by PT Reade
With no other choice, I took a deep breath, feeling the sweat building on my forehead once more, and pushed the main doors open, stepping into the dark space beyond.
So much for the simple plan.
All too aware of the threat behind me, I stepped into the main bar of The Dog House as my senses took a hit from every direction. It was dim inside, illuminated solely by a scattering of yellow overhead lamps that gave off a weak glow. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the gloom. Just like the outside, the interior of the bar had been painted black on almost every surface, with only the gang’s trademark red and gold flames breaking the darkness.
The music was loud, no escaping it. Heavy rock of some sort with lots of guitars and very few lyrics. Hard to figure out what the song was even about. The speakers crackled with distortion, suggesting they were old and had seen decades of use—much like the rest of the place.
The smell too, assaulted my nostrils, but I was surprised to find it not entirely unpleasant. The odor washed over me. Stale beer, wood smoke, and aftershave hung heavy in the air. Familiar in a way, like so many of the pubs I had spent far too much time in, back in London.
The main bar itself was mostly empty, with the heat of the day and a lack of air conditioning driving most of the patrons outside. One older man lounged on a battered looking sofa in the corner of the room, his eyelids drooping—which was an achievement given the volume of music. A thin layer of drool coated his chestnut beard. The copper-colored bottle clutched in his left hand no doubt the culprit. Another man, this one skinny and topless—but his torso covered in tattoos—was shooting a game of pool on the far side of the room, apparently content to play on his own. Neither man paid me any attention.
Otherwise, the only other person present was the barkeeper—a woman—to my surprise. She leaned against the wooden counter with her back to me, stabbing away at what appeared to be a mobile phone.
I glanced over a shoulder and found my shadows from outside congregating near the doorway. One leaned against the door jamb fixing me with a hard stare. Two more stood silhouetted against the evening sky. Like bearded vampires held at the threshold, they didn’t enter the main bar, but they seemed content to make sure the exit was covered. In other words, I wasn’t getting out.
With no choice, I stepped deeper into the bar. I had no intention of leaving without my prize anyway. But where was Donnie? She couldn’t have gotten far, and I would have heard her bike if she decided to break for it again. The central lounge area offered no place to hide.
Despite the dark interior and wan lighting, it was clear the woman wasn’t here. The only other exit lay behind the counter, a thick deadlocked door that would have taken some heft to open. No way she went through there in a hurry.
Something flickered at the edge of my vision, drawing my attention.
There.
At the far edge of the bar, a doorway shrouded in darkness, almost invisible in the poor lighting. A heavy curtain blocked the entrance, but from within, a tiny sliver of yellow light escaped the gloom. I stepped forward.
“Hey, you!” A voice behind me hollered, sending my heart rate spiking.
I turned to find the woman from behind the bar glowering; she stood hands on her substantial hips. Face a mask of anger. There was no time to explain what I was doing, no time for persuasion. If you are going through hell, keep going.
I stepped forward. Donnie had to be in the back room. I was out of options and out of time.
“You can’t go in there!” the woman yelled.
But I wasn’t listening. I double checked the pistol at my waist, tensed my fists in anticipation, threw back the curtain, stepped into the room and gasped.
Only then did I realize my mistake.
NINETEEN
I had stepped from one ordeal, into another.
As I emerged into the large room, at least ten sets of eyes turned to me. A group of seven men sat around a central table piled with cash and playing cards. At the far edge of the table, one of the men held the rest of the deck—the dealer. The space was long and narrow, with a low ceiling supporting overhead lights that illuminated the men with a yellow glow. The air was thick with smoke, wafting from the myriad cigarettes and cigars the players at the tables held clamped between their teeth.
A gambling den.
Four of the closest men were Asian, wearing shirts and smart pants which stuck out against the others present, who were apparently members of The Hounds, and were dressed like their friends from out front. But the one that most interested me stood less than three feet away. She was slack-jawed and staring at me, eyes wide with surprise.
Donnie.
In a flash she bolted again, but this time without sufficient room to move. She stumbled into the edge of the table, knocking cards and cash everywhere.
“Son of a bitch!” cried one man.
“What the hell!”
Anger and fear mixed as the men jumped from their seats. The wary eyes fixing me in place weren’t my biggest concern, nor was the fact that the music from the main bar had come to a dead halt behind. More worrying were the two guns leveled directly at my chest. One of the Asian men and his biker counterpart carried black pistols.
I raised my hands instinctively. “Easy fellas, I’m not here to cause trouble.”
But trouble followed me around like a shadow. An inescapable demon hovering over everything I did.
As if summoned by those thoughts, my eyes flicked to the corner where Donnie scrambled over to the most prominent man in the room. Older, with a trimmed white beard and muscular frame, he stood near the back of the room, unfazed, confident. The man in charge.
“That’s him! That’s the bastard who’s been chasing me all day!” Donnie cried. “He’s a cop. Shoot him, take him down. Come on, what are you—”
Another biker, the tallest in the room, and the one with the slicked back hair I had spotted out front, stepped forward and brought his own pistol up. His hand was red and shiny, old burns or some kind of scarring, disappeared up a sleeve. “You made a big mistake coming here, disphit.” he hissed.
