by Jessie Cooke
When they were about five minutes out, Blackheart pulled over to the side of the road. He motioned to the others to stop, and Le Singe and their SA Le Plant stopped next to him. “I’m going to text Lowlife now. We have to time this just right...the shop closes in half an hour for their lunch break. I know they lock it up tight from one to three every day and they head up to the club for lunch. Only problem will be that the place will also be full of the old ladies and sweet butts serving it up to them, and maybe some kids. So, once the civilian traffic is cleared out of the shop and it’s locked up tight, I’m going to send Lowlife and the boys in quietly to cover the doors and windows in that clubhouse. I don’t want this asshole getting away. Then, we’ll go in loud and heavy, through the front door. But I don’t want a shot fired before the women and children are out of there, unless we’re forced into it.” The men nodded and he said, “Big Mickey and Tiny can take the kids and girls up to the shop, just remind them to check those women for cell phones and weapons. Lear’s crazy Cajun old lady will kill one of us without batting one of those ridiculous fake eyelashes she wears, got it?”
Lear’s old lady was someone Blackheart had known his entire life. Her name was Lovelie, after her Haitian grandma, but she went by Love, which once you got to know her, you knew was a wild misnomer. “Love” was a wild kid in the basin, and an even wilder teen. She wasn’t an attractive woman either. She had shoulders that would make any linebacker proud and a tendency to grow hair on her upper lip. But Blackheart had gotten drunk enough to fuck her one night when Sally was away at college, and the next day Love had shown back up, looking for another. When he told her it wasn’t going to happen, she literally freaked out. He had to have her carried off the property...and that wasn’t the end of it. She broke in while he was sleeping one night and threatened him with a gun, she broke a whiskey bottle another night and cut his belly...he still had the scar to prove that one. Luckily, by the time Sal got back from college, Love had met Lear and it was a love story made in hell. They’d been together now for over thirty years and it was another reason Blackheart had no respect for the other man...anyone who could tolerate Love for thirty-plus years had to be the devil himself. He didn’t trust Love as far as he could pick her up and throw her so he reiterated again, “Seriously, make sure they know what a crazy, unpredictable bitch she is.” Most of his guys knew that already, but he didn’t want them underestimating her just because she was a woman. If she could, she’d run her own MC, and Blackheart didn’t doubt that she probably ran the Mad Men already, just from behind the scenes.
“Got it, boss,” Le Pirate said.
“Once the girls and kids are out, I’ll tell Lear and Newton how it’s going to be. We’re taking Gregor and I don’t want to see another Mad Men kutte anywhere in Jefferson Parish again because the next time Gregor won’t be the only one who bleeds.”
“You got it, boss,” Le Singe said; he was already motioning to Big Mickey and Le Pirate got on the phone to pass the plan on to their road captain Lowlife and the three prospects with him. Then they would wait, and once they got a text back that the shop was closed and the civilians were out of there, that’s when they’d roll again, right up to the front door of that club. Blackheart sat on his bike silently, thinking again about what Gregor and his friends had done to Sharon, feeling sick to his stomach with rage and realizing that although waiting to get his hands on him was hard, the hardest part would be stopping short of killing him when he did. Whether or not he succeeded at stopping short still remained to be seen.
10
By the time they got to the Mad Men’s little compound, the shop was closed up tight, just like the text from Lowlife told them it would be. The second they were close enough for their engines to be heard, Lowlife and the prospects entered from the back, guns drawn. Blackheart and the rest of the men rolled up out front in time to take the front door. A few of the Mad Men, Lear’s SAs and two of his enforcers, had their guns drawn as well, but no one had fired a shot...yet.
“What the fuck is this?” Lear asked, as soon as he saw Blackheart. Blackheart’s blue eyes scanned the room, landing on several young women and one little boy about nine years old. He looked at Lear and said:
“Big Mickey here is going to take your women and children up to the shop so we can talk. You’re welcome to send one of your men up with them...anyone but the one you call Gregor.” Blackheart hadn’t known what Gregor looked like, but as soon as he said the name he heard the sound of a glass being set down hard on top of the bar and suddenly he was looking at the piece of shit who had caused all of this trouble. He was mid-thirties, maybe. It was hard to tell because of all the hair on his face. His tats ran up from underneath his t-shirt and kutte to just under his chin and one side of his long hair was shaved and there was a tattoo on the side of his head, a cartoon man that looked like Yosemite Sam, the Mad Men logo.
