by Nicole Fox
“True enough. I don’t care how it gets done, only that it gets done. These Brass Skulls are starting to really piss me off.”
From the outside, I look like a woman calmly going about the process of searching for her bank card in her purse, tipping it upside down, kneeling down, inspecting it every which way, but inside my bones are cold. The Brass Skulls: Brandon. Brandon shouldn’t even be in the club, let alone involved in some kind of a war. He should be in rehab, or some coloring-therapy session, or something else that is safe and disinfected. Not the dirty, bloody streets.
“If it comes to war, it comes to war,” Gray-Ear goes on. “You lads are young. Maybe you don’t remember when Mr. Ivarsson’s father was in charge. Ivar could barely speak a word of English, but he had this friend who spoke English and Icelandic, and those psychopaths ruled like they’d crawled out of some volcano in Iceland. Why do you think they call him Mr. Ivarsson and not Bjorn? Bjorn is a strong name. Means bear, I think. It’s ’cause he’s got his father’s strength. He’ll stomp out these fuckin’ Skulls, and we’ll be the only MC this side of Austin. Just you wait and see.”
“Listen,” the Kid says. “All I care about is that pink-haired club girl. What’s her name? Talia or some shit. She sucks like a vacuum.”
“How’d you know what a vacuum sucks like, you sick freak?” Dagger mutters.
“Do you know what’s making me real curious, fellas?” Gray-Ear’s voice lowers.
“What’s that?” Dagger replies.
“Why that girl there is taking so damn long with the ATM.”
I look up. All three of them are staring at me. The Kid hops from the hood of the car and walks casually over to me, toying with his cigarette all the while. “Can I help you, miss? It seems to me that my friend here, even if he does look like a skeleton in certain lights, has made a pretty damn fine point. You trying to get that purse off or something?”
My bank card, I say. But no, I don’t. I open my mouth but all that comes out is a pathetic breathy rasp.
I clear my throat. “My bank card. I’m just looking for it.” They don’t look pleased, least of all Dagger, who hovers his hand near his hip. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out he might have a gun there. An idea occurs to me. I stumble toward the wall, collapse against it, and then push myself off and struggle back to an upright position. They watch this performance with smiles or half smiles. “I had some tail-cocks … I mean cocktails in the bar over there, and I wanted to pay my friend back, so I needed cash and now …” I dive into my bag. “Oh, here it is!” I pull out my bank card. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be on my way now.”
Over the Kid’s shoulder, at the very corner of my vision, Emma steps out of the bar. I can’t make out her face from here because the sun is making me squint, but I can imagine it: hell writ across her features.
I make to walk away, but the Kid steps into my path. “Don’t your friend need that cash?” he asks, grinning from ear to ear.
“Sure.” It’s amazing how quick I am now that I have the proper motivation. I get the cash and walk away, hoping I walk tall and slowly and confident instead of scampering away like an insect, though that’s how I feel.
“What the hell was that?” Emma snaps. She adjusts her bag. If all the fury of a person could be put into one movement, it would be that.
“I just … I have an idea, Emma. It’s a crazy idea. If I explained it to you, you might call a doctor. But I think it might work.”
“Maybe I should call the doctor anyway,” she says, squinting and not just because of the sun. “You’re scaring me.”
I smile at her; I bet it looks half crazy, if not completely. “I’m scaring myself.”
Chapter Four
Granite
I ride into town toward one of the Thunder Riders’ bars. The place is called The Mermaid but the carving out front ain’t no Disney shit. It’s a fierce lady with fanged teeth and razorblades tied to her flipper, with breasts the size of beach balls and fuck-me eyes. All in all, it’s a confusing thing to look at and the bar owner has had several complaints from concerned mothers in the neighborhood.
The place is packed wall-to-wall with Thunder Riders and club girls. The club girls interest me most of the time, but since seeing that fine piece in the gun store they don’t compare much. I don’t like this feeling, this funk, this whatever it is. Maybe I need a drink.
“All right, fellas.”
Jax, Dallas, and Michaels sit at the bar. Jax is still playing with that unlit cigarette. Ever since the little bastard quit, he hasn’t stopped playing with them, flipping them over and over his hand like he’s some magician. Dallas stares across the bar calmly, the only sign that he’s feeling anything at all the twitching of his dagger tattoo when he sees a fine lady. Michaels sits hunched over, nursing a whisky, gray strands resting on his shoulder like coiled snakes.
“I could’ve fucked her,” Jax is saying. “Oh, ’sup, Granite.”
“Could’ve fucked who?” I wave to the barman for a drink. He’s an old guy with a milky eye; he knows to give me whisky.
“Just some whore who was so drunk she couldn’t handle the ATM machine.”
