CHAPTER SIX
Alessio
Standing by the open fridge door with eyebrows raised, Gunning gestured at me with a bottle of Modelo.
I didn’t want to feel pressed to ask Truman for permission.
Wasn’t I the Dom in this relationship? Did I need his permission?
Would it be all right if I indulged once in awhile on a substance that had not been my curse?
It was another sublimely awkward moment in my recovery process—and there had already been thousands of them.
Truman shrugged, so I calmly took the bottle. I was heart warmed when he took a bottle too, and we sat at the breakfast table, a rectangle of sun lighting up Truman’s shoulder.
“Okay,” he said, once again the capable proprietor of The Establishment Club. “Who’s this dickwad selling tranq and killing people?”
Gunning’s face was firm. “Les Moore is the fucktard. Down in Barstow.”
Truman asked, “You think you can find him?”
“Fuck yeah. He runs an In-n-Out burger there.”
I had to say something. “Would he actually be there? Most owners aren’t really present at these franchises. It’s just side income for them.”
Truman nodded, lush lips grim. “Good point. Anything else on him?”
Gunning glanced at the floor. “Well…my informant talked to Les’ wife. She said he mowed the lawn, grilled something, went out to get cigarettes and never came back. He was later found living in an Econo Lodge.”
“Okay, well that’s a good start.”
Again I felt compelled to mention, “He can’t be that great of a drug dealer, living in an Econo Lodge.”
Truman frowned. “It’s enough to start on. I think I’ll take some time off work. You in for a cruise to Barstow, Gunning? We can get Dr. Hawk’s nephews to help him at the club. I want to nail these assholes in person.”
Gunning’s mouth fell open, like a crow eating a walnut. “Seriously? How are you gonna nail them? Shoot them?”
A heavy pause ensued. Truman had clearly not thought this through. “Well, I can tell them the government is onto them.”
A major lip fart exploded from my mouth.
I think I even slapped the table. “You really think that’s advisable, bro?
Even a low-level fiend like this Les Moore is entirely capable of just molly whopping you.
” Was the beer getting to my feeble, clean brain?
“Even if you go there strapped with Glocks, I know you’re not going to use them. And I hope you don’t.”
Truman and Gunning straightened their spines with the indignity of it all, but I’m sure they knew I was right. I didn’t want to piss off Truman. But I also didn’t want him killed. “Then what do you suggest?” he asked.
I couldn’t believe I said what I said. But I would honestly go to the wall for Truman. “Well. First of all, you get some road dogs a tad more frightening and capable than—excuse the shit out of me, Gunning—this sincere dingus.”
“Hey!” Gunning protested, but his smile gave him away.
Truman asked, “Are you volunteering for the job?”
I guessed I was. “Sure, but first I need to take a short side trip.” Then men tilted toward me with raised eyebrows, so I had to add, “To Livermore.”
Before Truman could ask me “Why Livermore?” Gunning barked, “Does this all have to do with that road dog down on the street?”
Truman swiveled his head. “What?”
Gunning explained, “When I came in. Out front, there’s some ex-con doing wheelies on a Harley with a Z bar.”
Holy mother. How did he know what a Z bar was?
And how did I forget all about Denmark Groover?
After retrieving my own ride from another dubious fentanyl fiend who’d been storing it, I’d forced Denmark to meet me here.
I still wasn’t sure why. But I needed to see Truman Oakley.
I needed him to suck my dick. I guess I needed to prove my superiority to someone of worth.
I needed to remind the world I wasn’t just a drooling tango and cash fiend.
Or I needed my dick sucked.
Truman now held his hands out, palms to the ground. “Wait, wait, wait. What’s in Livermore?”
I was under the knife. I glugged my beer before admitting, “Foster father. I need to confront him. For my own mental health.”
It was Truman’s turn to look like someone had smacked his face with a salmon. “Confront?” he practically whispered. “How?”
My brain decided before I had time to react. To avoid discussing my plans for Leonard Skinner, I took one last chug of the beer and stood. “I’d better go see what destruction Denmark is wreaking.”
Indeed, Gunning was already on the front deck, yelling, “Man! This guy is cool!” From the kitchen table we heard the revving of the Harley’s horsepower.
I hoped Denmark didn’t eat asphalt. He was much too overjoyed to be in the cut, hiding from the authorities.
Yeah, I know, it didn’t make sense he’d be doing wheelies while trying to hide.
But that was Denmark for you. He’d discovered some shocking news not long ago, probably leading to him taking the rap for my hot one.
Gunning’s eyes were shining, watching Denmark’s circus. “This guy is acramazing! Is this the guy you busted out of jail?”
I watched briefly as Denmark rolled on the throttle, leaving skid marks on the street.
I clapped Gunning on the shoulder and said, “I better get him inside.”
“Hell yeah!” cried Gunning. “I want to meet him.”
I held my palm against his chest. “Cool down, bro. Let me talk to him myself. You of all people should know a dangerous fiend when you see one.”
Although we’d just come from an attempted robbery where Denmark shot one guy—just in the shoulder, but still, all the guy did was guard a safe that turned out to be empty—I wouldn’t call him an uncontrollable fiend. I trusted him with my life. We were road dogs through and through.
When I waved at him in the street, he brought his Harley to the curb. After one last rev to his pipes, he cut it off.
“Bro?” he questioned.
“Come on up,” I offered, “but listen. I just had to mention the Livermore deal to Truman. So let’s talk about something else. You know what a square my bae is.”
“Do I ever.” Denmark had the gravelly, passionate voice of an actor. His entire life had taught him how to act. But no matter how much safer pretending was, the truth always busted out at odd times and places.
