“Remember what we talked about here today!” he shouts after me.
He doesn’t have to add the two words implied to follow…
Or else.
3
Leon
I founded the Union Club because us dock workers have to stick together. Because the bosses want to bleed us dry, and the cops want to make it easy for them to do just that. We keep each other safe together, ride together, live together. And if I mean to keep the cops off the backs of the hard-working men and women who keep this rusty chunk of New Jersey running, I’ve gotta get all of us to work together.
Pushing open the door to The Glass, I step into the smoke-filled bar like it’s closer to home for me than my own bed. In a lot of ways, the rough-looking dive next to the drydock really is. It’s more than just my bar.
It’s our bar.
About a dozen heads turn to look me over as I stride across the faded, worn red carpet, and most of them wear the Union Club’s patches on their backs. They either raise a hand in greeting or their faces split into a grin as a few voices shout greetings across the bar.
“Hey, Prez!”
“Welcome back, Leon.”
“Roy, get our man a beer!”
Even if this weren’t where the Union Club went to unwind and talk over how the suits were trying to fuck us over next, I have something of a reputation around town that gets a degree of respect when I walk into places like this. I’m 6’2” of second-generation Russian clad in denim jeans and a worn, dusty leather jacket emblazoned with all the colors of the most well known bunch of men in town. I’m the leader of this pack of hounds, and I look it. My dark hair is shaved on the sides, and the top of it is spiked and sideswept. My cut jaw is covered in stubble, and my pale green eyes demand attention when they lock onto someone else’s.
I give a friendly smile back to the rugged bunch of bastards and clasp arms with the giant of a man posted up nearest to the entrance. His face is covered in a large black beard that covers his beaming smile and comes to a rest halfway down his portly body, but I know there’s a layer of muscle under all that extra love that could drop a man cold in an instant.
“Missed you today, Genn,” my voice rumbles to my old friend, the club’s Sergeant at Arms. Gennady Filipov, Genn for short, has been my right-hand-man in the Union Club since I founded it, and I couldn’t ask for a better man.
“Heard you had a hell of a weird run-in today, yeah?” he replies as we make our way towards the bar.
The Glass is a safe place to talk business. Probably the safest place in town — it’s our base of operations. The first round of Russian immigrants opened this place and called it the Glasnost. Used to be where all the Russian dock workers who could hardly put together a sentence in English met to talk about how things were going.
But all that’s our parents’ and grandparents’ story, and since we all grew up here, it got shortened to The Glass pretty quickly. A few of the older members allowed to wear the club’s kutte — jackets covered in our patches — still meet up and swap stories in the mother tongue, but most of us, myself included, only have a trace of a Russian accent in our voices.
We’ve never stopped talking over the same things, though.
As I make my way into the place, the old familiar faces greet me, each one of them with a story that brought ‘em here.
We sidle up to the bar, and my bartender Roy already has a couple of cans out for us. I crack open mine with a nod to him and sit down, leaning back on the bar as I look out around the place.
“We had a run-in with an outsider,” I explain as Genn takes a seat beside me, “caught her eavesdropping while me and the boys were finally having a chat with Jack Chandler.”
“The old contractor who’s started cozying up to the cops?”
I nod with a grimace. “Yeah. I think he’s been in their pocket for a while now, and if he has, he’ll know what the pigs have been covering up for a long while.”
Genn’s face started to look more grave, and he took a drink of his beer thoughtfully. “So you’re not giving up on running down John LaBeau’s murderer, are you?”
I shoot him a look. “Genn, if we let them get it in their heads that the Union Club will allow this kind of shit slide under our watch, they’ll walk all over us.”
Gen nods thoughtfully. “No doubt. Just sayin’ it’s a hard search, Prez. Investigators would call it a closed case if they weren’t half as crooked as they are around here.”
I frown. “Anyway, there’s no question she’s an outsider. She took off from the warehouse as soon as we saw her, and she ran straight into one of the cops on our payroll.”
Genn snorted a laugh. “Maybe she just didn’t do her homework.”
