Midnight Obsession: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 4

by Olivia Thorne

  Venus saw it all happen while she was dancing. She got down off the stage, screamed at Eyeball, and threw a shot glass at him. Eyeball bitch-slapped her and sent her to the floor, which damn near started a riot. I had to kick him out of the club just to keep the peace.

  Before I sent him packing, I told him, Her face earns me money, man. You fuck with her face, you fuck with my wallet. Don’t ever do that again.

  I let him off with a warning, but Jack wasn’t so lenient. The next day Pollari walked into the tattoo shop where Eyeball worked and just fuckin’ destroyed him. Beat his ass to a pulp in front of the customers and his coworkers, then walked out without a word.

  Eyeball didn’t show his face for a week, and nobody in the club ever talked about it except in hushed whispers.

  Eyeball never said shit to Benjy again. But he sure as hell hated Jack Pollari… which made him useful to me.

  You know who noticed that little act of vigilante justice, though? Venus. She started coming on to Jack hard.

  Now, virtually every woman who’s ever met Jack comes on to him. The sonuvabitch is pretty, I’ll give him that. I’d bet good money my cock is bigger than his, but the bitches do like their pretty boys.

  And Jack took advantage of it. Back in the day, he banged pretty much any hot chick who crossed his path. Once he married Sloane, though, he was faithful – and so was she, or at least she swore she was. But after they got divorced, he didn’t go back to his womanizing ways. He was a lot more particular who he stuck his dick in, and Venus was one of the many he turned away.

  I think it was because he knew she was trouble. She was already a cokehead when I hired her. Jack took her aside on more than one occasion and tried to get her into rehab. She’d melt over the white knight shtick and fall for him even harder, even though she never could seal the deal. It was like watching two horny Mormon teenagers staying virgins for Jesus: a shit-ton of beating around the bush, but nothing went in the bush, if you catch my drift.

  Anyway, Jack kept trying to save Venus. Benjy kept following her around. Venus kept hitting on Jack and being nice to Benjy – and all it ever got her was a bullet in the back of the head.

  This is how it went down.

  89

  Benjy came to me one night after the Veils closed. He had this real worried look on his face. “Lou? Can I talk to you?”

  I wondered if Eyeball might be giving him shit again, but Eyeball knew better than that after his tattoo shop beatdown.

  “What’s up, kid?”

  “You know Ali?”

  I had to think for a second. “You mean Venus, the stripper.”

  “Yeah. I think somebody might be tryin’ to hurt her.”

  That piqued my interest. Never fuck with a man’s primary moneymaker.

  “Oh? What makes you say that?”

  “I heard her outside the club on her phone, and she was sayin’ stuff like ‘I don’t wanna do this’ and ‘I’m not a narc.’”

  Four-alarm fire bells started going off in my head. When a cokehead tells somebody she doesn’t wanna be a narc, there’s a big fuckin’ problem.

  “Why don’t we go talk somewhere private?” I said, and put my arm around him.

  I guided him back to my office, gave him a tumbler of my next-to-best scotch, and sat down opposite him. “Start from the beginning and tell me everything you heard.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the drink, Lou.”

  “You’re welcome. Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  It was a pain in the ass sifting through his ramblings for the important parts, so I’ll save you the agony. Apparently he went off looking for Venus like he always does, hoping for a scrap of attention, but he couldn’t find her. One of the other strippers said she went outside for a smoke – which was another red flag. I don’t give a shit if my dancers smoke in the club, so Venus obviously wanted some privacy for something.

  She was out in the parking lot behind the dumpster. That’s why she didn’t see Benjy walk up on her.

  He couldn’t follow the conversation exactly, but he heard scraps of her conversation. He said she went back and forth between scared and angry.

  Look, I don’t want to do this.

  There was a long pause while whoever was on the other end said something.

  I’m not a narc.

  Pause.

  Please… they could kill me…

  Pause.

  God damn you to hell, you son of a bitch… fine. Fuck you.

  Then she looked around the dumpster and saw Benjy.

