“A choice suggests you might let me live.” Connor’s eyes are swollen yet manage to convey a glimmer of hope.
Beef shrugs. “Maybe.” He waves toward the broken body on the bed. “I’d bet good money if whoever did this to you finds out you’re alive, you wouldn’t be that way for much longer. You tell us everything, we find it to our satisfaction, then you have the option to start over. A clean slate because Connor Foster is dead.”
He frowns and stares at the VP as if trying to process the words he’s heard and clearly wondering about the implications. “I’m dead?” The lines etched on his forehead deepen. “I could start afresh?”
“Being dead gives you certain freedoms. But you’ll be dead for real if you don’t talk. This is my promise to you, Connor. We won’t make fiction fact unless your answers aren’t anything but the truth.” I step up closer to him, flexing my hands.
His swollen eyes close as he thinks. “If I were alive, they’d kill me for speaking to you. But if they think I’m dead, they won’t know I’m telling you anything.” Some of the tension in his face seeps away. “You said, I could start again somewhere new. Why would you do that for me?” He seems disbelieving, and his face tightens again. “From here it seems like you’ve done me a favour. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to kill me once I’ve told you everything I know?”
I chuckle. “Probably, yes. I can oblige if you prefer. Could still be the outcome if you don’t give us everything we need.”
He presses back into the pillows as though trying to get further away from me. “What I don’t understand, is why you’re involved?” he says after a moment. “Why were you at the warehouse? Why did you bring me out? Why did you let them think I was dead?” His brow furrows. “How you knew who I was when you found me? If you were after the drugs, there weren’t any there. But why would you be? You’re wearing Satan’s Devils’ cuts, but everyone knows Satan’s Devils aren’t in the drug business.” He sounds puzzled.
“Which was why you were dealing around our premises,” I put in. “Because we don’t touch heroin or anything else.”
“No, man. Not me. I wasn’t dealing. Never have, never will.”
My eyes narrow as I look at Beef. It dawns on me, Connor probably has no idea what went down Saturday night. Oh, he knows he asked Beth to deliver the drugs, but he doesn’t seem to know the outcome.
“What’s your relationship to Fender Childs?” Beef asks. I’m content to leave the questioning to the VP. I’m just here to enforce any answers which aren’t forthcoming.
“I haven’t one.”
I start to mentally prepare myself, certain he’s already lying.
“But you know him?” Beef probes.
Connor shrugs. “Met him. Why?”
Suddenly Beef is off the chair and diving forward so his impressive hands land on the bed either side of Connor. “Because that’s who you fuckin’ told your sister to deliver drugs to.”
“Beth? What’s she…” His eyes narrow. “That fuckin’ boyfriend of hers. He’s a Devil. He’s behind this, isn’t he? She went to you when I told her not to.” His eyes close then open. “No wonder they went so hard on me. I thought they’d ease off once I’d done what they asked, but no…” He grimaces. “Look, I was in trouble. I had to ask her. They… well, you can see what they were doing to me. Told me they’d kill me if I didn’t get the drugs delivered. I just knew a place and time, I didn’t know who’d be there waiting.”
“You haven’t even asked if your sister is alright,” Beef snarls.
Connor tries to sit up, not easy when he’s caged in by Beef. “The fact they darn near killed me suggests she’s alright. That she went to you and didn’t go to the meet.” His face falls like that of a little boy. “She didn’t care what happened to me.”
“She fuckin’ cared,” Beef roars back. “Though why she’d care about a piece of shit that got her involved in this business, I’ve no fuckin’ idea.” He pauses, glances at me for an instant and I see him shudder as he tries to get a grip on himself before turning back. “What if I told you the person delivering the drugs and Fender Childs have both been arrested?”
Even if there was a million dollars at stake, I wouldn’t have been able to predict Connor’s reaction. As far as he knows, Beef has just told him his sister had been arrested. Instead of horror, instead of regret, Connor… smiles.
Beef’s face glows, his shoulders straighten. He leans even closer. “What type of fuckin’ man are you? Getting a woman to do your dirty work for you? You might not think much of us, but we’d never, ever, put an innocent woman in the position of being hurt. Or arrested.”
