by Rob Brunet
“Like who?”
Danny looked over at her, stunned that she had heard him.
She pointed at her ear. “Hearing aid. Best money can buy. I have a pocket remote. I turn it off when Dickhead talks too much.”
“Oh.”
“So you were saying?”
“Huh?”
“Like who? Lester?”
“Lester is the man I killed.”
“How’d you do it?”
“With a baseball bat.” Danny hoped in vain that would shut her up.
“Gruesome,” was all she said. “Why?”
“Look, it was an accident.”
“That what you said to the cops, too? When they arrested you for murder, I mean? ‘I didn’t count on the gentleman dying when I beat on him with a baseball bat, officer.’ Hunh?”
Danny sighed.
Not skipping a beat, his captive asked, “So where’d your mother come up with enough money to go away? I mean, leaving your son to rot in jail while you run away ‘for your health’ isn’t an everyday kind of bingo jackpot.”
Danny’s chest tightened and he got a pain behind his eyes. Was the old lady in his head? What if something bad had happened to his mother? What if the Libidos really had gotten to Ernie and found his stashed cash and that’s why they burned him and his shack?
“Listen, lady,” he said finally. “Where my mother got hold of her travel cash is none of your damn business.”
“I was just asking...”
“Maybe you should stop asking. Maybe you should sit quiet and keep a look-out for cops or something. Just...just be useful, okay?” Danny couldn’t believe he felt intimidated by the pint-sized crone, but she had got under his skin. Deep.
After a mile of silence, the old lady looked over at him and winked. “Kind of like Bitch Cassidy and the Some Chance Kid, eh?”
Danny stared straight ahead. “Why don’t you turn on the radio?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” She reached across and pressed a switch. The cabin filled with John Denver singing Take Me Home, Country Road.
“My son-in-law,” she said. “Dickhead pays for XM radio just so he can make us listen to commercial-free schmaltz. Here, let me find us a better channel.”
“I mean the cop radio. You said you have a cop radio.”
“Oh that? It’s set up in the back. I listen to it in my bunk. Brings back memories of riding with my husband, rest his soul. I could have left it connected up here for Dickhead but he wouldn’t know how to use the darn thing. Want me to go get an update?”
“Yeah.”
“They’ve pretty much figured out you’re headed to Peterborough, you know. You’re hardly an enigma. Leaving a bit of a trail, you might say.”
Danny grimaced. “Just go check it out for me, would you?”
“Back in a jiffy.”
Danny changed the XM station. After about ten minutes, Old Blue Eyes returned.
“I’d say your goose is cooked.”
“Why, they know I’m in the RV?”
“Yep. Found out maybe five minutes ago from the sound of things. They know you must be in this county, except a little bit further west, on account of how slow you’re going.”
“Shit.”
“Sorry our little adventure has to come to such an early end. I was just getting to like you. Thinking maybe you’d be better for my daughter than old butter-for-brains.”
“So, they’re setting road blocks ahead?”
“Sort of, but they’re talking about how they have to be careful about how exactly they stop you.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because of the cargo you’re carrying.”
“What cargo?”
“Me!” and she flashed him the bluest blast he’d seen yet.
Danny said, “Y’know, maybe there is one thing you could do for me.”
The roadside sex scene had become a role play staple. The best part was Linette and Max could play themselves. They had originally hooked up during an innocent traffic stop when the cop pulled the lawyer over in her spanking new Jeep.
“Oh this is embarrassing,” she had said, recognizing him immediately as the police officer who’d arrested her once-upon-a-time pot-growing murderer.
“You’re telling me. License and registration please.”
“Oh, officer, they really ought to be here,” she’d said, rustling through her purse.
“If you can’t find them, ma’am,” he told her playfully, “I’ll have no choice but to take you in, lock you up.”
Linette had protested and insisted he help her search the vehicle for her paperwork. Somewhere between the glove compartment and the armrest, their groping changed focus and they wound up in a tangle on the stiff leather back seat.