“This is my house,” Lear said. “Who the fuck you Cajun bastards think you are, rolling up in here giving orders?”
“We can do this without clearing out the women and kids, if that’s what you want,” Blackheart said. Lear glanced around the room. One of the girls had stepped up behind the boy and had her arms around him. The poor kid looked scared, and Blackheart’s chest hurt looking at the little boy’s wide, brown eyes. He was banking on Lear being human, and suddenly worrying that he’d made a mistake.
Lear looked at his VP and they seemed to communicate something in their eyes before Newton said, “Rizer! Take the girls and the kid up to the shop and lock it down tight.” Newton looked at Big Mickey then and still talking to Rizer he said, “These fuckers stay outside. If they put a hand on anyone, shoot them, between the eyes.” Big Mickey didn’t flinch. He waited for the three women and the boy to be rounded up by “Rizer” and then tossed his head at Tiny. They were all almost to the door when Blackheart said:
“Where’s Love?”
Lear chuckled. “You worried my old lady’s gonna show up and take your fucking Cajun ass out?”
“Where is she?”
“She ain’t here. She went back to the house a few hours ago.” Blackheart looked at one of the prospects, a young guy they called Buck.
“Last house at the end of the road on the right. Make sure she’s there.” Lear started to stand up, but Lowlife was behind him with his gun suddenly pressed to the president’s head. Every other gun in the place was suddenly either on Lowlife or Lear, depending on whose colors they were wearing.
“Leave my old lady out of this,” Lear said.
“He won’t touch her, as long as she behaves.” He nodded at Buck and said, “Just make sure she stays put.”
Buck took off then and seconds later they heard the rumble of his Harley. When the noise died down Lear said, “What the fuck do you want?” There were about seven Mad Men in the club to the Jokers’ half a dozen, but with Big Mickey and Tiny up at the shop with their women and Buck on Love, Lear had enough sense to know that if bullets started flying, his club would easily be wiped out by half in seconds...its two leaders included.
“Gregor,” Blackheart said. “I want that piece of shit, the one you allow to go around beating and raping women.”
Lear frowned and looked over at Gregor. Can he possibly not know what his men have done? Blackheart’s guys weren’t always well-behaved, but he damned sure knew when he had a monster in his midst and as soon as he did, that kutte was gone...and more often than not, the monster ended up in the ashes alongside of it. “What’s he talking about?” Lear asked Gregor. The ugly biker scowled at Blackheart and then looking back at his president he said:
“Same bullshit as those little fuckers that beat up Pinky and tried to take out Sam and Gouda at that bar a few weeks ago were trying to say. One of their little bitches got herself fucked up and she’s pointing fingers at us. Bunch of bullshit.” Le Singe took a step toward Gregor but a simple hand motion from his president stopped him. If they did this right, they could get out of there with Gregor in tow and no
shots fired, and that was how Blackheart wanted it. He could tell by the look on Lear’s face, that’s what he was hoping too.
“What’s she saying they did?” Lear asked.
Blackheart didn’t answer him, instead he took out his phone and pulled up a photo. He handed it to Le Pirate who carried it, guns all trained on him, over to Lear. He held it out and Blackheart watched Lear’s face when he looked at it, and the other man didn’t so much as flinch. Instead he looked at Blackheart and said, “A picture can tell a thousand different stories.”
