Surprised that Tommy had a cell phone at his age, even more surprised that he had lent it to me, and shocked that he had Internet access as well, I searched the Web for the FBI number and assumed I’d get the night answering service. As the call rang through, I watched the Smith house, lights glowing beyond the curtains. I considered checking with Valerie and Mandy, but something in the way Mr. Schilling settled on Hope Smith made me choose this house as the first place to inquire about Char. Simultaneously with the second ring, two shapes appeared behind the curtains, both looking like young women, one looking as if she had a curly mop of hair.
Just as a woman answered the phone, “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” I hit the end button, terminating the call.
I bounded from the truck, sprinted up the front steps, and knocked on the door. I noticed the stack of rolled newspapers piled up on the corner of the front porch. A redhead with a ponytail answered, opening the door wide, but not so much that I could see into the living room.
“Hope Smith?” I asked her.
Her eyebrows buckled. “Maybe.”
“Is Charlene Freeburg here?” I asked simply.
The girl looked over her shoulder into the living room, and I heard someone turn down the music. Hope looked back to me, a question forming in her eyes as to how to answer.
“Are your parents home?”
The door eased shut to within inches of slamming on me.
I ad-libbed a little, based on the newspapers. “Because I heard they were out of town on a trip and that Char was staying with you while they were gone. I need to talk with her.”
Hope glanced again over her shoulder at someone who I assumed was Char hiding beyond.
“Char, we need to talk,” I called out before Hope could close the door on me. “It’s bad news, I’m afraid.”
Framed in a halo of black ringlets, Char’s angelic face peered around the door and stared out at me, concern in her eyes. It felt like someone had poured a bucket of warm honey onto my head, purging the chill of dread I had yoked around me since watching the bikers near the grain silo. The honey flowed all the way out through the tips of my toes and fingers in a flood of relief as my eyes verified that the girl who had died in Sturgis and Char Freeburg were definitely not one and the same. This was Char Freeburg. I definitely saw a resemblance to Michelle, particularly around her wide eyes.
Although Char was mostly tucked behind the door, I could see that both she and Hope wore tank tops and shorts, and they were barefoot and makeup free. I could smell pizza from somewhere beyond and what might have been freshly baked brownies. The transition from commercial to announcer to song told me the music had most likely been coming from the television, probably MTV or another music video channel. The girls were enjoying some summer fun, freedom from parental interference for a few days, nothing that was harmful or shameful in anyway.
“What about?” she said, her voice small.
Hope stood rigid at the door, neither swinging it open to let me in nor slamming it shut to force me out. Char studied me, gripping the door as if it was the only thing holding her up.
“I’m Jens’s sister, Liv Bergen. I think you should come with me. I need to take you home,” I said, leaving it for someone else to deliver the news.
Hope gripped her arm and said, “Maybe you should go, Char.”
Char nodded and looked over her shoulder into the living room.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean up,” Hope added.
As Charlene Freeburg stepped from behind the door into the full light of the entranceway, brushing the curl that had spilled onto her forehead away from her face, I gasped. Everything was clear to me now. The entire story unfolded as I stared at her familiar face. To confirm what I suspected, I asked bluntly, “Who was the guy you were with Sunday night?”
She glanced back over her shoulder at her friend for reassurance and I added, “It’s important, Char. Life or death.”
“Life or …” her words trailed. She swallowed hard, looking to her friend for support and guidance. Hope nodded and Char turned to me, drawing a deep breath. “Michelle followed us. We went to buy some beer and hang out. We drove up to Dinosaur Hill to look at the city lights. I was feeling good and he was enjoying the music. We weren’t doing anything much. Just having fun.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Sunday night,” she said. “I don’t know. When did you pick me up, Hope?”
“Around ten, I guess,” the redhead answered, scooping up empty soda cans and pizza boxes, afraid she might find herself in trouble along with Char.
“What happened? With you and Michelle?”
