“Sit down,” I said, motioning to a chair. “When did she pass?”
Pete pouring Crown Royal with gold rings, index finger bare so he can pull a trigger.
Das Jew wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand. “Six years ago.”
Six years ago? Why was the fucker still crying?
“Sorry, Boss, I just miss her, you know?”
I did know.
But what did it matter?
Hitler loved his mother too.
15
GUNS N’ ROSES
“Hey, I know you,” the broad with white hair and rope tattoos shouted across the bar. I sat at my same corner table again, hidden in plain sight, sipping a shot of Crown Royal. Soon Mr. Happy, Bastardo, The Hound, and Junior joined me.
The Hound grinned. “Look who’s back.”
“I thought we went through this already,” I said to the broad.
She stumbled toward me holding a rose. Her strange brown eyes had flecks of gold like crushed glass in them. She was bone-thin; her skin barely tucked in her ribs.
“We’ve met,” she said, then coughed.
Did she once work for me? After a while they all blended together.
“I don’t like you.” She twirled the stem. A thorn pricked her thumb, and a trickle of blood bubbled out.
“There’s nothing I like about you either.”
Mr. Happy gulped his glass of warm water. If I ordered him, he would drop the waif to the floor and pistol-whip her with the butt of his Glock until it broke apart. But there was something spooky about this broad, like she was a ghost from my Christmas Past and had a message for me.
She handed me the rose.
“What’s this for?”
“A peace offering.”
The Hound sat back and stretched. Most broads he devoured; this one he just looked at, as if marveling at the various “packages” women came in.
“No thanks.”
“It won’t hurt you.”
The bar grew suddenly quiet. The few people inside stopped to watch the showdown involving the flower. A large, pasty-faced farm boy with a drawl blurted out, “Take the fucking rose, asshole.”
Mr. Happy shot to his feet.
I took the rose, motioned for Mr. Happy to stay put. I slid my chair back. Farm Boy didn’t move. Instead he took a long pull from his beer. The waif slipped into the shadows.
Behind me, guns racked.
I walked up to Farm Boy, smiled.
“Say it again. I didn’t hear you the first time.”
Farm Boy swallowed, swiveled to face me, and said, “You’re an asshole.”
I whipped the rose across his face. Petals exploded around him. Then the punches flew, random, swift, hard, and not just from Farm Boy. Patrons tumbled out of nowhere. I swung wildly, striking anyone that moved. Screams erupted. A pool stick shattered the front window. Mr. Happy tossed an assailant across the counter like a human bowling ball headed full force into stacked pins.
I dropped Farm Boy to the floor, surrounded by roses. I squeezed his throat, fascinated as the tiny capillaries in his eyes popped brighter.
Mr. Happy pulled me off him and said, “We need to go.”
Sirens sawed the night. Ambulances alarmed. The bar resembled debris from a bomb blast. The bar mirror shattered, and in the shards of broken glass our reflections elongated like a jagged Picasso.
We scrambled into the waiting van and Mr. Happy gunned the engine.
“Did everyone make it?” Bleary-eyed from booze and fight, I did a quick head count. “Where’s Junior? How am I the first one in here?” Junior threw himself on top of me and Mr. Happy sped off. We only made it a block.
A black suburban and five squad cars blocked our path. Wig-wags lit up our faces. Cops surrounded us, their weapons drawn. An entire SWAT team dressed in full riot gear, bulletproof vests, metal-plated knee pads, Kevlar skull helmets, and chin guards piled out of the squad cars and formed a perimeter around our van.
“They’re doing this because we’re Outlaws.” Junior sounded drunk.
“Of course they’re doing this because we’re Outlaws.” I stashed the knives.
* * *
One aimed his holographic-sight-equipped M4 carbine rifle at the windows; he was completely sleeved, with a colored rose tattoo covering the back of his hand. Skulls and letters dotted every knuckle.