“I can see that,” I replied hesitantly, adding what I hoped was a disarming smile.
“Well it’s the last mistake you’ll make.” ‘Slick’ flipped off the safety on the pistol and I saw his fingers tighten on the grip.
“Wait,” the other man boomed.
My heart raced as the men carrying the guns glanced around, uncertain. Perhaps they thought it was a police raid or a rival gang. Instead, they got a washed-up PI with more balls than sense.
The big man at the back raised an open hand, and the room quieted. Slick stepped back.
Yep, definitely the boss.
He walked over to me slowly and purposefully, scanning me up and down. When he neared I spotted his tattoos—these looked older, more time worn. Decades-old. Jagged scars too, lanced down from the side of his face, clawing down his neck and out of sight. They too looked old, painful.
The big man squared up and looked me in the eye. The scars had blended in with the darkness before, but at this vantage, they were plain as day. Three or four merging lines trickled down one side of his face, concluding about halfway down his neck. I focused my gaze back up, returning his eye contact.
“What are you doing here?” he said, voice gravelly but forceful. “My girl, Donnie can be impetuous at times, but only a real fool would come to our home uninvited.”
The options raced through my head. Fighting my way out was pointless. If the three men with the guns didn’t get me, the barkeep and her cronies almost certainly would. I had no doubt there was a weapon beneath the bar. A weapon now trained on my back.
Instead, I played it straight and honest. An unusual turn for Thomas Blume. “I’m looking for information,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
The man frowned and stared at me with something bordering curiosity. He swept a hand around him, “We don’t help people like you. This is a place for bikers … and
our business partners.”
“I … uh, I am a biker,” I replied, earning a few sniggers from around the room.
“Really?” the big man said with a chuckle, as he placed a hand on my shoulder. The gesture would have been welcoming in any other environment, but here it was a threat. An unspoken proof he was entirely in charge, and if I wanted to survive the next few minutes, I would have to prove myself.
“So, tell me Mr. Biker,” the man continued. “If you really do ride, what’s the compression ratio on a Kawasaki GL500?”
I swallowed hard. My skin prickled with perspiration. It was an impossible question. Only an expert mechanic or someone that worked with motorcycles every day could be expected to know that kind of information. I’d worked in my uncle’s garage as a teenager, but that was a long time ago. My pulse pounded.
Think. A Kawasaki…GL 500
But nothing came.
“So?” the big man pressed.
I felt the expectation of the room pressing against my pores. Ten angry men, just looking for a chance to take out their frustrations on the outsider. There was no way to answer the impossible question. I was underqualified and way out of my depth.
The impossible question.
A spark lit up the fog of my brain as inspiration dawned.
I straightened up. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. Two of the Asian men stiffened, and the room filled with heavy anticipation. “Because a real biker would rather die than ride a Japanese bike,” I finally replied.
The big man squinted and moved his face closer to mine. “Good answer,” he whispered before bursting into laughter. He clapped me on the shoulder before turning to the other bikers in the room.
“I’m not paying you to stand around gawking, get back to it! Donnie, get one of the boys to clean this shit up, get the table set back up.”
Pulling his attention back to me, the big man led me back through the bar. “I’m Lincoln, though most folks here call me Linc.”
“I’m Thomas Blume, though most folks call me a lot of things.”
Lincoln chuckled with a scratchy laugh and gestured ahead.
As we moved past the curtains the barkeeper eyed me cautiously, a sawn-off shotgun dangling from her right hand. The figures at the door dissipated too, shuffling back outside.
“You’ll have to forgive my boys, it’s been a rough few months, and we are all a bit jumpy. They probably thought you were a cop.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right.”
TWENTY
The rock music and raucous atmosphere started up as quickly as it had stopped. Lincoln led me through the bar and out the rear entrance I had spotted when I first arrived. Out back, an old gravel parking lot carpeted with weeds, stretched off to a chain-link fence illuminated by a single security light—probably what passed for a smoking area in this part of town. A pair of rickety wooden chairs and an upended beer crate offered the only semblance of furniture. Despite the noise inside the club, it was quiet once the door closed. Only the ever-present hum of traffic thrummed from the flyover above, while a pair of nearby crickets chirped in the night air.
Lincoln dropped his bulky frame into a wooden chair and kicked the other one out a few inches. Probably the closest I would get to an invitation to sit.
I sat in the chair and almost jumped when a woman appeared next to the table and dropped two cold beers down. Lincoln raised his in a toast. Figuring it would be rude not to, I followed suit. Before I knew what I was doing, I sipped the frosty brew.
God, it tasted good. The cool liquid cut through the dust in my throat. The heat of the evening washed away momentarily, and for the briefest of seconds, I could have been anywhere else. Just an average guy, having a cold one with a friend.
But Lincoln wasn’t my friend and things were never average for me.
I fought the urge to down it immediately. I needed to stay sharp.
“Sorry about my brother back in there” Lincoln began. “He means well; he’s just a little overprotective. We’re all on edge right now.”