Officer Ainsley was freshly divorced. Linette Paquin was only too happy to make time with the one man who might know more than her about Danny Grant’s case.
Since that first time, they repeated the scene every week or so, occasionally changing things up a bit for excitement. Today, Officer Ainsley ordered Linette into the back of the cop car.
“Oooh, officer, it’s so cramped in there. I’m afraid I’ll bang my knees.”
As he prepared to follow her, the radio crackled. “Squad three-two-nine, hasn’t the suspect hit the roadblock yet?”
“Negative, base. Think he might have turned off?”
“Not if he was headed to Peterborough. You go north off Seven there, he would have ended up on the wrong side of Stony Lake. Maybe he headed south, or maybe we’ll squeeze him in. We’ve got two units headed west behind him.”
“Roger, base. We’ll hold tight for further instructions.”
Linette did her best pout.
“Hon, can you turn that stupid thing off? This damn plastic in my back is bad enough.”
Twenty minutes later, sitting on the passenger seat with his feet out the door and smoking a cigarette, Officer Ainsley radioed the cop shop that he wasn’t feeling so good and he was going to book out.
“Mind if I keep the car?” he asked the dispatcher. “Bring it by tomorrow morning? I’m off until Saturday.”
“No biggie, Max. Light day, anyhow. There was some escaped con headed this way but he seems to have headed in a different direction.”
“Oh really? Anyone special?”
“Naw, some guy took a walk on day parole.”
“Morons.”
“Go figure, eh? See you tomorrow.”
“Roger, out.”
Twenty-Two
Perko Ratwick sat dead center in the main room at the Libidos’ clubhouse, still wearing the brown suit he’d put on thirty-six hours before. He knew he should have changed before showing up to take his lumps, but he’d had errands to run. Life-altering shit, in the face of which gang protocol seemed downright petty.
“Alright, Perkoset. Tell us again how that scrawny little ferret hoofed you in the berries and disappeared into thin air before you got your fat ass off the ground.”
Perko wiped sweat from his forehead. Four ceiling-mounted spotlights pointed straight at him, bathing him in light and pretty much blinding him to anything more than ten feet away. He’d been on the other side of the lights often enough. He knew this was hardly a real interrogation. If it was, there’d be at most three or four bikers in the room with him, not the fifteen or so he could hear snickering in the shadows. That his humiliation served as evening entertainment for his peers made the experience all the more degrading.
He balanced on a bar stool which had two of its four legs sawn off short, one by an inch, the other half an inch. Since the stool was four feet tall, he couldn’t rest a foot on the floor while seated. The net effect was to make it very difficult to sit still without constantly teetering back and forth. Perko weighed just over two hundred and fifty pounds, a fact driven home each time he crashed to the floor. It had happened twice already.
“Danny Grant didn’t disappear, Mongoose. The turd got on a bus. Cops showed up before I could follow him.”
“Follow him where?”
“Who the fuck knows? He’s running from prison. Had enough. On the lam. Whatever the fuck, Mongoloid.”
Mongoose lurched forward into the ring of light and had his collar grabbed by the biker next to him at the bar. Perko did his best to glare in his general direction.
“Take a pill, Perko. Just tell us what the cops were after.” It was Hawk who spoke to break the tension.
“It was the weirdest thing, Hawk. Like they didn’t have a clue who Danny Grant was. They just figured I was doing a little collection that got out of hand. I played along and told them it was some grinder who got in over his head at one of our Texas Hold ’em outfits. Gave them the name of Bartholomew, no last name. Told them I forgot it.”
“They bought it?”
“No question. Who the fuck’d make up a name like Bartholomew?” Perko pulled himself up straight. The sudden change in weight distribution sent him rocking back. He crashed flat on his ass as the stool shot out from under him and flew across the room.
“Sumnabitch!” yelled Mongoose, the stool bouncing off his shin. He took a step toward Perko and was held back a second time.
