“She gave it to me. Offered it. I’m not going to keep it, of course. I’ll probably turn it around. Sell it as soon as I can. I’m not too fond of anything public; I go to great pains to keep my name off the radar, and that bar has been in the news far too much for my liking. But I should make a tidy profit off it. Not a bad bit of business, if you ask me.”
I see red. Anger and violence that overwhelms everything else in my vision, and I reach out, snatching that old man by the throat and pulling him so close I could bite his fucking nose off.
“You took her bar? Her fucking bar? And you call it just business?” I growl, and I tighten my grip on his throat over the sheer fucking audacious greed of this old bastard.
But he hardly blinks. His cheeks color, his eyes bulge a little, but other than that, he doesn’t betray any emotions although I’m about to choke the life out of him.
Then, though I have a tight grip on his throat, I feel something hard and steely press into my ribs.
I look down.
A gun.
And BD smiles.
I release my grip and he fixes the collar of his shirt with one hand, while keeping his gun trained at me with the other.
“I might be old, but I’ve been in this game a long fucking time, kid. And I’ve left more dangerous men than you in lonely gutters the world over,” he says. Then he takes a step back, still keeping his gun aimed at me. “I’ll give you that one free, more on the account of the sheer fucking inconvenience of dealing with you and your friends’ dead bodies in the parking lot of the fucking sheriff’s office than anything else. Now, get the fuck out of here.”
“Wait,” I say. I can feel my throat tighten in regret and pain; I can hardly imagine the pain Violet must be feeling now, with everything she’s lost in the last few days, and with how much of that is because of me. “You said our plan is off, that the Death’s Disciples are moving Kendra. OK, I get that, that makes sense. But we can’t let those fucking animals keep her. We can’t abandon her. She’s an innocent woman, she’s got a daughter who is the sweetest damn kid in this whole fucking world; you can’t say the thought of her being in Switchblade’s hands doesn’t make you sick.”
“No, I can’t say that I like the thought of that.”
“Then help us. Give us something. Because right now the entire world is going to shit, and guys like me can take it, but people like Violet, like Kendra, like Josie? They shouldn’t have to suffer that. Help me protect them.”
He lowers his gun a fraction and a thoughtful look crosses his face. “You might not be able to get to Kendra, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get her back. Roger ‘Dread’ Deacon, the club’s president, is devoted to his wife, Julie. But she’s not one for staying out late, which is an odd quality to have if you’re the club president’s old lady. Especially since her husband likes to stay out all hours. It’s about this time that Julie usually goes home to their place at the end of Maple Street. She likes to watch a little television or do some light reading before going to bed. You get my drift?”
“Thanks,” I say. And I get back in the van.
He comes and raps on the window, and I slide it down.
“Two things. First, you keep my name out of it. Forget I even exist. And second: go easy on her. Julie’s a nice woman, all things considered, and her husband might not want to trade if she’s damaged goods.”
* * * * *
Their house is unguarded. There aren’t even bars on the windows. Living in a small town like this, where crimes just don’t happen unless they’re the ones committing them, has made these Death’s Disciples careless.
It’s a quick job to break into their house. Blaze kicks down the door with one solid blow from his tree-trunk sized leg, and we chase down Julie in her living room, wearing her flannel nightgown, and get our hands over her mouth before she even has a chance to scream.
In just a couple minutes, she’s tied up in the back of the van while we speed down the road to Max Paisley’s auto repair.
The parking lot to the auto shop is empty, except for Max Paisley’s tow truck. There’s a light on inside.
“Snake, you stay here and keep an eye on our prisoner,” I say. “And Mack, you stay here and keep an eye on Snake. Blaze and I will go in, see what the fuck Max is doing here.”
Side by side, Blaze and I enter the building, blood pumping and adrenaline flowing, expecting anything from the hardened old bastard who runs the auto repair shop.
“You ready, brother?” I say as we stop outside the door. “I wouldn’t put it past him to shoot at us. Max seems like the type of bastard to hold a grudge.”
“After what Snake did to his cars, would you blame him?”
“No. But we’ve got a job to do. And if he won’t cooperate, we’ll have to take him out. Got it?”
We open the door. Step inside.
It’s lit up like the day inside. Every single light is on, and there’s some old Nina Simone song blaring on the radio, and Max Paisley is flat on his back under our cargo truck.