“I can see that.”
“We served together, Harlon and me. Back in the army—it’s how I got this souvenir.” He brought a finger up to touch the scars on his neck. “Harlon is a good man, a good brother, but going through a rough patch.”
“I know the feeling.”
“He lost his son two months ago. Killed in the crossfire when some of our boys had a disagreement with another gang. It’s hit him hard, hit us all hard. I’m trying to bring this club into the modern world, create a family, not a gang, but violence and fear are the things hardest to change. Noah just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
Lincoln eyed me carefully, then his eyes drifted out to the horizon where the last rays of daylight were disappearing. “Older men declare war, but it is the youth that must fight and die,” he whispered, before reaching into a pocket and pulling free a thick cigar which he sparked into life using a worn-out zippo lighter. He took a long drag and sent a plume of smoke spiraling into the evening sky.
“So,” Lincoln finally said, leaning back with a creak of wooden and human joints and turning to face me fully. “What’s Donnie done now? More importantly, how much will it cost me? As a father, I will always love the girl, but cleaning up her mess is becoming a full-time gig. I guess it’s my fault partly; she didn’t exactly have a stable childhood.”
“How do you mean?”
“The first time I met that girl she was a rake, all skin and bones. Just a mess of red hair and wild eyes, like some kinda bobcat, running on claws and instinct. I collared her trying to boost my bike. She got damn close too—almost had the ignition started. I dragged her scrawny ass into the clubhouse and just spoke to her. She was whip-smart even back then, living on the streets you had to be. She’d got mixed up with some bad dudes; they had her out stealing cars and bikes. I gave her another option—working for me.”
“Donnie is … adopted?”
Lincoln nodded. “Joanna—my wife, rest her soul—and I couldn’t have kids. Seemed like divine providence when Donnie came along. I started her out sweeping the bar, restocking the bottles. In exchange, I gave her a place to stay—a home of sorts. Pretty soon, she was damn near running the place, so Jo and I took her in permanently. Best decision I ever made. Lord knows that girl is trouble but I love her and she never fails to make me smile. She has her own place now, her own job too, if she can keep it for more than a few days. I swear she gets through jobs faster than I get through cigars.”
“Trying to get Donnie on the straight and narrow huh? She doesn’t strike me as the sort to listen to authority.”
Lincoln sighed. “I know she’ll never have a 9-5. I just want her to taste a normal life and a normal job. Work for her money and feel what it’s like to earn something. She’s smart and tough that girl. She’s not that street cat I once met, but she never lost that spark, that cunning. I hope she never does. Just needs to grow up a bit. She’ll need it when she takes over here.”
“Donnie is taking over?”
Lincoln nodded and looked distant for a moment. “Doc’s say I have a year left, maybe two. The big ‘C’. Too many of these things, I guess.” He held the cigar out in front. “I told Donnie recently; she didn’t take it well.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Ah, I knew something would get me one day. If it wasn’t the smokes, it would be a bullet. At least this way I get to see things are set up before I’m gone.”
I fixed the man with a sympathetic look, knowing it would be pointless to lie. “You should know, I’m not actually here to speak to Donnie. I just needed her to lead me to this place. When she bolted, I decided to tail her. I’m really here to see you,” I watched as my words finally sank in. A man like Lincoln had to know who would be using bikers in New York as muscle. Top dogs always kept a close watch on their territories and those
of their enemies.
The big man took a long sip of beer and regarded me cautiously. “Interesting. Not many folks are stupid enough to come here looking for trouble, or me. And yet, here you are.”
“Yeah, well trouble has a way of finding me. In fact, I’m hoping you can give me some information. You heard about the explosion, right?”
“Up in Midtown? Sure, but you’re batshit crazy if you think my boys had anything to do with that.”
I believed the man. In a twisted kind of way, most biker gangs had an honor code of some sort. Or at least one they told themselves they had. Besides which, I’d heard The Hounds had gone quiet these days. Content to be all about the bikes and the beer, rather than the outlaw days of gunfights and contract killing.
“But you know something?” I pushed, sensing the man was holding out on the details.
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“That maybe would be a big help. Lives are on the line here. Mine included.”
“Lives are always on the line, but we have to carry on.”
“You gotta help me out here. The asshole that set the bomb off is threatening more. More innocents, unless I find someone. Someone you can help me locate.”
Lincoln smoothed a hand over his beard, took another pull on his beer. I followed suit.
“See, a few weeks back, someone contacted me through our channels. Upmarket, I figured by the accent. He needed some work doing. He wasn’t heavy on the details, but it was clear that money wasn’t an object. The pay would be good, half a mil’ good. Some of the boys started salivating over the thought of all that cash.”
“What did he want done?”
“Like I said, he wasn’t all that clear. He mentioned that it was a job in Midtown and that we’d need two maybe three men. Oh, and that we’d need to be discreet. But other than that, he gave us nothing until we agreed.”
“So, you took him up on the offer?
“Shit, no,” Lincoln replied, leaning back in his creaky chair. I’ve been in this business for a long time, and no amount of money is worth a dirty deal.”