Chapter 5
“Hey, Giz, you got a minute?” Demon stuck his head into the backroom the club used for all their meetings, most of which Demon wasn’t included in, and wouldn’t be until he was patched in. If he was patched in, not that he was worried about it, but it was a possibility.
The Souls tech sergeant looked up from the computer screen where he was working on something and focused on Demon. He stared for a moment, blinking before the words seemed to register.
“Oh, sure, Demon. What do you need?”
“I was hoping you’d do a little research for me. Look up someone and see what you can find on him.”
“Is this personal or club business?” Gizmo watched him with one brow lifted.
Demon took a deep breath and thought about it for a moment.
“Mostly personal, but if I don’t get it taken care of, it could leak over onto the club. I don’t want that.” Demon held both hands up in front of himself as if warding off an attack that wouldn’t be coming.
Gizmo sighed then motioned to the chairs across the table from where he sat.
“Better have a seat and tell me what’s going on.”
“So you know about the car following me yesterday,” Demon said as he stepped up to the table, pulled out one of the wheeled chairs and sat.
Gizmo nodded as his gaze went back to the computer screen. “I’m listening.”
“She was a bounty hunter.”
Gizmo’s gaze snapped from the screen back to Demon.
“Relax, she’s not after me. She mistook me for the guy she’s really after.
” Demon took a deep breath. He hated this part.
He hated admitting how stupid his cousin was.
He wasn’t sure if he was afraid that they would think he was the same or that maybe it was somehow his fault.
Demon knew both were absurd, but he had a hard time convincing himself that these were his brothers, or he hoped they would be soon, they wouldn’t assume the worst.
Gizmo’s posture eased as some of the tension drained away, but he didn’t look away from Demon, as if he could tell there was more to what he was telling him.
“She’s looking for my cousin.” Demon rolled his eyes.
“My dad and my uncle were always in this stupid competition with each other. My cousin and I have very similar names, we’re only a month apart in age and our socials are the same except the middle two numbers are flipped.
It’s been a pain in the ass before but from what I learned yesterday, it could become more troublesome if we don’t address this head on. ”
“What do you mean?”
Demon pulled out his phone, unlocked the screen and slid it across the table.
“That’s me and Jim Bob during senior year.” The picture was a little over ten years old, but it was the last time he knew they’d been photographed together. And it would get his point across or at least part of it.
“I can see why she would have confused the two.” Gizmo slid the phone back over to him. Demon put it back in his kutte pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he’d stuck in there earlier.
“There’s all of Jim Bob’s information. From what I found out yesterday, he was arrested for car jacking, and he’s skipped on his bail.
That in itself is bad enough, but I suspect there’s more.
Can you see if you can find anything? The last thing any of us need is for this bounty hunter to go looking and discover that the Souls aren’t all they appear to be. ”
Gizmo let out a chuckle. “I’ll look, or maybe I’ll set Krissi on it.
Either way we’ll figure out what your cousin is into.
In the meantime, don’t worry too much about what the bounty hunter finds.
If our covers can’t stand up to a bounty hunter’s scrutiny, then we’re all dead anyway. ” Gizmo chuckled again.
Demon wasn’t sure if it was at the idea of a bounty hunter blowing their cover or something else. Gizmo was a bit of an odd duck, but weren’t they all?
“Let me know if you find anything I need to be aware of. I’m going to be trying to find him. I think getting him off the streets will make things easier all the way around.”
“How are you planning to do that?”
“First, I have to find him, then I’m going to let that bounty hunter take him in. Other than that, I’m not sure. I want him, and the rest of his crazy family, to stop causing problems for me and mine, but that’s about it.”
Gizmo nodded slowly. Demon wasn’t sure if he was thinking about something or just nodding because Demon had quit talking.
“All right then. If you have no other questions for me, then I’ll go do my thing. Try to find him the old-fashioned way.” He stood and pushed his chair back into place at the table.
“What’s the old-fashioned way?” Gizmo asked, proving that he was listening to Demon after all.
“Through the family. I guess the first call will have to be to Nan. She knows most of the family gossip and might know where he’s hiding.