“I’ll tell you the true one,” Blackheart said. “This young lady got off her shift at the club and was on her way home, to her babies. One of your asshole men, the one called Pinky, had come on to her earlier in the evening and she’d turned him down. Him and three of his friends, Gregor, Sam, and Gouda, were waiting for her and tried to follow her home. This young lady is smart, and she realized she was being followed before she led them to her house where another young lady was babysitting her two eight-year-old children. She stopped at the end of the street and sent a text to her boyfriend, one of my guys. He was over an hour away. By the time he got there, she’d all but crawled up the street to her home and he found her on the front porch, like that,” he said, nodding at the phone with the picture on it again. It was a pitiful sight: Sharon, bloody and beaten, her clothes torn nearly completely off, and her hair matted to her head with blood. She’d been the one who had made Chance take it. Sharon was a sweet, almost meek little thing, but she wanted the men that did that to her dead. She remembered the names on each one of their kuttes and she could even give a description of their “ugly faces and tiny dicks.” “She’d been beaten and raped all in the space of about twenty minutes...” Blackheart went on, “My boy let that fucker Pinky live, and the other two got off easy the night they were arrested. But this monster, he’s coming with us, and if you’re smart, you won’t come looking for him.”
“You don’t believe...” Gregor started. Lear put his hand up, and the other man stopped talking.
“I ain’t seen Pinky in weeks,” Lear said.
“Good, hope he died where they left him,” Blackheart said, and meant it.
Lear’s eye twitched but he kept the impassive face as he asked, “If Pinky started all this, why let him live and come in here after Gregor, guns blazing?”
“This piece of shit raped her, and last night he had another girl, out at Manchac. You might want to ask around if any of your sweet butts are missing because there’s no telling what happened to her before this asshole used a pipe to beat this young lady’s boyfriend in the head and leave him for dead.” Blackheart wasn’t about to tell these fuckers that Gregor had also gotten Sharon pregnant. That was for her and Chance to figure out, and she had enough problems without one of these fuckers thinking they had some kind of rights to that baby. Lear looked at Gregor again and he said:
“I was with Luna, and she’s fine, boss, you can ask her. That fucker, little preppy-looking blond kid followed me. He was going to attack me, I just defended myself. I could have shot the little pussy, but I didn’t. It was a fair fight...”
“Fucking bullshit,” Blackheart said. “The cops there when the ambulance picked him up said he’d been hit across the back of his head first. Once he was down, he got hit again, two or three times in the face. It was a blitz attack and he didn’t have any chance to defend himself.”
“Pretty boy won’t go looking for a fight alone again, will he?” Gregor said, with a smile. Blackheart had had a glimpse of what that pipe must have felt like, landing up against Chance’s skull. Last time he’d spoken to someone at the hospital, he hadn’t regained consciousness yet and they weren’t even sure he ever would. As much as Blackheart wanted to pull the trigger on his .45 at that moment and watch the asshole’s head explode, he knew how to be patient.
However, he might have thought through bringing one of his newest prospects, a kid that Chance had brought in, taken off the streets and given a place to live and three hot meals a day...something Blackheart doubted the kid had in a long time, if ever. His name was Brian but they called him “Brain” because despite his life on the streets, the kid was a mathematical genius. He also seemed like a pacifist and sometimes Blackheart worried that he wasn’t going to be cut out for their life. Now Brain changed that opinion and started one hell of a fight in the span of about two seconds. The smile that spread across Gregor’s face was suddenly replaced by one of horror when the pool ball that came flying across the room hit him in the back of the head. His eyes bulged out and he let out something between a grunt and a scream before falling forward into the bar. One of the Mad Men lunged for Brain and Lowlife struck him in the back with a pool stick...and the fight was on. The men who had their guns out kept them leveled on the pile of bodies, but no one from either side seemed to know who to aim at. The rest of them, excluding Blackheart, Lear, and Newton, were using their fists, pool balls, alcohol bottles, and whatever else lay close by to pummel each other. Blood and sweat soaked the floor before Lear finally took out his own pistol, aimed it at the roof, and pulled the trigger. At the sound of the gunshot everyone froze. Men with bloody noses and swollen lips, cut eyes and bloody knuckles all stopped what they were doing and for a few seconds you could have heard a pin drop in the room before Lear said:
“Take him, but hear me, Blackheart, when I say that I don’t want to see a Joker kutte anywhere near my club in the future.”
Blackheart chuckled. “You keep your boys on your own side of the border. You know if it comes down to a war, you won’t survive us.”