One of my eyebrows goes up as I try to read Genn’s expression. “Homework? So you think she sounds like a fed come to keep an eye on us?”
There’s something in Genn’s eye that tells me what he’s about to say before he even opens his mouth. He lowers his voice as he speaks, even though we’re in a bar full of the most loyal men I know. “I dunno about us, Prez, but you…they might have some old loose ends they’re looking to tie up.”
I let out a low murmur and take a drink from my beer. As much as I don’t want to talk about my past, Genn knows me better than anyone else, and he knows what only a handful of the other patch-members know.
A lifetime ago, my Russian heritage was a lot closer to home. I worked for the Bratva. No, I didn’t just work for the Bratva, I killed for them. I was just a kid back then, but I stuck up for the Russian presence around town. The Russian mafia had enemies, and they needed someone who could work swiftly and quietly to do what inevitably needed to be done. It paid well, and the kind of men they had me kill weren’t the kind I’d lose a wink of sleep over.
But something got to me. I still don’t know what it was, but something in me knew I couldn’t keep doing that forever. Some of the more streetwise locals started to know me, started to fear me. I wouldn’t build a career with the people I wanted to protect being afraid. This is my home, and these people are my family, not my victims. So I tried to go straight.
Got a job at these very docks a few years back. Wasn’t glamorous, but it was honest, and best of all, our union was solid. Where the old times were a long and awful history of making sure us Russians at the docks got shit lives for shit pay, the union let us have a voice together. It gave our little community a heartbeat that spoke loud and strong. We all had fair pay, our jobs were protected, and we worked hard to make sure there was enough to go around for everyone. What had long been a neglected back end of New Jersey was starting to shape up, the community felt stronger, and we were going to provide more jobs for honest, hardworking immigrants and their children.
Then corruption from above came down on us like a hammer, all because we dared try to make a fair living for ourselves. The bosses of the old shipping and drydock companies who’d long held our community in a vicegrip got uneasy. Unions have that effect on the fat-cats that mooch off our hard work. So they worked with the feds, lining their pockets until they could trump up some fake allegations of illegal activity — smuggling, larceny, embezzlement, anything they could get their greasy hands to use against us.
The union bust ruined everything. Our best workers got “laid off,” and the old union policies got blamed for it. Men paid by the bosses went around spreading rumors that the union had been smuggling drugs into the community, and incidentally, the cops started turning a blind eye to drug sales from outside the docks to inflate the numbers.
It made my blood boil. Everything we’d worked so hard for was being turned against us. So we did the only thing we could do and banded together, all us dock workers.
So the Union Club was formed, and we’ve been butting heads with the bosses and their minions to keep them off the honest workers that are left. If they won’t allow unions to protect the workers in an official way, we’ll protect them outside the law.
But my past with t
he Bratva has been a liability more often than I like to admit. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if someone got a connection from Washington to come investigate me. I can see the headlines now, “Mobster in hiding exposed, affiliated with former corrupt union!” They’ll do anything to smear common folk in this town.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” I finally answer Genn, “so I want to know who she is, sooner rather than later.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Hard to miss,” I say, and it was true that she’d made a hell of an impression. “Flaming red hair you could spot a mile away. Full lips, high cheekbones, and and a nose that turns up a little at the tip. Blue eyes, bluest eyes I’ve seen in a long time, bright and keen. Whoever she is, I can tell she’s a few notches sharper than most of the cops I’ve seen. But she didn’t identify herself, either — what the fuck kind of game’s she playing?” I shake my head. “Anyway, she was dressed like most of the plain-clothed feds are. Trenchcoat and jeans.”
The bearded man smiles with a chuckle. “Sounds like you were paying attention, Prez.”
I roll my eyes. “Fuck off, Genn.” But even as I say it, I can’t help but realize he’s right. She was fucking hot. I’ve always been a sucker for a woman who can move like that. And there’s something about her that I can’t quite place, nagging at the back of my mind like an old dream, but it doesn’t come to mind.