I’m not holding my breath though. Nan and Aunt Chastity never had much use for each other.
” He shrugged. “She won’t tell me if she thinks I’m looking to have him put in jail, but I can play it cool until she gives me what I need. ”
“Won’t that put you on her shit list?”
Demon shrugged. “I’ve been off and on her shit list so many times I get a frequent guest discount in the doghouse. He even stocks beer for me. Why do you think I live here?”
Gizmo chuckled and shook his head.
“I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Demon didn’t blame him. He didn’t say anything as he left and went to find something to eat, preferably something he didn’t have to cook.
“Tell me how everyone’s doing.” Demon sat on the rocker next to his grandmother’s on her front porch.
She’d insisted on pouring then both glasses of iced tea and fixing a plate of cookies from the batch she’d baked a couple of days earlier before they could settle in and catch up.
Demon hadn’t argued. Instead, he’d followed Nan’s directions and carried the tray with their drinks and snacks as she’d asked.
He would have done a hell of a lot more for the older woman, indulging her in her determination to enjoy one of her grandkids visiting was not a big deal.
She watched him a moment with narrowed eyes. He picked up a cookie and took a bite. Nan might have nearly sixty years experience trying to figure out what her offspring was up to, but Demon had faced people a lot scarier than Alma Jennings.
It wasn't that he didn’t respect her, he did, but she wouldn't shoot him or leave him bruised and bleeding.
After a moment or two, she sniffed as if she knew he was up to something, but couldn’t figure out what. "Who are you wanting to know about?" She watched him with eagle sharp eyes.
"No one in particular." He lifted one shoulder and let it fall in a careless gesture.
"It's just been while since l had the time to sit and talk for more than a few minutes.
Plus," he picked up another cookie, "I know how much you love knowing what's going on with all your family, so I know you'll know all the details. "
She looked at him a moment longer.
“First, tell me what's new with you?" She waved one hand in his direction. "I see you're still hanging around with those hoodlums."
Demon bit the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping that the Souls weren’t hoodlums. It was a waste of breath, and he knew it.
Not that he blamed her. The Souls looked like a 1% club, and they weren’t as clean as some of the brothers would prefer, but what they did get into was with careful consideration and specific goals in place.
Those goals were the reason for what they did.
Damon hated the phrase 'the end justifies the means', but that was exactly the life he led. He wasn’t sure it mattered that they were legally in the clear. That he and his brothers would likely never see more than a night or two in jail unless they went totally rogue.
Not that he could tell Nan any of that.
Demon knew that to the rest of the world he, and the Rest of the Souls, looked no better than Jim Bob.
They crafted their image very carefully so it was a not so well kept secret that the Souls were into things they shouldn't be and lucky enough not to have been caught yet. Or at least that’s what they let everyone see. It wasn’t true.
"Yes. I'm still with the Souls," he said, careful to keep his tone even so she couldn’t read anything into it."
"I don’t like you riding around on that motorcycle, it’s not safe."
Demon bit back the retort that his motorcycle was no more dangerous than Jim Bob carjacking strangers. He was hoping she'd give him info, and to do that he needed to not piss her off.
"Please tell me you at least wear a helmet when going on that thing, Joey."
"I do, Nan." He pointed out to where his bike sat on the curb in front of the house. "You see that hard case on the side? That’s where I keep my helmet, and I wear it every time I ride. I live for the wind in my face, Nan, but I'm not looking to die.”
So that wasn’t entirely true.
Not the looking to die part but the wearing every time part.
He usually wore it, but there were exceptions, like if he had a woman on the back of his bike.
They got the helmet while he went without.
One thing he never went without was a good pair of glasses.
He even kept a couple of extra pairs in the case next to where he stored his helmet, in a small case he’d rigged so it would stay put and keep the lenses from getting scratched up.
He didn’t let his thoughts show on his face.
Instead, he listened as Nan talked, asking questions and letting her know he was listening.
They had been sitting on the porch for nearly an hour, her talking about the family, asking him what he thought and letting him know what was going on with all the cousins, before she mentioned Jim Bob.