“Oh, right.” I take a sip and grab the bottle before he can take it away. Ever since I saw her, goddamn … I’ve gotta break out of this. I can’t let a mood like this come over me. “Let me ask you fellas somethin’. Why is it every tough son of a bitch biker outlaw motherfucker has been giving me eyes like I’m Christ arisen these past few days? A week ago, I’d walk into a room and fellas would say howdy and we’d get down to playin’ some cards. These days I walk in and it’s like I’m the prick with the king-size wheels or somethin’.”
Before anyone else can answer, Dallas’s cold voice cuts through the music. “It is because you did something that no man here could do, so they’re scared of you, Granite.”
“Scared of me for taking out a few punks from a strip club?”
“No. For the way you did it. We’ve taken men out before, but not like that. How many were there?”
Michaels says, “Fifteen, twenty. Nobody knows for sure, only that it was a whole lot.”
“And you took them all out with one magazine of an AK-47.” Jax is almost leaping up and down. “That’s something. That’s really something. I don’t care what anyone says, a man goes in with an AK-47 and leaves fifteen bodies behind, that’s one tough son of a bitch.”
“Fifteen men …” I smile to myself. It was actually five men and I used three magazines to take ’em out, which is impressive enough if you ask me. But if we didn’t exaggerate our stories we’d have nothing to talk about on nights like these.
“What is it like?” Jax asks. The kid’s clearly drunk. He’s got those wavy eyes. “Killing a man, I mean.”
Michaels snorts and Dagger lets out a shaky breath. “Stop asking people that fucking question,” Dagger mutters. “Nobody wants to be asked a question like that.”
“If you want to know what it’s like so badly, why’nt you pop your cherry?” Michaels grunts.
Those green eyes, man, those wide green eyes, and that tight body, and the way she had of looking around like everything was new and exciting, and there wasn’t a hint of the club girl in her, the look that club girls have on their faces like they’ll do anything just to see what it feels like; they can be yours for a night but they’ll never taste loyalty, can’t help it. It’s not why the fellas pick them. But this lady, and she was a real lady—
“Granite?” Jax is backing away.
That’s when I realize I’ve crushed the whisky glass in my hand, whisky and blood mixing together on the counter. The barman rushes over and cleans up. He hands me a towel and I wrap it around my cut hand. “I guess my thoughts were someplace else, fellas.”
“Stop asking him stupid questions,” Michaels snaps, slapping Jax around the back of the head the same way he’d slap his grandson. “A man comes to a bar to relax and grab himself a lady, not to—”
“No,” I i
nterrupt, feeling mean. “I can tell him if he really wants to know. Come here, lad.”
He walks over to me tentatively.
I dart my hand out and grab his shirt, bringing my face close to his. “Think of the worst blackout drunk night you’ve ever had, the worse fuckin’ night, where you wake up and you can’t remember a goddamn thing about the night before. Think about that feeling when you wake up. You know the feeling. When you’re wondering what you did, who you did it to. Some horrible thoughts go through your mind in that moment, don’t they, kid? You start wondering if it’s in you to rape a woman, to kill a child. Hell, anything’s possible, right? You weren’t even there. So the shame hits you, shame for shit you didn’t even do, ’cause you believe you did it. And now try’n imagine that feeling a hundredfold, stacked on your shoulders every waking second of your life; and even when you sleep, it chases you into your dreams. That’s what it’s like to kill a man.”
Only I don’t say any of that, I just think it, try to make myself say it, and then eventually just shove Jax away and let out a boisterous laugh that’s meant to cover up my embarrassment. I came too close then to sharing something I ought never to share.
“It’s like farting, kid. The fuck you want from me?”
I laugh again and Michaels and Dagger laugh, even though both of them are looking at me with their heads tilted too.
“I need a woman,” I announce, leaving them before they can say anything else.
That’s a half-truth right there, needing a woman. What I need is that lady from the gun store, but a man has to learn to do without what he needs if he’s going to stay sane. So I’ll just force myself to get with a club girl, lose myself in the pleasure of it for a night. Maybe it’ll help me forget. I spot one at the bar, hair dyed bleach blonde, a silver ring through her nose, a stud in her eyebrow, and another stud in her lip. Her neck is covered in tattoos, just like mine, and she’s wearing a strip of cloth that might be called a dress and another strip that might be called a top.
“Howdy,” I say, smiling at her, striving to turn on the charm.
She glances at me for a moment, then her eyes narrow, then her mouth falls open. “You’re Granite,” she says. “The Granite.”
“I’m Granite,” I agree. “Why don’t we go find a table?”
She nods quickly.
We sit at a table in the corner where the music is quieter. I have a view of the whole place from here, since the table is up a small set of stairs. Bikers and club girls dancing—or bikers doing their best at dancing—a few kissing, a few doing more than kissing. A couple of fellas square up to each other. When people open the door to go out to smoke or to come in from smoking, a haze follows them, and after that a slice of sunlight.
I sip my whisky.
“… so I said to her, ‘You can’t talk to me like that, you little bitch.’ She looked all surprised, right, like she thought she could go around calling girls whores and nothing bad would ever happen to her. She had a real stupid look on her face.”