Perko decided to keep his mouth shut about the piece of shit yokel with whom he’d spent the night at the cop shop. He was still digesting what the lowlife had said about Ernie McCann’s final bonfire.
“Keep your cool,” Hawk snarled. Perko knew the gaunt biker would be sprawled on a couch nursing a beer, commanding respect without moving a muscle. “We didn’t wait the last four years to get our dough back just so you could mess it up now, Monny. There’ll be plenty of time to crack Perko’s skull when this is all over.”
“Damn right,” Mongoose said, shaking off the hands holding his arms. “How are we gonna find this guy?”
“We tossed that Buzz jerkoff from the bus station,” said a voice Perko recognized as belonging to a gorilla who still wasn’t full patch. “Got him on his way home from work a couple hours ago. He said the fucktard bought a ticket to Peterborough.”
“He’s going home,” Perko said. He hadn’t moved from the floor, hoping no one would order him back onto the rickety stool. “The money can’t be far from there.”
“Home? He’s got no home,” Mongoose said. “Ain’t got no family. Even his mother abandoned him after he went in. Guys in the joint say she quit visiting ages ago.”
“He’s gotta have a girl somewhere,” Perko said. “Something. Punks like that always have a couch or two to crash on.”
“After all this time?”
“Shit, I don’t know,” Perko said. “But where exactly don’t matter. He’s gonna go to the cash and it’s gotta be somewhere nearby. Somewhere between the farm and where they busted him in the Timmy’s trailer the next morning.”
Perko grimaced in silence. After spending the night locked in the cell with the backwoods lowlife, he had waited for him outside the courthouse. They’d both been arraigned by noon. The Libidos’ lawyer put up two grand bail for Perko, while Jonah was released on his own recognizance; Perko was pretty sure the dumbfuck had no idea what “recognizance” meant. He’d told the kid to get hold of a motorcycle and meet him at Shelley’s later that night, figuring he’d be useful as long as he didn’t know exactly what was expected of him.
“I still say it was that faggot Frederick,” Hawk drawled from where he lay on the couch. “Nancy’s Nasties never saw him again. You ask me, he split with the money.”
“He’d never cross me like that,” Perko said. “He knows I’d fry his ass.”
“Last thing Bernard told me before I hanged him,” Hawk said, “was he fought Frederick for the money. Says he took off with the bag.”
“I don’t buy it,” Perko said.
“You was shittin’ your pants in the bushes,” Mongoose said. “What do you know?”
“I’m telling you guys, when that runt stole my bike—”
“Trike,” hissed Mongoose.
“—he stole the dough, too.”
“You better hope you’re right,” said Hawk. “We’ve waited four years for you to make good on this debt. Patch or no patch, you either wring it out of this Grant puke’s hide or we wring it out of yours.”
Mongoose said, “Why don’t do it now, Hawk? How do we know this fucker didn’t let the Grant prick disappear on purpose. They worked together before. Why not now?”
Perko sensed the room’s mood shifting. Snickers had become grunts of agreement. He heard Hawk rake his fingers back and forth on his cheek. The rasping sound made the hair stand up on his neck.
He said, “I wonder if it matters someone barbequed Ernie McCann.”
“What?” Mongoose asked.
“Something I heard in jail last night. Didn’t think about it ’til now.”
“Happened last week,” Hawk said.
“What are you talking about?” Mongoose was getting agitated again.
Hawk said, “Ernst McCann’s house burned to the ground and him with it. Looked like an accident.”
“But why would it matter?” Perko asked, sweating now. He should have known someone in the gang would have heard about the fire. Hearing Hawk say it looked like an accident made him wonder whether the fire was a Libidos job he’d been shut out of. How far outside the circle of trust was he operating?
“I remembers,” said Mongoose. “Got blisters from those two cords of firewood you made us deliver for the old man’s troubles. The mess we made tossing his place. But the money wasn’t there.”
“Could be connected, though,” said Hawk. “We gotta start looking somewhere.”
Perko breathed deep and hauled himself to his feet. “So, that settles it. Find the turd and follow him to the stash.” He shot what he hoped was an authoritative look into the glare. “I’m on it.”
