The Starr Sting Scale

by C. S. O'Cinneide

  “But as much as your father did for us, I can’t let you carry a gun in my club, Candace.” He takes a good pull on the stogie. The end is wet and twisted from his lips. “I can see it at the front of your pants.”

  I look down at my crotch. I’d worn the baggiest boyfriend jeans I could find to hide it both from the gang and Malone. But Pauly knows me too well. “I dress left,” I offer.

  “Not without a dick you don’t.” He points with his cigar at the plaque. “Didn’t you read the sign, Starr?”

  “I guess I missed that memo.”

  He motions to one of the soldiers to reach in and remove the gun. I keep my gaze trained on Pauly as the assigned biker slips his filthy hand in my pants and roams around unnecessarily for a while before pulling out my piece. I can’t let them think I care, despite the fact that the next time I see this bastard I’ll be breaking every finger in his grimy fist. The prospect in the corner tries to hide behind one of the others but his tangerine-tipped spikes stick out above like an orange-ombré stegosaurus. They’ll deal with his failure later.

  “So, tell us about your little friend,” Pauly says, leaning back with his cigar, nice and comfortable now that he’s made it clear who’s in charge.

  “This is Amy Tan,” I say. I’m getting Malone back for Carrie Fisher. And the chances of any of these louts having ever read a book without pictures is nil. “She’s with the Red Dragons.”

  “That much you told us.” Pauly turns to Malone. “You speak English, China Doll?”

  “I speak English,” she says.

  “So, what do you want with my boys?”

  “I want you to move some product for us locally,” Malone says, faking a slight Asian accent. She doesn’t want to overdo it and end up sounding like Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles.

  “Some H, I understand,” drawls Pauly. “With or without the apache?” He doesn’t use the street term, China White, for heroin mixed with fentanyl. His Aryan Nations sensibilities won’t allow him to credit the Asians with anything he’s into. “I thought all you Chinks were about straight opium. Rolling them into little sugar balls with white rice and shit.” Damn, maybe he did read The Joy Luck Club. In any case, he’s wrong about the sugar. Pure opium is sickly sweet on its own. You don’t have to add sugar.

  “Not since the nineteenth century,” Malone says, smoothing down the skirt of her short dress. She had complained about the length all the way over in the taxi. “My organization doesn’t want to offend you, Mr. Strachan. We don’t want to set up any kind of competition with your current business.”

  “You bet your yellow ass, you don’t.” I wonder how Malone is handling all these racial slurs. They’re even making my skin crawl, and I’ve been exposed to a lot of hard-core bigots. Though not in a while. My tolerance for intolerance is sliding these days. But Malone doesn’t let on that it bugs her any more than I let on when the creep put his hand in my pants. Besides, people are pigs. She probably heard worse in the playground as a kid or while driving her car with the window down when some road-raged asshole decides she’s at fault.

  “We have excellent and reliable suppliers,” Malone says. “The opium comes from the Golden Triangle and gets synthesized into heroin at our facilities in Shanghai before being shipped through Hong Kong. It is of the highest quality.”

  “What about meth?” Pauly asks her.

  “As I’m sure you are well aware, China has unrestricted access to all the precursor chemicals used to make crystal methamphetamine.” Malone knows her stuff. “We could offer that as part of the agreement, if it suits.”

  “And why would we want an agreement?” Pauly says, turning his head and blowing a smoke ring. I can see his disgusting tongue poke out between his lips to put the hole in the middle. “We’ve got our own suppliers.”

  “My understanding is that those suppliers can be a bit hit and miss, leading to costly dry spells in merchandise. Our production can be counted on. And the higher quality will increase your sales. Edge out other competitors. We only ask for a nominal percentage and some other assurances.”

  “Assurances,” Pauly laughs. “She wants some assurances, boys.” All the other bikers chuckle on cue. When Pauly speaks again they get cut off faster than a badly edited laugh track. “And what assurances might those be?”

  “I told you these guys were legit,” I break in, even though I had meant to just stand here and say nothing. But I don’t like where Malone is going with this. She doesn’t get the hint.

  “We’ve had some concerns about your on-the-ground distributors,” she says. “There have been rumours you’ve been compromised.”

  “Compromised?” he says, coughing on his cigar smoke. “Who the fuck said that?” Jesus, I know this is what we came for, but cutting so quickly to the chase could get us carved up into little pieces. I’m sure she’s got her brothers and sisters in arms supporting her out there somewhere, a well-positioned SWAT team hidden close by watching the place. But that false sense of security is making her reckless. If she gets in trouble, I don’t understand how she’s supposed to signal anyone from behind these bricked-up windows.

  “We were told that two teenagers had managed to appropriate some of your product and revenue without permission. These two teenagers are now dead. I assume you took care of this issue yourselves, but I am concerned about future incidences.” Oh man, I hope this doesn’t get back to Rory, or he’s going to pack up his turtle and move to Shanghai himself.

  “We manage our people,” Pauly says. “And anyone else we need to manage.”

  “And what about people outside your organization?” Malone says. This wasn’t part of the script.

  “Like who?”

