE, INC., NEW YORK.

  WWW.CROWNPUBLISHING.COM

  THREE RIVERS PRESS AND THE TUGBOAT DESIGN ARE REGISTERED

  TRADEMARKS OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  BUHRMESTER, JASON,

  BLACK DOGS / JASON BUHRMESTER.-1ST ED.

  P. CM.

  1. LED ZEPPELIN (MUSICAL GROUP)—FICTION 2. MUSICIANS—CRIMES

  AGAINST—FICTION. 3. TAXICAB DRIVERS—FICTION.

  1. TITLE.

  PS3602.B36B57 2009

  813′.6–dc22

  2008050094

  eISBN: 978-0-307-45202-3

  v3.0