“She’s been arrested?” Connor still doesn’t look upset. “She’ll be okay.”
“Okay?” Beef roars. “Fuckin’ okay? The person found with drugs on them is looking at thirty-plus years for possession with intent to supply.”
Connor frowns. He scurries up the bed as far as he can to get away from Beef. His groan of pain as he moves doesn’t affect me at all. “Look, it’s bad timing. That’s all. She must have gotten bail, first offence and all that?”
“First offence counts for fuck all in these cases. No bail.”
Beef’s not admitting it’s not his sister who’s locked up. Not yet. I’ll leave it to him to decide when or whether to enlighten him. Would it make Connor clam up if he knew just exactly what our vested interest in this was?
“What day is it?” he suddenly asks. I realise he’s been out of it for a while.
“Tuesday,” Beef replies. “You’ve been here since Sunday night.”
“I can sort it in a few days.” Connor looks hopeful. “She’s just got to hang on until the weekend. It will be fine,” he adds, sounding like he’s trying to convince himself.
“Ever been inside, Connor?” I ask, unable to hold back anymore.
He shakes his head.
Beef stands up straight. His hands clench, and for a moment I wonder if he’s going to step into my role. “Thing is, Con, whether who you’ve gotten locked up will be fine, or whether it’s okay for them to hang on a few days, isn’t for you to decide. You see, we knew there was a SWAT team standing by that night. It was our fuckin’ premises that you and your friends were targeting. We wanted to make fuckin’ sure the cops caught whoever was there, and if they didn’t, we wanted to get our hands on them ourselves. My brother, Ink, saw Beth. Saw she was walking straight into a trap. He swapped places with her, and it’s him who’s fuckin’ inside.”
Connor’s mouth forms an O as he processes this new information and its implications.
Beef gives him a moment, then says in a deceptively casual tone, “So tell me, why shouldn’t we kill you?”
“Because I can help you get your man out,” Connor says fast.
Beef’s jaw drops. “How the fuck do you think you can do that?”
Christ, he’s a cocky little bastard. Or is he thinking he can swap information for Ink’s freedom? Not sure that would work. Not without dropping everyone, including Beth, in it.
I wait for Connor to answer Beef’s question. He swallows a couple of times and rubs his neck. “Look, I’ll tell you everything. But first, man, can I have a beer? My throat is parched.”
Pushing himself up, Beef lurches away from the bed and goes to the wall and starts banging his hand against it. The sight would be comical were it not that I share his frustration. Connor thinks he holds the key to getting Ink out but squeezing blood out of a stone would probably be easier than getting the words out of him.
I go to Beef’s side. “Want me to kill him?” I ask, casually.
Beef huffs a laugh and offers a heartfelt response, “Yeah.” Then his head shakes. “Get him his fuckin’ beer.”
Taking out my phone, I shoot off a quick text, then turn to the man on the bed. “You okay to drink with the painkillers you’re on?” I don’t really care, I just don’t want him comatose and unable to talk.
Connor gives me a sly look. “Can’t hurt if I’m alrea
dy dead.”
It’s hard to argue against that.
It’s not more than a couple of minutes before there’s a knock on the door. On the other side is Karl with three bottles. Opening one, I pass the others to Beef and Connor. The latter takes a long drink, then sighs and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Was a moment when I didn’t think I’d taste that again,” he says, looking almost adoringly at the bottle he’s holding.
“Our brother might not,” Beef reminds him tersely.
Connor shifts, clearly trying to get comfortable, I don’t offer to help. He takes another, smaller sip, swallows, then starts, “I’d lived with Mom and Beth all my life. Mom was always on at me to do well at school, to go to college and get a good job. Beth was held up as a shining example, but what did she do? Work for the government offices in town. Sounded boring as hell to me.”
“There a point to this history lesson?” Beef asks.