The Chicago Police Department once tried to “professionalize” the uniforms, but many cops balked, claiming “the general public already view[ed] [them] as robots.” One Irish beat cop insisted his tattoos “were part of my identity, my heritage. They have no impact on the way I perform my duties as a Chicago police officer.”
“The fuckers look like us,” The Hound said. I was pretty sure they wanted to be like us, too.
These tattooed members of the police department, the so-called Sons of Anarchy, formed close and “unprofessional” relationships with members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, ironically actually creating anarchy in their own departments.
“Open up,” a cop boomed through the blow horn.
Mr. Happy stepped out first, hands in the air, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
The van doors shot open and one by one cops ordered us to “drop to the ground.” The Hound and I didn’t really “drop”; we stumbled, and slowly lowered ourselves to a kneeling position.
“What happened?” Officer Deric stared at us through fitted black goggles.
No one said a word. I focused on the potholes and the many subtle grooves in the road that could tip a bike. The Hound breathed heavily beside me; he wasn’t having a panic attack, but sometimes just the sheer exertion of changing positions could make a man his size wheeze.
“I’ll ask it again; What happened back there?”
My knees, through denim, bit into the gravel. “We got jumped.”
The cop flipped up his goggles. “Is that so?”
I shrugged.
“How come six of them are headed to the hospital?”
“We didn’t start the fight,” I said.
“So this was self-defense?” The cop rolled his eyes.
Mr. Happy’s hands still had streaks of blood on them. His knuckles swelled from the force of his punches. I was pretty sure Farm Boy was one of the ones headed to the hospital.
“Lucky for you no one’s pressing charges.” Officer Deric lowered his voice, leaned in close, and pulled a “Bonasera”1 move: “You know that I know that we know what really happened here, right?”
16
LOBSTER SAUCE
Crime does pay … just not forever.
—BIG PETE
One midnight, a few of us sat around the South Side clubhouse playing Monopoly, although most of the players had already declared bankruptcy, one remained in jail, and I had mortgaged all of the properties. Orange cones and red plastic hotels dotted the board. And I commandeered the bank of paper money.
“This game sucks,” What the Fuck Chuck whined. “I’ve been sitting in jail for five turns.”
“Let’s order pizza,” Mountain said. I could tell he had had enough. “Little Caesars, five pizzas for five bucks.”
“I’m not eating that shit,” I said.
Mountain rolled his eyes. “What would you prefer—”
“Lobster,” I cut him off. I felt it my duty to establish a standard. This was my theater, after all, and I was the director.
“Lobster?” Mountain snorted. “Where are you going to get fish this time of night?”
“Lobster is not fish.” I snapped my fingers at Mr. Happy. He dialed Tony’s place. The year before Tony had been kidnapped and held for ransom. His ol’ lady ran his restaurant now.
“Order fifteen,” I said.
“Fifteen lobsters this time of night?” Mountain shook his head.
“Just do it.” I was proving a point. Never mind that it was the South Side and no one in his right mind traveled into these neighborhoods after dark. The clubhouse stood adjacent to a vacant lot,
surrounded by a brick wall with barbed wire along the perimeter.
An hour and twelve buzzer rings later, (to make the delivery boy sweat) several packages of iced lobster arrived in the clubhouse. I slapped $775 cash into the delivery boy’s hands.
“You forgot the garlic bread,” I said, though I hadn’t even looked. The clubhouse went still. No one spoke. The boy’s face paled. He shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other. He opened his mouth to speak, and a few apologies stuttered out.
“Go back and bring it to us.” I shut the door. I didn’t expect him to return.
“Did the lobsters make it?” Tony’s restaurant called to confirm.
I spread containers of butter over the bar counter and dipped a tail in. “Yep.” I sucked out the fresh white meat and licked my fingers. “If the boy gets back, tell him not to bother.”
I rolled home around three in the morning, having consumed so much lobster I had practically become one.
“You smell like butter,” Debbie said.