“Let me ask you something.” The whisky is hitting me now. “If I told you to come into the toilet with me and bend over the stool and let me fuck you right there, what’d you say?”
She flutters her eyelashes like I’ve just recited a sonnet. “Well, it depends on how nicely you asked.”
“Don’t that—I don’t know—don’t that seem a little dirty to you? Wouldn’t you feel like you needed to go home and shower after a thing like that?”
“No,” she answers at once. “Not with you, Granite.”
“I reckon I would, too, if it weren’t for …” I don’t finish the sentence, not even the thought. I’m being a rude asshole, is the truth of it, but I can’t seem to stop. “I’m just wondering what we want to happen with a thing like that. What do we think we’re gonna feel afterward? Happy?”
“Happy?” She giggles. “Who cares about happy when you can have horny?”
She places her hand on my leg under the table. She’ll slide it up now, right to my cock. But I don’t want that.
I move away from her. “Why’nt you go find another man tonight, doll? I’m tired.”
“Wow.” She leans back, hands raised, mouth an O. “So you invite me over here and then tell me to leave before offering me a drink?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “That’s about the size of it. I know. Don’t tell me. Men are such jerks.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth!” she snaps, leaping to her feet and making for the dance floor.
I sit back a while, letting the whisky do its work on me. Then she walks in, only she doesn’t look like she did earlier. She’s dressed all in black; she’s even wearing gloves. And her long, styled hair is stuffed under a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. There’s no mistaking that body, though, even if it is covered up. And there’s no mistaking those green eyes even if they are hidden in shadow. It’s the lady from the gun store. Goddamn, it’s her.
I make my way slowly through the bar, wondering what the hell she’s doing coming to a place like this. I follow close by her, but I don’t approach her, just watch to see what type of game she’s playing. She stands at a relatively empty section of the bar and leans over to talk to the milky-eyed barman.
“Excuse me,” she says, and that gives her away right there. Nobody in this place talks like that. “I was wondering if you could put me in charge of a higher-up in the Thunder Riders motorcycle club? It doesn’t have to be the big boss—what do they call him? President? Chief?—just someone who can give me some information.”
Is she a cop? The thought hits me like a thump to the chest. I push away how I feel lookin’ at her and use my outlaw thinking instead. When an outlaw sees someone acting shifty, the likelihood is that the person’s a cop. It’s so likely that most outlaws don’t even bother trying to think of other explanations. But would a cop act so fuckin’ stupid? Would a cop really just stroll into this place and start asking questions? I wouldn’t put it past them, but this is really something else. Plus, we’ve got a relationship with the cops in these parts. Maybe a reporter, then?
“I can’t help you with that,” the barman says. “And if you want my advice, missy, you shouldn’t be here asking questions. It’s not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. Why’nt you get going before something bad happens? Now, now, that’s not a threat, just a reality of life.”
She leaves soon after, looking shaken, as she ought to look. I don’t give it much thought. I follow her out into the evening sun: bruised, red, like the way I’m feeling right about now.
Then I climb on my bike and ride after her.
Chapter Five
Allison
It’s not the first time Emma has shown up at my house and I doubt it will be the last, but this evening all I want to do is go in and do some online research about these motorcycle clubs, try to find a way to enact my plan without somebody hovering over me. But when I see her face set in that grim look of determination, I know that arguing with her will be futile.
She offers me a smile, but she can’t hide the way her lips quiver trying to break into a scowl. “Hey,” she says. “Want a coffee?”
“At nine o’clock? Believe it or not, I actually have a couple of hours of work tomorrow.”
She looks up at my house: rickety in places with chipped paint and a general neglected look about it, but functionally okay. “You know, if money is ever a problem …”
“Luckily Mom owned this place, so I don’t need much to get by. Thanks for the offer, though.”
We stand at the front door for a while, just staring at each other. The unspoken assumption is that I will invite her in and the unspoken understanding is that I don’t want to invite her in. But that stare is impossible to withstand without withering, so I open the door and wave her inside. Not that I need to wave her in; she’s through the door the moment I open it an inch, as if afraid I might slam it on her.
She goes to the kitchen and busies herself with the coffee. “Shall I make you
decaf?”
“Sure,” I say. My laptop rests on the coffee table, tempting me. But I can’t exactly research motorcycle clubs with Emma hanging over me.
She brings the coffee into living room and sits on the couch, legs folded. “So,” she says, sipping slowly. She’s using her we-need-to-talk voice, the one she used when she found out I’d gotten wasted ten days in a row after Mom died. I can’t turn away from that voice completely because it brought me back from the edge, but that doesn’t mean I like it. “Are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?” She nods at me. “That isn’t exactly your regular style.”
“I didn’t realize I had a regular style.” The coffee is black and bitter, the way Emma likes it. I wonder if I’m being too paranoid by thinking she made it this way on purpose as a spiteful punishment. “I normally just throw on whatever I feel like.”