  I gotta go, she said, and hung up the phone. Then she walked right over to Benjy. He said she was pissed – and a little bit nervous.

  Benjy, were you spying on me?

  No… I just wanted to tell you you danced real good, Ali…

  Did you hear any of that when I was talking on the phone?

  Just a little.

  Benjy, you can’t tell anybody.

  Is somebody tryin’ to hurt you, Ali?

  No, it’s not like that. Benjy, promise me –

  Somebody’s tryin’ to hurt you, aren’t they? Is it Eyeball?

  Benjy, stop it –

  I’ll kick his ass for you, Ali – I will, I swear I will –

  No, Benjy – it’s – look, it’s an old boyfriend, and he wants to come see me, and I don’t want to see him. That’s all.

  Is he comin’ now?

  No. No, honey, he lives in LA. He’s nowhere near here.

  I’ll kick his ass for you, Ali. I will, I swear to God I will.

  I know, Sweetie. Look, this is between you and me – you can’t go telling anybody about this, okay?

  He didn’t say anything.

  Benjy? Promise me.

  …okay.

  Pinky swear! and she held up her little finger.

  …pinky swear, he mumbled, and curled his around hers.

  “But I crossed my fingers behind my back, Lou, so it didn’t really count,” he informed me somberly, just like a fuckin’ five-year-old would. Then he got a dumb animal look of rage on his face. “I wanna kill whoever’s bein’ bad to her. If it’s Eyeball, I wanted to let you know, Lou, cuz now I gotta beat him up.”

  Yeah. Good fuckin’ luck with THAT.

  “It ain’t Eyeball, kid,” I said.

  He scrunched up his face in confusion. “How do you know?”

  I wasn’t about to go into the whole thing with Jack and the tattoo shop, so I simply said, “Because I told Eyeball to leave her alone, and he obeys my fuckin’ orders, or he knows I’ll kill him.”

  “Oh… then who is it?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it?

  “Lemme think for a second, kid.”

  I ran through the options in my head.

  Was she talkin’ to somebody in the Richards police department?

  Hahahahahaha – sorry, couldn’t help myself. That was funny.

  So it wasn’t the Richards PD… and it wasn’t a rival club she was talking to, either. She would never use the word ‘narc’ if she was talking to another gang.

  So it had to be law enforcement of some kind… which probably meant the Feds.

  We hadn’t been involved in a murder for years, so I could cross the FBI off the list.

  We occasionally bought guns through back-alley deals, but it was too small-fry for the ATF to bother with.

  That left the DEA.

  Which, considering that the club was still trafficking in weed, and I’d just started my side deal with Einstein, made perfect fucking sense.

  Shit.

  I had a mole in my operation.

  “I don’t know,” I finally said. “Lemme see what I can dig up, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “But Lou – ”

  “Nobody’s going to hurt her, kid. Not on my watch. And you better not tell Venus about this, you hear me? Or anybody else for that matter.”

  Benjy got a look on his face like a duplicitous kindergartener. “Okay, Lou.”

  I noticed he had both
hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

  “Let me see your hands, Benjy,” I said.

  He looked guilty as he pulled them out. Two of his fingers were crossed. Christ – he didn’t even have the sense to hide his dumbass lie.

  “Benjy, I ain’t fuckin’ around with you,” I snapped. “If you ever want to get in the Midnight Riders, you listen to me: you do not fuckin’ tell anybody about this, you hear?”

  He got all butt-hurt and sulky, just like a spoiled fuckin’ brat. I wanted to ram his head through the wall, but I knew a different approach was called for.

  “You wanna know why?” I said. “Because if you tell anybody before I find out who that bad guy is, Venus might get killed, and then it’s gonna be all your fault. You hear me?”

  He went wide-eyed with fear. “She’s gonna be okay, though, right?”

  “If you keep your fuckin’ mouth shut. Are you gonna keep your fuckin’ mouth shut?”

  “Yeah – yeah, Lou. I pinky swear,” he said, and held up his little finger.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  “NO, you give me your word like a man.”

  He dropped his hand, all dejected-like. “…okay.”

