by Lydia Pax
The four of them drew out their weapons. Beretta nodded for Helen to put herself behind a nearby tree. She nodded and rushed over, hugging the bark. Smart girl. She might have been in a bad spot as all hell, but she sure had some composure. It made him want to test her out—to see what he could do to that beautiful body of hers to see how far her composure went.
It was possible, he supposed, that she could try running. But it was a long way back to civilization and once she got there, there wouldn't be anything in Stockland for her. Beretta knew where she lived from her ID in her wallet and he knew where she worked. The Wrecking Crew wouldn't let her go and stay alive—not if she ran, no matter what Beretta said. Her only chance was to work with them, and she knew it.
They gathered up near the shack. Tank and Ace were first through the front door, while Beretta and Locke went around back. The place was small enough that they found Gallows all at about the same time.
“Ah, hell.” Ace’s head dropped.
Bullet holes filled Gallows’s body. Four in the chest, two in the head. All the supplies for a cook had been taken. Not just the chemicals—costing a fortune by themselves, but even the equipment, the burners and the beakers and the like.
Beretta shook his head. It didn't look like Gallows had even seen it coming. Poor bastard.
“That’s it, then,” said Locke. “We’re done. Aren’t we done?”
“I don’t know,” said Ace.
“He had all our money. I mean he didn’t have our money, but he had everything. We’re sunk without him. What are we gonna do now?”
“I said I don’t know, goddammit.” Ace stepped outside. “Give me some time to think!”
When they walked outside, there was a dark Cadillac pulled up behind their bikes. In the excitement of entering the shack, Beretta had not heard it drive up behind them. Two men with submachine guns stepped out. They were Hispanic and wore dark suits with sunglasses. They had the air of men who were used to being listened to, who only showed up when they wanted to make an impression.
“Son of a bitch,” said Ace, wiping his face. “They said they wouldn't show up until tomorrow.”
“Who's this?” Beretta asked.
Ace frowned and shook his head. “You know who it is.”
He stepped down the path from the shack to the suited men, joining them in a quiet conversation. Their voices were quiet. Only one of the suited men talked with Ace; the other stared at the gathered bikers up the hill. He didn't quite point the gun at them, but he didn't make any show of not pointing it at them either. The conversation didn't seem to be going well for Ace.
Helen rejoined Beretta, but knew enough not to say anything, which was good. If she started in on any of them right then, it would have been bad news.
Beretta had wondered where Ace had gotten the money to bankroll the cook, this plot of land, all of it. They had been planning an industrial operation for the meth and it would have cost a hell of a lot to handle all of it. Howitzer and the Wrecking Crew in Marlowe wouldn't give them anything—they were outcasts, after all. But Ace always said he had it covered.
Their discussion was getting heated. The suited men pointed at all of the bikers—and Helen too. Then they got back into their car and drove off.
“Your bankroll,” said Beretta, nodding at the car. “The one you said you had covered from the beginning.”
“Yeah.”
“Was that the fucking Cartel?”
The Cartel was the one group that not even the collected biker gangs would fuck with in the Southwest. They were the suppliers of all the major drugs and weapons. The Wrecking Crew cooperated with them in Marlowe, ran protection for them and negotiated deals. They were likened in Beretta's mind to an omnipresent, omnipotent deity.
He knew a man once who had crossed them—tried to renege on a deal for a pound of marijuana and five thousand dollars.
The Cartel killed the man and hung him outside of his house before he had a chance to flee. Then they did the same thing to all his family members—children included—and left them in the lawn for the police to find.
All for a pound of weed and five grand.
It was a message, like any of their punishments were. You go into business with the Cartel, then you keep your side of the arrangement.
And now Ace was saying that they were in deep with them. Too deep.
“Yeah.” Ace shrugged. “What the fuck did you expect? We couldn't draw anything from the Crew in Marlowe. Not with as much heat as they already got with us.”
“So you borrowed from the Cartel?” Locke asked. “Christ, Ace. I know you like to gamble, but that's...”
“Insane,” said Beretta. “Stupid. Reckless.”
“What do you call taking out a hit on Rattler by yourself?” Ace asked. “No? Nothing? No repartee? Shut up. Listen.” He took a long breath. “They wanted to check in on the operation. They want...” he wiped his face, even though it was bone dry. “They want their money. And they want it by Monday.”
“How much are you talking about?”
Ace's face was expressionless. “Forty thousand.”
“Forty thousand?” said Beretta. “In five days? Jesus Christ. What if we can't pay?”
“Then they kill us. All of us. Your girl, too.”
Helen gripped Beretta's hand tight. A protective flare went up in Beretta's heart. That wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let it.
Something could be done. Some plan. Something.
“Did they do in for Gallows?” Tank asked.
“The Cartel?” Ace shook his head. “No. That doesn't make sense. They don't want to ruin their investment.” Ace shook his head. “No, it's someone else. The Copperheads, I'm guessing. I don’t know how they knew where Gallows was. But they knew. Gotta assume they’re onto us, now. We're on the run.”
Chapter 10
Ace was right.