“I’m doing you a favor here,” Lear said. “Take him.” The looks on the faces of some of his men were shocked that he’d just let the Jokers come in and demand Gregor, and he’d give him up, without a fight. Blackheart would never let that happen. He dealt with what needed to be dealt with himself when it came to his men. But he had known Lear wouldn’t sacrifice the rest of his club for one man, especially a man who would beat and rape a woman. If he did that, and lived through it, he’d have his own old lady to answer to because for all her faults, Love was a fierce protector of the young women who came through that club, and Blackheart could only guess that was why men like Gregor came across the border and looked elsewhere for the women they thought they could abuse, and get away with it.
11
“I think there’s some guy following me,” Patrice said, ducking into Gabe’s room. He’d been in the hospital for over twenty-four hours. They hadn’t let him see Chance and the last Patrice had told him, his friend was still unconscious. He’d gotten a call from Blackheart, checking on him, but he hadn’t seen any of his brothers, which was strange. When he had gotten shot, Blackheart had someone at the hospital watching him 24/7. He wondered what they were so busy with, and he was so afraid they were taking care of the man who had done this to Chance without him that if he could get up and walk, he would have left by now.
He pushed up in the bed and tried to throw his legs over the side. Suppressing a groan he said, “Someone’s following you?”
“Don’t try to get up. It’s okay...I think it’s one of you...I mean, a Joker. I mean, I know it is, but I’m not positive he’s following me...shit, lie back down, I’m fine. I just keep seeing this guy. Yesterday he was here in the hospital and on my way home last night I’m pretty sure I saw a Harley following me. Then first thing this morning I stopped at my usual coffee place and when I came out, he was sitting there on his bike across the street. It’s a little creepy, but I don’t think he wants to hurt me. He’s had plenty of opportunity if he did.”
“What’s he look like?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know...young, I guess, maybe your age. He’s got dark hair and he wears it in a ponytail, and he has a little mustache, almost like Blackheart’s, but no beard.”
“He wearing a prospect patch?”
She shrugged again and chuckled. “Hell, Gabe, I don’t even really know what a prospect is.”
He winked at her and said, “I’ll teach you,” before reaching for the burner phone beside the bed and pressing in Blackheart’s number. When his president didn’t answer, he tried Le Singe. Getting frustrated when he didn’t answer either, he called Lowlife...and then finally one of the prospects that Chance had sort of “adopted,” a kid they called “Brain.”
“Yeah?”
“Brain? It’s Gabe.”
“Hey, buddy! How are you?”
“I’m okay. Need the fuck outta here. Hey, who’s following my girl?” As soon as the words “my girl” came out of his mouth, he felt his face go hot. He looked over at Patrice though and she smiled.
“Limp Bizkit is on her, the boss told him to keep her in his sights.”
Gabe breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been pretty sure it was someone like that who Patrice was describing and that Blackheart undoubtedly had someone protecting her, but just thinking about anyone doing to Patrice what they’d done to Sharon made the bile rise up in the back of his throat. “Thanks, bro.”
“Sure. Any idea how Chance is doing? Last the boss told us he was still unconscious.”
“Yeah, he’s still sleeping,” Gabe said. “Sleeping” sounded better than unconscious, less permanent. “Anything else going on that I need to know about?”
He could almost hear the smile in his friend’s voice when he said, “I knocked Gregor out with a cue ball.” That made his day.
12
Three Days Later
“Fucking finally,” Gabe said, signing the final discharge paper that would get him sprung from the hospital. The nurse having him sign the papers was older and she gave him a disapproving look. He didn’t care. The nurse he wanted was just outside his room, getting a wheelchair to take him downstairs and out to her car, but first she’d take him by to see Chance. Blackheart had been in the day before and told him that Chance was awake. He’d sent Patrice to see about him later that day himself and she’d read Chance’s chart. She said that the reports on his brain function were good, and although he wasn’t having an easy time of it, he was talking. Gabe was happy about that, but he still had to see for himself. He had so much guilt over not being there, kicking himself in the ass for taking so long to find his brother.