* * *
Hours later, the partying began again: A flurry of people waited in line for “advice,” some stripped to their underwear, “bug-free,” their phone batteries tossed in the Dumpster. “We love you, Pete” postcards littered my desk, showing half-naked broads flashing, with spread legs, pouty lips, busty chests, and bottles of Crown Royal shoved deep into parts of them I’d only imagined existed.
“A few prizes out there.” Bastardo salivated.
“How would you know?” Fatigue had hit me already. Truth: I hated parties.
“I may have test-run a few.”
“Then I’m definitely not interested. And even if I was looking,” I stressed, “the fact that a broad has slept with other Outlaws makes her even less appealing.”
“Come on.”
“Soldiers don’t send girls up the chain.” I’d had this “pecking order” conversation with him before—broads who were not already their ol’ man’s property showed up at clubhouses for one purpose: to participate in orgies.
“Sodom and Gomorrah,” I said, pointing out “The Tens,” who showed up every Wednesday—“Hump Day”—to service Outlaws in the bathroom.
“I’m not following,” one Boss said, shaking his head when I voiced my concerns about the orgies at a Church meeting.
“I’m asking you to tone it down.”
“What the fuck for?”
“We don’t need heat.”
“My goal”—he thumped his chest like a card-toting Neanderthal—“is to sleep with everyone. I’m nondiscriminatory. Isn’t that what you preach?”
“You’re conflating goals.”
“Conflating?” He frowned.
“Mixing ideas,” I overenunciated.
“I know what the word means. Why do you got to be such an asshole?”
Maybe it was my own need for retribution; after all, it had once been my goal too—to sample every race. But I had been in college. And after two-hundred-plus girls, I’d stopped counting. And I wasn’t out to hurt them. And I wasn’t yet married. And … and … and …
But I was a Boss. My position made my moral stance a little tricky.
It was one thing to watch three Outlaws duck into the toilet in my clubhouse to ingest lines of coke and scold them to get the fuck out. That was about protection in case of a raid; I wasn’t about to go down with the flagship. Drugs were not a sanctioned club activity. More like fringe benefits.
A broad appeared in the doorway. She bit her lower lip, a puffy scar lining her cheek, her T-shirt torn. Her friend drifted into the shadows, into the forest of wolves. (Later, she would stumble home, bloodstained, numb, and swollen with secrets.) I learned to compartmentalize, not to let go, but to block.
“You make me feel so special,” the broad in the doorway beamed.
“Why is that?”
“I’ve always wanted to be with an Outlaw, but I never imagined I could be with the head Outlaw.”
I motioned for her to take a seat.
“Do you know why I love you so much?” she gushed.
“Look, it’s never going to happen.” Her smile instantly vanished.
Careful, Pete. I owned three escort businesses, but my assistant, Angel, managed them for me. I just made appearances, occasionally bought the girls fancy dinners, sported them to shopping sprees, and hired Outlaws to be their drivers. They worked for me because they liked me.
“You’re the only person who’s ever asked me what I wanted,” the broad stuttered. It was true. I counseled several of them, permanently “solved” problems with ex-husbands and secured back child support, using “any means necessary.” I had a soft spot for moms. Anywhere I went in Chicago, I had exclusive rights over the broads.
“Nothing in the world is going to get us together.”
Later, she sent me naked postcards.
“Another stalker?”
* * *
“It’s not funny.” I’d ordered cheese and meatballs at Bastardo’s Italian restaurant, Genco.1 It was a little early for lunch, Ray Rayner’s voice pinging in my head from the night before: We have a little problem.…
“I like you, Lou,” I said to Bastardo, using his real name. My head throbbed.
Bastardo slid across from me, stocky, bald, and sporting his customary dark-tinted glasses. He tugged at a loose thread on his patch that read “CDC” (“Cunts Don’t Count”).
“But you’ve got to stop fucking Scotty’s ex-broad.”
Bastardo stroked his goatee. “This is what you wanted to see me about?”
“Look, personally I don’t care about the broad. It’s Dino. He’s pissed at Scotty’s ex. He’s gone a little berserk.” The waitress placed a steaming plate in front of me. “He’s stalking her on social media.”