She shrugged and looked back at Hope again, presumably to draw confidence. Hope shot a sideways glance toward her and continued her cleanup efforts. “I was … she had snuck up on us. Like I said, we were just having fun. I think she thought we were having sex or something, but we were just listening to some music. Just playing around, you know?”
I was tired of asking so many people so many questions, and my tone reflected my impatience. “What. Happened?”
“Michelle shone the flashlight on us, saw who I was with, and yanked me out of the car, dragging me back to hers. I was so embarrassed. We fought all the way home, and when she parked the car, I ran off. Called Hope from the corner liquor store,” her eyes were starting to fill with tears. “I’ve never seen her so angry, so upset. She … she told me things. She scared me. What’s this all about? Where’s Michelle?”
I took a deep breath, waiting to hear the answer I already suspected but needed to hear, from Michelle through Char, when I asked, “Why was Michelle so upset? What did she tell you?”
“That the guy I was with …” she started sobbing.
Hope stood, wide-eyed, and came to Char’s side. Clearly Char hadn’t told her this part, since all pretenses of cleaning and the fear of getting into trouble herself had been completely overcome by intrigue and fascination with Char’s answer.
“That the guy you were with was what?” I insisted.
“That he hooked up with her when she was my age.”
“Hooked up? Or raped?”
Her eyes dropped to the floor and her fingers twisted into a worried tangle.
All the pieces slid neatly into place.
“Tell me his name, Char.”
RUBBING HIS FINGERS GENTLY across his neck and over his white whiskers, stubble he’d allowed to go unshaved for the first time since he became an operative in the field, Streeter said, “You know what, Bly?”
Through splashes of cold water against his face, Bly asked, “What?”
“Working with you hurts,” was all Streeter offered, inspecting the fine beads of blood that had already coagulated along the long stretch of a superficial blade mark spanning left ear to right collar bone across his Adam’s apple.
“Me?” Bly rose from his bent position over the basin, his ruddy, scraggly-bearded face dripping with water. He grabbed for a fistful of coarse paper towels from the dispenser. “It hurts working with me? Hell, I’ve been working this rally for years, and so far, I’ve been in more fights with you in five hours than I have in any other rally ever. Working with you hurts.”
Bly was pointing a stiff finger at him.
“Holster that finger, cowboy.” Streeter pushed each of the three stall doors open to make sure no one was in the bar bathroom with them. “What was that Outraged fellow all about?” Streeter asked, dabbing away the blood on his neck with a damp paper towel, leaving an angry red line.
“He was probably an intelligence officer,” Bly answered, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Only thing he could have been. He was from the Atlanta chapter and he knew too much about the Serpents’ presence in Florida. He must have seen our rockers and took the opportunity to gather a little intelligence while he was partying hard up here.”
“And it was my New Jersey connection that set him off, right?”
“That, or the idea of two Serpents tog
ether in public. A rarity,” Bly said, groping for another fistful of the stiff paper towels. “Good thing you read all those files, Streeter. You were brilliant. Knew plenty about Operation Marlin. Enough to make him leave us alone.”
“Well, how could I forget about one of my fellow freaking gang members being hired by a New York Mafia outfit to go down to the docks in Florida and stomp the life out of their enemies, literally?”
Bly shuddered. “You were brilliant, I say. Even remembered some of the names. Good job.”
“Hard to shake. My fellow New Jersey Serpent, Mad Shark, wrapping up at least seven hits in newspaper and stomping them to death like they were fish,” Streeter said, staring at his own ghostly reflection in the streaked mirror as he spoke. “I can’t even picture what would make a guy do something like that, let alone admit to being his buddy.”
“But you did admit it and you were believable,” Bly said, slapping Streeter on his back. “And it’s greed that motivates a guy like Mad Shark. Those guys in New York paid him a ton of money to wipe out their competition.”
“So what got the Outraged so huffy about it? Were the Serpents cutting in on their territory for being the hit men for the Mafia?”