He nods. “Yeah. About six years ago I set out to find my dad. Wasn’t hard, Mom didn’t try to hide him from me. Dear Phil didn’t want the bother of raising a child, but a kid nearly grown into a man? Now that he could work with. He didn’t live a boring life, he had money, knew people. Well, it sucked me in. When I was eighteen, I moved in with him.”
“And worked with him?”
I lean back against the wall, content to listen and let Beef do the prompting.
“For him, yeah. I’m tall, could do with muscling up a bit but he could use what I was.” He tries to laugh at himself, but bursts into a fit of coughing which obviously pains his broken ribs.
It’s a few seconds before he summons up the strength to speak again. Although both the VP and I are anxious to move this along, it’s clear he’s going to go at his own pace.
“At first, I was working in one of his clubs. Got a job as assistant manager, fuck knows why. Nepotism at its best. But I was too young to realise I was there in name only, the manager used to put me on the right track and clear up any mess I created. All I could see was at eighteen I’d stepped into a job I’d never have gotten back in Pueblo. I felt important to him, more so than I ever did with my mom.”
“He was proud to have you as his son?”
“Nah. We never had that kind of relationship. Anyway, stuck that out for a couple of years, then I tried flexing my muscles and fucked up. Lost him one of his best employees. That’s when I saw his other side, but hey, I deserved it.”
“He hurt you?”
“No. But I lost my job in the club and my rank in his organisation. I’d have done anything to get that and his respect back. And I did. I took on anything. That’s when he got me working his protection racket.”
“You enjoyed that shit?”
“Hell no. But hey, he was offering a service and expected to get paid.” His brow creases. “The women with kids were the worst. Hated taking whatever they had.” His face twists as he remembers. “But I still gave my dad a pass. He was a successful businessman, and for a while, I wanted to be just like him. Until I found out what else he was into.”
“Drugs?”
Connor nods at the VP. “Yeah. He was feeding people’s habits. Worse than that, getting them hooked in the first place. One of the things he’d do was send a man into a student party, passing around free shit. Made sure they knew where to come to when they wanted more. Cheap at first, then the price increased. I came across that by accident, heard a meeting where they planned getting into one of the parties. Start them young, I heard, then you’ve got customers for life.”
“Did you confront him?” I ask, wondering if that’s why he’d gotten such a beating.
“No. I wasn’t that brave. By then I’d learned what happened to people who crossed him. I kept my head down and started making my own plans to get out. Despite everything, he wasn’t paying me much, certainly not enough to break out on my own. I couldn’t go home to Mom with my tail between my legs, so I stuck it out. I think he wanted a son he could groom to take after him, but I wasn’t made of the same stuff. But I was useful, hey, I’m big and intimidating.”
“So what fuckin’ happened, Connor? How did you end up like this?”
“I got arrested. Went to collect a debt, neighbour called the cops. They got me on a felony assault charge.”
Beef’s lips press together. “You said you hadn’t been inside. What did you do, make some kind of deal?”
Connor looks at us as if to check how we’re going to take what next comes out of his mouth. “Yes. They offered one and I accepted, it was the escape route I’d been looking for. Drugs were flooding Denver. They suspected my father was playing a part in it, and that he was branching out to other towns. Letting a violent man remain free was apparently nothing compared to the bigger picture.”
“Like Pueblo?”
He nods.
“Where does Alder come in?” Beef asks.
“You know about Alder?” Connor’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t ask how. “Well Phil runs the drug trade on the ground. Alder’s the man at the top of the food chain. He organises the buys. Phil takes it from there, moves it on down. He runs the dealers and makes sure they’re supplied.”
“Your Dad know about this?” Beef waves at Connor’s broken body.
“Yeah.” Again, Connor’s mouth twists. “He was there when Alder ordered it.”
Beef and I exchange glances. I signal I want to ask a question myself, and Beef steps back.
“Why put the drugs in your mom’s house if you didn’t want to touch that shit?” I’m still trying to work out how everything adds up.
