Chapter Two #2
The front door opened before we reached the stone steps that led up to it and I automatically paused and put my hand on my gun.
There was a woman there, wearing a long white summer dress that touched the floor, her greying blonde hair was piled up high on top of her head.
I estimated she was in her fifties, her face was guarded, and she was blocking the way.
I kept to the left of Ballistic, making sure she could see both of us. Last thing we needed was someone pulling a gun on us. My heart was pounding, I didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. This seemed ridiculously reckless.
“Marla,” Ballistic said as he stopped at the bottom of the steps.
“Randy,” she rasped. Her voice sounded as if she had smoked way too many cigarettes in her lifetime. “What do you want?”
“We need to speak to Ranger.”
“He’s in no state for visitors, especially ones who don’t make prior arrangements.” She eyeballed our cuts, her eyes darting to me before dismissing me and going back to what she perceived to be the real threat at her door.
“Nytro is causing some trouble.”
“When doesn’t he?” she shook her head, the exasperation in her tone clear.
She did not like Nytro. I figured she was this Ranger guys old lady, clearly understood how the MC worked but for whatever reason, she still wasn’t letting us pass. I was getting increasingly frustrated and shifted a little, causing both Marla and Ballistic to look at me.
“Who’s this?” she tipped her chin at me.
“I don’t have a lot of time. All I wanna do is talk.”
She was silent for so long I thought we were going to have to go in by force but in the end she stepped back, opening the door wide. “Guns and any other weapons in the box,” she pointed to a large metal container to the side of the steps.
Ballistic headed for it and I frowned at him as he took out his gun and lifted the lid.
We didn’t know what we were walking into here.
At least, I didn’t. I needed to make a choice, trust my Enforcer, or charge the woman.
The former seemed the better choice given Ballistic was waiting for me to follow his actions.
Against my better judgment, I put the gun into the box.
Marla seemed satisfied with that and led us into the house. We entered into a long, dark hallway. The interior wasn’t shabby or messy, but it was dated, there were photographs on the wall, of Marla and a man in a Kingsmen cut, and a couple of older boys who looked to be teenagers.
“Wait here,” Marla said, leading us to a large, mostly bare living room. Then she left us.
“What the fuck?” I asked him.
“Relax.”
“Leaving our weapons outside, in a fucking box?”
“Ranger was the last Prez of the Kingsmen. He’s not a threat.”
“What fucking use is an ex-president to us? And how the hell do you know he isn’t a threat?”
“Cos I ain’t got the arms or legs to do a damn thing to hurt you.”
I whirled around as Marla pushed a wheelchair into the room.
She was glaring at us like we were shit on her shoes.
She was pissed and clearly didn’t agree with what was going on.
The wheelchair looked like it was tricked out, with an electric motor, a high headrest and it was wide, with a cushioned seat and a small gearstick on the left hand side.
He was around fifty, with thick brown hair, a heavily stubbled beard and features that would once have been considered handsome, though they were slacker, with deep lines around his mouth and eyes.
There was a large, jagged scar down the side of his face that he was attempting to hide with facial hair.
He sat upright, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, he was slim although not frail looking. His right arm was cradled into his stomach. Something had clearly fucked him up.
“Bike accident,” he told me, it wasn’t too noticeable, but his voice was a little slurred.
“Accident, my ass,” Marla said under her breath. I wasn’t sure what she meant but Ranger waved his good hand in her direction.
“Why don’t you get our guests a beer,” he said.
I glanced at her, wondering if she’d comply, but her status as an old lady was ingrained because she huffed out a sigh and left us.
Ranger told us to take a seat as he used the stick on the arm rest to guide him further into the room.
It was only then I realized why the furniture was so sparse, to accommodate the chair.
I chose not to sit though and went to look through the window.
I would stay near it, just to be sure nothing was going to creep up on us.
Ranger nodded at me. “You got nothing to worry about, son.”
I just looked at him.
Marla came in carrying three beers in one hand, she’d lit up a cigarette in the other. She passed out the beers, gave us a menacing look then left, shutting the door behind her.