  “Let me hear it.”

  “I give you my word, like a man.”

  “Like a fuckin’ Midnight Rider,” I said, and he brightened up at that.

  “Like a fuckin’ Midnight Rider,” he repeated, and that was the end of the conversation.

  90

  I kept my eyes open the whole next week, and I’ll be damned if Venus didn’t do her best to prove my theory right.

  She kept sneaking outside on her shift, supposedly to smoke. I told Peanut to go buy one of those surveillance cameras at Best Buy, but with night vision. Then I had him install it on the roof and point it at the dumpster. Every night I watched her on my computer, the picture all different shades of green and black.

  She’d go out to the dumpster a couple times every night. Mostly she just chain-smoked and checked her phone, but once or twice she received a call. Of course, she might’ve been talking to a fuck buddy for all I knew. There was no way to tell.

  Then I got the absolutely genius idea to set a trap for her.

  First I bugged the dumpster. Got this microphone transmitter off of Amazon for 30 bucks and duck-taped it under the dumpster. Tested it out on a little short wave radio receiver I bought, too. I had Peanut talk out by the dumpster and I could hear him clear as day.

  Then I left a pile of papers on my desk. Five sheets down I stuck a Post-It with the scrawled note, Fri – 3AM – Vern’s – 40. I figured that was sufficiently clear to warrant attention, but vague enough to pass the sniff test.

  Then I left my office door cracked open and spent the rest of the night drinking with Eyeball and the other guys in the club. I looked like I was just having a good time with my boys, but I always kept an eye on Venus.

  She didn’t disappoint. Around 1AM I saw her sneak into my office. Five minutes later, she crept back out and made a beeline for the exit.

  As soon as she was gone, I went into the office. I could smell her – just a hint. The entire club stank like cigarette smoke and cheap perfume, but I caught a whiff of Venus’s usual scent. It was a little classier than the rest of the hoes who worked for me.

  The papers on my desk were almost exactly the same… but not quite. If I hadn’t known she’d been in there, I never would have noticed.

  I pulled out the shortwave radio and turned it on. Within seconds, I heard the click click click of her heels on the asphalt, followed by her voice.

  “I found something. Yeah, there was a note on his desk that said Friday, 3 AM at Vern’s, and the number 40. What? Vern’s is that deli over on Hauser Street. I don’t know – could be 40,000 dollars or 40 kilos of cocaine. I don’t KNOW! Jesus. No, I took a picture, I’ll send it to you. Hold on.”

  My blood was fuckin’ boiling, but I also had the cold, hard satisfaction that I’d called the situation right.

  This bitch was going to pay.

  “You got it? See? No – I looked, but I couldn’t find anything else. Hey – this is it, you hear? Lou would kill me if he knew what I did.”

  Damn straight, you goddamn whore.

  “Fuck you. NO. Then arrest me when you arrest THEM, but I’m not doing anything else for you, so go fuck yourself, asshole.”

  She hung up the phone. Ten minutes later, she was dancing on the main stage like she didn’t have a care in the world except gettin’ those dollar bills.

  She had no idea she’d just signed her death warrant.

  91

  Benjy kept bugging me about Venus. Every. Single. Fucking. Night. He was a persistent motherfucker, I’ll give him that. I kept putting him off – until the night I heard her conversation on the phone.

  “I think it’s like she said – it’s an old boyfriend,” I told Benjy. “But I don’t know where he lives in LA. I’m workin’ on it. You haven’t told anybody, have you?”

  I was half hoping he had. That way, when I had her killed, I could tell him his blabbermouth was the reason. The guilt over her death would keep him from spilling the beans to anybody else.

  But no, seems like I’d sufficiently bribed and scared the shit out of him.

  “No, Lou, I ain’t told nobody,” he said, wide-eyed and innocent.

  “Alright… well, let me get back to you, kid. I just need a little more time. I’m almost there.”

  “Okay, Lou. Okay. I won’t tell nobody. But you’ll tell me soon, right?”

  “Soon as I wrap this all up.”