  “Political friends who protect your interests. Or law enforcement who make sure your business is not interfered with.” The beady eyes of the wolf tattoos around the room seem to stop and stare at her. So do I, in disbelief.

  “Nobody interferes with us,” Pauly says, stubbing out the cigar in a vintage marble and chrome ashtray standing next to the leather couch. “If they know what’s good for them.”

  “Nonetheless, we would have to know where you have loyalties. We do not have our own connections in this city and cannot access their assistance ourselves. For instance, if a raid is imminent, how are you notified? We would need to know this information to feel confident of our safety.” What the hell is she doing? I may not know what the signal is to release the SWAT guys, but I’m ready to light Malone’s hair on fire with the smouldering stogie in the ashtray just to alert someone.

  “You know, Chinkerbell, I think before I fill you in on that I’d like to get some assurances of my own.” It’s time to get us out of here. I look over at the guys guarding the foyer door. Try to figure out if I could incapacitate them fast enough to make a run for it. I probably could, but the three deadbolts on the reinforced, bulletproof front door might slow me down a bit.

  Pauly makes eye contact with a couple of soldiers in the group, the one who stuck his slimy hand down my pants and a bigger one wearing a T-shirt that says I HATE YOU.

  “I’d like you to be our guest in the meantime. While I check out your credentials.” The two selected members move away from the crowd.

  “C’mon, Pauly, don’t be like that,” I say. “You think I’d bring you yellow grass?” I use the common term for a snitch combined with the racial slur to make him think I’m one of them.

  “Tell me, Starr,” he says, ignoring my protests as he gets up from the leather sofa to stand between the two soldiers, who now flank me and Malone. “When are you going to start working for us?” I look behind him and see the indent his butt left in the sofa cushion slowly shrinking away.

  “I’m retired,” I say. And it feels as dumb coming out of my mouth as it sounds.

  “That’s too bad,” Pauly says. “You know, we always preferred your work to your old man’s. He was good at what he did, but he could be …” He nods to the biker next to me and then faces me again. “Unpredicta
ble.”

  “I think you have the wrong guy,” I say. My dad was spot-on.

  “And I think maybe you should join your friend while we check things out.” The biker who got the nod pulls out a semi-automatic and gestures with it toward the basement stairs, while the other prods Malone in the same direction, the heel of his hand to her back. Something tells me they aren’t taking the two of us down there to play blackjack.

  “Aren’t you breaking the rule about guns?” I say as we’re both led away.

  Pauly looks over at the plaque on the wall and then back at me. “Well, you know, sometimes we let fat chicks in, too.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR EYEBROWS DONE, MALONE?”

  She’s sitting on the cement floor of the furnace room with her arms clasped around her knees but still free to move around. They’d taken her purse with her phone and anything else that might have helped us before they locked us up. I’m chained by one handcuff to a pipe halfway up the wall. They aren’t taking any chances with someone like me. The room has an air cleaner attached to the aging furnace and a water softener in the corner. I suppose those tough bikers don’t like to get their dainty hands chapped when they wash up after taking a crap.

  Malone ignores my question. Instead, gives me one of her own. “Tell me, Candace, why choose this kind of life?” She rests her chin on her knees in abject defeat.

  I pull with the handcuff on the pipe for the hundredth time, trying to loosen it. It doesn’t budge. “You might as well ask a dog why he licks his balls,” I tell her.

  “Because he can?”

  “Because it’s in his nature, Malone.” And probably because he can, but that’s not the point. “Besides, getting locked up by the Daybreak Boys is not my kind of life. My kind of life is smarter than that.”

  “It’s like that story about the scorpion and the frog,” she says dreamily, resting her head on her knees.

  “No, not like that.” I hate that goddamn story. About how the scorpion convinces the numbnuts frog to carry him across the river but ends up stinging the frog to death when he gets to the other side. “That scorpion was a total shithead. What did he need to get on the other side of the river for anyway? He should have just stung the damn frog to begin with and skipped the boat ride.”

  Malone sighs. She gets up and looks through the crack in the door again, also for about the hundredth time. She’s already told me the two bikers who brought us down are still out there. The rest have gone out to the Freaker’s Ball, an annual event that is well attended by several MCs, not all of them friendly to one another. It usually involves a lot of hookers, enough booze to fill Lake Michigan, and at least one moron sucker-punching a rival gang member and starting a biker war. Honestly, I don’t know who hosts the thing, but you think they’d have more sense than to invite sworn enemies and get them shit-faced. The guys at the door are pissed for missing the event. I heard the one guy bitch about it to the other when he was locking my cuffs. They wouldn’t have dared complain to Pauly. Unconditional acceptance may be a fiction of the loving family, but in a biker gang, it’s the real deal.

  Malone sits back down on the floor. I assume the situation on the other side of the door has not changed.

  “Well, this is a fine kettle of fish,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees again. I can hear rain starting outside, coming down heavy on the steel fortifications of the clubhouse like machine-gun fire. The boys are going to have trouble getting around in their Harleys in that. I hope they all get soaked and die of pneumonia.