“She’s protective, with good reason. Not gonna lie, Randy, I’ve called up a couple of guys and got them on standby, but they’ll leave us alone.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” Ballistic told him.
My spine stiffened at that. Ranger gave a short laugh then took a long drink of the beer.
“When two Devil’s roll up at my door, it’s only natural,” he looked my way. “Even if it has been a while and I’m not exactly a threat. But you guys are. They’re not Kingsmen out there but they know their shit.”
“Fair enough,” I said, sensing I needed to back down on this, the last thing we needed was getting into any kind of altercation all the way out here.
“What is it I can do for you?” he asked. He may have looked out of action in his chair, but I could see the steely eyed gaze he was giving Ballistic. He was still a Kingsmen, even if he was no longer an active member.
“They’ve taken the Prez’s daughter.”
The only sign Ranger gave this meant anything to him was a slight shift of his right hand, but that may have been a spasm, it looked like that arm was completely useless.
I hadn’t heard about their Prez getting into an accident, but then again, in the past, I hadn’t paid much mind to the Kingsmen.
I remained silent and let Ballistic do all the talking.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“We need to find her.”
“I can’t help, though I appreciate King must be losing his mind.”
“Your officers have abandoned the clubhouse, and your men. You know we’ll keep rounding them up, and if we don’t get answers, things aren’t going to be pretty.”
“They’re not mine anymore,” he said, there was tension in his voice. He didn’t like hearing this.
“I don’t believe you aren’t aware of what is going on in your MC.”
“Then you underestimate Nytro.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the minute I couldn’t ride anything other than this thing, I was cut off.”
“You really expect us to believe that?” I asked. “Your club, that you were President of, just cast you aside.”
“Kingsmen ain’t like the Devil’s. Never has been, Randy here’ll tell ya.
There’s always been poison running through the club.
No matter how much I tried to weed it out,” he added under his breath.
“I sat on the throne for seven years. Got it as straightened out as I could, but there are bad people with bad attitudes that are never gonna leave.”
I was surprised by his candor. Most MC’s were fiercely loyal, even of the assholes in their crew. King would never disrespect any of our members this way, he’d deal with them inhouse or they’d be kicked out if they weren’t following his rule. But no one outside of the MC knew anything about it.
“The Kingsmen was started by the Walker’s years ago and they were never not going to be a part of it.
Even after Tank disgraced the whole club and almost got us wiped out.
It was a fucking miracle I got voted in over Nytro.
But he was younger then. Barely twenty, and common sense prevailed, no one thought he could run the club,” he sighed. “Things change.”
“Tank was the asshole selling off his women?” I asked.
Ranger sucked in a heavy breath, his nose whistling slightly, and he blinked a few times before nodding. “I wasn’t on the council back then, wasn’t aware of the depth of what was going on until it blew up in our faces.”
War found out from King that his maternal grandfather, Tank, the old President of the Kingsmen got them badly in debt and trouble with a Mexican drug cartel. He’d started selling off the club’s women, including his own daughter, Wave and Warren’s mom, to reap back some money.
Dutch, King’s predecessor rescued their mom from that fate and brought her into the Devil’s. If he hadn’t, she would have been sold into sex slavery, by her own father.
Being in the presence of this man, who was a part of the club who had taken Waverley, was making me murderous, despite his denials.
“Thanks for the history lesson but this isn’t helping,” I snapped.
Ranger looked at me again. He nodded slightly. “She’s your woman?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
“I’m telling the truth, I don’t have anything to do with them. Nytro shut me out. Total and complete silence. I’ve no more clue what is going on with that club than you do.”
“This is a waste of time,” I told Ballistic, and put my beer down on the window ledge, starting for the door.
“No one gets completely cut off,” Ballistic spoke up. “Least of all a President, while he’s still alive.”
I tilted my head up to the ceiling, I don’t know what the fuck he is hoping to get from this. This sad old man, in a wheelchair was either lying to protect his club or really did know fuck all. I wasn’t about beating up a guy who clearly couldn’t defend himself.
“Barely,” Ranger said turning his head away. Something in the way he said that had me pausing by the door. “Been riding a bike longer than you’ve been alive,” he said to me.