Genn nods, understanding, and he turns over to a couple of keen-eyed members wearing the club jackets and playing pool in the corner. “Anya, Vasily! The two of you were patrolling out by the I-78 this morning, you see anyone that sounds like what Prez is looking for?”
Vasily blinks in confusion, but Anya had been listening in on the conversation. The two of them were truck drivers for the docks before the union got busted and the bosses decided they could pay immigrant workers a third of their wages.
“Yeah,” said Anya, “I remember someone like that stopping by the same gas station Dmitiri and I were refueling at on her way in. I remember her chatting up the old cashier like they’ve known each other for years.”
“What, are you kiddin’ me?” came Rodya’s voice from behind the bar, looking over at all of us with a look of disbelief. Rodya’s an older guy with a good heart who’s lived through the best and worst times, and he’ll do just about anything for the club, but he’s too laid back to want to earn a kutte. “I’d recognize a gal like that anywhere.”
“Got something to say, Rod?” I ask with an arched eyebrow, and Rod laughs at having the upper hand on local intel for once. It’s always been a friendly rivalry between the two of us, seeing who can keep the better ear out for the locals: the bartender or the club president.
“W-well yeah! I mean, I’d think you recognize her, wouldn’t you?”
I stare at him a moment, then gesture for him to keep talking.
“Shit, Prez,” he goes on, “there’s only one gal who knows anyone in town who looks like that. You’re telling me you really don’t remember Cherry?”
The beer can in my hand nearly falls to the ground, and Genn’s eyes widen as he slowly looks to me. Hell, half the bar does.
“Cherry,” I repeat in disbelief, “Cherry LaBeau.”
Out of all I’ve left behind from my old life, that woman is the one thing I wish I could have back.
“Come on,” Rod says with cheerful reminiscence in his voice, “you think I forget anyone who’s tried to buy a drink from me underaged? When you and her were teens, I remember you strutting in here all tough, trying to order her a whisky sour. You’re the only ones I ever did that for anyway, too, you put on such a good show of it.”
Genn bites back a grin, but I chuckle and give him an elbow in the side nonetheless. Cherry had been someone I knew when I was a teenager around here, it was true. But last I’d heard of Cherry, she’d gone up into the city for bigger and brighter things. Fancy college degree, maybe even a career and a metropolitan apartment. She’d always been the type to want to chase after that.
“Cherry LaBeau,” I repeat again, dumbfounded. “Shit, she didn’t recognize me either. Have we really changed that much?”
Genn gives a warm smile and claps me on the shoulder. “It’s been lifetimes, Prez. Hell, look at me, calling you Prez when I remember you so young you hardly came up past my knee.”
I shake my head before downing the rest of my beer and setting it aside.
“Well that tells me something,” I say, authority in my voice as I address the rest of the bar. Everyone’s already paying attention to me, and I speak to them like the leader I have to be.
“First of all, she’s no cop. The Cherry LaBeau I know doesn’t deal with cops. At least, unless she’s fallen a hell of a long way, and I don’t know about you, but I want to find out what the deal is, got it?”
There’s a rousing cheer of agreement before the club settles down and I keep talking. “And one more thing — she’s got the biggest stake of all in chasing after the truth behind John LaBeau’s death,” I say, my voice lowering to a normal speaking voice.
“Because John was Cherry’s father. And the Union Club never abandons its own.”
“Hell no!” comes the general consensus from the bar, the men and women of the club exchanging confident looks and looking to me with admiration. Half of them look ready to go round up some crooked cops right now, but as I open my mouth to speak again, the door of the bar swings open. My vice-prez, Eva, a woman with short, black hair and a sharp nose, strides in with two other patch-members flanking her. Since the union was an equal opportunity employer, so is the Union Club. Unlike most of the other MCs out there, we allow in women as patch members, and it’s always worked out in our favor.
“Sorry to break up the party, but we’ve got trouble,” she announces, casting a look around the bar as it quiets down before resting her eyes on me.