Bly shook his head and tossed the paper towels in the overfilled garbage bin. “Hiring out as hit men isn’t the Outraged style. In fact, it really isn’t anyone’s style except the Serpents’. We’re a nomadic, independent sort,” Bly added mockingly, tugging on the tails of his black leather jacket. “Even though that ugly bastard kept saying he was going to kill you, and any other Serpent he could get his hands on, I just couldn’t buy it. Just because we had infringed on their territory down there? I think they’re scared and they’re pissed. Pissed because Mad Shark’s especially ingenious murders brought on a brighter focus from the feds in that area, which is Outraged territory.”
“And scared because Mad Shark was so ruthless and acted alone?” Streeter surmised.
“Exactly,” Bly said, leaning up against one of the sinks and crossing his arms. “Wouldn’t you be? A crazy bastard like Mad Shark going around stomping Mafia thugs to death? Gives me the willies.”
“Having a knife shoved up against my throat doesn’t do wonders for me, either,” Streeter admitted sourly, inspecting the wound in the cloudy mirror. “Looks more like an age line. Great. Can’t even look macho out of the whole deal.”
Bly chuckled. “Damn, you’re one tough customer. You almost get killed and you’re cracking jokes.”
“Right.”
“I’m telling you, you answered all their questions perfectly. They’ll leave you alone the rest of the rally. You gave them what they wanted. They wanted to know who you were and what you knew about Mad Shark.”
“But I didn’t give them a thing on the thirteen,” Streeter replied.
“That’s okay. They really didn’t expect you to know who any of the thirteen members are in the Serpents’ mother chapter. Very few do. That’s how they stay out of trouble and how they keep from getting snagged by the long fingers of the law,” Bly explained.
“Well, he sure scared the hell out of me. I thought we were both dead when I couldn’t come up with a name of one of the thirteen.”
They both stared at the moldy grout between the tiles of the dank bathroom floor, eyes glazed over by the thought of what could have happened, what almost happened. They were startled into movement from their frozen positions when the door swung open, a large, beer-bellied man belching as he padded to the first stall.
“You want a beer before we roll?” Bly asked.
“Two,” Streeter answered.
Cattle Jump Campground wasn’t anything like what Streeter had expected compared to days long since gone by. It was much tamer, less raunchy, and far cleaner under the new ownership. He even spotted several teenagers and children among the crowds of interested tourists; that would never have happened years ago. What he had remembered was no longer. Hookers carrying buckets of soapy water offering blowjobs for five bucks were replaced with hired models wearing skimpy clothes selling cartons of cigarettes and offering to pose for pictures with their arm draped familiarly around any biker’s neck for five bucks. Spoons and bongs for methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana were now spoons stuffing food into mouths of toddlers and young children. Nipples of bare-breasted woman at the campground once exposed for the bikers’ enjoyment were now behind suckling babes in arms at the rally, with only an infrequent flash of the past visible. It was certainly a different campground from the one he remembered.
Nevertheless, there were still hundreds of thousands of sweaty, stinking biker bodies swilling beer and flicking lighters in appreciation of whoever was on stage performing or in an effort to light whatever was being smoked. There were still countless rows of tents and mini-campsites surrounding the stage area, bikes and people scattered throughout the acres of land. The price for admission and for anything within the campground remained astronomical, including the beer.
Spotting the Inferno Force members standing guard at both the entrance and the exit to the beer tent, Streeter deduced, “Beer gardens still owned by the Inferno Force?”
“Probably,” Bly answered, weaving through the crowd and lowering his voice so no one would become too interested. “The campground has changed hands a bunch of times since you were here. It’s owned now by some promotional company, but I can’t remember the name. My guess, despite protests to the contrary, is that the Inferno Force still have their thumb on the money coming from those beer tents.”
“Still have the Chopper to deal with?” Streeter asked, referring to the other popular campground rumored to be exclusively reserved for another motorcycle club.
Bly nodded, adding nothing more as they approached the entrance to the beer tent.