They rode to the warehouse to pick up what they had left and maybe move to another, safer location. But when they got there, the warehouse was ablaze, every inch of it burning. There was nothing left there to retreat to. Not knowing quite how, Helen began to feel more afraid than she was.
They saw it burning from a distance, pulling off the road about a mile away. Tank took out a pair of binoculars and spotted the Copperheads surrounding the warehouse—perhaps making sure that anyone who might have been hiding didn't get out alive.
“My bike,” said Locke, hands on his head. “My fucking bike!”
His bike was, of course, still in the warehouse. They had left it behind when they left to see Gallows. There was nothing they could do for it now—not his bike, not the warehouse, not anything that was left inside. It was all gone.
On the east side of Stockland—opposite of where the meth lab was among all the hills—was a long string of motels next to the airport. They pulled in to one and picked up three rooms for themselves, parking their bikes in the garage.
Now was a time for stealth. Who knew if the cranked-up Copperheads were patrolling every street in the city, trying to track down any bikes they could find?
They were all paranoid and trying to sort out a plan, sitting in a room. Tank was by the door, looking out the window every so often, silent and enormous, a wall unto himself. Locke sat on the ground under the television, cleaning and re-cleaning his gun. Ace eyed his technique critically from the bed. He held a deck of cards in one hand, shuffling silently.
Helen was on the other bed, laying down, trying to be unseen and unheard. The less she participated, the better. All she wanted was to be forgotten about. Beretta, of course, sat near her. For appearance’s sake—she supposed—he had placed a hand on her leg, stroking her.
She remembered he had busy hands. Probably he was jonesing for some piece of candy to soothe his nerves; instead, she was the sweetest thing around that he had.
As little as she liked to admit it, the motion was calming. His hands were warm and she was cold, dressed still in nothing but her scrubs from the day before. She very mu
ch wanted to use the motel bathroom and shower, but getting naked around these four men felt like an invitation to something she couldn't back out of.
“You think Ivan sold us out?” asked Beretta.
Locke shook his head. “You never trusted him.”
“No, I don’t. And none of you should either. Who else knows as much as he does about our operation? He’s out for his own, not for us.”
“That’s why I don’t think it was him,” said Ace. “He’s got nothing to gain by selling us out and everything to lose. As long as we’re in the game, we can hit as hard as anybody against the Copperheads. If he pushed us out, the Furnace loses. It doesn’t play with me. It was someone else. Someone we didn't see. A tail, a spy, something like that.”
“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” said Locke. He had finished cleaning his gun and started sliding the pieces back together with heavy clicks. “All that matters is how we make that money so we can stay the fuck alive. I mean...” he shook his head. “We've done somewhere between jack and shit in this town. If we run back to Marlowe and Howitzer, they'll laugh us straight out of the gang...and then we'll still get killed by the Cartel. We can't prove to Marlowe that it was the Copperheads killed Gallows, so they can't go to war for us.”
He finished assembling his gun and snatched the chamber back, a satisfying click filling the room.
“Probably,” said Tank, “they'll be just as happy to hear Gallows is dead. Man was a fugitive, after all. One less loose end for all of them.” He raised an eyebrow and then added, “And us.”
“Fuck it,” said Locke. “Let's just kill as many of them as we can until we can't anymore. Copperheads, the Cartel, everybody. We owe that much to Gallows. I didn't like him, but he was a brother, and blood needs blood.”
“That's suicide,” said Tank.
“It's all suicide at this point, isn't it?”
Beretta laughed. “He's got a point.”
Already, she had overheard them discussing their available pool of cash between the four of them—just about a thousand dollars. Each had more in stashes around the state, but none were willing to leave to pick it up without a plan to put it in use. They would stay and protect each other.
Even as much as they clearly disliked one another, betraying the Wrecking Crew to save themselves was out of the question. It was admirable, in a way.
She didn't think the same principle applied to her, so the admiration only went so far. Helen took the news of the Cartel's plan with little surprise, a kind of clinical appreciation. Someone else who was promising to kill her? Old hat at this point. Get in line.
“Maybe if we hole up somewhere,” said Tank, “draw them in. We can just pick them off as they come at us?”
“I don't know of any place they can't just burn down,” said Beretta. “But you're right that we need to do something. Be on the offensive, though. We need to...I don't know.” He squeezed Helen's leg. “Hit them where it hurts. Buy us some time.”
“They have money,” said Helen. “Can’t you just take some of theirs?”
She was looking at the door, not any of them. Tank was in her field of vision, though, and that was all she needed to see. He was surprised to hear her talk, near the first time all day she’d spoken. Beretta’s hand tensed on her leg.
There was an audible intake of breath—Ace, no doubt beginning a rampage of swearing. Helen wasn't supposed to speak around these men. Beretta and Ace had made that plenty clear. Already she was regretting opening her mouth.
And it wasn't only because they were going to be mad at her. It was more the other part—the debates now. Debates that she would be responsible for. Helen steeled herself. Here it comes—the waffling, the constant indecision, the comical attempts at trying to foist off the decisions onto some mythical third party who would swoop in on a Griffin of Knowledge and deliver fair judgments swinging away with the Sword of Truth.