  “Is that all you can come up with?” I say to Malone. “A fucking fish reference.” I’ve had enough of this waiting around, hoping we can find a way out of this mess. I got Malone to check the furnace and the other equipment earlier to see if there was anything we could use to bust open the door or break the pipe. Two things that, even if we managed them, might result in nothing more than annoying the hell out of the guys with the guns in the hallway. I’m sick of this crap. “Quit the bullshit and call in the cavalry, Malone. We’re out of our depth here.”

  “Well,” she says, “there’s a problem with that.”

  “And the problem is?” Don’t tell me she forgot to arrange a signal. Who knows how long we’ll sit here before the cops finally decide something’s gone wrong and storm the place. In the meantime, the damp is screwing with my hair.

  “There is no cavalry,” she says. “Nobody knows we’re here.”

  “Tell me you’re shitting me, Malone.”

  “I’m not shitting you.” She’s lucky she’s out of range of my free arm, or I’d reach over and slap her silly. “I couldn’t risk it,” she says.

  “So, getting the two of us locked up while the Daybreak Boys figure out we’re a couple of goddamn liars was a risk you were willing to take, but making sure you had backup wasn’t?” I pull at the handcuff on my wrist a few more times. The attached end clanks loudly against the pipe. Still no joy.

  “I’d never have gotten approval for it.” Her chin sinks lower between her knees like she’s trying to hide.

  “Then for fuck’s sake, why did you take so many chances with those questions you were asking?”

  “I was trying to gather information.”

  “Well, it looks like that’s what the Daybreak Boys thought, too, putting us in our current shit-show position.” I can’t believe Malone pushed so hard asking about Tyler and Lachlan. And then that stuff about connections and how they got their tip-offs from law enforcement. Malone’s been around the block enough to know that you shouldn’t get into that sort of stuff at a first meeting. Unless you’re running out of time, or it’s something you already know. I turn and look at Malone.

  “You know there’s a mole,” I say.

  She looks down at her stilettoed feet but doesn’t say anything.

  “You knew all along.” She lowers her head more, and then it all fully dawns on me. “Fuck, you knew right from the beginning. That’s why you asked me to help you. It had nothing to do with Tyler Brent. You knew he was involved with the Daybreak Boys and you needed me to get closer to them and find out who they had on the force.”

  “I’m sorry, Candace.”

  “You’re sorry?” I shout then keep it down so the soldiers outside don’t hear. “I’m sorry is for a dog pissing on the carpet or a prick coming too fast. Not for lying your goddamn face off and getting us both killed.”

  “We won’t get killed,” she says, but I can hear her voice waver.

  “Perhaps you don’t understand our situation here, Malone. Those maladjusted freaks are going to ask around if there is an Amy Tan with the triads, and once they find out that you are not, in fact, the author of The Kitchen God’s Wife we will be completely and royally screwed.”

  “We’ll find a way out.”

  “How, Malone? The walls are reinforced with steel. The windows are either bricked up or covered with bulletproof plating. There are alarms all over the goddamn place. And there’s an electromagnetic door with a key code to get in and out.” She knows these things, but I’m on a roll. “You aren’t going to break us out with a hairpin or a call for help with two coconuts you made into a radio like the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.”

  I kick a wall with my shit-kicker boots a few times. All it gets me is a sore fucking toe. “Tell me,” I say to Malone, turning away from the wall, “Did that asshole Saunders know what you were up to with me? Selena? That fat fuck Wolfe? Did you all get together in the break room and have a good laugh about it?”

  “Candace …”

  “Maybe it was the Mob that called in the hit on my dad, and you have some Scarpello snitch bastard set up in a cushy witness protection scheme you’ll never give up. Not in a million years.” I’m not about to let my mother’s family off the hook. They could have decided to make an example of the man who defiled one of their daughters all those years ago. Hell, even Uncle Rod is still a possibility, despite my call with Agnes. Old ladies forget things. Although sh
e appeared to still have all her marbles. At this point, I’m not discounting anyone. Hell, I’m half-ready to believe Malone did it.

  “Candace, it wasn’t like that,” she says. “I never meant for you to get hurt.”

  “Yeah, you just meant to use me to find a bent cop,” I say, blowing a piece of hair out of my face.

  “No, I mean, in the beginning maybe,” she corrects herself, looking up from her knees. “In the beginning maybe I didn’t care about lying to you, but later on I felt terrible. After I got to know you.” She doesn’t fucking know me. Nobody knows me. “After that I thought, well, I thought …” she says, wiping some soot off one cheek that she got inspecting the furnace.

  “You thought we were fucking friends, Malone?” I turn away and laugh. It’s not a nice, under-the-blankets-with-a-flashlight laugh. More menacing sarcasm, less pillows with Ballerina Barbie on them. “You thought someone like you and someone like me could be friends? I’m the scorpion. You’re the goddamn frog,” I tell her, throwing back my wildly frizzed hair. “And there’s a little detail you missed in my file. I don’t have any friends.”

  We don’t talk to each other after that. The old furnace gears up, so loud and laboured it sounds like the launching of the Queen Mary. It must be getting cold outside. The two of us sit and think about the nature of scorpions and frogs. I reach into my jacket and take the last belt of the burning liquid left in my silver-plated flask. I hate that fucking story.