“Prez, the FBI is back in town.”
4
Cherry
I drive slowly all the way back to town from the coast. Cars pass me every couple of minutes, the drivers glaring back at me like I’m some lunatic for driving under the speed limit. And honestly, any other day I might agree with them. But right now I’m in shock, and I can’t bring myself to drive any faster than thirty-five. My hands have a clawlike vice grip on the steering wheel, and I’m holding on so tightly and rigidly that some part of my brain worries I might end up with carpal tunnel or a sprained wrist. I have to remind myself to blink my eyes every now and then, as I stare glassy-eyed at the road in front of me. I’ve got the Ford rental on cruise control, and my mind is drifting far, far away.
Back to the parking lot miles behind me.
Back to the man with the flashing green eyes and the wicked, damning half-smile.
Something about him awakens a long-buried sentiment deep in my soul, sunken under over a decade of memories. When he grasped my wrists, when he pulled me out of that squad car, I felt a disturbing sense of deja vu. Like he’s done it before.
But that’s insane. I’ve never been anywhere near a situation like this before, and I certainly don’t know who the guy really is. In fact, all I do know about him is that he’s dangerous. He’s got some kind of motorcycle group and he’s got at least one crooked cop on his side. I also know that he is willing to chain a guy to the filthy floor of an abandoned warehouse — and murder scene — to interrogate him mercilessly.
So, no. I don’t think I know him. There’s no way.
But then why does he feel familiar?
It’s not a conscious recognition. More like a soft, subtle stirring of a strained memory from another lifetime, as though he’s stepped into my world from a parallel universe. Like he’s an acquaintance of some other Cherry LaBeau, a version of myself I wouldn’t recognize today.
I drive the Focus into town, intending to head for the hotel to check in, recuperate and change into some different shoes. But after zoning out for a while, lost in my thoughts, I suddenly realize with a startle that I’m not driv
ing toward the hotel. In fact, I’m on the other side of town entirely, en route to a destination I can find on autopilot, even after all these years.
My dad’s old place. My childhood home.
I haven’t been back there since my father’s death. The funeral was held a few days ago, in a church just outside of town. Even after the service, I returned to my hotel room in Newark, not wanting to commit to a night in Bayonne just yet. It was too close. I couldn’t take it.
But today I’m supposed to check into an inn on the west side of town. After all, I didn’t leave New York just to hide out in Newark while the mystery of my father’s death festers and runs cold in my hometown. I force myself to rip my gaze off the road for a second to check the time. Just after half-past-two. Still early in the afternoon. I suppose since my automatic instincts have guided me back toward home — my old home — I might as well oblige them and go ahead.
Driving down the familiar streets, I’m struck by just how little has changed in the time I’ve been away. The same mailbox on the hairpin bend is crooked, leaning at a forty-five degree angle like it always has. I swallow back a lump in my throat when I drive past the tall, majestic silver maple in a vacant, overgrown lot I used to climb as a child. Seeing the lacy white undersides of the leaves triggers instant memories in my head, reminding me of how I used to collect the fallen leaves in early autumn into my pockets and dump them into a massive pile in my front yard, poring over the pretty foliage for hours.
When I drive down the road I lived on with my father, I can’t stop the tears from burning in my eyes. I don’t let them fall just yet, but the urge is definitely building. I haven’t cried at all yet. Not even at the funeral. I think the day of the service, I was still in a state of profound shock. Straight off the train from New York City, I was dressed in my sleekest, slinky black dress and a designer blazer. I was in stark contrast to the working-class attendees, my father’s friends from the industrial side of town, dressed in shabby suits and well-worn shoes. The older women wore outdated, moth-eaten dresses that probably hadn’t seen the light of day since 1995. My professional-grade makeup job made me look like a total fish out of water in comparison to the mostly bare faces filling the pews. Everyone else mourned loudly, unabashedly, unafraid to release their grief and pay their respects, displaying a kind of vulnerability New Yorkers don’t dare embrace.
Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance Page 3