“He’s a pussy.”
I twirled melted cheese on my fork. “The broad’s the problem. She’s a liability, and could sue.”
“I like her.” Bastardo folded his arms across his chest.
I swallowed slowly. “Then don’t let Dino find out. If he catches you together then your problem becomes my problem.”
“I get it.”
“Don’t back me into a corner.…”
“I won’t.”
But two weeks later Ray Rayner spotted Bastardo with the broad again.
“I thought we discussed this,” I said, having returned to Genco’s.
“We did.” Bastardo shrugged. “I decided to keep her. I offered to settle up with Dino man-to-man, but he refused.”
In the biker world, there was no such thing as “man-to-man”; it was always “club-to-club.”
“A Black Piston just challenged an Outlaw to a fight,” Ray Rayner pointed out the obvious.
“You have to go,” I said to Bastardo. “I’m exiling you.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I hope she’s worth it.”
* * *
“Shadow me,” I instructed Mr. Happy. I planned to groom him for the position of Boss, and figured if others saw him with me all the time they would naturally think of him as my closest advisor, entrusted to make decisions on my behalf. He made the perfect sidekick: poker-faced, clean-cut, perpetually sober.
“He looks like a fucking cop,” Frog said as he smoothed the few strands of hair left on his head. He was a junk collector by trade, and took pride in sniffing out “trash.”
“He’s not a cop.”
“An infiltrator then.”
“He’s my Hand.”
“Your what?”
“My Hand, asshole, my Hand.”
“Whatever, he’s still a Polack.”
There were times when I fantasized about turning a person’s head into a canoe.
Mr. Happy lapped up my commands—“Stay”; “Sit”; “Guard”; “Attack”—obeying without hesitation.
Once, I ordered Mr. Happy to stay in the van while I attended Church in the Metropolis. “Don’t move,” I said. “For anyone. As soon as this meeting is over I’m climbing
back into this van.”
Members from the chapter in Joppa, Illinois, packed into a small room inside their clubhouse. Some lit cigarettes, and a veil of smoke wafted above our heads. People pushed, shoved, and clamored over others just to wedge inside the door.
“Some asshole probate is blocking the entrance to this place.” A probate from the Joppa chapter popped his head in.
“Tell him to move,” I shrugged.
“He refuses. Says he won’t move unless his Boss tells him it’s okay.”
Oh boy.
“Who’s his Boss?” a Joppa member asked.
“Big Pete,” I piped up.
“Never heard of him,” the enforcer shook his head.
Now I was pissed.
“What the fuck?” I went outside to the van. The enforcer trotted after me. I stopped. “What are you doing?”
“I’m … enforcing.” He looked ridiculous, a little guy playing a tough guy in a puffy man’s costume.
“Enforce this, you big fuck.” I punched him in the head, and he fell to the pavement. “Maybe next time you’ll remember I’m a motherfucker.”
* * *
“You told me not to move.” Mr. Happy glanced at Mr. Enforcer, out cold.
“Yes I know, but—”
“So, I’m not moving.”
Later, I counseled Mr. Happy. “Don’t do that again.”
“But—”
“Don’t be so stubborn.”
He sighed. “Maybe this isn’t for me after all?”
17
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
It’s not my fucking fault I turned out this way—I’m a purebreed.
—BIG PETE
The Fugarwe Tribe hosted their annual party at their clubhouse. Inside, a small crowd formed. Members from Brothers Rising, the Loyal Order, Twisted Image, Low Lyfz, and stragglers clustered against a far wall. The place, which resembled a storage unit, reeked of sweat and stale beer. A four-foot caiman crocodile splashed behind the bar, cooling in his plastic pool.
Voices popped around me like radio static. Smoke made my eyes burn. I grabbed a shot of Crown Royal and sipped it slowly, always careful never to lose control while I worked. I felt closed in, constricted, even a little nervously excited, like the buzz I got just before a football game.
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