“You guys selling beer to just anyone these days?” Bly asked.
The man’s bare and tattooed arms were as large as his thighs. His salt-and-pepper beard and mustache were neatly trimmed, his smile fulsome, and a thick red scar bisected his face from left temple to right jawbone. Streeter preferred his “age line” after all.
“Not just anyone,” replied the gatekeeper, staring at them with dancing, piercing eyes.
Streeter tensed, wishing he could wear the shoulder holster he was accustomed to rather than the small pistol in his riding boot.
With a toothy grin, the man explained, “We only sell to guys who have money. Lots of it, so start by slipping a bill my way.” He laughed a little louder than Streeter thought necessary. He didn’t understand until the man slapped Bly on the back and added, “What the hell you been up to, Bly? Long time no see.”
“Hey, Chomp,” Bly said gripping the man’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “Not much, man. Not much.”
“When are you going to ditch that piece of shit jacket and start wearing one of ours?”
“When you get rid of that sissy looking wing for a logo and sport something a little more befitting,” Bly answered.
Chomp laughed. “And exchange it for that stupid snake on the back of your jacket? I don’t think so.”
Streeter couldn’t help but notice Chomp’s eyes flick back toward him several times throughout the discourse. His eyes, an odd color of murky blue, as if faded by bleach, were menacing, maniacal, and merry all at the same time.
Bly added, “Meet a friend of mine, Chomp. This is Streeter.”
Chomp’s grip was as his name. Streeter would later swear to Bly that it was Chomp who had fractured the small bone on the underside of his right hand, not the earlier fight with the rowdy college kids at the bar on Main Street.
“Chomp saved my ass four years ago and I haven’t forgotten. Can I buy you a beer?” Bly asked.
“Beer’s on me,” he said, still inexplicably cheerful. “Just the first one, though, Bly. Price is double for you assholes for anything after the first.”
Streeter had no clue if Chomp was joking or not. He didn’t care to ask for clarification, lest the seemingly drug-induced mer
riment give way to the avalanche of rage that lay behind his eyes. He noticed the “Road Captain” patch at the bottom left of his vest as he passed. He also noticed Chomp eyeing him carefully, assessing everything about his dress and demeanor, just as he had Chomp. Two dogs, sniffing.
Bly joked, “That means one beer and we’re out of here.”
“You got it. If you want to live,” Chomp agreed, his smile dissolving quickly to a menacing expression.
Streeter recognized the warning that they were not welcome to stay and that he had only been cordial to keep up appearances for the other guests. If they lingered much longer, they’d find themselves with untraceable shanks stuck in their guts, their bodies discarded behind the port-o-lets.
They drank their beers standing close to the entrance of the beer tent, assuming that if Mully and his gang were here, they would eventually gravitate this way like flies to butter, considering it was the only outlet selling adult beverages. The crowd was loud and growing as the night sky filled with stars. Bly and Streeter blended easily into the crowd because they weren’t wearing their colors. Campground rule; the exception was given only to the Inferno Force. Streeter mentally noted how this rule seemed to have made the atmosphere much less confrontational than a generation ago. But it certainly made it much more difficult to find Mully, not to mention making it impossible to confirm whether or not he had purple wings as the newest patch on his lapel.
The crowd was screaming at a pitch higher than Streeter believed possible for a bunch of old, overweight bikers as the band completed their three-hour show. From Streeter’s perspective as a music critic, all he could say was that he recognized the band’s name and they did a good job of being loud. And the crowd went wild.
Streeter noticed a particularly rowdy group of what looked to be underage teenagers huddled near the back of the crowd at the edge of the parking area, the more able to flee if challenged for being too young. Other than the campers who called the Jump home for the week and who lounged comfortably in lawn chairs or on sleeping bags behind or to the right of the stage, most people there for the entertainment were adults who found a good spot either near the stage or around the beer tent in the masses, rather than huddling along the fence to the parking lot away from the entrance.
Lot’s return to Sodom Page 26