But then Beretta said, “Yeah. Steal their fucking money? Yes. That's exactly what we could do. We could make it happen in...” he thought for a moment, “ I don't know, two, three days?”
Oh, god. God.
Her heart pounded as quick and as sure as if he had kissed her for an hour. Just deciding that—just like that! No debate. No hours of back-and-forth. Just a decision and it was done. On to the next task.
Once, her family had spent a year mulling over the purchase of a new kitchen table. Then, when it arrived and the color wasn’t right, they spent another six months mulling over whether it actually clashed with the decor enough to send it back to the manufacturer for a fix.
She wasn’t used to decisions like this in her public life. As a nurse, she had to make decisions all the time; it was part of what drew her to the job. She couldn’t hesitate—but then, there also weren’t a lot of judgment calls for a nurse like her. She followed the orders of doctors and acted according to protocols. Sometimes she had stress attacks about being a doctor—deciding which organ to cut into, what diagnosis to give.
Her job was occasionally suggesting these things, informing doctors and other nurses about her thoughts and intuitions, but never did she ever have to decide the fate of someone else’s life for them without a mountain of medical evidence and standard procedure to back up her decision.
Tank nodded. “They've got a point, boss. Ain’t nobody carries change in this town around like the Copperheads.”
“The amount of traffic they do? I bet they’ve got four, maybe five stashes in the city,” said Locke. “I can go searching around, suss up some leads.”
“Suss up some whores, you mean,” said Tank.
Locke smiled. “Leads are leads.”
Ace paced from end of the room to the other, knocking his hand against the television and the dresser and the wall in arrhythmic time.
“Could hit a shipment, yeah...” He half-muttered, tossing his head this way and that. “...have to bring a lot of guns, though...”
“Ivan might help us out,” said Locke. “If you really trust him.”
“I don’t trust him enough to tell him everything,” said Ace. “Nothing about the Cartel. But if we pay him, he’ll be on the spot for us.”
“But how are we gonna find the stashes?” said Tank. “Not that I don’t trust pretty boy, there, but that’s a gamble.”
“Just pick a man up,” said Beretta. He pointed at Helen. “She can make him talk.”
Already, she had retreated out of the conversation, content that she had said her piece—ill-advised though it was—and rather amazed that the four of them, especially Beretta, had seemed to glom onto it as some good idea. It had appeared to her that anything out of a woman’s mouth was automatically discounted with men like these. Maybe not.
But now Beretta was volunteering her for...
“I can do the what now?”
Chapter 11
Beretta turned his bike off, taking an uneasy look around the dark parking lot. There were lights on, but they only shined down directly beneath themselves. The dark pushed in on the light, keeping it from the shadowy places in the corners of the buildings and the grass. Anyone could be hidden out there.
“I’m just telling you, we’re taking a risk here.”
Helen squared her jaw. “Do you want to buy me clothes?”
He shook his head. “We need all the money we can get right now for the job.”
“Then I’m going to need to pick some of mine up. Unless you want an old lady who wears nothing but scrubs.”
They were at her apartment complex, a small gated community called Stockland Springs. There weren't springs in Stockland anymore than there was a rain forest, but that didn't seem to bother the marketers of such a place. Beretta had circled the lot four times now, searching for any sign of other bikes. There were none, but that didn’t mean the Copperheads couldn’t have traveled in something else.
He didn't know how or why the Copperheads would be there—but he wasn't taking anything for granted. His hackles were up and he'd stayed alive
this long by trusting his instincts.
It was a short jog up to her apartment on the third floor. That didn’t sit well with him either. First floor would have been ideal. Bad for being attacked, maybe, but better for leaving. Third floor—there wasn’t much place to go if someone started shooting at you, unless you wanted a broken leg by jumping out the window.
“In and out,” he said at the door. “Grab your clothes and let’s go.”
She nodded and he opened the door, still in possession of her keys.
The inside of her apartment was spacious, largely because it was sparsely furnished. In the living room, there was a couch and a television, but no coffee table, no night stands. There were no other surfaces except for the counters in the kitchen. He followed her in, shutting the door and remaining close to it, gun out just in case he needed it.
He remembered her saying how she had only moved in something like four months ago. Not that long, but certainly long enough to pick up some budget furniture at least. He wondered why she didn't bother to make herself a home. There were envelopes gathered on her kitchen counter—bills coming due. Some were second notices.
You need a better plan, Helen.
In her bedroom, Helen tossed a suitcase down and began filling it with clothes. She didn’t know how long she was staying.
Scared, she must be. Handling it well though. There was a toughness in her that drew him to everything that made her up.
His hands ticked against his thigh; a combination of impatience and desire filled him, something he usually solved with a quick grab at a piece of chocolate. Beretta was careful not to overdo it—he had some vanity, and didn't much enjoy the idea of being some overweight slob.
But he was, much as he tried to deny it, a slave to his impulses. It was just too bad his whole stash of snacks had burned up with the warehouse. Now all he had to feast on was the sight of Helen—and god, what a sight she was.
He wanted to hold her gorgeous body, to kiss her, to tell her it would be fine. He wanted to press himself onto her body, push her into the wall and let her feel the hardness she had inspired pushing down his thigh.