Connor nods as though he’d expected one of us would get around to asking. “Thing is, I was getting desperate. My handler, Agent Caruso’s patience was only lasting so long. If I had nothing useful to offer, he’d take me back in, and I’d stand trial. I kept my ear to the ground, listened when I should have made myself scarce. Overheard a convo between Phil and Alder, and learned there was a load of drugs coming in. Just so happened I saw my chance and managed to intercept the delivery. Took the drugs myself.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise with suspicion. “Why the fuck didn’t you turn the drugs in? Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do?” Connor would know the value of ten kilos of H. The answer is obvious. It was too much of a temptation.
Connor glances at me and clearly interprets what I’m thinking. He laughs, but mirthlessly. “Believe me, I was fucking shitting myself holding onto it. But it was bad fucking timing. Caruso’s off on his honeymoon for three weeks.”
“What the…?” The VP looks incredulous. “He goes off and leaves you no other contact?”
“He didn’t know anything was going to go down. I’d been looking for an opportunity for a few months, too long as I’d said. So while the timing didn’t work, I couldn’t not take the chance.”
“So how did Beth get to be involved?” I really want to move this on. Things are starting to fall into place, but there’re pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit. “Phil and this Alder, they found out what you did?”
A frown now covers his face, and he winces in real or remembered pain. “If Caruso could have taken the shit off my hands, he’d have gotten me straight out of Denver, put me in Wit Sec, just like you said. But as he’s not around, I had to wait it out. I couldn’t go to the cops with ten kilos of H, not without Caruso to back me up.” He pauses again.
“Phil was dealing drugs, and Caruso wanted him sent down. At the time, I hadn’t known Alder was involved, only found out his role when I overheard about that shit, and that’s when Caruso was out of town. The feds had been trying to catch Phil for years, but nothing would ever stick—it’s clear now why, he couldn’t be linked with the major suppliers as Alder dealt with all that.”
I look toward Beef. Beef raises his chin, then turns to Connor. “Alder was driving this train.”
Connor nods. “Yeah. I thought I’d been careful, but I’d been hiding shit from the wrong man. Alder’s got contacts I didn’t kn
ow about. And the weeks when I had to hang around, trying to carry on as normal, well, that gave him the chance to find me out. I don’t know how, but he got wind I was responsible for taking his H. He grabbed me on Saturday wanting it back.” Another one of his sly looks. “I thought, hoped, I could come up with some story that would satisfy Alder, and still have something to give to Caruso to get out of that life. I managed to convince Alder the shipment was short, that there had only been two kilos. To buy me some time, yeah?”
It’s Beef’s turn to shake his head. If Alder had done any kind of investigation, he would have easily found out the whole truth. Connor would have been a dead man, whatever he thought. Alder was only keeping him alive until he had the other eight kilos in his possession. And he’d obviously figured out where Connor had hidden them. Connor wouldn’t have split them up, they’d have been with the two kilos he’s handed over. And Beth and Patsy had had visitors as a result.
I shake my head, Connor certainly is no mental genius.
“Phil appeared at the warehouse. He was furious about the shipment that was short, so he had dealers with nothing to sell, and beyond mad that I’d taken it. I think he’d already had a verbal lashing from Alder. He was yelling and screaming about needing stock in Pueblo that night. He saw Alder had two men there and must have known the reason. But when Alder sent him away saying he was going to deal with this—with me…” Connor breaks off and takes as deep a breath as he can with his broken ribs. I guess it must be hard to know your father didn’t care how much he was hurt.
After a moment, Connor resumes, “Phil left, and that’s when Alder took the gloves off his men.” To his credit, he doesn’t look proud of himself when he continues, “I thought if I came up with a way of getting what I’d admitted I’d taken, the two kilos, to his dealer, that he might go easy on me. I made the suggestion. At first, I offered to go myself, but Alder said he didn’t trust me, and wasn’t going to let me go anywhere until the drugs were with Phil’s dealer. He said I had to get them there, any fucking way I could. The only thing I could think of was to involve Beth. I’d worked out the plan with him. He’d leave me capable of using my mouth if I made the calls to persuade her. His man needed stock that night.” Connor’s lips thin, then he adds, “I think he quite liked the twisted idea of using my sister.”
Ink's Devil: Satan's Devils MC Colorado Chapter #5 Page 30