  Little did he know who I’d be wrapping up, and that it would be in an old plastic tarp.

  92

  First, though, I had to put on a little show at Vern’s Deli on Friday.

  I called Eddie and Eyeball into my office. I told them I thought Dan Peters might be trying to squeeze me for more payoff money, so I wanted to run a bogus drug buy to see if I was right. I didn’t mention Venus or the DEA; no reason to get anybody’s panties in a wad. And I didn’t want Eyeball slapping her around again and then using her being a snitch as an excuse.

  Eddie was supposed to dress up in civilian clothes – no Midnight Riders insignia – and be at Vern’s at 3AM. He’d hand off an empty paper bag to Eyeball, who would give him a couple of gym bags in return. I’d stake out the location from a half a mile away with a pair of binoculars.

  Eyeball was concerned he could get thrown in the clink, but I told him, “What the fuck’s Vice gonna do, charge you with dropping off your laundry?”

  “Yeah, but – what if they lock us up anyway?”

  “Then I’ll fuckin’ bail you out.”

  “What if they get pissed and tase us, or some shit like that?”

  “Then the Riders’ll go to war on their asses, and the whole Richards PD’ll wish they’d never been born. Jesus Christ, Eyeball, quit bein’ such a goddamn pussy.”

  Everything went down without a hitch. Eddie showed up at 3AM looking like a stoner in a hoodie, Eyeball passed him two gym bags of dirty socks, and I watched the whole thing with binoculars.

  Not a goddamn thing happened.

  No bust, no sirens, no Feds with guns, no takedown.

  Nothing.

  Which didn’t mean a thing, in and of itself. The Feds could’ve just been taking pictures from a distance, documenting it. Building a case.

  Or, if they’d been doing surveillance on the Riders long enough, they might have known who Eddie was. Maybe they thought the drop was fishy and decided to let it go rather than tip their hand.

  But something else strange happened, too: Venus stopped making phone calls out by the dumpster. Either she really had gotten out from under the DEA’s thumb… or somebody knew that I knew what was going on.

  And nobody I’d ever heard of had gotten out from under the DEA’s thumb.

  93

  Now Venus was a bigger question mark than before.

  What I really wanted to do was kill her. Just get ri
d of her once and for all.

  Problem was, I didn’t know who her contact was, or how they’d found out the drug buy was bogus.

  I thought about taking her out to the desert and using a crowbar and a pair of pliers to get her to talk. In retrospect, that’s exactly what I should have done. But instead, I fucked up and made the dumbest mistake I’d made in years.

  I took it to Jack.

  There were good reasons for it. For one, protocol demanded it. He might have been a do-gooder idiot, but Jack was still the president of the MC.

  Plus, even though I was running all sorts of illegal shit on the side, none of it included first degree murder. If I didn’t include Jack on the decision and he found out later, he could’ve kicked me out of the Riders. Years ago it would’ve meant a bullet in the back of my head. John Glynn and other club presidents wouldn’t have even hesitated – not for a betrayal that huge.

  But we were kinder and gentler now. A thousand points of light and all that horseshit. Plus, Jack didn’t have the balls to smoke me. Didn’t even have the balls to tell his pet gorilla to do it.

  Knowing all that, it was a particularly stupid mistake to tell him about Venus.

  Oh well. Live and learn.

  I went to the body shop the next morning. I pulled Kade in on the meeting, too. After all, he was the Sergeant-At-Arms. If a civilian was going to get killed on official club business, he was probably going to be the one to pull the trigger.

  I laid out my case, telling them about the post-it note, the microphone on the dumpster, Venus’s conversation, the fake drug buy, and the complete lack of anything happening afterwards – including her going completely radio silent.

  The only thing I didn’t tell them was how Benjy had clued me in initially. Part of it was, I didn’t want Jack going to Benjy and exposing my little white lie about the ex-boyfriend. I knew Benjy would get all butt-hurt and I’d never hear the end of it. I didn’t need that fuckin’ hassle. Otherwise I’d have to dispose of two fuckin’ bodies.