Mongoose snorted, “You’s gonna screw it up again.” He took a step toward Perko and this time no one held him back.
“Fuck you, Mongoose. I’m done listening to you bitch and complain. You want a piece? Come get it.” Perko hunched his shoulders.
“Chill, boys,” Hawk commanded. “If you’re gonna do each other, it ain’t gonna be today. We’ve got work to do.” The lights came on as he swung his feet to the floor. He let his empty beer bottle roll under the couch. “Perko, you’d better hope we can find this sucker before he makes it out of town with our prize. Mongoose, you come along for the ride. We ride in an hour.”
Perko tugged on his sweat-stained brown lapels.
“I’m gonna change my suit.”
“You’re looking a little worn out, Perkie,” Shelley commented when he walked through the door to her apartment.
“How perceptive,” he grumbled. Between getting Tasered—twice!—being stuck in the cage with the village vermin, and getting the bullets sweated out of him in the Libidos’ limelight, he’d lost a couple pounds easy. Maybe his chaps would be easier to get into.
“You been a bad boy again? A little tough stuff with the lads? Nothing a lady has to be worried about, I hope?”
As if to assert her claim on him in case he’d been doing the nasty with some biker tramp, she ordered him to strip, shower, and screw her. Preoccupied as he was, Perko had to work hard to deliver the wall-banging work-out Shelley demanded. When they were done, she lit two cigarettes and asked him where he’d been.
“Getting fucked over by everyone and his cousin,” he said.
“Rough couple of days in gangland?”
Perko sighed. As accustomed as he was to Shelley’s refusal to take his vocation seriously, he was in no mood to be mocked. He said, “This time they’ve gone too far.”
“Who’s they?”
“Everyone. Mongoose and the rest. The cops who think they can bust my chops whenever they want. And especially that shithead who ripped me off and fucked up my lifestyle.”
“Oh, please tell me you’re not going to start whining about that punk again. You’ll bore me to tears with that old rag.”
“Well, you won’t
have to hear it much longer. I’m gonna do something about it.”
“Spoken like a real he-man.”
Perko felt his already limp dick shrivel a little further. “You watch,” he said. “I’ve got a line on this thing. Met a guy in the mayor’s motel. He’s gonna help me deal with this mess once and for all, let me keep all the dough for myself. Just you wait and see.”
“You’ve got a new partner in crime?”
“An assistant, more like.”
“An assistant.” She stifled a giggle. “Aren’t we important?”
Perko scowled and stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray that lay on Shelley’s belly. He started to get dressed. As he pulled on his chaps, there was a knock at the door.
“Shit. I told the little runt to meet me downstairs,” he said.
When he opened the door, Jonah stood there looking from Perko’s chaps to his hairy gut and back again. “Izzat a cowboy costume?” he asked.
Shelley stuck her head and one bare shoulder around the door jamb. She took in Jonah’s droopy moustache and guffawed. “Shave Perko’s stomach and you’d look like Sonny and pregnant Cher!” She disappeared back around the corner, giving both men a good look at her bare ass as she moved away.
Jonah’s eyes were wide at the sight and he looked like he was trying to keep from licking his lips. Perko cuffed him and sent him to the parking lot. Then he followed Shelley into the bedroom to finish dressing.
“So that’s your new team?” she asked with a sneer.
“Shut up,” said Perko. “He’s more like a temp.”
“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. I sure would hate to imagine he’s the one who’s got your back in a brawl.”
“There ain’t gonna be no fightin’. A little fireworks is all.”
“Be back in time for breakfast,” Shelley said, chuckling again.
Perko grabbed a satchel he’d left by the front door and headed outside to find Jonah sitting on a dirty yellow 180cc rice burner. One of the cheapest Korean-made pieces of trail-bike trash the biker had ever seen.
“You can’t be serious,” Perko said, hands on his hips. “Thought you and your old man were in the wheel stealing business.”