“Let’s go up and talk about corned beef, or whatever’s for dinner. We can leave in the morning for Livermore.”
At six foot four, Denmark was even taller than me. He loomed like a sheer brute as we climbed the stairs—Denmark apparently floating up them.
“Truman,” he chuckled as we climbed past artsy black and white photos of Truman, Gunning, and Erin at work, posing stoically with burnt and used addicts. Like me. “Sounds like some president.”
Truman actually would’ve made an excellent pragmatic and upstanding president. He was as sincere as sunlight. His only downfall was he had chosen the twisted, most difficult road of the gay man. “Let’s keep it straight, bro. Just pretend you’re questioning answers on ‘Jeopardy!’”
Denmark screwed up his face at me. “’Jeopardy!’? Shee!” It was his favorite show, and he got most questions right.
But the minute we joined the other men in the kitchen—I picked up my beer to chug, but there was only one sip of backwash left—Denmark just couldn’t control himself. He acted like he’d known the Establishment Club men his entire life.
Twirling a chair around and straddling it backward, he gestured to Gunning to get him a bottle of beer, too.
“Yeah,” he said conversationally, “we’re going to Livermore to give a smackdown to that fucktard foster father of his.
” He tossed his head in my direction as I spit out the half-sip of backwash.
Truman cast me a superior look. Like I knew it. I just knew it. “Oh? And what makes him such a fucktard?”
Denmark waved a hand. “Shee! What doesn’t make him an anusbrain? One time Truman swore, something like ‘godammit,’ and this scrotumhead washed his mouth out with Dawn.”
I waved a hand back at my road dog. “Oh, that was exaggerated. He didn’t really—”
But when Denmark got a few swigs of his cold beer, he was on a roll. I had noticed he wasn’t the type who should drink alcohol. “They tortured and starved him! Can’t say as I blame him for wanting revenge.”
Truman raised one eyebrow. “Revenge? What kind of revenge?”
At this Denmark shrugged. “Oh, you know. Maybe mollywhop him with a lock in a sock.”
“And no one at his school ever noticed anything was off?”
Denmark exploded. “He was home schooled, man! I mean, allegedly. Home schooling means those kids sit around playing with their X-box if they lucky enough to have one! They don’t get no schoolin’, am I right, Lessio?
People use it as an excuse, a cover to abuse the kids.
Fuckin’ chomos. Whoa, is that Rimbaud?” And Denmark leapt to his feet to stride to a small shelf above the stove, a shelf probably for cookbooks.
Gunning watched him with pride. His chest actually swelled. “Wow! You can tell he was never home schooled.”
Since when had this all become about Denmark? Or maybe that was a good thing. Grabbing his bottle to gulp the cooler less acrid beer, I shouted, “Denmark. Tell them how we busted you out of prison.”
Denmark was engrossed in his book, mouthing the words, so I took the helm.
“See, he pretended to be sick, so he was malingering in the hospital ward.
It was much easier for me to get in and visit him that way, with the parts of a Derringer hidden in a CD player I was giving him.
Denmark hid those parts inside his ‘fro, which was much bigger then.”
My road dog finally looked up from his book. “We just gone to a salon to fix ourselves up.”
Truman asked, “So you just waited ‘til no one was watching, put the gun together, and busted on out of there? Nice.”
I said, “Yeah. That’s pretty much it. Except he was running bare-assed with his hospital gown flapping in the breeze like a seagull.”
Everyone laughed at the image, and Truman asked, “So you were waiting somewhere?”
“Yeah, in some middle-of-the-road Honda no one would ever suspect.” Then I realized Truman drove a Honda, so I added, “I ditched it for the Electra Glide out front.”
Gunning just barreled ahead, though. “And you didn’t even have to shoot anyone?”
Denmark would definitely take the credit for that. “Oh, I got a few bodies, all right. I had to take out the driver behind the wheel of a meat wagon so I could drive it on out the gate.”
I had to chuckle. “Too bad the inmates in the back were too sick to make a run for it once outside the gates.”
“Yeah,” said Denmark, jutting his lower jaw. “One of them had gone psych and was destined for the ding wing, and he couldn’t move ‘cause the strait jacket.”
Glad to talk about anything other than Livermore, I added, “Denmark had to beat the other guy. They were tussling to both get into the Honda with me.”
Denmark squished his nose. “That monkey mouth musta had the worst case of the runs.” He demonstrated by turning his butt to face us. “Brown stripes going all the way down the back of his gown and legs.”
“Well,” said Truman. “At least he was genuinely ill.”
I said, “I had to get out of the car and help peel that guy off Denmark.”
My road dog nodded. “That’s why we went to the salon.”
To my chagrin, Truman brought the subject round full circle. “And why you’re going to Livermore to confront that chomo.” Truman knew that Leonard Skinner was a home schooler—in other words, child molester—but did he know the extent of it? How could he? He barely knew me.
“Yes,” I said casually, running an arm along the back of Truman’s chair. “I need to give him a piece of my mind.”
Denmark chose this moment to point at me and yell, “Alessio’s godforsaken hip pain was caused by his motherfucking foster father, and we’re going there to set things right!”
I tried another distraction tactic. “Before we square up.” Meaning get out of “the life.” I was aware I desperately needed Truman to look up to me. I knew he was proud of my progress so far, and maybe that’s why I kept coming back to him. He helped keep me out of “the life.”
But Truman slapped the tabletop. A scintillating omen. Especially when he stood.
His eyes flared, and he seemed angry. “I’m going with you.”
I didn’t know whether to be grateful or afraid.