“How did it happen?” Ballistic asked.
“Hit and run, dark, rainy night, all the cliché’s,” Ranger huffed out a laugh.
“We never caught up with that driver. No witnesses, police couldn’t find any evidence.
It was a non-descript car, I didn’t get a look at it and I was fucked up for months before I got out of the hospital.
It was a miracle I fucking survived,” he stared at Ballistic, before looking up at me again.
“By the time I got out, Nytro was voted in.”
“You saying one of your own members did this to you?” I asked, eyes wide. Ranger didn’t answer me. But it was clear what he was insinuating.
“What about Mace?” Ballistic asked. “He can’t have been happy about all of this. He hates the Walker’s just as much as we do. He should have been next in line.”
I figured this Mace guy was their current VP.
Ranger took another long sip of his beer.
Again, he held his tongue. Whenever he wanted to get something across to us, he wanted us to figure it out for ourselves, so he wasn’t implicated.
Loyal to his club even though they had cast him aside, and, if what he was implying was true, had tried to have him killed.
“Mace is solid. Loyal. To a fault some might say.”
Ballistic nodded. “Thanks for the beer. I didn’t realize how fucked up things were, I’m sorry this is where things are at. You need anything, let us know. You know King will help.”
“Help from a Devil?” he laughed. “Fuck you, Ballistic. I still got my priorities right.”
There was no malice to it so I didn’t say anything back at his insult.
From what I’d seen and heard here tonight, there had been no beef with the Kingsmen and Devil’s Chaos when Ranger was Prez.
It had all been when the Walkers, first Tank years ago and now Nytro, were running shit that things went sideways between us.
We left the small house, no sign of Marla, and Ballistic grabbed our guns from the box. He checked both of them to make sure they hadn’t been messed with before handing mine back to me.
“What the fuck did we just achieve?” I asked in frustration.
Ballistic walked to his bike and grabbed his helmet. He turned to look at the house and I noticed Marla drawing the blinds shut so we could no longer see inside.
“We just learned that Mace is talking to Ranger.”
“And that helps us how?”
“It means he isn’t following Nytro’s orders,” Ballistic got on his bike. “Which means, he’s a weak link, a way in.”
“And you know how to get hold of this guy?”
“Not yet. But we will. Let’s go.”
“You couldn’t have done this with a phone call,” I grumble, getting on my bike.
“Is this Desperate fucking Housewives?” Ballistic snapped at me. “We pick up the phone and gossip and get the answers?”
“No,” I dip my head.
“If there is one thing you take from this, it’s learning about cultivating contacts, getting relationships locked in where you can, whether it’s with a rival or a friendly.
Ranger could have given us a whole lot more or a whole lot less.
He didn’t give us anywhere near as much as he could of.
But he gave us something. Because when he was Prez of that MC, we reached out.
“King didn’t want bad blood. It isn’t like we socialize but we’re close in proximity, so it’s good practice to keep things amicable, know our boundaries and we stood by that, until…” he glances back at the house again, the muscles in his jaw bunched as he grit his teeth.
“Isn’t he putting this guy Mace in the line of fire?”
“No,” he said it like he knew from experience. “Mace is not the kind of guy to roll over, to anyone. Ranger only let us know that because Mace can handle it, or he thinks he can. We’re being watched,” he cut off any more questions. “We’ll head back to the compound.”
“Not the warehouse?”
Ballistic shook his head. He was done talking. I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary on the street, but as I started the bike and followed Ballistic off the driveway, I spotted a car a couple of houses down, two guys inside, watching us.
They followed us until we were back on the NJ-23, then made a U-turn and headed back. Ranger may have been cast out of the Kingsmen MC, but he still had more than enough power to maintain protection for himself.
Maybe Ballistic was right, he didn’t have to give us anything, but what little he could, he had told us. I breathed out a sigh of relief watching their taillights disappearing, the tension in my shoulders releasing slightly.
I fucking hoped War was faring better than we were, despite what Ballistic thought, we were still no closer to finding Waverley.