Demon was instantly more alert. This was what he’d been waiting for.
“How is Jim Bob doing? I haven’t seen him since I got back to town, and I don’t know how long it was before that.”
Nan shook her head. “He’s been getting into trouble. I don’t know what your daddies did that make the two of you think it’s okay to run around taking what you want from whoever you want. Those people work hard for what they have, and you have no right to take it away from them.”
“I have never stolen anything from anyone,” Demon said trying to hold onto his temper.
He’d known when he started prospecting for the Souls that people would think he did all kinds of things and that was the point of the club’s reputation.
They wanted people to think that whatever nefarious thing they were sure the club was up to, that they were.
Telling Nan otherwise would only harm the club. And she wouldn’t believe him anyway, not as long as he was part of the club.
“And even if you did, at least you haven’t gotten caught at it. Jim Bob can’t say that.” She shook her head again. “Last I heard he was hiding out at his mother’s so they wouldn’t find him and take him back to jail.”
He lifted one shoulder and let it fall as if he didn’t know and didn’t care.
“And how is Aunt Chastity. I think the last time I saw her was at graduation. Is she still living over on Silverbell?”
Nan tilted her head and seemed to be thinking. “No. I was trying to remember when she moved. It was a couple of years ago, but she’s over off of Craycroft, between Speedway and Pima. I don’t remember the address.”
“I was in that part of town the other day. I don’t usually get there over there all that often. I wish I knew she was living over there, I could have stopped and seen her.”
“I’ll see if I can find it and text it over to you when I do.” She reached over and patted his hand before picking up her glass and drained it. “I’m about ready for another glass, how about you?”
“I could use another glass, but let me get them.” Demon stood, picked up both glasses and carried them inside.
He’d known going into this that it wouldn’t happen quick.
He’d warned Sadist when he’d let him know where he was going that he’d likely be tied up for several hours.
Sadist had looked at him a little wide-eyed, as if he was horrified by the idea, then shook his head and told Demon to take as long as he needed.
They needed the information more than they needed someone else to give the shit jobs to at the moment.
After filling both glasses, he snagged another cookie off the plate in the kitchen, bit into it and carried it in his teeth as he picked up both glasses and went back out to where Nan waited.
“I don’t know how both of you boys ended up hanging out with motorcycle hoodlums,” Nan said, shaking her head as Demon set her glass on the table between them and sat back down.
He pulled the remainder of the cookie from his mouth and finished eating the bite he’d already taken before speaking again.
“What do you mean?”
“You know how I feel about those men you hang around with.” She motioned to his Kutte. “Jim Bob has his own gang like that. I don’t know why they don’t hide him and he’s having to stay with his mother.” She stared out into the street.
Demon wondered what she was thinking. He didn’t bother to correct her that the Souls were a club, not a gang.
She didn’t care, in her mind all MCs were what had been on that show on TV a few years back.
All criminals and outlaws. The Souls weren’t that way, at least not in reality, but he couldn’t tell her that.
He was blown away. Jim Bob was in a club. Until he had an idea which club, he couldn’t guess what kind of shit he was getting into, but from the way Nan talked, Demon could guess it wasn’t one of the several recreational clubs in town.
No. Jim Bob was likely mixed up with one of the one percent clubs.
He’d have to see if Gizmo could figure it out, but he’d have to wait until he was through here to talk to him.
Nan would only get pissed if he pulled out his phone and started texting now, and he’d worked so hard to stay on her good side so he could get information, it would be foolish to piss her off now.
“That’s odd,” he said out loud. “Is whatever trouble he’s in related to the club or did he find it all on his own?
” He did his best to get more information and keep her talking, but he knew that with the Souls, it wouldn’t matter why he was in trouble, whether it was club business or his family coming back to haunt him, like now.
The Souls had his back. But not all clubs were equal or had the same kind of sense of brotherhood and loyalty as he’d found with the Souls.
Between the visiting, the doing small chores that Nan couldn’t do for herself and then helping her cook when she insisted on feeding him, it was another three and a half hours before he left. Once he did, he rode straight to the clubhouse to talk to Gizmo.